By Houda Hasswane
MARRAKECH, Dec 11 2018 (IPS)

At the same time more than 160 countries adopted the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), on the streets of Marrakech pro-migration groups and activists gathered in the city centre to chant: “No to the pact of Marrakech!”

The historic Compact has found itself caught between a rock and a hard place: It has been criticised by nationalists and those arguing for stronger borders on one side, and by human rights and migrant activists on the other.

The protest in Marrakech brought together people from the National Federation of the Agricultural Sector, the Moroccan Association of Human Rights, the Maghreb Coordination of Human Rights Organisations and the Platform of Associations and sub-Saharan communities in Morocco among other movements and communities.

The Compact, protestors say, does not represent a change in anti-migration policies, or in the current offensive against migrants and refugees by many countries in the northern hemisphere.

“The pact is a setback in terms of human rights, protection of migrants and their families as provided for in international conventions already approved by the United Nations and other institutions,” says Camara Alpha, general secretary of Platform of Associations and Sub-Saharan Communities in Morocco.

Protestors say they want to see a new global pact of solidarity for the rights of migrants, one which will guarantee the inalienable right to free movement of all people, by promoting regional and international cooperation, and public policies protecting migrants.

• This video was brought to you by IPS with support from the United Nations Foundation . IPS organized capacity building workshops for media in Marrakech.

Armand Loughy is a migrant from Cameroon. Her own experiences pushed her to campaign on migration issues, shifting from being a refugee herself to becoming an activist. Credit: El Mahdi Hannane/IPS

By El Mahdi Hannane
MARRAKECH, Morocco, Dec 11 2018 (IPS)

Seven years ago, when Cameroon began experiencing inter-regional conflict, Armand Loughy, a 55-year old Cameroonian psychiatrist, strapped her youngest child on her back and with her five other children embarked on the dangerous Journey from Cameroon towards Rabat, Morocco’s capital.
They fled the deteriorating security situation in Cameroon, looking for a better life.
Loughy, who is now also a migrant activist based in Morocco, listened attentively to the on-going discussions during the opening ceremony of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) in Marrakech.

Her own experiences pushed her to campaign on migration issues, shifting from being a refugee herself to becoming an activist—one of the most vocal personalities in the Moroccan civil society space.

“We went through the desert and where the fear consumed us. Many of my fellow migrants got hurt by bandits and died—in the most horrible way with their bodies dumped in the desert,” Loughy recalls.

After arriving in Morocco, she faced many difficulties in finding a job before finally securing work at a psychiatric clinic in Rabat.
With a well-paying job, Loughy could easily have forgotten her traumatic journey and suffering and moved on. But she chose not to—her decision to start helping migrants came at the right time as Morocco was also establishing favourable policies on how to handle migrants.

This policy shift, according to Loughy, enabled her to become “a candle that would light up the darkness of migrants.”

In 2014, she founded the Association of Women Migrants in Morocco, working to attract other migrants. Gradually, her association gained respect in the civil society space.

“In the beginning, the children of the poor neighbourhood where I was active threw stones at me,” Loughy says. “But after many months of continuous work, I became familiar and respected by locals and migrants.”

Her organisation is active in the Sidi Musa district of Salé—about 330 km north of Marrakech—where hundreds of migrants occupy small rooms, either working or begging on the streets, and then returning to the ghetto in the evening.

The children of these migrants, some of whom were born in Morocco, until recently had nothing to do. Some accompanied mothers to beg, others played in the neighbourhood all day without any clear future—a painful reality that Loughy and her organisation acted upon.

She presented a proposal to Salé’s Regional Directorate of Education and Training, and her ideas were welcomed. Classrooms were allocated within the public educational institutions for migrants’ children.

These have now become independent departments with their own teaching staff, and now even teach local Moroccan students.

“We are trying to use education as a tool for integration,” Loughy says, adding the association is making a big drive to inform migrants about the importance of education to ensure as many children as possible are enrolled into school.

Many migrants, especially those who do not have residence documents, remain sceptical of these types of initiatives, Loughy says. But the hope is that better educated children of migrants can inspire change at home and between communities.

Loughy dreams of a united African continent and believes that the best way to achieve coexistence among the continent’s peoples is through education and knowledge. After listening to discussions at the GCM about the tools and partnerships needed to give that dream a chance, she will leave Marrakech to return to spreading education among the children of Morocco’s migrants

“We have learnt that when students start living together, then parents can also learn how to coexist,” Loughy says.

• This story was brought to you by IPS with support from the United Nations Foundation . IPS organized capacity building workshops for media in Marrakech.

Morocco has in recent years emerged as a continental leader in terms of modelling green growth. Credit:Celso Flores/CC By 2.0

By Friday Phiri
PEMBA, Zambia, Oct 22 2018 (IPS)

Science has increasingly made it clear that the world is on an unsustainable growth model where economic development is occurring at the expense of the environment. The need for a well-balanced approach has therefore become a necessity rather than a luxury.

The green growth model, according to experts, is seen as having the required balanced approach that fosters economic growth and development while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which people’s well-being relies.

While Morocco has in recent years emerged as a continental leader in terms of modelling green growth, the country has an estimated green investment gap of USD24 billion.

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), an international treaty-based organisation that assists countries develop a green growth model, is actively supporting initiatives to help the North African country close this gap and transition to a green economy.

IPS had an opportunity to speak to Nicole Perkins, the GGGI country representative in Morocco on the specific aspects of support being offered, and how it relates to the green growth model being spearheaded by GGGI. Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): The government of Morocco has requested technical support from GGGI to support the transition to a green economy. The design of the project is dedicated to the development of inclusive green territories in order to contribute to Morocco’s goal of a national overall GHG emission reduction target of 42 percent below business-as-usual (BAU) emissions by 2030, and contribute to the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) target of closing the green investment gap of USD24 billion in conditional investments. Could you briefly shade more light on this project?

Nicole Perkins (NP): GGGI’s work in Morocco provides technical support to accompany the implementation of the National Sustainable Development Strategy, aimed at promoting a green, inclusive, integrated and sustainable development model at the territorial (regional) level, and the realisation of Morocco’s NDC number 9, which is to develop a model, low-carbon city centred on optimised energy, transport and waste management.

Our support focuses on the development of policies and incentives, identification and design of bankable projects, and assistance in mobilising funding for their implementation, in alignment with the advanced regionalisation process adopted by the Kingdom of Morocco.

On Oct. 23, 2017, GGGI and the Moroccan government signed in Rabat, a Memorandum of Understanding during a workshop they co-organised on the theme: green growth and development of the green territories in Morocco.

In June 2018, GGGI Morocco received two official letters requesting technical support from both the ministry of interior and the secretary of state for transport, for a total of eight measures in the areas of increasing sub-national access to climate finance, and sustainable mobility, which provides a solid focus for the 2019-2020 programme.

Nicole Perkins, the GGGI country representative in Morocco. Courtesy: Nicole Perkins

IPS: The general thematic area of support is green cities and territories. Could you explain in some detail, the concepts of green cities and territories? What are they, and how do they relate to the green growth model? 

NP: For GGGI, green cities are:

• Innovative and smart: This implies cities that provide a unique environment and an opportunity for innovation, through technology, information, communication and good governance – and the synthesis of these.

• Resource-efficient and based on circular economies: Waste-to-resource and circular economy to lower resource footprints. They are transformational and creative: they decouple growth from resource use.

• Climate smart and resilient: In pursuing low-carbon pathways in support of the Paris Agreement, and underpinned by resilient infrastructure, systems and communities.

• Inclusive and pro-poor: Green cities must provide livelihood opportunities beyond BAU. They are pro-poor, ‘connected’, accessible, and provide affordable solutions for all.

• Healthy and liveable: With an improved quality of life, cleaner air and accessible green spaces.

• Prosperous and bankable: Cities that are competitive, create opportunity and are attractive for (new) investment.

Green territories can be geographically defined as a region or province that inclusively encompass both the urban and rural populations. They leverage the characteristics of green cities and ensure healthy linkages between the urban and rural components in terms of access to economic opportunities and sustainable services such as transport, waste, water, energy, education and health.

IPS: Aside from the key strategic outcome of greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, the project aims to achieve, among others, green jobs, sustainable services, air quality, ecosystem services, and enhanced adaptation to climate change. Briefly explain how the project intends to achieve these targeted outcomes?

NP: The programme aims to increase access to climate and green growth finance; strengthen national institutional capacity to develop policy in the transport/mobility sector; accelerate national and sub-national investments in the National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS), NDCs, and Sustainable Development Goals; and improve the enabling environment in the territories in order to catalyse pro-poor, pro-youth, inclusive, and gender-sensitive investments in environmental goods and services. To achieve these outcomes, GGGI in Morocco is focusing on: supporting the design, implementation and operationalisation of a multi-sectoral National Financing Vehicle, its institutional framework, capacity building, and mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation.

This will contribute to the NDC target of closing the green investment gap of USD24 billion in conditional investments and contribute to Morocco’s goal of a national overall GHG emission reduction target of 42 percent below BAU emissions by 2030.

Regarding the transport and mobility sector, GGGI is providing policy advice and project development services to increase access to sustainable transport and mobility, transition to green transport/mobility, and support the implementation of the National Sustainable Mobility Roadmap, contributing to the NDC target of 23 percent energy savings in the transport sector by 2030.

At a sub-national level, GGGI support is to catalyse the development of Morocco’s inclusive green territories and support the Regional Project Execution Agencies in selectively and strategically developing a pipeline of bankable, sustainable, inclusive and scalable projects in order to attract investments into Environmental Goods and Services and transition to a low carbon economy, contributing among others to Morocco’s NSDS target of 23 percent energy savings in the transport sector by 2030; 20 percent recycled materials rate by 2020; 50 percent wastewater reuse rate in inland cities by 2020; 60 percent wastewater treatment rate by 2020.

IPS:  What financing model have you used to raise funds for the project? Is it a wholly public financed project or a mixture? This comes on the back drop that Green cities—the roads, pavements, street lights are all public sector and are owned by governments not the private sector. 

NP: GGGI Morocco has been building ties with in-country priority donors and conducted comprehensive partner and donor consultations on a national level, which provide the foundation for the 2019 – 2020 biennial country programme. Both GGGI and Morocco’s various donors and international financing institution partners have indicated interest in supporting the government of Morocco’s requests for technical support and GGGI’s efforts to assist Morocco in implementing its NSDS territorial approach to transitioning to inclusive green growth. The structuring of project financing, and avenues for partner involvement and contribution is currently in process.

Excerpt:

City of Rabat, Morocco. Credit: Fabiola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
NADOR, RABAT and CASABLANCA, Morocco, Jan 6 2017 (IPS)

With a stable economy and a peaceful political climate, Morocco – which has always been a transit country for migrants — is becoming a potential new destination for settlement. The elusive dream for most of those who cross the Sahara, though, is still Europe.

No more than 15 kilometers separate the Spanish enclave Melilla and the Moroccan coastal city of Nador, in the northeastern Rif region. This tiny Spanish town of 70,000 people became a major crossing point for those seeking to reach asylum in Europe."The image of living in Europe is changing and some of them prefer to stay in Morocco as long as they can access rights. It’s not a super-developed country, but neither is it a super-poor country." --Miguel Hernandez Garcia

Melilla, together with Ceuta, are the remaining Spanish territories on the African continent and the European Union’s only land border. Precisely for that reason, many Sub-Saharan Africans and increasing number of Syrians dream of reaching the other side as a promised land and better life.

Both cities erected fortified borders as the pressure from migrants increased. Every year, hundreds of Sub-Saharans (many of those undocumented in Morocco) endeavor to cross the fences or embark on the perilous journey by boat across the Mediterranean.

Last month, rescue ships saved around 60 migrants who were adrift not far from Melilla. In early December 2016, at least 400 people broke through the border fence of Ceuta. On Jan. 1, another wave of 1,100 African migrants attempted to storm the same fence.

Mohamed Diaradsouba, 24, risked his life after he decided to depart Ivory Coast. He traveled almost 5,000 kms from Abidjan to Nador, passing through Mali and Algeria. He left his wife and one-year-old son with the hope of one day coming back.

“Where I lived there was no employment, I couldn’t get money to survive. I came to Morocco because I want to cross to Spain. But here there is no job either. I’m sure I’ll find a job in Spain, France, Belgium or Germany and make my living,” he told IPS.

He and a group of four companions rely on small donations provided by activists and the Catholic Church in Nador. Undocumented migrants are not tolerated by local police, who frequently conduct street sweeps and arrest those without legal papers.

When IPS talked to Diaradsouba on a cold November night, he was living in a rural community called Khamis-akdim, a 15-minute drive from Nador. It had been three months since he and some 300 other people Sub-Saharans Africa had set up a makeshift camp in the surrounding forest due to fear of entering the city.

Campsite where Sub-Saharan migrants live near Nador, Morocco. Credit: Mohamed Diaradsouba

“We’re camping in the bushes up on a hill. Life here is not easy. We have to walk every day to fetch water and food. We sleep in plastic tents, so when it rains everything gets wet. I didn’t bring any suitcase with me, I’m only wearing my clothes. We’re afraid of the police, they don’t know what human rights are, I’d better stay in the forest,” he said, noting that other nationalities like Cameroonians, Guineans and Malians share the same campsite.

The Ivorian migrant did not have any legal papers, refugee card or asylum seeker certificate of any kind. He is among the thousands of invisible undocumented foreigners in Morocco who are not recognized by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) or the Moroccan government.

“It’s difficult to get a paper or a residency permit. I’d have to travel to the capital Rabat (10 hours by train) to make a request. I’m waiting for my luck, one day it will come,” he said.

Diaradsouba had no idea how long he would have to wait to attempt his crossing to Europe. He was still unsure whether he would risk getting through the fences to Melilla, hide himself in the backseat of a car or go by boat. “There’s no fixed price to pay for a boat. We try to gather [funds] among 30 or 40 people. Everything will depend on how much money we’ll have to pay.”

Aziz Kattouf, an activist with the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), confirms that those people camping on the forest live in terrible conditions, but he says at least they are in a “safer place” than Nador.

“They’re far from the police’s eyes. They don’t want to stay, their only hope is to cross,” he told IPS, adding that there are other four large camps in the forest where undocumented people have erected tents.

Every two or three weeks, the police raid the camps. “They apprehend men and sometimes children, destroy their tents and take their phones. Many are sent by buses to further areas in the south of Morocco. But they always come back to the camps,” said the activist.

Living alongside the foreigners altered the daily life of residents of Khamis-akdim, but there has not been a case of mistreatment or racism against them. In fact, the local Berber farmers have shown solidarity, said Alwali Abdilhate, a Tamazight speaker.

“We have good relations with the people who are camping. Early in the morning, they go to the streams or waterholes to wash their clothes and buy food in our local market. There’s a bar that allows them to recharge their cell phones,” said Abdilhate, whose family home is located right by the path migrants take to reach the camping area.

A few weeks after the initial interview, Diaradsouba contacted IPS to say he had managed to reach Spain by boat entering through Almeria. He had to pay 2,500 euros to embark on the 12-hour sea journey.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), between January and December 2016, 8,162 migrants arrived by sea in Spain, while 69 people died attempting the crossing.

The majority of migrants in Morocco are Sub-Saharan male adults between 18 and 59 years old, says Miguel Hernandez Garcia, coordinator of a program run by the Association Droit et Justice that provides legal assistance for refugees and asylum seekers.

“There are different reasons for leaving their countries, threats of physical violence or political reasons. Some are in touch with members of their communities who have reached Europe and say living conditions aren’t what they used to be in the past. The image of living in Europe is changing and some of them prefer to stay in Morocco as long as they can access rights. It’s not a super-developed country, but neither is it a super poor country,” Garcia told IPS.

Morocco became the first Arab country to develop a policy that offers undocumented migrants the chance to gain permanent residency. In 2013, the King of Morocco Mohammed VI gave momentum to a new policy on migration after receiving recommendations from the National Council for Human Rights.

“Morocco ratified international conventions and needed to implement policies. It wanted to show a good image to the world as a welcoming country. It was a clever idea to put out this strategy to the international community as an open mind State with humanitarian will. Besides, it’s also a good thing for the economy,” said Garcia.

During a full one-year campaign for regularization, more than 90 percent of the 27,000 migrants who applied were documented. The government is now discussing in Parliament a raft of related legislation – the first law approved on the scope of the new policy was against human trafficking. A second law that still pending is about asylum.

“It’s basically to guarantee the access to rights for migrants. It’s only three years now that this policy is running and still no official body is in charge of it,” Garcia added.

Jean–Paul Cavalieri, the UNHCR representative in Morocco, said the first challenge is to finalise the law on asylum and extend medical benefits to refugees and regular migrants.

“Another challenge has to do with the territorialization of the policy, how you implement the policy on the ground in remote areas. The migrants are spread out across the country. That could be a model for [other] countries in the region. What we want is that refugees are able to find asylum and a protected space. It’s just the beginning, the policies are being developed, but it has to expand and be implemented.”

The arid region of Settat, 200 kms northeast of Marrakech, Morocco. Credit: Fabiola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
MARRAKECH, Nov 21 2016 (IPS)

With climate change posing growing threats to smallholder farmers, experts working around the issues of agriculture and food security say it is more critical than ever to implement locally appropriate solutions to help them adapt to changing rainfall patterns.

Most countries consider agriculture a priority when it comes to their plans to limit the rise of global temperatures to less than 2 degrees C. In line with the Paris Climate Change Agreement, 95 percent of all countries included agriculture in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).“We need to find solutions that allow people to live better, increase their income, promote decent jobs and be resilient." -- Martial Bernoux of FAO

“The climate is changing. We don’t have rains that we used to have in the past. In the last decade, we had two consecutive years of intense drought and we lost all the production. The animals all died because they had no water,” Ahmed Khiat, 68, a small farmer in the Moroccan community of Souaka, told IPS.

Khiat comes from a long line of farmers. Born and raised in the arid region of Settat located some 200 km northeast of Marrakech, he has cultivated the land his whole life, growing maize, lentils and other vegetables, as well as raising sheep. But the family tradition was not passed to his nine sons and daughters, who all migrated to the cities in search for jobs.

In the past, he said, farmers were able to get 90 percent of their income from agriculture — now it’s half that. “They don’t work anymore in the field,” Khiat about his sons. “The work here is very seasonal. I prefer they have a permanent job in the city.”

Moroccan farmer Ahmed Khiat, who has struggled with drought but benefitted from a direct seeding program that promotes resilience to climate change. Credit: Fabiola Ortiz/IPS

Agriculture is an important part of the Moroccan economy, contributing 15 percent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 23 percent to its exports. Around 45 percent of Morocco’s population lives in rural areas and depends mainly on agriculture for their income, Mohamed Boughlala, an economist at the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA) in Morocco, told IPS.

Seventy percent of the people in the countryside live in poverty. Unemployment is common among youth and around 80 percent of farmers are illiterate. Khiat, for example, says he does not know how to spell his own name.

The impacts of climate change are already visible in Morocco, said Boughlala. The proportion of dry years has increased fourfold as surface water availability decreased by 35 percent. Climate change particularly affects smallholders who depend on low-input and rain-fed agriculture, like the communities in Settat.

“The studies we did here we found that between 1980 to 2016, we lost 100mm of rainfall. The average rainfall before 1980 was around 427 mm per year and from 1981 to 2016 the average is only 327 mm per year. This means that we lost 100 mm between the two periods. If we show them there is a technology so you can improve the yield, reduce the risk and the cost of production, we can improve small farmers’ livelihoods,” stressed Boughlala.

In 2015, families who used conventional ploughing methods had zero yield. But the farmers who applied so-called “direct seeding” had an increase of 30 percent. Direct seeding is a technology for growing cereals without disturbing the soil through tillage, i.e. without ploughing. With this technique, the scarce rainfall infiltrates the soil and is retained near the roots of the crop, which results in higher yields compared to traditional seeding. Soil erosion is reduced and labour costs go down.

Direct seeding had been tested in Morocco by INRA as a way to increase resilience to climate change. Morocco piloted this technology with financial support of a 4.3-million-dollar grant from the Special Climate Change Fund of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) – designed to strengthen the capacity of institutions and farmers to integrate climate change adaptation measures in projects which are implemented under the Plan Maroc Vert, or the green plan addressing Moroccan’s agricultural needs.

Khiat was one of the 2,500 small farmers benefitted by the direct seeding for cereals in 2011. Facilities like GEF and the Green Climate Fund will be key for African farmers to access financial resources to cope with global warming.

However, the African continent — home to 25 percent of the developing world’s population — receives only 5 percent of public and private climate funds. Although it contributes very little to greenhouse gas emissions, Africa is likely the most vulnerable to the climate impacts.

The need to protect African agriculture in the face of climate change was addressed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Marrakech (COP22) with the Global Climate Action Agenda on Nov. 17. The one-day event at the Climate Summit aimed to boost concerted efforts to cut emissions, help vulnerable nations adapt and build a sustainable future.

“We need to find new sources of funding for farmers. Climate change brings back the uncertainty of food insecurity in the world. We project that we may be soon see one billion hungry people in the world if we don’t act strongly to tackle climate change. In the COP22, we saw agriculture regaining the necessary importance,” José Graziano da Silva, the director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told IPS.

Solutions should be designed and implemented locally, stressed the natural resources officer with the Climate Change Mitigation Unit at FAO, Martial Bernoux. “Our number one objective is to achieve food security and fight poverty,” he told IPS.

“What is more perturbing to small farmers is the scarcity of water and the unstable cycle that changes the rainfall regime. The frequency of climatic events increased and farmers have no time to be resilient and no ability to adapt. It is necessary to work with microcredit mechanisms to help them,” said Bernoux.

When climate change is added to the food security equation, local solutions become more complex, he said. “We need to hear the communities’ demands, their deficiencies and potentialities to improve, like establishing an early warning system to inform farmers some days in advance when the rain is coming so they can prepare the land. If they lose this opportunity, it could be fatal for the yield.”

Agriculture is an overarching issue that affects nearly all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including food security, zero poverty, resilience and adaptation, argued Bernoux.

“We need to find solutions that allow people to live better, increase their income, promote decent jobs and be resilient,” he said. “By working with agriculture you connect with all the other SDGs.”

Mustapha Bakkoury, President of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN), speaking at the COP22 in Marrakesh. Credit: Friday Phiri/IPS

By Friday Phiri
MARRAKECH, Nov 16 2016 (IPS)

Lowering investment risks in African countries is key to achieving a climate-resilient development pathway on the continent, say experts here at the U.N.-sponsored Climate Conference.

Mustapha Bakkaoury, president of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN), says his country’s renewable energy revolution would not have been possible if multilateral partners such as the African Development Bank had not come on board to act as guarantors for a massive solar energy project, tipped to be one of a kind in Africa.Renewable energy has been identified as a key driver for Africa’s economic growth prospects, but requires multi-million-dollar investments which cannot be done by public financing alone.

The multi-billion-dollar solar power complex, located in the Souss-Massa-Drâa area in Ouarzazate, is expected to produce 580 MW at peak when finished, and is hailed as a model for other African countries to follow.

“Africa has legitimate energy needs, and development of Africa will happen through mobilisation of energy resources,” Bakkaoury told IPS at COP 22 after a roundtable discussion on de-risking investment in realising groundbreaking renewable energy projects.

Bakkauory believes it is possible for Africa to develop its energy sector while respecting the environment. “What we say is that there is no fatality between having energy resources and respect towards the environment, and Africa has abundant resources to do this through its key partner—the African Development Bank,” he said, noting the instrumental role of Africa’s premier multilateral financier to renewable energy in Africa.

And in affirming its continued commitment to universal access to energy for Africa, Alex Rugamba, AfDB Director for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, told IPS that “the Bank’s commitment has shifted gear as it has now a fully-fledged vice presidency dedicated to Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth.”

Rugamba added that the Bank has learnt valuable lessons from various initiatives it is already supporting, and knows what is required to move forward with the initiatives without many challenges.

Renewable energy has been identified as a key driver for Africa’s economic growth prospects, but requires multi-million-dollar investments which cannot be done by public financing alone.

Private sector involvement is required to drive this agenda, a point underscored by World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development, Laura Tuck.

“Private sector cannot be ignored because the money they have is more than what is available under public financing,” she says.

But the risk is believed to be too high for private investors to off-load their money into Africa’s renewables, a relatively new investment portfolio with a lot of uncertainties. German Parliament State Secretary Thomas Silberhorn says the highest risk in Africa is politically related.

“It’s not about economic risks alone, but also political risks,” said Silberhorn. “You don’t need to convince German investors about solar energy because they already know that it works, what they need is reliability on the political environment and sustainability of their investments.”

Silberhorn, who gave an example of a multi-million-dollar project in Kenya currently on hold due to political interference, added that ways to reduce political risks should be devised for Africa to benefit from private sector investments in renewables.

But even as risk factors abound, World Bank’s Tuck believes there is hope for Africa, citing Zambia, where record cheap solar energy has been recorded.

“Through a competitive bidding process, we have in Zambia under the Bank’s ‘Scaling Solar’ program, recorded the cheapest price at 6.02 cents per KWh,” she said, heralding it as a model to follow in de-risking climate investments for Africa’s growth.

And in keeping with the objective of universal energy for all, experts note the need to ensure that the end users are not exploited at the expense of investors.

“While the state should not interfere in this business model to work, modalities have to be put in place to ensure that the people for which energy is needed, afford it, otherwise, the project becomes useless,” said MASEN’s Bakkaoury.

Following up on this key aspect and responding to the political risk question, Simon Ngure of KenGen Kenya proposes a key principle to minimise political interference—involvement of the local communities.

“If you involve the local communities from the onset, regardless of whether governments change, the projects succeed because the people will have seen the benefits already,” said Ngure, who also noted policy restructuring as another key component to de-risk climate investments.

Agreed that de-risking investment is a crucial component, small grants are another issue that the African Union Commission’s implementing Agency, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), believes could unlock the continent’s challenge of access to climate financing.

NEPAD Director of Programmes Estherine Fotabong told IPS that it was for this reason that the agency established the NEPAD Climate Change Fund to strengthen the resilience of African countries by building national, sub-regional and continental capacity.

“One of the objectives of the fund is to support concrete action for communities on the ground, but most importantly, to help with capacity building of member states to be able to leverage financing from complicated climate financial regimes,” said Fotabong, citing ECOWAS which she said used the funding to leverage financing from the Green Climate Fund, one of the financing regimes under the UNFCCC.

By Emma Bonino
ROME, Dec 31 2015 (IPS)

The appalling crisis ravaging the Middle East and striking terror around the world is a clear challenge to the West, but responses are uncoordinated. This is due on the one hand to divergent analyses of the situation, and on the other to conflicting interests.

Emma Bonino

The West has historic alliances with the Gulf area, but apparently nothing has been learned from the 3,000 deaths caused by the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. Turkey plays by its own rules, while Russia does not hesitate to resort to any means to recover its position on the global stage, and is only now showing concern about the so-called foreign combatants that Turkey is allowing into Syria. In truth, there is very little common ground.

Consequently, all reactions are inadequate, including the bombing of territory occupied by the Islamic State – whether motivated by emotion or based on reason with an eye to the next elections – by countries like France or the United Kingdom, which wants to demonstrate in this way to the rest of Europe that it is an indispensable part of the EU. Bombings take place, only to be followed by public recognition that aerial strikes are insufficient because there are no more targets to be hit from the sky without guidance from troops on the ground.

The fact is that while the impossibility of achieving victory by air attacks alone is repeated like a mantra, the bombings continue. At the same time, every Arab medium complains daily that these are acts of war waged, once again, by the West against the Arab world.

Doubtless for this reason, the British government has not only increased its military budget but also given the BBC more funding for Arabic language services. The battle in hand is above all a cultural one; arguments are needed over the medium and long term, in addition to attempts at overcoming the contradictions.

The first step is to admit that there is no magical solution; only partial and complex solutions exist. The first measure must be to oblige Sunni Muslims, the Gulf monarchies and the Muslim Brotherhood – the sources of funds and material support for Islamic State combatants – to assume responsibility for their roles. Secondly, we in Europe must take serious measures to address our own shortcomings, by reinforcing our security.

EU counter-terrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove recently appealed for an agreement to unify the intelligence services of European countries, to no avail. European governments do not want a common intelligence service, they do not want a common defence system, and they do not want a common foreign policy. Some are only willing to commit their air forces to the fray.

In the meantime, we lurch from one emergency to another, managing only to agree on improvised, temporary measures. For instance, now we have forgotten all about the immigrants, as if they had ceased to exist. Vision is lacking, not only for the long term but even for the medium term.

Now European governments are focused on Syria, leaving aside the conflicts in Libya and Yemen, and are not giving needed help to our Mediterranean neighbours threatened by serious crises: Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan. Lately, oil facilities in the Islamic State are being bombed and the tanker trucks used for black market oil exports are being attacked. As is well known, during the first Gulf War bombing of oil wells brought about an ecological disaster and history is repeating itself in the territories occupied by the Islamic State. Meanwhile the attacks on ground transport are blocking supplies of provisions to Syria, where food is already scarce.

For its part, Italy has done well in choosing not to participate in military interventions that risk being counterproductive and that no one believes are effective, as shown by other scenarios from Afghanistan to the Lebanon. But this does not exempt Italy from making greater efforts toward a common European intelligence service and a broader and more efficacious immigration policy.

In a nutshell: the European Union should formulate and apply its own foreign policy in line with its own interests and reality, and dispense with the policies of the United States, Russia, or other powers.

Translated by Valerie Dee

Excerpt:

Migrants looking down from the mountain behind the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in Morocco. Credit: Andrea Pettrachin/IPS

By Andrea Pettrachin
CEUTA, Sep 4 2015 (IPS)

In the middle of the mountains behind the border fence of Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in Morocco, and eight kilometres from the nearest Moroccan village of Fnideq, an uncertain number of migrants live in the woods. No one knows exactly how many they are but charity workers in Melilla, Spain’s other enclave in Morocco, say they could be in their thousands.

Ceuta is one of the main (and few) ‘doors’ leading from northern Africa to the territory of the European Union, and is a ’door’ that has been closed since the end of the 1990s, when the Spanish authorities started to build a tripe six-metre fence topped with barbed wire that surrounds the whole enclave, as in Melilla.

In the past, those waiting in the mountains for their turn to try to reach Spain had been able to build something resembling a normal life. They put up tents and at least were able to sleep relatively peacefully at night.Today, the migrants are forced to remain mostly hidden in small groups among the trees or in small caverns, and they know that all attempts to pass the Spanish border are almost certain to fail and end up with arrest by the Moroccan authorities

That all ended after 2012, when the Moroccan police started to burn down the camps and periodically sweep the mountainside, arresting any migrants they found, charged with having illegally entered the country.

These actions were the result of agreements between the Moroccan and Spanish governments, after Spain had asked Morocco to control migration flows.

The most tragic raid so far by the Moroccan police took place last year on Gurugu Mountain which looks down on Melilla. Five migrants were killed, 40 wounded and 400 removed to a desert area on the border with Algeria. According to the migrants, the wounded were not cured and were left to their own destiny.

Today, the migrants are forced to remain mostly hidden in small groups among the trees or in small caverns, and they know that all attempts to pass the Spanish border are almost certain to fail and end up with arrest by the Moroccan authorities.

They live, in their words, “like animals” and when speaking with outsiders are clearly ashamed by their condition, apologising for being dirty and badly-dressed.

The first thing many of them tell you in French is that they are students and that before having to leave their countries they were studying mathematics, economics or engineering at university.

Many of them are from Guinea, one of the countries most seriously affected by the Ebola epidemic, others come from Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso, all countries characterised by political turmoil of various types.

All of them have been forced to live in these woods for months or even years, waiting for their chance to pass the border fence.

The statistics show that some of them will certainly die in their attempts to reach Spain – either on the heavily fortified fences which encircle the enclaves or out at sea in a small boat or trying to swim to a Spanish beach.

Some of them will finally make it to Spain, perhaps after five or six failed attempts. In that case they will have overcome the first hurdle, escaping the “push-back operations” by the Spanish Guardia Civil, but they will still face the possibility of forced repatriation, particularly if they come from countries with which Spain has a repatriation agreement.

Many of them, however, will finally give up and decide to remain somewhere in Morocco, destined to a life of continuous uncertainty due to their irregular position in the country. You can meet them and listen to their stories in the main Moroccan cities, especially in the north. In most cases, they had escaped death in their attempts to reach Spain and do not want to risk their lives any longer.

Meanwhile a report on ‘Refugee Persons in Spain and Europe” published at the end of May by the non-governmental Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR), denounces how sub-Saharan migrants are dissuaded from seeking asylum in Spain, even if coming from countries in conflict such as Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo or Somalia, once they realise that they are likely to be forced to remain for months in a Centre for Temporary Residence of Immigrants (CETI) in Ceuta or Melilla.

In Melilla, for example, those who apply for asylum cannot leave the enclave until a decision has been taken on their application. Unlike Syrian refugees whose application takes no more than two months, CEAR said the average time to reach a decision for sub-Saharan Africans is one and a half years.

The CEAR report is only one of a long list of recent criticisms of the Spanish government’s migration policies from numerous NGOs and international organisations.

The main target of these criticisms has been the Security Law (Ley de Seguridad Ciudadana) passed this year by the Spanish Parliament with only the votes of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party. The aim was to give legal cover to the so called devoluciones en caliente, the “push-back operations” against migrants carried out by the Spanish frontier authorities in Ceuta and Melilla in violation of international and European law.

On the Spanish mainland, said the CEAR report, migrant’s right of asylum is seriously undermined by the bureaucratic lengths of application procedures and the political choices of the Spanish authorities.

Calls from CEAR and other NGOs to end “push-back operations” seem very unlikely to be taken into consideration soon by the Spanish government and Parliament, in view of the general elections later this year.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Moroccan security forces charge against a group of Sahrawi women in Laayoune, occupied Western Sahara. Credit: Courtesy of Equipe Media

By Karlos Zurutuza
LAAYOUNE, Occupied Western Sahara, Aug 23 2015 (IPS)

Ahmed Ettanji is looking for a flat in downtown Laayoune, a city 1,100 km south of Rabat. He only wants it for one day but it must have a rooftop terrace overlooking the square that will host the next pro-Sahrawi demonstration.

“Rooftop terraces are essential for us as they are the only places from which we can get a graphic testimony of the brutality we suffer from the Moroccan police,” Ettanji told IPS. This 26-year-old is one the leaders of the Equipe Media, a group of Sahrawi volunteers struggling to break the media blackout enforced by Rabat over the territory.

Ahmed Ettanji and a fellow Equipe Media activist edit video taken at a pro-independence demonstration in Laayoune, occupied Western Sahara. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

“There are no news agencies based here and foreign journalists are denied access, and even deported if caught inside,” stressed Ettanji.

Spanish journalist Luís de Vega is one of several foreign journalists who can confirm the activist´s claim – he was expelled in 2010 after spending eight years based in Rabat and declared persona non grata by the Moroccan authorities.

“The Western Sahara issue is among the most sensitive issues for journalists in Morocco. Those of us who dare to tackle it inevitably face the consequences,” de Vega told IPS over the phone, adding that he was “fully convinced” that his was an exemplary punishment because he was the foreign correspondent who had spent more time in Morocco.

“The Western Sahara issue is among the most sensitive issues for journalists in Morocco. Those of us who dare to tackle it inevitably face the consequences” – Spanish journalist Luís de Vega
This year will mark four decades since this territory the size of Britain was annexed by Morocco after Spain pulled out from its last colony of Western Sahara.

Since the ceasefire signed in 1991 between Morocco and the Polisario Front – the authority that the United Nations recognises as a legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people – Rabat has controlled almost the whole territory, including the entire Atlantic coast. The United Nations still labels Western Sahara as a “territory under an unfinished process of decolonisation”.

Mohamed Mayara, also a member of Equipe Media, is helping Ettanji to find the rooftop terrace. Like most his colleagues, he acknowledges having been arrested and tortured several times. The constant harassment, however, has not prevented him from working enthusiastically, although he admits that there are other limitations than those dealing with any underground activity:

“We set up the first group in 2009 but a majority of us are working on pure instinct. We have no training in media so we are learning journalism on the spot,” said Mayara, a Sahrawi born in the year of the invasion who writes reports and press releases in English and French. His father disappeared in the hands of the Moroccan army two months after he was born, and he says he has known nothing about him ever since.

Sustained crackdown

Today the majority of the Sahrawis live in the refugee camps in Tindouf, in Western Algeria. The members of Equipe Media say they have a “fluid communication” with the Polisario authorities based there. Other than sharing all the material they gather, they also work side by side with Hayat Khatari, the only reporter currently working openly for SADR TV. SADR stands for ‘Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic’.

Hayat Khatari, the only reporter currently working openly for SADR TV in Laayoune. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

Khatari, a 24-year-old journalist, recalls that she started working in 2010, after the Gdeim Izzik protest camp incidents in Laayoune. Originally a peaceful protest camp, Gdeim Izzik resulted in riots that spread to other Sahrawi cities when it was forcefully dismantled after 28 days on Nov. 8.

Western analysts such as Noam Chomsky have argued that the so-called “Arab Spring” did not start in Tunisia as is commonly argued, but rather in Laayoune.

“We have to work really hard and risk a lot to be able to counterbalance the propaganda spread by Rabat about everything happening here,” Khatari told IPS. The young activist added that she was last arrested in December 2014 for covering a pro-independence demonstration in June 2014. Unlike Mahmood al Lhaissan, her predecessor in SADR TV, Khatari was released after a few days in prison.

In a report released in March, Reporters Without Borders records al Lhaissan´s case. The activist was released provisionally on Feb. 25, eight months after his arrest in Laayoune, but he is still facing trial on charges of participating in an “armed gathering,” obstructing a public thoroughfare, attacking officials while they were on duty, and damaging public property.

In the same report, Reporters Without Borders also denounces the deportation in February of French journalists Jean-Louis Perez and Pierre Chautard, who were reporting for France 3 on the economic and social situation in Morocco.

Before seizing their video recordings and putting them on a flight to Paris, the authorities arrested them at the headquarters of Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH), one of the country’s leading human rights NGOs, which the interior ministry has accused of “undermining the actions of the security forces”.

Likewise, other major organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeatedly denounced human rights abuses suffered by the Sahrawi people at the hands of Morocco over the last decades.

Despite several phone calls and e-mails, the Moroccan authorities did not respond to IPS’s requests for comments on these and other human rights violations allegedly committed in Western Sahara.

Back in downtown Laayoune, Equipe Media activists seemed to have found what they were looking for. The owner of the central apartment is a Sahrawi family. It could have not been otherwise.

“We would never ask a Moroccan such a thing,” said Ettanji from the rooftop terrace overlooking the spot where the upcoming protest would take place.

Edited by Phil Harris   

(From left to right) Fatima, Aza and Rabab, three Sahrawi women activists, pose from an undisclosed location in Laayoune, the capital of occupied Western Sahara. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
LAAYOUNE, Occupied Western Sahara, Jul 17 2015 (IPS)

Ten women are gathered to discuss how to transmit Sahrawi culture and tradition to the younger generations. As usual, it´s a secret meeting. There is no other way in the capital of Western Sahara.

Rabab Lamin chose the place and the date for this latest meeting of the Forum for the Future of Sahrawi Women, an underground organisation yet seemingly far from being disorganised.

“We set up the committee in 2009 and today we rely on 60 active members, an executive committee of 16 and hundreds of collaborators,” Lamin, the mother of a political prisoner, tells IPS.

“Here you´ll hardly come across any Sahrawi who has not been mistreated by the police, nor a family who has not lost one of their own" – Aza Amidan, sister of a Sahrawi political prisoner
“Our goal is to fight for the fundamental rights of the Sahrawi people through peaceful struggle,” adds the 54 year-old woman, before noting that she was born “when the Spaniards were here.”

This year will mark four decades since Spain pulled out of Western Sahara, its last colony, leaving the territory in the hands of Morocco and Mauritania. While Rabat claims that this vast swathe of land – the size of Britain – is its southernmost province, the United Nations labels it as a “territory under an unfinished process of decolonisation.”

Since the ceasefire signed in 1991 between Morocco and the Polisario Front – the authority that the United Nations recognises as a legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people – Rabat controls almost the whole territory, including the entire Atlantic coast.

Only a tiny desert strip on the other side of the wall built by Morocco remains under Sahrawi control. That´s where the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) was announced in 1976, a political entity today recognised by 82 countries.

The most immediate consequence of Sahara´s frozen conflict was the displacement of almost the entire Sahrawi people to the desert of Algeria. Those who dared to stay still suffer the consequences of their decision:

“Since the Moroccans took over our land we have only faced brutality,” laments Aza Amidan, the sister of a political prisoner. “We are constantly harassed and beaten; they raid our houses, they arrest our men and women, even kids under 15.

“Here you´ll hardly come across any Sahrawi who has not been mistreated by the police, nor a family who has not lost one of their own,” says Amidan. The 34-year-old activist stresses that the founder and current leader of the Forum, Zukeine Ijdelu, spent 12 years in prison.

Sahrawi women activists who have taken to the streets in Laayoune, capital of occupied Western Sahara, are often forcibly dispersed. Credit: Mohamed Salem

In a report issued two months ago, Amnesty International labels the practice of torture in Morocco as “endemic” while underlining that Sahrawi political dissidents are among the main targets. The NGO also accused the Moroccan government of “protecting the torturers, and not the tortured.”

Sahrawi activists claim that one of the main tasks of this women´s organisation is to support, “both morally and economically”, those who have suffered prison or their relatives. Amidan gives the details:

“We gather money among the community for those women as they are always the ones who suffer most. Whether it´s them who are arrested or their husbands, it´s them who have to sustain their families.”

Despite several phone calls and e-mails, the Moroccan authorities refused to speak to IPS on these and other human rights violations allegedly committed in Western Sahara.

Assimilation

At 62, Fatima Hamimid is one of the senior veteran activists of the Forum. She says torture is “something that can one can cope with.” But there are other grievances that are seemingly “irreparable”.

“Today’s workshop sought to raise awareness among the new generations over the cultural assimilation we´re being subjected to at the hands of Rabat. Morocco seeks to deny our mere existence by either erasing our history or including it into their own.”

The most eloquent proof of such policies may be the total absence of Hassaniya –the Arabic dialect spoken by Sahrawis – in the education system or the administration.

However, Hamimid also points to other issues such the explicit ban over the Sahrawi traditional tent, the harassment  women wearing their distinctively colourful garb often have to face, or the prohibition of giving names that recall historical Sahrawi dissidents to their children.

“This is yet another reason that drags us to the streets to organise and take part in demonstrations,” notes Hamimid. Peaceful protests, she adds, are another important axis of action of this group.

But it is neither easy nor free of risks. In its World Report 2015, Human Rights Watch denounces that Rabat has “prohibited all public gatherings deemed hostile to Morocco’s contested rule.”

The New York-based NGO also points to the “large numbers of police who blocked access to demonstration venues and often forcibly dispersed Sahrawis seeking to assemble.”

Under such circumstances, Takbar Haddi chose to conduct a hunger strike for 36 days in front of the Moroccan consulate in Gran Canaria (Spain), which ended with her hospitalisation in June.

Haddi is still asking the Moroccan authorities to deliver the body of her son, Mohamed Lamin Haidala, stabbed in February in Laayoune, and that both the circumstances of the crime and the alleged lack of an adequate health assistance be investigated.

The activist´s close relatives in Laayoune told IPS that the family had rejected an economic compensation from Rabat in exchange for their silence.

“Some people think that being free is just not languishing in prison, or not suffering torture,” explains Hamimid, while she serves the last of the three cups of tea marking Sahrawi tradition. “We, Sahrawi women, understand freedom in its full meaning.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

NGOs call for an energy revolution at the Bonn talks. Credit: IISD

By Chris Wright and Jed Alegado
MANILA, Jun 16 2015 (IPS)

(Last week, Australian Climate Activist offered an apology to the Philippines for his country’s lack of action. Today, he partners up with climate tracker from the Philippines Jed Alegado to talk about what the Philippines can do to show its leadership in tackling climate change.)

There has been a lot of pressure on the Philippines in the last week. Climate Change Commission Secretary Lucille Sering faced a senate hearing about the Philippines’ commitment to its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs.

Under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), INDCs were introduced in Warsaw in 2013 to hasten and ensure concrete climate action plans from countries.We have already seen this year how cities like New Delhi and Beijing have become almost unlivable due to the dangerously polluted air. What will happen to the Philippines if it follows a similar path?

During the visit of French President Francois Hollande to the Philippines last February, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III announced that his country’s INDC will be submitted by August this year after he delivers his final State of the Nation Address. However, during the Senate hearing last week, Sering said that the Philippines aims to submit the INDC before the October 2015 deadline.

In an interview last month, civil society representative to the Philippine delegation, Ateneo School of Government Dean Tony La Vina, clarified the process conducted by the Philippine government for its INDC. According to La Vina,  INDC orientation and workshops were conducted among government agencies in January 2015. A technical working group was formed last March followed by stakeholder discussions last month which included civil society groups, key government agencies and the private sector.

For a country which has played a leadership role and has become a rallying point for the global call for climate action due to its former lead negotiator Yeb Sano and the Super Typhoon Haiyan which wreaked havoc in the central Philippines in 2013, there has been a lot of pressure for the Philippines to come up with a definitive and clear commitment for its INDC.

Last month, Sering announced that the Philippines’ INDC might focus on a renewable energy and low-carbon sustainable development plan: “low emission and long-term development pathway to involve private sector and other stakeholders”. Sering also said that the Philippines intends to increase the use of renewable energy.

However, last week, the Palawan Community for Sustainable Development gave the go-ahead to a company to construct a coal-powered plant in Palawan in the western part of the Philippines, often described as the country’s last frontier. Environmental NGOs based in the province have been trying to stop the construction of this 15-megawatt coal plant to be built by one of the major construction companies in the Philippines.

In the past two years, the government has also approved the construction of 21-coal powered projects despite the President Aquino’s declaration that the Philippines intends to “nearly triple the country’s renewable-energy-based capacity from around 5,400 megawatts in 2010 to 15,300 MW in 2030.”

In spite of these events happening in the Philippines, the second week of the Bonn intersession has also been characterised by developing countries who have stood proud and shown the world just what they can do to stop global warming.

Reform, Accountability and Ambition

It may therefore be timely for the Philippines to take some lessons from three recent INDC announcements that have each drawn great praise at the U.N.

Step 1: Reform

The first lesson comes from Morocco, which this week came out as the first country to address “fossil fuel subsidy reform” in their Climate Action Plan. As the first Arab country to make an international Climate Action Plan, they naturally shocked a lot of people.

However, when you dive into their commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 32 per cent by 2030 compared to what they call “business as usual”, I guess it’s understandable that some of us are having apprehensions.

But what is good about their efforts is to “substantially reduce fossil fuel subsidies”. This is one of the truly ‘unspoken’ aspects of transitioning away from fossil fuels.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we need to stop using fossil fuels as soon as possible to keep us below two degrees of warming. In order to give Filipinos a chance at a safe future, we need a global phase-out of fossil fuels by 2050, and the first step to get there is to cut fossil fuel subsidies.

Globally, the IMF estimates that the fossil fuel industry receives 10 million dollars every minute. If the world is ever going to move into a fossil-free future, reforming these subsidies will be critical. This is one way the Philippines can show some real leadership with their Climate Action Plan.

Step 2: Accountability

Late last week, Peru publicly announced their Climate Action Plan. While they haven’t yet officially submitted it to the U.N., what they have produced is very impressive.

In developing their Climate Action Plan, Peru has carefully calculated exactly how much emissions they can cut based on a concrete number of projects which they clearly outline in the plan. As such, their plan to cut emissions by 31 per cent based on business as usual is backed up by 58 clearly outlined different mitigation projects.

This makes it very easy for Peru to ask for support from developed countries to help them improve on their commitments. In fact, they have even outlined how they can increase their emissions cuts to up to 42 per cent with an extra 18 projects.

While they haven’t made a specific ask for international assistance to meet this difference, this level of transparency could make it a very simple step in the future. What’s more, they have now opened this plan up to public consultations until July 17.

They will be holding workshops across Peru and asking a wide range of citizens what their views on the Climate Action Plans are.

If the Philippines want to ask for international support to help increase their ability to combat global warming, this level of international and domestic transparency will be a critical step to take.

Step 3: Ambition

It is definitely true that the Filipinos have not caused climate change. In fact, the Filipinos are among the smallest contributors to climate change per person. What’s more, the energy needs across the country are critical. But is coal really the answer?

With 26 coal plants planned over the next ten years, what will become of the air that everyone has to breathe? We have already seen this year how cities like New Delhi and Beijing have become almost unlivable due to the dangerously polluted air. What will happen to the Philippines if it follows a similar path?

One country seeking to link their development needs to combatting climate change is Ethiopia. Yesterday they released a Climate Action Plan which aims at a 64 per cent reduction on their business as usual predictions.

With 94 million people, and over a quarter of those in extreme poverty, Ethiopia is a great model for the Philippines to follow. They have focussed their emissions cuts around agricultural reform, reforestation, renewable energy and public transport. These are all reforms which are possible for the Philippines to also make.

Ethiopia is not simply giving in to a broken development model that relies on fossil fuels, but neither is it living a “green” fantasy. It is among the fastest growing countries in the world and the fastest growing non-oil-dependent African country.

With international support, it plans to double its economy while still achieving carbon-negative growth. This, Ethiopia believes, is best for not only for the health of its economy in the long term, but their people.

If the Philippines is going to show the type of global leadership it has strived for over recent years at the U.N. climate negotiations, there are three easy steps for them to take forward; Reform, Accountability and Ambition.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

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

Excerpt:

Spanish radar works silently and ceaselessly from the top of Mount Hacho overlooking Ceuta, identifying migrants trying to reach the enclave, but many of the inhabitants of the area will tell you that they have never seen the enormous fences that stand in the middle of the hills just four or five kilometres away from the city centre. Credit: Andrea Pettrachin/IPS

By Andrea Pettrachin
CEUTA, Spain, Jun 3 2015 (IPS)

A few kilometres before the border between the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and Morocco, a sign informs passers-by that this outpost of Spain on African soil stands in a privileged position for those who wish to observe the annual migration of birds across the Strait of Gibraltar, their shortest route from Africa to Europe.

At the border itself, huge fences have been erected to block the daily attempts of human migrants seeking to escape hunger, despair and often conflict, a phenomenon that the people of Ceuta are less proud to advertise and about which they prefer silence.

That silence was dramatically broken at the beginning of May when a border control X-ray machine detected Abou, an eight-year-old boy from Cote d’Ivoire, inside a suitcase being carried into the Spanish enclave.

That was only the most recent of a number of (more or less ingenious) strategies used by migrants amassed in the Moroccan woods next to the Spanish border to try to enter the so-called ‘Fortress Europe’.“What strikes the visitor most about Ceuta is its incredible contradictions. The city, with its population of just over 80,000 people living in 18.6 square kilometres and proudly Spanish since 1668, gives the idea of wanting to live as if the migrants and their attempts to reach the enclave do not exist”

Ceuta is one of the main (and few) ‘doors’ leading from northern Africa to the territory of the European Union, and is a ’door’ that has been closed since the end of the 1990s, when the Spanish authorities started to build two six-metre fences topped with barbed wire – complete with watch posts and a road running between them to accommodate police patrols in case of need – that surrounds the whole enclave (as in the other Spanish enclave in Africa of Melilla).

Even if they do not catch the attention of the media as in the case of Abou, every day Ceuta is the scene of young African migrants, almost all aged between 15 and 30, trying to reach Spanish territory in ways that are as, if not more, dangerous than the one chosen by Abou’s father.

The vast majority of them attempt to do so by sea, mainly in dinghies or hidden under the inflatable boats usually used by children on the beach. In February 2014, 15 Africans died  trying to swim around the fence, when border guards fired rubber bullets at them in the water. Others attempt the border crossing hidden in secret compartments under cars, and some even try scaling the fences.

What strikes the visitor most about Ceuta is its incredible contradictions. The city, with its population of just over 80,000 people living in 18.6 square kilometres and proudly Spanish since 1668, gives the idea of wanting to live as if the migrants and their attempts to reach the enclave do not exist.

On one of the days that Abou was capturing the headlines of media around the world, the main news reported on the website of one of the enclave’s two newspapers was the results of an opinion poll on upcoming administrative elections.

The “Centre for Temporal Stay of Immigrants”, where all migrants that manage to enter the enclave are accommodated, is an enormous structure which is incredibly hidden and impossible to be seen from any point in the city and from the hills behind it.

Spanish radar works silently and ceaselessly from the top of Mount Hacho overlooking Ceuta, identifying migrants trying to reach the enclave, but many of the inhabitants of the area will tell you that they have never seen the enormous fences that stand in the middle of the hills just four or five kilometres away from the city centre.

The enclave, described by the Lonely Planet travel guide as looking like a “grand social experiment concocted by rival political systems” and a sort of “cultural island”, is unique from a demographical point of view in that 50 percent of the population is Moroccan or of Moroccan origin.

The city is divided into a sort of well-established and quite rigid “caste system”.

The first and richest group is that of the Spanish, generally very conservative, very religious and devoted to traditions. The Popular Party has governed the city for decades and mostly opposes any change in the status quo – thus, for example, the Arabic language is not taught in schools.

The second group is that of the “Moroccan Ceutans”, sometimes Spanish citizens with Moroccan origin, in other cases Moroccan citizens with regular residence and work permits. Many of them have adopted the Spanish lifestyle and speak Spanish better than Moroccan Arabic but most of them respecting the religious precepts of their fathers.

Some of these “Moroccan Ceutans” have accumulated huge amounts of money thanks to the flourishing illegal smuggling of goods across the border and live in the most elegant and beautiful houses of the city, while others – many others – live in the degraded district of El Principe, where friction with the Spanish population is sometimes serious.

This latter sub-group contains a small but significant number of stateless children, born in the Spanish enclave of Moroccan parents who, mainly as a consequence of expiry of their residence permits having left them in an illegal position in Spanish territory, have never had the possibility to register the births of their children in Morocco.

None of these children have access to school, even if Spanish law has established the right to education for all the children in Spanish territory, irrespective of their nationality or legal position.

The third group is that of the so-called transfronterizos, Moroccan citizens residing mainly in the nearby Moroccan village of Fnideq who cross the border every day to work in the enclave city or, more often, to buy and sell goods in the black market.

They can be seen every day in the Poligono area next to the border post, carrying enormous packs of goods on their shoulders to be sold on the other side of the border. Police on both sides observe this continuous movement of people in silence – under an agreement signed by the Moroccan and Spanish governments in the 1960s, goods that a person is able to carry on the shoulders are exempt from customs duties.

A fourth group is that of the “black people”, the “caste” that the city tries to ignore and hide, not considering that they are the source of its major wealth – the funds that are assigned to the local authorities by the Spanish state and the European Union every year – and that their presence in fact provides many jobs in the public and security sectors.

Ceuta has always been and continues to be above all a military outpost. The number of police, guardia civil and soldiers patrolling or simply passing through the few roads of the enclave is impressive, as is the number of military training exercises that take place in the enclave, but just a few hundred meters beyond the border post and the Poligono is what appears to be part of another world.

The tiny village of Benzù sums up the contradictions of the whole enclave. Situated at the end of the beautiful coastal road in the western part of the enclave, it is the last Spanish establishment before the northern frontier post, and has been closed to the passage of people for many years.

With its beautiful sea and coloured houses facing the Spanish coast on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar, the village would not be out of place on a Greek holiday island. However, two hundred metres beyond the village, the presence of the last pillars of Ceuta’s border fences contaminate the crystalline water of the bay of Beliones.

The sea is discretely but constantly patrolled by the rubber boats of the army and police of both Spain and Morocco. The distance between the last Spanish houses and the first houses of the Moroccan village of Beliones is only of a few metres, divided by the iron and steel of the two fences covered with the barbed wire. You bump into them walking along the small road of the village, between a bakery and a small shop.

Nobody is outside, the silence all around is deafening. Groups of midges cross the border undisturbed without having to show passports to the border authorities. Three metres beyond, the beginning of another country, another time zone, another culture.

Looming over the landscape is Jebel Musa, the so-called Mujer Muerta (Dead Woman), a spectacular rocky mountain constantly covered by clouds that are constantly scurrying as if to compensate the slowness of the human movements blocked by the fences. Here, the spectre of death, the death that many people have met trying to cross this border, lingers even in the name of the mountain.

The Moroccan woods behind the village of Beliones are populated by groups of monkeys which, before construction of the border fences, periodically reached the hills of the Spanish enclave. A small group of monkeys still lives, however, in Ceuta’s “San Amaro” park not far from the city centre – closed in a cage.

Edited by Phil Harris   

The Shams 1 concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in the United Arab Emirates covers an area the size of 285 football pitches and generates over 100 MW of electricity for the country’s national grid. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
ABU DHABI, Jan 26 2015 (IPS)

With global energy needs projected to increase by 35 percent by 2035, a new report says meeting this demand could increase water withdrawals in the energy sector unless more cost effective renewable energy sources are deployed in power, water and food production.

The report, titled “Renewable Energy in the Water, Energy & Food Nexus” by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), says that integrating renewable energy in the agrifood supply chain alone could help to rein in cost volatility, bolster energy security, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to long-term food sustainability.

The  report, launched at the International Water Summit (Jan. 18-21) in Abu Dhabi, examines how adopting renewables can ease trade-offs by providing less resource-intensive energy services compared with conventional energy technologies. Integrating renewable energy in the agrifood supply chain alone could help to rein in cost volatility, bolster energy security, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to long-term food sustainability

“Globally, an energy system with substantial shares of renewables, in particular solar photovoltaics and wind power, would save significant amounts of water, thereby reducing strains on limited water resources,” said IRENA Director-General Adnan Z. Amin.

Unfortunately, he said, detailed knowledge on the role of renewable energy at the intersection of energy, food and water has so far been limited.

In addition to the water-saving potential of renewable energy, the report also shows that renewable energy-based desalination technologies could play an increasing role in providing clean drinking water for people around the world.

Amin said although renewable desalination may still be relatively expensive, decreasing renewable energy costs, technology advancements and increasing scales of deployment make it a cost-effective and sustainable solution in the long term.

Dr Rabia Ferroukhi, Deputy Director of IRENA’s Knowledge, Policy and Finance division, told IPS that “water, energy and food systems are inextricably linked: water and energy are needed to produce food; water is needed for most power generation; and energy is required to treat and transport water in what is known as ‘the water-energy-food nexus’.”

She said deployment of renewable energy is already showing positive results in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with an over 50 percent cost share of global desalination capacity.

Some 120 kilometres southwest of Abu Dhabi lies the Shams 1 concentrated solar power (CSP) plant, which generates over 100 MW of electricity for the United Arab Emirates national grid.

Shams 1, which was designed and developed by Shams Power Company, a joint venture among Masdar (60 percent), Total (20 percent) and Abengoa Solar (20 percent), accounts for almost 68 percent of the Gulf’s renewable energy capacity and close to 10 percent of the world’s installed CSP capacity.

Abdulaziz Albaidli, Sham’s Plant Manager, told IPS during a visit to the plant that the project reduces the UAE’s carbon emissions, displacing approximately 175,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

Located in the middle of the desert and covering an area of 2.5 km² – or 285 football fields – Shams 1 incorporates the latest in parabolic trough technology and features more than 258,000 mirrors mounted on 768 tracking parabolic trough collectors.

By concentrating heat from direct sunlight onto oil-filled pipes, Shams 1 produces steam, which drives a turbine and generates electricity. Shams 1 also features a dry-cooling system that significantly reduces water consumption – a critical advantage in the arid desert.

“This plant has been built to be a hybrid plant which allows us to produce electricity at very high efficiency, as well as allowing us to produce electricity when there is no sun. Also the use of an air-cooled condenser allows us to save two hundred million gallons of water. That is a very important feature in a country where water is scarce,” said.

In addition, he continued, “the electricity we produce is able to provide twenty thousand homes with a steady supply of electricity for refrigeration, air conditioning, lighting and so on.”

Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of Masdar – the majority shareholder in Shams 1 – told delegates at the just concluded Abu Dhabi World Future Energy Summit (Jan. 18-21) that “through Masdar, we are redefining the role our country will play in delivering energy to the world.”

“From precious hydrocarbons exports to commercially viable renewable energy projects,” he said, “we are extending our legacy for future generations.”

Morocco is another country aiming to become a world-class renewable energy producer and is eyeing the chance to export clean electricity to nearby Europe through the water, energy and food nexus.

Its first CSP plant located in the southern desert city of Ouarzazate, which is now operational, is part of a major plan to produce over 2,000 megawatts (MW) at an estimated cost of nine billion dollars with funding from the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank.

Meanwhile, South Africa is taking advantage of a solar-powered dry cooling system to generate power. In collaboration with Spanish-based CSP technology giant Abengoa Solar, the country is installing two plants – Khi Solar One and KaXu Solar One – that will generate up to 17,800 MW of renewable energy by 2030 and reduce its dependence on oil and natural gas.

Dr Linus Mafor, an analyst with the IRENA’s Innovation and Technology Centre, told IPS that there is an encouraging trend across the globe with countries implementing projects that aim to account for the interdependencies and trade-offs among the water, energy and food sectors.

He said that the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) is one of the promoters of the water, energy and food nexus in six Asian countries which are integrating the approach into development processes.  According to Mafor, such initiatives will see more affordable and sustainable renewable energy deployed in water, energy and food production in the near future.

The Austria-based Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) is one of the supporters of the nexus among clean energy, food production and water provision. Its Director-General, Martin Hiller, told IPS that understanding the inter-linkages among water resources, energy production and food security and managing them holistically is critical to global sustainability.

The agrifood industry, he said, accounts for over 80 percent of total freshwater use, 30 percent of total energy demand, and 12 to 30 percent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

REEEP is supporting countries like Kenya, Indonesia, Kenya and Burkina Faso, among others, in developing solar-powered pumps for irrigation, with the aim of improving energy efficiency.

Edited by Phil Harris  

In contrast to some of their leaders, people across the Arab world prefer President Barack Obama’s efforts to reduce Washington’s military footprint in the Middle East to the approach favoured by neo-conservatives and other U.S. hawks, according to the latest in a series of surveys of Arab public opinion released here Tuesday.

While the popular perception of U.S. policies in the region remains largely negative, the survey, which included six Arab countries and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, found a notable increase in Arab support for Obama compared to three years ago, as well as strong majorities who said that having “good relations with the United States” was important to their country.

Overall, Arab attitudes toward the U.S. are back roughly to where they were in 2009 shortly after Obama took office, according to James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute (AAI) and director of Zogby Research Services, which conducted the poll.

Obama’s accession ended the eight-year reign of President George W. Bush (2001-2009), whose military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and nearly unconditional support for Israel brought U.S. favourability ratings in the region down to the single digits in most countries.

Among other findings, the poll found that Bush evoked the most negative views by far of the last four U.S. presidents in six of the seven countries covered by the survey.

“Overall, my takeaway is an uptick [for Obama and the United States],” Zogby told a forum at the Middle East Institute (MEI) where the survey results and an accompanying analysis, ‘Five Years After the Cairo Speech: How Arabs View President Obama and America’, were released.

The main lesson to be learned from the increase in positive sentiment toward Obama and the U.S., he suggested, was “the less damage you do, the better off you are.”

He cited the fact that Washington’s withdrawal from Iraq and its negotiations to curb Iran’s nuclear programme were considered by respondents in all of the countries except Lebanon to be the two “most effective” efforts by the administration to address the challenges it faces in the Arab world.

The survey, which was based on interviews last month of representative samples (800-1,000 in each country) of respondents in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as Palestine, produced a number of notable findings on a variety of other issues, several of which appeared to support Zogby’s observation.

Despite the repeated insistence by a number of Arab leaders – as well as Obama’s hawkish critics here – that the U.S. should do more militarily to oust Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, significant majorities in all surveyed countries opposed any form of U.S. military engagement, including establishing “no-fly zones,” carrying out air strikes, or even supplying more advanced weapons to rebel forces.

Given a menu of six policy options for the U.S. to pursue in the three-year-old civil war in Syria from which they were asked to choose two, majorities ranging from 51 percent (UAE) to 82 percent (Morocco) in all seven countries opted for providing humanitarian relief to refugees.

Seven in ten Moroccan and Lebanese respondents chose “leave Syria alone”, as did 54 percent of Jordanians. The next most-popular option in the remaining countries – but most popular in Egypt – was “pressing the parties” to negotiate a transitional government.

The new survey found virtually no support for direct U.S. military intervention in any country, despite the fact that a just-released poll by the Pew Research Center showed that between six and seven out of ten respondents in Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and Tunisia hold a “very negative view” of Assad.

Nonetheless, the anti-Assad sentiment “doesn’t translate into Arabs wanting the United States to intervene directly or even provide aid to [the rebels],” said Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace here. “If I were an Obama adviser, I would use this poll to say that we [have been] right.”

In another blow to U.S. hawks, especially neo-conservatives who have urged a more muscular policy against Syria and Iran, the new poll found that the civil war in Syria has not displaced the Israel-Palestine conflict as the most pressing concern among Arab publics about U.S. policy.

Asked to choose from seven options that they considered the most important challenges for U.S.-Arab relations, pluralities and majorities ranging from 45 percent (Saudi Arabia) to 76 percent (Morocco) cited Israel-Palestine in six of the seven countries. Only in the UAE was the war in Syria considered by a plurality to be more important.

Remarkably, ending Iran’s nuclear programme was among the least-chosen options, even in Saudi Arabia and the UAE whose governments have been the most hawkish toward Tehran.

Similarly, asked to choose the single greatest obstacle to peace and stability in the Middle East among six options, pluralities and majorities in all but the UAE cited the “continuing occupation of Palestinian lands”.

The next most-frequently chosen option was “U.S. interference in the Arab world” – far ahead of the least-chosen option in six of the seven countries, “Iran’s interference in Arab affairs”. The UAE was again the only exception: 16 percent of respondents there cited Iran’s interference; that was still six percent fewer respondents than those who cited “U.S. interference”.

While Iran and its nuclear programme were not seen as particularly threatening by majorities in the seven Arab countries, Tehran’s favourability ratings continued their sharp decline since 2006, when its support for Hezbollah during the war with Israel and defiance of the U.S. gained it strong backing throughout the Arab world.

While a majority in Lebanon (81 percent) and a 50-percent plurality in Palestine view Iran favourably today, fewer than a quarter of respondents in the other five countries said they saw Iran in a generally positive light. Only one percent of Saudi respondents said so.

Muasher suggested two main factors appeared to contribute to the disillusionment; the repression that followed the disputed 2009 presidential elections and, more important, Iran’s backing for Assad in Syria.

One of the new survey’s most notable findings dealt with U.S. policy toward Egypt and the changes of government there over the past three years, according to Zogby. Asked whether the U.S. was “too supportive, not supportive enough, or just right” toward each government, majorities in all countries except Palestine said Washington was “too supportive” of Hosni Mubarak.

Perhaps more surprising, pluralities and majorities in five of the seven countries – including 61 percent in Egypt itself – said Washington was “not supportive enough” of Mohammed Morsi’s presidency.

The exceptions were Lebanon and UAE, which, along with Saudi Arabia, has been the interim government’s biggest financial supporter since the military coup that ousted Morsi. Even in Saudi Arabia, which has led the counter-revolution against Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood across the region, a 44-percent plurality said Washington had not given Morsi enough support.

While Arabs remain highly critical of U.S. policies in the region, there has been an increase in Arab support for Obama in all seven countries since 2011, the year when he ceased insisting on an Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank and when the hopes raised by his inauguration and subsequent speech in Cairo in which he pledged improved relations with the Arab world collapsed across the region.

At that time, ten percent or fewer of respondents in each country said they supported Obama’s policies. In 2014, that support increased ten-fold in Egypt (to 34 percent), eight-fold in Jordan (to 25 percent), nearly five-fold in UAE (to 38 percent), about three-fold in Morocco and Saudi Arabia (to 28 percent and 34 percent, respectively).

Favourability ratings for the United States have also improved over the last three years, although they have lagged behind Obama’s, according to the survey.

Women protest on the streets of Rabat to demand equal rights. Credit: Abderrahim El Ouali/IPS.

By Abderrahim El Ouali
CASABLANCA, Apr 29 2014 (IPS)

Morocco stands divided over a proposal for equal inheritance rights for men and women: modernists see this as application of equality arising from the new constitution, and Islamists see in this a violation of Sharia law.

There have been calls from extremists to kill those who seek equality rights.The trial is over, but the debate on equal sharing of inheritance between women and men is only beginning.

The penal court of Casablanca sentenced Islamist Sheikh Abou Naim to a month of deferred imprisonment and a 500-dirham fine (50 euros) in February for issuing a fatwa to kill Driss Lachgar, general secretary of the Socialist Union of the Popular Forces (USFP), and other leftist activists.

Lachgar had chaired a meeting of party women on Dec. 20 where he called for a revision of inheritance laws so as to establish equality between men and women.

Sheikh Abou Naim accused Lachgar in a video posted on YouTube of “godlessness” and “apostasy”, and made a public call to kill him. The Sheikh called women from the USFP “whores”.

Activists say the sentence passed by the court was overly lenient. Salah El Wadie, leader of the movement Damir (Consciousness), said Abou Naim was sentenced for defamation and not for incitement to murder.

Modernist writer Ahmed Assid, described as a “pig” in Abou Naim’s video, told media the trial had been “a farce”.

The trial is over, but the debate on equal sharing of inheritance between women and men is only beginning.

Fatima Ait Ouassi, member of the ‘February 20^th’ movement to campaign for equal rights, tells IPS that “equal sharing of inheritance between men and women is now a necessity.”

The February 20^th movement arose in 2011 within the Arab Spring. It campaigned successfully to bring in a new constitution approved by referendum in July of the same year. This new constitution stipulates equal sharing between men and women.

However, the Islamist cabinet that was formed after the general election in November 2011 included only two women. A reshuffle in October 2013 included six women among 39 ministers.

Morocco is still far from gender equality in the political world, but nothing stops the government implementing the constitution in inheritance rights, says Ait Ouassi.

“We do not live any more in the old Arabic society where Islam appeared and where women lived under the supervision of men,” she tells IPS. “Now, women work and contribute fully to family assets just like men, and it is inconceivable to apply inequitable laws when it comes to sharing family inheritance.”

Lachgar says 19.3 percent of Moroccan women in cities and 12.3 percent in villages have prime responsibility in taking care of their families.

Strict application of Muslim law grants to a woman only half of what a man inherits in case of the death of one of the parents. In a case of death of the husband, the wife has only one-eighth of the inheritance “while women work even more than the men,” Samir El Harrouf, a member of the United Socialist Party (PSU), tells IPS.

The religious conservatives see this as a literal application of “divine law”.

“Nobody can modify the sacred texts in relation to inheritance and polygamy,” well-known advocate of Muslim jurisprudence Redouane Benchekroune told journalists.

But there are other interpretations of the religious text. “According to the studies that I have made in Muslim jurisprudence, this is simply a false interpretation of texts,” El Harrouf tells IPS.

He says that what the Quran grants to women in inheritance is only the minimum that must be respected – nothing forbids that women be granted more. New studies in jurisprudence show that it is necessary “to distinguish in religious texts between what is constant and what is varying,” El Harrouf says.

“What is constant is matters of faith and worship. On the other hand, other requirements vary according to the social and historical context, and depend on the specific conditions of every society and on a particular phase of its historical development.”

Ait Ouassi agrees. “As we were able to amend the family code, we have to revise the laws on inheritance which are contradictory to international agreements on human rights. We must stop immediately all forms of discrimination against women.”

Morocco ratified the agreement on elimination of discrimination against women on Jun. 21, 1993. A new family code providing for equality came into law in 2005.

According to the new family code, polygamy is forbidden except on authorisation by a court of competence.

Under this family code, polygamy requires the consent of the first wife and authorisation by a judge. But people manage to bypass the law by getting married without official papers. Once the new woman is pregnant, the court is forced to ratify the marriage because the civil rights of the child come into play.

Modernists are therefore asking for outright outlawing of polygamy.

The Islamists who now lead the government, and who were then in the opposition, had opposed the new law and called it “an incitement to prostitution.”

In the current debate, Islamists too are divided. The Justice and Development Party (PJD) which leads the government, calls the push to equality foreign pressure to alter “the identity of the nation”. On the other hand, Mostafa El Moutassim, leader of the Islamist party Civilisational Alternative, published an article on his Facebook page saying he is willing to open up the question of revision of laws governing the distribution of inheritance.

Advocacy groups like the Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) contest the legality of foreign businesses, like Kosmos, working with the Moroccan government to exploit Western Saharan resources. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Bryant Harris
WASHINGTON, Mar 11 2014 (IPS)

Even as U.S. and Moroccan executives meet to discuss strengthening private sector ties between the two countries, advocacy groups are raising concerns about plans by a U.S. energy firm to explore for oil in the contested territory known as Western Sahara. 

Government and business leaders from the United States and Morocco are gathering in Rabat this week for the second annual Morocco-U.S. Business Development Conference. The Moroccan government hopes to capitalise on its 2006 free trade agreement with the United States and encourage U.S. investment in the country by presenting it as a gateway to European, Middle Eastern and African markets. “Morocco is not willing to allow the people the right to self-determination today, and the oil industry is becoming an obstacle in terms of putting pressure in Morocco to accept that right.” -- Erik Hagen

“There’s a lot going on in Morocco, and the question is how can it leverage what it has to attract American investments to Morocco that can then be directed to a European market or south to the African markets,” Jean AbiNader, the executive director of the Moroccan American Trade and Investment Centre, a non-profit established by Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, told IPS.

Morocco has placed a high emphasis on oil and gas exploration in its energy policy. At this week’s conference, participating energy companies, such as Dow Chemical, were given the option to attend sessions on Morocco’s energy sector, highlighting the potential for both renewable and carbon-based investment in the kingdom.

While international investors in renewable energy have long favoured Morocco, enabling the construction of solar plants and wind farms, U.S. and European corporations are also rushing to take advantage of concessions for possible oil reserves, some of which are potentially located in the Western Sahara, which many people view as under Moroccan occupation.

One such firm is the Texas-based Kosmos Energy, which has already begun offshore hydrocarbon exploration in three blocks of Morocco’s AgadirBasin. More controversially, Kosmos now intends to start oil exploration in an area off the Western Saharan coast, known as Cap Boujdour, in October.

Advocacy groups like the Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) contest the legality of foreign businesses, like Kosmos, working with the Moroccan government to exploit Western Saharan resources.

“Morocco is not willing to allow the people the right to self-determination today, and the oil industry is becoming an obstacle in terms of putting pressure in Morocco to accept that right,” Erik Hagen, WSRW’s chair, told IPS.

“Sahrawis [indigenous Western Saharans] are standing on the sidelines of this project, waving their arms and telling companies to stop doing this on behalf of the Moroccan government. [These companies] are working with an occupying government.”

Corell opinion

After calling for Western Saharan independence from Spain, Morocco took control of the territory, which it calls the Southern Provinces, in 1976 after the Spanish withdrew. Following years of armed conflict between Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, the international community established the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) in 1991.

MINURSO intended the referendum to determine whether the Western Sahara would become an independent state or part of Morocco, but the vote was never able to be implemented due to disagreements over who was eligible to take part. Unlike Morocco, the Polisario Front did not want to allow Moroccan settlers in the Western Sahara to participate in the referendum.

To date, no other state recognises Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, which is on the United Nations list of Non Self-Governing Territories.

In 2002, Morocco awarded contracts for oil exploration in the Western Sahara to a U.S.-based company, Kerr McGee, and the French-based Total S.A. In response, the United Nations issued what is known as the Corell Opinion regarding the legality of resource extraction in Western Sahara.

Since then, however, both multinational energy firms and Western Saharan advocacy groups have construed the U.N. opinion to favour their respective stances.

The Corell Opinion recognises Morocco as the de facto administrative power of Western Sahara. But it also states that “while the specific contracts … are not in themselves illegal, if further exploration and exploitation activities were to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, they would be in violation of the principles of international law applicable to mineral resource activities in Non-Self-Governing Territories.”

AbiNader, with the Moroccan American Trade and Investment Centre, believes that Morocco’s resource-extraction activities are creating net economic benefits for the local Sahrawi population, as stipulated in the Corell Opinion.

OCP, Morocco’s state-owned phosphates company, “has done a really strenuous job,” he said. “They brought PricewaterhouseCoopers [an American consulting firm] in and did a two-year study of who’s accruing benefits from the Bou Craa mine in Western Sahara. Very clearly it’s not really contributing to their bottom line but it is creating jobs – it’s creating value added to the people in the community.”

Also citing the Corell Opinion, Kosmos Energy maintains that because Morocco purports to equitably and fairly distribute resources extracted from the Western Sahara with the native Sahrawi population, oil exploration and potential extraction in the territory will meet the international community’s standards for legality.

In a position statement, Kosmos highlights a 2013 report from King Mohammed VI’s Economic, Social, and Environmental Council (SCEC). The report declares that “the aim of the Council is to contribute to the collective effort required to rise to the challenge of achieving social cohesion, prosperity and equitable benefit from the resources” of Western Sahara.

However, WSRW’s Hagen said he doubts the intentions of the Moroccan government to adequately share the wealth with Sahrawis. Instead, he argues that the Sahrawis do not want the Moroccan government and multinational corporations exploiting their resources – which, he says, renders Kosmos’ activities illegal under the Corell Opinion.

Hagen also points to routine human rights abuses in both the Western Sahara and Morocco proper.

“The [U.N.] Special Rapporteur on Torture’s report from 2013 is very illustrative of how people are abused or tortured while in police custody, and that is frequent,” Hagen said. “Every week we hear reports of Sahrawis taken in by the police for a couple of days or a couple of hours and then released again.”

WSRW is not only calling on Kosmos to abandon its plans to explore in Western Sahara, but is also urging a U.S.-based drilling firm, Atwood Oceanics, not to provide Kosmos with the rig it has ordered for use in Cap Boujdour.

Neither Kosmos nor Atwood responded to IPS’s inquiries by deadline.

Members of the Malaga Association of Friendship with the Saharawi People in the storehouse where they collected food to be sent with the Caravan for Peace to the Saharawi camps at Tindouf, in the Algerian desert. Credit: Inés Benítez/IPS

By Inés Benítez
MALAGA, Spain, Feb 19 2014 (IPS)

Volunteers are hard at work in an industrial warehouse in the Spanish city of Malaga, organising thousands of kilos of rice, sugar, lentils and oil to be shipped this February to Saharawi refugee camps in Tindouf, in the west of Algeria.

“We hope to send some 60,000 kilos of basic foods,” said Isabel González, the president of the Malaga Association of Friendship with the Saharawi People (AMAPS), as she showed IPS the boxes piled on wooden pallets in the storehouse outside Malaga.

This is a common sight here and in other Andalusian cities this month.“The problem is not food. A long-term solution is needed, and it involves a political solution to the conflict.” -- Saharawi, Ahmed Sid Ahmed

On Saturday Feb. 15, in Malaga and other Andalusian cities, trucks were being loaded to form part of the Caravan for Peace, which will leave the eastern city of Alicante for Oran in Algeria on Feb. 22, and then continue into the desert.

After Spain abandoned Western Sahara, formerly under its dominion, in 1975, thousands of Saharawis fled the Moroccan troops who occupied the territory. Now the refugees are living in the Tindouf camps.

In addition to the solidarity practised by citizens, Spain must make “a political commitment” that will repay its historical “debt” to the Sahara, González said.

The desert in Tindouf “is no place to live. There is nothing there,” she said.

Every year, Saharawi children aged seven to 12 travel to Spain to spend the hot summer months of July and August with volunteer families all over the country.

The Vacations in Peace programme was initiated in 1993, after the ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario Front, the leading group of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, also known as Western Sahara.

Participants in these holidays can brush up on Spanish, their second language, “live in a different reality and bring a message of peace,” González said.

During their first week in Spain the Saharawi children are given medical checks and receive any necessary treatment, thanks to an agreement with the Spanish health services.

Since the inception of the programme, 30,000 Saharawi boys and girls have been welcomed into Spanish homes, according to the Andalusian Federation of Associations in Solidarity with the Sahara (FANDAS), which covers the eight Andalusian provinces.

“Children are the best ambassadors for their people’s cause,” said González. She highlighted the goals of awareness raising and denunciation in her association, which belongs to FANDAS.

In 2013, 81 Saharawi children came to Malaga, 1,400 to Andalusia as a whole and about 4,000 to the whole of Spain, González said. The economic crisis in this country has undermined support for the programmes, which are carried out in coordination with the Saharawi Red Crescent.

Antonia Silva, a nursing aide from Malaga, has been an AMAPS volunteer since 2005 because “it’s a human rights issue” of which “the public must be made aware,” she told IPS.

She hosted the same girl for four consecutive summers, but can do so no longer. At the age of 14, the teenager died of a liver tumour.

Rafael Gálvez, also from Malaga, founded a humanitarian association named MRABIH in honour of a Sahariwan friend who died. It set up an emergency healthcare school in the camps to train Sahariwa volunteers in first aid.

Gálvez also organises talks in Spanish schools, as well as sponsored runs and other activities to raise awareness and collect funds for food, medicines and clothes for the Caravan for Peace.

The caravan is a nationwide effort, but the regions organise their consignments on a rotation basis so that they reach Tindouf at regular intervals. Now it is Andalusia’s turn.

There are some 200 organisations working in solidarity with the Saharawi people. They come under the umbrella of the State Coordinating Committee for Associations in Solidarity with the Sahara (CEAS), which has delegates in every autonomous region and in Madrid.

“It is the largest solidarity movement in Spain,” Abdalahe Jalil, the Saharawi delegate for the cities of Malaga and Granada, told IPS.

The aid effort has a humanitarian and a political side. On the political side, the associations and Saharawi delegates lobby political parties, unions and national and international bodies, putting pressure on them to hold a referendum for the self-determination of the Saharawi people.

According to repeated United Nations resolutions, when decolonising a territory the colonial power must hold a prior referendum on self-determination in the colony.

Saharawi activists complain of the neglect of the refugees in the Algerian desert camps, but also of imprisonment and torture of those who demand a self-determination ballot in the parts of Western Sahara occupied by Morocco.

“The voice of Saharawis in the occupied zone is not heard anywhere,” said Jalil, speaking from the warehouse where the food is stored.

“We disseminate what is happening: the injustice faced by political prisoners, the lack of freedom of expression and the violations of human rights,” he said.

Another Saharawi, Ahmed Sid Ahmed, who was a teacher of Spanish in refugee camp schools between 1989 and 2003, told IPS that food aid is basic for the survival of the refugees.

But “the problem is not food. A long-term solution is needed, and it involves a political solution to the conflict,” he said.

Ahmed, who has lived in Malaga since 2003 with his wife and three sons, aged 16, 12 and one, said many Spanish families who host Saharawi children visit the camps.

“Once a father took his 11- or 12-year-old son along so that he could see the situation that other children have to live in,” said Ahmed, who studied in Cuba and whose parents and siblings live in the camps.

Over the years the Malaga association has sent four ambulances, a water supply truck, furniture for 16 primary school classrooms and 1,200 solar panels for single family homes.

While the refugees barely survive in the Algerian desert, and are dependent on food aid, a fishing agreement adopted in 2006 by the European Union and Morocco allows European boats to fish in Western Sahara’s territorial waters. It is an agreement that Saharawi activists say represents the exploitation of their people’s natural resources.

The U.N. does not recogise Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.

“Western Sahara is a magnificent example of how political and strategic interests can hamper the realisation of the principles and values enshrined in law,” the Spanish Society for International Human Rights Law concluded in its 2012 publication “Peace, migrations and the free determination of peoples”.

Women carry heavy loads on foot across the border from Spanish enclaves to Morocco. Courtesy: Cortesía de José Palazón/Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de la Infancia

By Inés Benítez
MÁLAGA, Spain, Jan 28 2014 (IPS)

Before sunrise, a Moroccan woman waits her turn at the pedestrian border control separating her country from the Spanish city of Melilla. Hours later she crosses over, takes up an 80-kilo bundle of merchandise and carries it back to her country, for a payment of less than six dollars.

Every day thousands of women like her cross the border posts between Morocco and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish enclaves in the north of Africa, to pick up heavy loads of goods and carry them across the border on foot, a trade worth millions of euros that is profitable to business on both sides.“Humiliating treatment is meted out to the women, who are mistreated by the police on both sides of the border. You only have to be there for five minutes to realise this.” -- Amin Souissi

The business community in Melilla “lives off this contraband trade,” made possible by thousands of women porters who work “to survive and feed their children,” José Palazón, the founder of the Asociación Pro Derechos de la Infancia (Children’s Rights Association), who has lived in the city for 14 years, told IPS.

“They are single mothers, widows, abused women, with disabled husbands, women excluded by society, who turn to contraband in order to make ends meet,” union leader Abdelkader El-Founti of the Melilla General Workers’ Confederation (CGT) told IPS.

When the Barrio Chino border post in Melilla opens at 9:00 a.m., the woman porter shows her passport and walks to an esplanade where several vans have left bundles ready for carriage early in the day.

She ties the huge bundle to her back with ropes and walks back for over 200 metres, weaving through the crowds in the narrow pathway. She delivers her load on the Moroccan side and returns to carry more bundles across until the border post closes at 1:00 p.m.

In Ceuta and Melilla this activity is known as “atypical trade”, and Moroccans live with it as tolerated contraband.

White signs bearing black silhouettes of men and women porters hang high on the iron railings of the narrow passage in Barrio Chino to indicate the entrance.

The women are paid when they deliver their loads on the Moroccan side, where men with wheelbarrows or vans wait to collect them. The amount depends on the weight carried. “The maximum is 10 euros [13 dollars] a day. For each load they are paid three to five euros [four to six dollars] according to weight,” El-Founti said.

In addition to the physical exertion, the women must put up with “all kinds of abuse from the Spanish and Moroccan police,” he said.

“Humiliating treatment is meted out to the women, who are mistreated by the police on both sides of the border. You only have to be there for five minutes to realise this,” Amin Souissi, a Moroccan national belonging to the Andalusia Human Rights Association (Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de Andalucía) in the southern Spanish city of Cadiz, told IPS.

Souissi recalled the death in September 2013 of a young porter from the Moroccan city of Tetouan who, “tired of so much humiliation,” set himself alight at the border post of El Tarajal in Ceuta, after his country’s authorities confiscated the goods he was carrying.

“We don’t want them to lose their livelihood, but we do want the human rights of these persons on the borders of Ceuta and Melilla to be respected,” said Souissi, who has seen police push women porters around with their truncheons.

Souissi complained about corruption among the Moroccan authorities, who take bribes, as well as the arbitrary way in which border crossings are handled, as permission “depends on the official on duty.”

The enormous loads contain all sorts of goods, such as blankets, used car tires, food and diapers. The vast majority of porters are women, but some are men, especially young men with limited resources.

Many women cross the border with smaller packages. Others work as domestic employees in homes in Melilla and Ceuta and go home to Morocco at the end of the day.

About 40,000 people cross daily between the Moroccan town of Beni Ansar and Melilla, but only 10 percent of them have visas, said El-Founti. Porters have to show their passports, and the rest have special permits, under an agreement between the Spanish and Moroccan governments, to work in Melilla during the day and return home at night.

“They are construction labourers, domestic employees and hotel workers who work a 10- or 12-hour day for less than 200 euros [270 dollars] a month, without any labour rights,” he said.

El-Founti complained that business owners in Melilla take advantage of the fears of “cross-border employees” of losing their jobs, and of their poverty. “Many Moroccan women who work as domestics in Melilla are illiterate and ignorant of their labour rights,” he said.

The traffic in goods carried by the porters “moves a great deal of money both sides of the border,” said Palazón, who believes it will be “very difficult” to stamp out this situation; however, he called for greater dignity for the workers and improved border facilities for their daily crossings.

“There is not even one drinking water tap,” said Souissi about the El Tarajal border crossing in Ceuta, which “is more like a cage than a pedestrian border crossing,” with narrow passages that the porters can barely squeeze through.

The border trade is worth 1.4 billion euros (1.8 billion dollars) a year to both sides of the frontier, and contributes one-third of the economy of Ceuta and Melilla, the two autonomous Spanish cities.

Some 45,000 people depend directly for their livelihoods on this activity, and 400,000 are indirectly employed, according to the American Chamber of Commerce in Casablanca, Morocco, quoted in the Declaration of Tetouan signed by almost 30 organisations in April 2012.

The declaration states that “an important quantity of money” is paid as bribes, totalling 90 million euros (121 million dollars) a year, according to the independent Moroccan weekly Al Ayam.

Conditions at the border crossings, where thousands of people crowd together, have already caused fatalities. In November 2008, Zafia Azizi was trampled to death in Melilla and on May 25, 2009, Busrha and Zhora, two Moroccan women, died in a human avalanche at the Ceutan border post of Biutz.

Activists consulted by IPS said the European Union (EU) is not paying proper attention to the human rights violations suffered by the Moroccan women porters.

Ceuta and Melilla enjoy a special fiscal regime with substantial tax rebates and are not part of the EU’s Customs Union. Both cities can import goods at lower tariffs than the rest of the EU and sell those products to Moroccan citizens, who send them to Morocco through the irregular cross-border transit system for re-sale.

Women’s rights activists in Morocco have criticised the Islamist-led government for excluding them from drafting proposed legislation to combat violence against women and for seeking to dilute the bill through changes.

The long-awaited bill is currently under study in Morocco. It comes after the adoption of a new constitution in 2011 that enshrines gender equality and urges the state to promote it.

A preliminary version of the bill, which is still in the drafting stage, threatens prison sentences of up to 25 years for perpetrators of violence against women.

In addition, the bill would take unprecedented steps towards criminalising sexual harassment, risking possible three-year prison terms for suspects.

“We have waited for years for this law and we are now very disappointed by its content,” said Najat Errazi, who heads the Moroccan Association for Women’s Rights, speaking at a meeting held in Casablanca to discuss the bill, according to the AFP news agency.

Sara Soujar, another activist speaking at the meeting, argued that the bill fails to include provisions relating to single women.

“This category is totally absent… Reading the text, you get the impression that violence basically only affects married or divorced women, even though others may be more exposed,” she said.

“Young women who work in factories or as housemaids, many of whom are minors, are no less exposed.”

Government committee set up

In the face of these objections, the government has been forced to establish a committee, headed by Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane of the Islamist Party of Justice and Development, to review the draft law and demonstrate its willingness to cooperate.

Progress is being closely followed in Morocco, where many have had traumatic personal experiences of a kind that the proposed legislation is designed to deter.

Rights groups’ concerns resonate with the findings of a study recently published by the state planning commission (HCP).

The research says around one in every two unmarried women in Morocco was subjected to physical and/or verbal sexual violence during the year that it was carried out.

According to the study, nearly nine percent of women in Morocco have been physically subjected to sexual violence at least once.

Sexual violence of a physical or psychological nature has affected some 25 percent of women overall, and a startling 40 percent among 18- to 24-year-olds.

Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

At the Women Deliver conference in Kuala Lumpur, advocates shared strategies for breaking religious taboos on reproductive rights. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
KUALA LUMPUR, May 31 2013 (IPS)

Liberian journalist Mae Azango says she spent a year living “like a bat, going from tree to tree” with her daughter in order to escape religious fanatics who were threatening to kill her for exposing the practice of female genital mutilation in her home country last year.

A senior reporter at the local FrontPage Africa publication, Azango told IPS that although the Liberian government signed a treaty in 2012 promising its citizens the right to information, it continues to hold back data on sexual and reproductive health and rights from journalists.

“With every story that I write, I take a great risk,” she says, adding that she is entirely dependent on “secret sources” within the government to gather information, since very little is shared in the public domain.

Her woes found echo among hundreds of women and health experts gathered in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur for the third annual Women Deliver global forum that ended Thursday.

Hailing from different corners of the globe, participants at the conference had no trouble identifying common goals: breaking taboos surrounding sex education and creating a safe climate for advocates, health professionals and educators to spread awareness on safe sex and family planning.

In Morocco, a country of 32 million people, schools are banned from offering sex education to young people because parliamentarians believe it to be an “evil concept, designed to promote promiscuity,” sexual and reproductive advocate Amina Lemrini told IPS.

She says progress on improving sexual health services in her country has been particularly slow due to taboos introduced by religious leaders.

With a government unwilling to challenge clerics, the job of providing crucial health services falls entirely on the shoulders of civil society, who are then threatened for their efforts.

Lemrini says she does not know a single reproductive rights activist who has not been threatened, yet the government offers them no protection.

Their distress has been recognised by leading experts in the field, including the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Babatunde Osotimehin, who told IPS that religious fundamentalism is a “indeed a worry” when it comes to progress on sexual health.

Still, he urged activists to continue their work, adding, “Fundamentalism exists in all societies and all religions – what matters is how we communicate our message.”

He believes that if more people are made aware of their rights and choices, they will not hesitate to defy archaic laws and so-called “cultural taboos.”

“The average person on the street does not want a situation where death comes calling every day for reasons that can be prevented,” he stressed.

Indeed, even a cursory glance at global statistics is enough to make a strong case for the need for better communication: according to the UNFPA, nearly 800 women die every single day as a result of pregnancy-related complications; in a year, that number is closer to 350,000 deaths, of which 99 percent occur in developing countries.

Sex-selective abortions and neglect of newborn baby girls have resulted in an estimated 134 million “missing” women worldwide.

Doing a wide sweep of global data, the UNFPA estimates that “millions of girls” practice unsafe sex and lack information on contraceptives. Osotimehin recently wrote that an “unmet need for family planning exists among 33 percent of girls between 15 and 19 years old…in Ethiopia, 38 percent in Bolivia, 42 percent in Nepal, 52 percent in Haiti and 62 percent in Ghana.”

Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, head of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), told IPS that giving up on communication about sexual and reproductive health and rights was not an option.

“We need an operative environment for those who are discussing this issue,” she said. “We need to protect the media — this isn’t a choice. Governments must scale up the level of cooperation with the media and provide supportive legal backup where it is not yet available.”

Gumbonzvanda thinks that citizen journalism could be an effective way to mitigate the risk posed by fundamentalists, not only by amplifying the voices of those who often go unheard, but also by empowering common citizens to take action.

Nowhere was the power of citizen journalism more evident than during the revolution in Egypt in 2011, where blogs, tweets, and Facebook posts replaced TV channels, newspapers and radio stations in reaching millions of people.

Today, as Egyptians struggle against the conservative policies of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, that network of citizen journalists has turned its attention to reproductive health and safe sex, topics that are frowned upon by Islamists.

Ahmed Awadalla, sexual and gender-based violence officer for Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA), told IPS that anyone discussing the issue risks detention, arrest, harassment and imprisonment.

As a result, the number of bloggers increases every day, as citizens and advocates flee to cyberspace in search of safe forums to share information and ideas.

“When I blog about the sexual rights of women I break two rules,” Awadalla said. “First, by speaking about a forbidden issue and secondly by speaking as a man, who is not supposed to take the side of women.” Though he faces harsh repercussions, nothing will persuade him to give up his advocacy.

But even while citizens innovate new ideas to get around the deadly threats of engaging in sex education, experts say governments must not be let off the hook for failing to provide these basic services.

Governments in Asia, Africa and Latin America must be held accountable by foreign funders, says Agnes Callamard, executive director of the London-based ‘Article 19’, an organisation dedicated to freedom of expression.

“Every government has committed to spending a certain amount of the funding they receive (on sexual health),” she said, so tracking aid flows could pressure governments to improve their track records on information sharing.

In fact, when the Mexico-based Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida (GIRE) started to track aid supposed to be allocated to providing information on sexual and reproductive health in 2011, “we found that nearly a million dollars were missing,” said GIRE Information Rights Advocate Alma Luz Beltrán y Puga. “We sued the government over that.  If the same tracking is done the world over, it can lead to greater accountability.”

According to a study done by the World Health Organisation (WHO), developed countries donated nearly 6.4 billion dollars to help provide access and information on reproductive health in developing countries. It is now up to civil society to ensure that money is responsibly allocated.

The Desertec Industrial Initiative plans to install a network of solar thermal, photovoltaic, and wind plants across the Maghreb region. Credit: Green Prophet1/CC-BY-2.0

By Julio Godoy
BERLIN, Dec 12 2012 (IPS)

When the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII), an alliance of 21 major European corporations, first unveiled plans to install a network of solar thermal, photovoltaic, and wind plants across the North African Maghreb region to generate electricity, the project was greeted as a ‘green utopia’.

Expected to generate 100 gigawatts by 2050, the project demanded an investment of 400 billion euros.

In a study released last summer, Desertec predicted that an integrated power system for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa would allow Europe to meet its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction target of 95 percent in the power sector by importing up to 20 percent of its electricity from the Maghreb, thus saving 33 billion euros per year.

Meanwhile, the project would enable Middle Eastern and North African countries to meet their own energy needs using the abundant solar and wind resources in the region, and achieve 50 percent of CO2 reductions in the power sector despite a massive increase in demand.

The region would benefit from an export industry worth up to 63 billion euros per year.

Now, three years since the project was announced, the Desertec dream is yet to be realised, and euphoria has given way to harsh criticisms ranging from accusations of incompetence to shortfalls in corporate governance.

The project has been nicknamed “desperate tec” by internal staff members discontent with its trajectory.

Huge potential

In a so-called White Book on the project, the DII claimed, “The long-term economic potential of renewable energy in EUMENA (Europe, Middle East and North Africa) is much larger than present demand, and the potential of solar energy dwarfs them all.”

Based on figures by German research institutes and the Club of Rome, the report estimates, “From each square kilometre (km²) of desert land, up to 250 gigawatts of electricity can be harvested each year using the technology of concentrating solar thermal power.”

Indeed, every square kilometre of land in MENA “receives an amount of solar energy that is equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of crude oil. A concentrating solar collector field with the size of Lake Nasser in Egypt (Aswan), of some 6,000 square kilometres, could harvest energy equivalent to the present Middle East oil production”.

Morocco, which will host the pilot project, has been especially keen to see the venture come to fruition, since it will have a huge impact on the local economy, particularly with regard to job creation in the renewables sector.

Back in 2009, ‘green networks’ were created in several cities around the kingdom, including in Casablanca. Comprised of small firms run by young professionals, these networks were designed to create the necessary infrastructure for the project.

“We have created companies, received training, but in reality nothing has happened yet,” Abdellah Benjdi, one of the young company heads, told IPS.

Ordinary citizens suffering from astronomical electricity bills in Morocco are eagerly awaiting the so-called ‘green utopia’.

But by all indications, their patience is not about to be rewarded.

Endless obstacles

Experts first received confirmation of Desertec’s difficulties on Nov. 7 in Berlin, during the official presentation of the first solar thermal, photovoltaic and wind plants to be installed in the southern-central Moroccan province of Ouarzazate, which are scheduled to deliver electricity by 2014.

Although construction plans have technically been sealed, they still depend on Spanish approval – Spain being the primary partner in the project – to allow the electricity generated at the site to be transported to Europe.

The Spanish government, battered by a grave economic recession, has so far been unable to confirm its support for the project, a situation that is unlikely to change given that Spain is a net exporter of electricity to Morocco and would not like to see this trend reversed by successful implementation of the pilot project in Ouarzazate, experts say.

The DII alliance includes the leading German Deutsche Bank and the Spanish transmission agent and grid operator, TSO Red Eléctrica.

“The business case for a Desertec Reference Project, prepared by (us) and the Moroccan Solar Agency Masen, has been extensively discussed for the past two years with Spanish companies, the TSO Red Eléctrica and the European Commission, and declared feasible,” DII CEO Paul van Son said during the presentation in Berlin.

The first project in Morocco led by the German energy giant RWE would comprise an installed capacity of 100 megawatts of photovoltaic and wind power.

A second project, using solar thermal plants and overseen by Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power International, will have an installed capacity of 160 megawatts.

Both plants are expected to be functional by 2014.

Van Son confirmed, “Investors have been found, initial subsidies are available, and industry wants to get involved.” But Spain refused to send representatives to the presentation in Berlin, and has so far failed to undersign the Morocco project.

Van Son is convinced that “the other partners in this negotiation, from Morocco and the EU, will be able to convince Spain,” since the Spanish government, too, stands to benefit from the project.

Lack of coordination

But Spain’s refusal is just one example of the enormous political, technical and financial coordination hurdles the venture must overcome.

Another indication of these difficulties came in late October, when the German electronics giant Siemens announced its withdrawal from the alliance, despite being a founding member of the DII back in 2009.

This move has been widely interpreted as proof that Desertec is failing.

According to Friedrich Fuehr, founding member of the board of directors at the Desertec Foundation, the DII “has been following the wrong strategy”.

Fuehr told IPS that DII’s main responsibility since 2009 was to conceive a political roadmap that could overcome all international coordination difficulties and solve the pressing questions of how subsidies and taxes would be implemented.

Fuehr, a prestigious German lawyer and business consultant, said that “a coalition of such powerful and capable private companies such as the Deutsche Bank, UniCredit, RWE and SCHOTT Solar should be able to formulate within three years the political framework they need to make Desertec come true”.

“But we are still waiting for this framework,” Fuehr said. “Instead, the DII has concentrated all its action in launching one single model project (in Ouarzazate).”

Fuehr lamented that the energy revolution the world needs in order to confront the realities of global warming “is already happening. But Desertec is not involved in it”.

*Abderrahim El Ouali contributed to this report from Casablanca.

Polisario Front on patrol in the Sahara liberated territories. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
BIR LEHLU, Sahara Liberated Territories, Jun 20 2012 (IPS)

The road vanishes under the sand just after the border crossing at Tindouf, western Algeria. Another 20 kilometres into the desert, a billboard welcomes us into the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

From a house surrounded by shell cases, a man in camouflage checks our passports without stamping them.

The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) may be recognised by 82 countries but the United Nations still considers it a “territory under an unfinished process of decolonisation.”

Western Sahara was the victim of a decolonisation process interrupted in 1976, when Spain – its former colonial power since the late 19th century – left that barren, sparsely populated land in the hands of Morocco and Mauritania.

After a ceasefire agreement in 1991, most of the SADR territory, including the entire Atlantic coastline, has been under Morocco’s control. A small, largely uninhabited and economically useless desert portion, known as the “liberated territories”, remains under the rule of the Polisario Front, which is outlawed in Morocco-controlled Sahara but strongly backed by Algeria and recognised by the U.N. as the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people.

However, almost all of the roughly 250,000 Sahrawi people live today in Algerian refugee camps in Tindouf, 1,465 kilometres southwest of Algiers.

The Polisario Front’s humble governmental buildings stand out amid a sea of mud houses and corrugated iron under the scorching sun of the Algerian desert. Fully dependent on foreign aid, none of the Sahrawi refugees expected their situation to last this long – 37 years and counting.

As a result, the Polisario Front has strong support among the desert residents, many of who are itching to break the ceasefire and take up arms to fight for long-awaited independence.

Despite hardships at the refugee camps in Algeria, the living standards are significantly higher there than in the so-called “Sahara liberated territories”; a geopolitical no-man’s land where Polisario’s is the one and only rule. Here there is hardly any water, no electricity, no telephones and no hospitals of any kind.

It is an inhospitable place inhabited only by nomads and, of course, by the soldiers of the Polisario Front.

At the headquarters of the Second Battalion in Bir-Lehlu, the administrative capital, 400 kilometres west of Tindouf, a soldier scans the horizon atop one of the few tiny trees in the area.

At the order of his commander, he jumps to the ground and immediately vanishes into a hole in the ground. A minute later he pops out of another one, 50 metres away.

“In case there’s an air strike by Moroccan forces, there’s nowhere to go but underground, like those black and orange lizards you may have seen all over the place,” jokes Sidi Mohamed Baaya, one of the battalion´s senior officials. He adds that “maintaining and expanding the network of underground galleries is among the highest priorities” of the military organisation.

Inside a barrack that looks more like a museum of the Polisario Front’s history, Sidi Baaya briefs IPS on the largest “infrastructure” ever built in the Western Sahara’s territories.

The “wall”, a French-designed structure erected in the 80s, is over 2,500 kilometres long, criss-crossing Western Sahara from north to south, an intricate network of fences, trenches and barbed wire cordoning off the most economically useful parts of the land.

“We train our men to sneak across the wall and attack the Moroccan forces from their rear,” the Polisario official explains. Until the ceasefire in 1991, night missions across the wall were commonplace during a war that started in 1975 and lasted 16 years.

Patrolling infinite space

Born in the refugee camps in Tindouf, 23-year old Mohamed Murad is a member of a motorised unit that controls the section along the Mauritanian border.

“Since the abduction of three aid workers – two Spaniards and one Italian – seven months ago, we are on constant patrol, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. We suspect that the terrorists will soon (attack) journalists and foreign aid workers,” explains the young conscript Murad, while he looks through his binoculars towards a plain and empty horizon.

The three aid workers were abducted in Tindouf by members of an alleged offshoot of Al-Qaeda in October 2011. The incident has put the Saharans’ main life support – foreign aid – at risk.

To avoid new attacks, the Polisario patrols the area in Japanese-made pickup trucks fitted with anti-aircraft guns, and mounted on the rear.

“The Polisario was the first to mount heavy artillery on these light vehicles, much earlier than Somalia or Libya,” recalls Salama Abdallahi from the driver´s seat.

Well over 60 years of age, Abdallahi joined the movement in 1974, a year before Spain’s withdrawal from the territory, and is now one of the many veterans who chose to stay.

Abdallahi was born in Bojador, a coastal town in the south of the Saharan territory under Moroccan control. Besides sharing his military experience with his younger fellow soldiers, he also gives them first hand testimony of the land his comrades’ parents left behind after the occupation.

Tradition and Loyalty

At a hundred kilometres northeast of Bir Lehlu, one could come across images of men armed with bows hunting gazelle and antelope, or even fishing. These ancient rock carvings date back 5,000 years according to the few archaeologists who have ventured into this area.

In moments of respite from the frequent sandstorms, it is not difficult to spot nomadic settlements scattered across the vast desert.

Like the many camels dotting this barren landscape, Nuna Bumra Mohamed’s tent also seems to pop out in the middle of nowhere. She sits in the middle of the 30-square-metre room; her green melfa, a Saharan female garment, stands out amid pristine red carpets and blankets neatly piled up next to an old wooden wardrobe.

Were it not for the huge Sahrawi flag – green, white and black stripes with a red star and a crescent in the middle – presiding over the house, the scene could be a picture unchanged from a thousand years ago.

“We have heard about terrorists sneaking from Mali and Mauritania, but we feel safe under the protection of the Polisario,” Bumra explains after offering her visitors a bowl of fresh goat milk.

“Other than terrorist attacks, our greatest concern is still the lack of water,” she adds.

Nuna confirms that the only inhabitants of the region are Bedouins like herself, nomadic families that survive on their herds of goats and camels, living in the wild. Despite the evidently harsh living conditions, this proud Sahrawi swears she has never even considered moving to the refugee camps across the border.

“I wouldn´t be able to live in a foreign country. Besides, how could we possibly abandon the only part of our land under our control?”

(END)

The Moroccan government’s announcement that it would issue new public media guidelines at the end of May has reignited a stormy debate around independent media in the kingdom.

The debate began nearly two months ago when the Islamist government, led by Abdelilah Benkirane, forced public television channels and radio stations to broadcast the five daily calls to prayer, which put many citizens on the defensive against what they saw as a deliberate attempt to Islamise an otherwise moderate sector of society.

The new law was supposedly imposed in an effort to decrease the prevalence of the French language in favour of Arabic, though experts and activists were quick to point out that the government did not pay nearly as much attention to broadcasting Amazigh, the original language of the country, over the airwaves.

For years, the 6th public television channel, as well as the public radio station ‘Mohammed VI for Saint Koran’, have been completely dedicated to religious issues 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Following his ascension to the throne in 1999, King Mohamed VI jumped headlong into this debate by announcing his “project of the modernist and democratic society”, supposedly aimed at curbing the presence of extremist Islam in the public realm.

The King, who approved a new constitution on July 1 last year that grants the monarch substantial powers of arbitration, has come under fire for dishing out an inadequate response to the complicated debate.

Last month, his new head of government, Abdelilah Benkirane of the Justice and Development Party (PJD), declared that the old, ‘Islamised’ guidelines were not set in stone and could consequently be amended.

The controversial law was scrapped, sparking scattered debate around the complicated issue of media in Morocco.

‘Islamisation’ a hurdle to democracy?

Fayçal Laâraichi, director of the country’s national broadcasting corporation, SNRT, told the daily ‘Al Ahdath Al Maghribia’ newspaper last month, “The independence of the public media is sacred.”

Laâraichi warned that the new manuals have to respect “openness, pluralism, linguistic diversity and the national identity”, all enshrined in the country’s constitution.

But his reaction has been criticised as having its own agenda.

“There are (some professionals) who stereotype Islamists as a threat to openness and modernity,” Ismail Azzam, a columnist for the local Hespress magazine, told IPS.

Moulay Touhami Bahtat, editor-in-chief of the local ‘Assdae’ (‘Echoes’) publication, believes, “Saying that the Islamists use the public media to Islamise (our) society reveals a blatant ignorance of the (situation).”

According to him, “The reality is that the public media was always an island completely separated from its environment, whose (practitioners) continue to act as if satellite dishes do not exist.”

Citizens have long lamented the poor quality of programmes on public TV, while management of the public media has been under close scrutiny since “official reports from the Supreme Court indicated very grave financial gaps (in the media’s accounts). The people in charge of the public media not only have to leave, but must be judged” on the issue of corruption, Azzam said.

The real fight, according to him, is not between Islamists and modernists, but between good governance and mismanagement. “Even if there were a leftist government, the opponents of the reform would have accused it of secularising the public media,” he explained.

Abdessalam Benaissa, a prominent writer, commented in Hespress last month, “the suspension of the manuals (by Benkirane) without so much as informing citizens means that the first experience within the framework of the new constitution, namely the right of citizens to information, has just been violated.”

He is not alone in this critique. “The intervention of the palace in the affair of the media manuals was expected because we are not still at the stage of a parliamentary monarchy,” Azzam commented, referring to the core demand of the February 20^th movement, for a separation of powers between the monarch and the government.

Benkirane, who was then the leader of the Islamist opposition, opposed the movement and stubbornly defended executive powers for the monarch.

“The head of the government shows courage only against unemployed graduates,” commented Azzam ironically, hinting at the violent police interventions against demonstrations by unemployed youth.

According to him, Benkirane benefits greatly from the current political order, in which the monarch retains several executive powers and Benkirane himself has a great deal of authority.

A governmental committee, chaired by the minister of housing and former minister of communications, Mohammed Nabil Benabdellah, is now in charge of establishing new media guidelines, which will be released no later than the end of this month.

The government is bound by law to establish media guidelines and submit them to the High Authority of Communications and the Audiovisual sector (HACA), which ratifies the new rules before making them public on an official bulletin board.

Though the new guidelines have already been ratified, Fatiha Aarour, a HACA representative, told IPS, “Professional secrecy forbids us from speaking to the press about this issue.”

(END)

In 2008, delegates meeting for the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) agreed that much greater investments in women and gender equality were a critical – and overlooked – aspect of sustainable development.

For example, according to UN Women, while the international community gave 7.5 billion dollars in official development assistance to rural development and the agricultural sector in 2008–2009, a mere three percent was spent on programmes in which gender equality was a principal objective, and only 32 percent to those in which gender equality was a secondary objective.

Four years later, there has been some forward movement in a number of countries, but in many others, progress remains slow and uneven, a situation that is exacerbated by the ongoing global financial crisis.

Rural women continue to face limited access to productive resources, such as agricultural inputs and technology; only five percent of agricultural extension services are provided for women farmers.

As the CSW meets again here from Feb 27 to Mar. 9, panellists from around the world sat down Thursday to evaluate the evolution of financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment in their home countries, and chart a way forward.

“It’s time to promote gender equality and for that purpose we need a change of paradigm, we definitely need to change our way of thinking,” said Maria Almeida, vice finance minister of Ecuador.

Cambodia

Dr. Ing Phavi, minister of women’s affairs in Cambodia, cited a series of measures taken by the Cambodian government that have proved successful in enhancing gender equality across different areas.

“In Cambodia, in the context of a public administration reform, the prime minister has launched a major drive in 2008 to address the gender imbalance in the public administration,” she said.

As a result of extensive promotion across ministries and affirmative action policies, the number of female civil servants increased by 34 percent. At the sub-national level, more women were appointed as deputy governors or heads of government departments.

“In education, gender disparity has been eliminated in the primary and lower secondary education,” she noted. “Remarkably, with the focus on training and deploying female teachers, the female ratio at the primary level reached 46 percent in 2009/2010.”

However, fewer girls than boys continue on to get a higher education.

Asked what more needs to be done, Phavi told IPS, “The most important thing to understand is that gender equality is a government policy and it has to mainstream the poverty reduction strategy.

“Poverty reduction means taking care of growth, trade, agriculture development, well-being in terms of health, education and so on,” she said. “Gender is already inside all sectors so it should be part of the poverty reduction strategy.”

Morocco

Mohammed Chafiki, director of studies and financial forecasts for the ministry of economy and finance in Morocco, spoke about Morocco’s transition to equal rights and liberties for men and women.

In April 2011, the country ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), a key instrument often described as an international bill of rights for women.

Morocco also adopted a new constitution in July that included many articles which expressly enshrined gender equality. For example, Article 19 affirms that men and women have equal civil, political, economic, cultural and environmental rights and liberties.

“In Morocco, we now need to continue the institutional reform. We are reforming our financial laws so it integrates gender considerations irreversibly,” Chafiki told IPS.

“But in order to move forward with gender equality, it is not all about the government. Local communities will also have to take concrete actions,” he said.

“To finance gender equality and women empowerment, we also need partnerships. We need partnerships with the private sector, with NGOs, with governments, of course, and we need international cooperation.”

Chafiki cited significant progress in reducing educational disparities as one of the country’s primary achievements.

“In 2010/2011, 96.3 percent of the girls from six to 11 years old are sent to school,” he said.

Austria

Gerhard Steger, director general of budget for the ministry of finance in Austria, explained how the government now integrates gender considerations into budgets.

The concept of gender responsive budgeting (GRB) was included in a comprehensive budget reform package that was unanimously adopted by parliament. It features a medium-term expenditure framework, accrual budgeting and accounting and performance budgeting.

“First of all, we transformed our budget from a traditional steering instrument of resources, asking the question ‘who gets what?’, into a comprehensive instrument for resources and results,” Steger told IPS.

“So we ask two questions: who gets what, and who has to deliver what for public management,” he added.

“We ask each and every ministry to define no more than five top objectives for the ministry, which are part of the budget decision in parliament, and at least one of those objectives has to be a gender objective.

“Gender is directly interpreted into the performance budgeting process in Austria. Therefore every ministry has to contribute – with no exceptions.”

Steger stressed crucial lessons that can be drawn from the Austrian experience.

“To make GRB a success, the design needs to be simple and focused on the most important aspects. If the design is too complex, GRB will very likely be a failure,” he said.

“We also have to make gender relevant and thus integrate it into the budget and to create awareness for gender issues to convince decision makers to support GRB.”

While national governments must take the lead, key agencies like UN Women are also working hard to steer funds into gender-oriented development.

On Thursday, UN Women announced it will give out 10.5 million dollars in grants to organisations working to advance economic and political empowerment of women in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Central Asia.

The grants will start at 200,000 dollars for initiatives that “make tangible improvements in the lives of women and girls, from enabling women candidates to run for office, to managing resources to support themselves and their families.”

“At this moment of historic change, we cannot afford to leave women out. These grants will advance women’s efforts to achieve greater economic and political equality during this time of transition,” said Michelle Bachelet, executive director for UN Women.

Since its creation in 2009, the Fund has invested a total of 43 million dollars in 40 countries around the world for projects working for gender equality.

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