By Germán Velásquez
GENEVA, Nov 10 2015 (IPS)

The important relationship between the examination of patents carried out by national patent offices and the right of citizens to access to medicines hasn’t always been well-understood. Too often these are viewed as unrelated functions or responsibilities of the state. And the reason is clear: patentability requirements are not defined by patent offices, but frequently by the courts, tribunals, legislation or treaty negotiators.

Germán Velásquez

Given the impact of pharmaceutical patents on access to medicines, patent offices should continue to align their work in support of national health and medicine policies, using the freedom permitted by the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) to define patentability requirements.

The TRIPS Agreement requires all World Trade Organization (WTO) member states to incorporate into their legislation universal minimum standards for almost all rights in this domain: copyright, patents and trademarks.

A patent is a title granted by the public authorities conferring a temporary monopoly for the exploitation of an invention upon the person who reveals it, furnishes a sufficiently clear and full description of it, and claims this monopoly.

As with any monopoly, it may lead to high prices that in turn may restrict access. The problem is compounded in the case of medicines, when patents confer a monopoly for a public good and essential products needed to prevent illness or death and improve health.

According to the TRIPS Agreement, the patentability requirements used by national intellectual property offices require a product or manufacturing process to meet the conditions necessary to grant patent protection, namely: novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability (utility).

These three elements, however, are not defined in the TRIPS agreement and WTO Member States are free to define these three criteria in a manner consistent with the public health objectives defined by each country.

It is widely held that patents are granted to protect new medicines to reward the innovation effort. However, the number of patents obtained annually to protect truly new pharmaceutical products is very low and falling. Moreover, of the thousands of patents that are granted for pharmaceutical products each year, a few are for new medicines – e..g. new molecular entities (NMEs).

All of the above led the World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), to develop, in 2007, guidelines for the examination of pharmaceutical patents from a public health perspective.

The guidelines were intended to contribute to improving the transparency and efficacy of the patent system for pharmaceutical products, so that countries could pay more attention to patent examination and granting procedures in order to avoid the negative effects of non-inventive developments on access to medicines. The major problems can be identified in the current use of the patent system to protect pharmaceutical innovation: reduction in innovation, high prices of medicines, lack of transparency in research and development costs, and proliferation of patents.

A study carried out by the journal Prescrire analysed the medicines that were introduced to the French market between 2006 and 2011, arriving at the conclusion that the number of molecules that produced significant therapeutic progress reduced drastically: 22 in 2006; 15, 10, 7, 4 in the following years up to 2011, which was a year in which Prescrire declared that only one medicine of significant therapeutic interest was brought to the market. Given that France is one of the largest pharmaceutical markets in the world, the reduction in innovation confirmed France is a good indicator of the global situation.

Oncologists from fifteen countries recently denounced the excessive prices of cancer treatments, which are necessary to save the lives of the patients, and urged that moral implications should prevail; according to them, of the 12 cancer treatments approved in 2012 by the United States Food and Drug Administration, 11 cost more than 100,000 dollars per patient per year.

Since the 1950s, there have been some references to the costs of Research and Development (R&D) for pharmaceutical products. According to some sources the average cost of research for a new pharmaceutical product these figures have increased from 1 million dollars in 1950 to 2.5 billion dollars for the development of a single product.

During the summer of 2014, a number of European countries, including France and Spain, spent many months negotiating with the company Gilead on the price of a new medicine for hepatitis C known as Solvaldi. The price fixed by Gilead was 56,000 Euros per patient for a twelve-week treatment, or 666 Euros per tablet. According the newspaper Le Monde the price of each tablet was 280 times more than the production cost. In France, it is calculated that 250,000 patients should receive this medicine, the cost of which would represent 7 per cent of the annual state medicine budget.

The application of patentability requirements for medicines, given their public health dimension, should be considered with even more care than in the case of regular merchandise or luxury items. The first and most important step is to use the freedom permitted by the TRIPs Agreement to define the patentability requirements: novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability (utility) in a way that keeps sight of public interest in the wide dissemination of knowledge.

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By Paloma Duran
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 2015 (IPS)

Increasingly gender equality, rooted in human rights, is recognized both as a key development goal on its own and as a vital means to helping accelerate sustainable development. And while the field of gender has expanded exponentially over the years, with programmes focused exclusively on women and girls and greater mainstreaming of gender into many development activities, a range of challenges remain.

Women are still facing unequal access to economic and environmental resources. They often face numerous barriers linked to clear discrimination as well as bear the burden of low wages or unpaid work, and are susceptible to gender-based violence.

So despite the significant advances for women, the fact is that unless women and girls are able to fully realize their rights in all facets of society, human development will not be advanced. The year 2015 is a crucial time to further equality and if the new post-2015 development agenda is to be truly transformative, women must be at the front and also at its centre.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) contain a stand-alone goal on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. All the goals are intrinsically interrelated and interdependant – and ideally gender will be adressed and mainstreamed amongst all goals. SDG 5 calls on governments to achieve, rather than just promote, gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.

The proposed targets include ending violence, eliminating harmful practices, recognizing the value of unpaid care, ensuring that women have full participation – and equal opportunities – in decision-making, and calling for reforms to give women equal access to economic resources. The new post-2015 agenda is a universal idea with high hopes to “leave no one behind,” but to make this a reality, we must keep pressure on governments to follow through on their commitments.

The Sustainable Development Goals Fund (SDG Fund) has placed gender equality and women’s empowerment at the heart of its efforts to acceleterate progress towards the SDGs. By directly empowering women and by bringing a gender perspective to all development work we can build a more equitable, sustainable future for all.

Stemming from the comitments established in 1995 at the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the SDG Fund adopted a dual strategy for advancing gender equality to support both gender-targeted programmes while simultaneaously mainstreaming gender as a cross-cutting priority. Gender mainstreaming entails transforming existing policy agendas by integrating a gender perspective into all policies and programming.

There is no set recipe to creating programmes that will solve gender inequality and perhaps it would be good if there was one single universally applicable and empirically proven method for achieving gender equality in every country around the world. A multi-dimensional issue such as gender inequality is deeply rooted in economic and cultural structures of society and it requires comprehensive approaches. Furthermore, one needs to explore the issue in the specific context of the country in question to effectively improve the quality of life for women and girls everywhere.

The private sector, together with NGOs and governments, are key actors in addressing the variable causes of gender inequality. In other words, achieving equality and empowerment for women is a challenge that requires the synergistic intervention of multiple actors.

For example, the Fund is working in Bangladesh, where women are employed at the lower end of the productivity scale. Labor force participation of rural women is only 36.4 per cent compared to 83.3 per cent of men. Creating employment and income generating opportunities for women as well as enhancing women’s access to social protection will help reduce gender disparities which are exacerbated by women’s poverty and vulnerability.

The SDG Fund programme entitled “Strengthening Women’s Ability for Productive New Opportunities” is led by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in partnership with the International Labour Organisation (ILO), local governments and private partners with the overall goal to assist 2,592 women from ultra-poor households. As part of a pilot programme, women are trained in maintenance or rehabilitation of key community assets, public works and community service activities.

Furthermore, the programme is targeting 2,600 women in Kurigram District which has the highest incidence of poverty in Bangladesh. In particular, it aims to assist those who are alone because they are divorced, have been abandoned by their husbands or widowed and/or with low economic status including those with no assets or forced to beg due to poverty. The results will be replicated, targeting 1,900 women, in Satkhira district and the government is further committed scale-up this pilot in a further 20 districts. Overall, the 18 month programme is designed to:

– Helping primary beneficiaries permanently move out of poverty.
– Support human capital with activities to boost knowledge, skills, and confidence.
– Enhance economic inclusion with vocational skills training linked to viable job placement.
– Provide livelihoods options that are resilient in the face of climate change.
– Encourage wage saving or issued as a graduation bonus.
– Facilitate partnership linkages with small and medium enterprises and public-private partnerships to hire participant women after the programme ends.
– Integrate social protection, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
– Enhance good local governance and develop the capacity of local government institutions.
Gender equality is often seen as the key to addressing the unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals and accelerating global development beyond 2015. There is strong evidence that closing gender gaps accelerates progress towards other development goals. Poverty, education, health, jobs and livelihoods, food security, environmental and energy sustainability will not be solved without addressing gender inequality.

Urgent action is needed to empower women and girls, ensuring that they have equal opportunities to benefit from development and removing the barriers that prevent them from being full participants in all spheres of society. In the words of UN Women’s Executive Director, “equality for women, is progress for all” and so let us embark on this journey together.

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Excerpt:

The well known poetess Sugathakumari speaks at a meeting about sexual violence against women in Thiruvananthapuram. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India , Mar 28 2013 (IPS)

Shaken by the brutal gang rape and murder of a young woman in the national capital New Delhi last December, the female workforce in India is calling for more concrete measures for the protection of female employees from both physical and non-physical attacks.

Although the Union Government has passed a bill in Parliament to protect female employees from sexual harassment in the workplace, women are demanding long-term measures to implement the law and punish the guilty.

A survey report by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India revealed that the rape case in Delhi, and the national outrage that followed, shook the confidence of the female workforce, not only in Delhi but also in other major cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmadabad, Lucknow, Jaipur and Dehradun.

In February, the Indian Parliament approved a new law to prevent sexual harassment of women in the workplace and provide protection to women in both the government and private sectors.

According to the new legislation anyone who makes physical contact, sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, sexual remarks or shows pornography will be treated as the accused in any ensuing case.

Krishna Tirath, the minister of state for women and child development, told the lower house of parliament that elected representatives and society itself would have to implement the law for the protection of women in offices and companies.

According to the Indian constitution, sexual harassment infringes on women’s fundamental right to gender equality under Article 14 and her right to live with dignity under Article 21.

Still, the practice continues throughout the country. Studies and surveys have found that incidents of sexual harassment were high both in the government and the private sector.

A survey entitled ‘Sexual Harassment at Workplaces in India 2011-2012’ conducted in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmadabad, Lucknow and Durgapur, jointly released by Oxfam India and the Social and Rural Research Institute (SRI), said 17 percent of 400 respondents claimed that they had experienced sexual harassment on the job.

Respondents cited many reasons for not taking action against the perpetrator including fear of losing their job, absence of a proper complaint mechanism and fear of being stigmatised.

“In private organisations, sexual harassment is common,” Jameela, a typist in a private firm in Kannur, a city in the southern state of Kerala, told IPS.

“I experienced (sexual harassment) from my boss when I worked at a company in Chennai. When I resigned I cited the transfer of my husband, and other family matters,” she revealed.

The three jobs that appear to be most unsafe for women are as labourers, domestic workers and small-scale manufacturers.

Nurses in the healthcare sector are also extremely vulnerable to attacks and sexual advances while on the job.

Dr. P. P. Saramma, senior lecturer at the Thiruvananthapuram-based Sree Chitra Tirunal Medical Institute, told IPS that “indecent advances” towards nurses are very common in Indian hospitals.

“Nightshift nurses often face abuse and (stigma) — working with strangers and male patients leads to questions regarding their morality,” she added.

The results of a 2007 survey conducted in Kolkata among 135 health workers, including doctors, published in the U.K-based international health journal ‘Reproductive Health Matters’, showed that 57 percent of women staffers had undergone some form of sexual harassment in hospitals.

Analysing the increasing rate of sexual offences against women in their places of work, Dr. Sreelekha Nair, a researcher at the New Delhi-based Centre for Women’s Development Studies, said that sexual harassment is largely the result of a hierarchical power structure in society that strongly favours men.

According to the 2001 census, the Indian workforce is over 400 million strong, comprising 39 percent of the population of 1.2 billion. Over 50 percent of the labour force — 275 million workers – is male, and just 25 percent, or 127 million workers, is female.

The 2013 Human Development report, published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), showed that gender equality in India is among the worst in the world; and its performance was the worst in all of South Asia.

This gap in equality is most prevalent in the workplace, Nair said, where women are viewed as “secondary citizens”, forcing them to keep a low profile. But when they do begin to gain equal footing with their male counterparts, men often react with hostility, or violence.

Thus “the law is not the ultimate solution to sexual harassment – the mindset of the people needs to be changed through greater awareness”, she told IPS.

The rape case in Delhi, and the ensuing outrage, has brought a great deal of attention to the issue. The strong stand taken by the female workforce and a host of women’s organisations after the December incident pressurised the government, as well as businesses, to step up security measures for women staffers.

The climate of anger in the aftermath of that tragedy also fuelled awareness about the right to protest against harassment in the workplace and file complaints with the proper authorities.

Dr. Pushpa Kurup, managing director of Vitalect Technologies and convenor of the women’s forum of the National Institute of Personnel Management in Thiruvananthapuram, told IPS that the monitoring system for sexual harassment in the government and private sector has been strengthened since late last year.

“Effective training programmes are essential to sensitise all staffers to recognise sexual harassment, prevent it and deal with it when it does occur. Many complaints can be resolved effectively and positively through informal methods. It is critical that the complaints committee empathises with the complainant and not judge her by their own moral standards,” added she.

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Kathmandu’s dense population of 1.5 million people is highly vulnerable to earthquakes. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By Naresh Newar
KATHMANDU, Nov 23 2012 (IPS)

Nepal now ranks 11^th on a list of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, yet it remains one of the least disaster-prepared nations globally.

Two major earthquakes in the last two years, one on Sep. 18, 2011 and the other on Oct. 5 of this year, have failed to spur the government into action.

Seismologists have warned that another big earthquake is imminent and disaster experts claim that the population of 30 million will grow more vulnerable on a daily basis unless authorities “wake up” to the dangers posed by such catastrophes.

“In our current situation, the consequences of (a) disaster will be out of control and unmanageable. We have to move fast,” Ganesh Kumar Jimee, disaster preparedness manager of the National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET), told IPS.

Experts are particularly concerned about the 1.5 million residents of Kathmandu city, an earthquake epicenter in which most school buildings, hospitals and government offices are not earthquake resistant.

Over 90 percent of residential buildings, designed by ordinary masons with no input from professional engineers, are considered unsafe.

School buildings suffer from the same problem with an estimated 60 percent of the city’s public schools “bound to collapse”, according to the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC).

The World Health Organisation says that hospitals, too, are highly vulnerable.

According to NSET, over 60 percent of hospitals are at risk of damage in the event of an earthquake measuring anything more than 7.0 on the Richter scale. Most of the country’s 70 blood banks are not earthquake-proof.

In addition, dozens of bridges will also be impacted, thus cutting off crucial supply routes in case of an emergency.

Organisations like NSET and the Nepal Red Cross Society (NCRS) claim that 90 percent of the city’s water pipes will be damaged and 40 percent of electricity lines and electric substations will be destroyed.

Furthermore, Nepal’s many radio stations, which play a vital role in communicating disaster-related bulletins, are unlikely to withstand the impact of an earthquake.

According to IRIN news, these 350 radio stations, 36 of which are located in Kathmandu, are crucial sources of information for the country’s population, 44 percent of which is illiterate and relies on non-print media.

Disregarding all the available data on the urgency of the situation, the government has yet to take serious action on earthquake preparedness.

A lackadaisical attitude towards legislation on preparedness is a major obstacle. A Disaster Management Act has been pending for many years due to political instability in the country.

The Act would help establish a comprehensive Disaster Management Authority that will comprise a professional team of disaster experts, rescue teams, financial resources and equipment.

As of now, the only legitimate body tasked with overseeing disasters like earthquakes consists of a handful of people working in a small disaster unit under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

“Hopefully (these steps) will be taken soon and people will take this issue much more seriously from a risk reduction perspective rather than (focusing on) post-disaster activity,” Man Thapa, programme manager of the disaster risk management team for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told IPS.

The UNDP is working with local municipalities and organising trainings for masons on how to construct earthquake-resistant buildings, which could “help save people’s lives”, said Thapa.

Kathmandu at risk

Kathmandu’s dense population of 1.5 million people packed into a metropolitan area of just over 50 square kilometres presents unique challenges.

The number of housing complexes has more than doubled over the last decade, further crowding the already congested city, according to experts.

Earthquakes are nothing new in Nepal, which has witnessed 16 major earthquakes since 1223. One of the most devastating quakes occurred in 1934, killing over 8,500 people in Kathmandu; another, in 1988, caused 721 deaths.

Given the current population explosion and a boom in unsafe, high-rise buildings, the scale of a similar disaster now is unimaginable.

NSET estimates that an earthquake measuring seven or eight on the Richter scale could destroy over 60 percent of the buildings, kill up to 50,000 people, injure 100,000 and render 900,000 homeless.

While awareness about the possibility of a disaster is high, very little is being done to retrofit houses, schools or even hospitals.

“People are still not paying serious attention to the information available,” Pitamber Aryal, disaster management director of the NRCS, told IPS.

When a 6.9 Richter scale earthquake occurred in northeast India on Sep. 18 last year, its impact was also felt in Kathmandu, causing widespread panic.

People began to flee the city in a chaotic manner, paying no attention to the safety tips that had been disseminated online and aired frequently through the city’s many local radios.

Fortunately, the brief earthquake took place at six in the evening, when all the offices and schools had already closed for the day.

“If it occurred during school or office hours, a lot of people would have been injured and killed as a result of the panic,” Jimee told IPS.

“That was a drill exercise for all the Kathmandu residents on how to act during a (disaster)…let’s hope they have learnt something,” he added.

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Mohamed Ceesay, a 20-year-old farmer from the Central River Region in the Gambia, is a high school dropout. But thanks to an initiative to discourage local youths from emigrating to Europe, he earns almost half the salary of a government minister from his rice harvest.

The Gambian government has provided farmers in 10 of the country’s most-vulnerable districts with inputs such as power tillers, tractors, rice threshers, seeders, sine hoes and bags of fertilisers. Credit: DW / Manuel Özcerkes/ CC by 2.0

“In July I harvested 20 hectares of rice fields on my own farm, and our association harvested 100 hectares across the Central River Region. We earn more than what our ministers are earning today,” he told IPS.

He earns 35,000 Gambian dalasi or 1,170 dollars every three months or so – half of what government ministers in this West African nation earn. Their monthly salaries are around 667 dollars, which amounts to almost 2,000 dollars over three months.

Ceesay is one of 50 young farmers from “Operation No Back Way to Europe”, an association founded in 2008 that aims to discourage youths from illegally emigrating.

Indeed, some of the young farmers in the organisation have attempted to enter Europe unlawfully, but they were deported back to the Gambia. Edrissa Sane, 23, is one of them.

“Before, I used to ask my family to help me go abroad in search of greener pastures. I have tried several times by voyaging by sea on a small boat to Spain. I did not succeed because we were arrested and deported back to the Gambia,” Sane said.

But since he joined “Operation No Back Way to Europe” he has no desire to make the dangerous and unlawful journey to Europe again.

“I earn more than 30,000 Gambia dalasi (about 1,000 dollars) in just a few months. That is enough for me, rather than voyaging across the sea to lose my life,” the rice farmer told IPS.

Edrissa said that he regretted not venturing into farming sooner as he now earned a good living.

The chairman of “Operation No Back Way to Europe”, Bubacarr Jabbi, told IPS that the association was working with the Immigration Department and the Gambia Police Force to reduce illegal emigration.

Over the years, more than 200 Gambian youths have died while crossing the seas to Europe. At one point, more than 600 youths a year were attempting to emigrate unlawfully. However, according to statistics from the Gambia Immigration Department, only 60 attempted the journey in 2010/2011.

“We believe in action and therefore urged other relevant stakeholders to come to the aid of the youth in order to inform them about the implications of illegal emigration,” Jabbi said.

One of their initiatives to keep young people in the Gambia has been youth farming. “Operation No Back Way to Europe” has young farmers across the country, in the Lower, Central and Upper River Regions.

On about 2,000 hectares of loaned government land, the 50 young farmers grow the New Rice for Africa (NERICA) variety known for its ability to grow in dry lands. An additional 1,000 hectares of government land has been loaned to other farmers across the country.

And as the 2012 harvest approaches this September, the organisation has promised that its farmers will have a bumper crop. It estimates that they will produce 4,500 tonnes of NERICA.

Currently, the country has only 100 registered rice farmers who produce between 10,000 and 15,000 tonnes of rice a year.

The Gambia, Africa’s smallest country in the Sahel zone, was in the midst of a food crisis last year when the government announced a national emergency in March after declaring the 2011 crop season a failure. At the time, about half the country’s 1.4 million people were affected by food insecurity.

According to a United Nations Development Programme report, the country experienced an almost 70 percent reduction in food production, with 19 of the country’s 39 rural districts being the most affected because of low rainfall. According to the report, rice production in the country fell by 74 percent.

The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization office in Banjul said that vulnerability to food insecurity would continue to rise in the country, especially among farmers who faced an early and protracted lean season because of decreased income and household food stocks.

In addition, the prices of basic food commodities have skyrocketed over the last year. Many here cannot afford to buy a 50-kilogramme bag of rice that now costs almost 33 dollars when it previously cost 20.

About 70 percent of the population in the Gambia rely on farming for their livelihoods. Agriculture, however, only contributes 32 percent of GDP. Although almost half the country’s 10,000 square kilometres is arable, only about one-fifth of the land, some 2,000 square kilometres, has been cultivated.

However, the government says that agriculture remains the prime sector with which to reduce poverty, generate investment and improve food security. And this is the reason why it wishes to see further investment in the sector.

According to the agricultural director of Central River Region, Ousman Jammeh, the success of young farmers from “Operation No Back Way to Europe” is thanks to the support of the Gambia Emergency Agricultural Production Project or GEAPP.

The European Commission-funded project, run by the Gambian government, has provided farmers in 10 of the country’s most-vulnerable districts with inputs such as power tillers, tractors, rice threshers, seeders, sine hoes and bags of fertilisers – all for free.

Jammeh told IPS that since some farmers in the Gambia had been supplied with proper farming inputs, their production levels for the 2012 harvest should increase. The GEAPP distributed 3,000 tonnes of fertilisers to 600 villages, 300 power tillers, 367 seeders, 367 sine hoes and 367 threshing machines, and 525 tonnes of seed.

“GEAPP has the objective, due to soaring food prices, to enhance agricultural production in the country’s most vulnerable villages by providing access to inputs and machinery, and through the rehabilitation of 35 village seed stores and 23 seed multiplication centres,” he said.

Ceesay, who only started farming last year, is one of the farmers expecting an increase in his crop yield. He estimated that he would have more than 300 50-kilogramme bags of rice from his harvest. Last year he produced 200.

“This year, we had all the farming materials and inputs in place ahead of time and used them. (Not having inputs) was our major problem that contributed to our poor season last year,” Ceesay said.

Widespread poverty in DRC means many households cannot afford school fees for their children. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman
KIKWIT, DR Congo, Jun 27 2012 (IPS)

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo is enjoying success with the remedial education centres set up to give children from underprivileged backgrounds a free education and vocational training.

Evodie Masenga is one of the 20,000 children at remedial education centres – known as CRS – who passed the final exam that marks the end of six years of primary school in DRC. The centres provide a special, accelerated programme for children between the ages of 9 and 11 who have had to leave school for one reason or another.

“CRS educators undergo about three months of training to learn the special methods applied at the centres,” said Mutshio Lumbwe, another specialist in non-formal education.

“It’s my third year here,” said 11-year-old Masenga, standing outside the Lukolela 1 CRS, one of several in the southwestern DRC city of Kikwit. “I can do math and read fluently. I’ve also gained knowledge of trades which could help me later in life.”

Widespread poverty in DRC means many households cannot afford school fees for their children. According to a 2008 United Nations Development Programme report, 70 percent of the population lives on less than one dollar a day.

Fabien Elameji Tshibanda is an unemployed commercial agent from Mbuji-Mayi, a city in the centre of the country, who often turns to farming to make ends meet.

“It’s been difficult for me to put my eight children through school,” he told IPS.

“My two children graduated from the CRS four years ago, and I didn’t have to pay a cent,” said Tshibanda. “The girl is now improving her skills as a tailor, working in a shop; the boy wants to become a carpenter.”

“The percentage of children not in school in DRC is 83.5 percent,” Robert Makonda, a specialist in non-formal education, told IPS. “There is also an increase in the number of children out of school after quitting due to failure or non-payment of school fees.”

It is one of the lowest enrolment rates in the world. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund(UNICEF), the East African country of Somalia, which has also been torn apart by decades of civil war, has an enrolment rate of 20 percent.

“The roughly 20,000 children who have just passed TENAFEP (the primary school exam) this year come from 840 CRSs around the country, compared to 12,470 children registered in the 700 centres that we had last year,” said Albert Ketho, director general for non-formal education at the Ministry for Social Affairs.

But Ketho said that material and financial assistance from partners like UNESCO, UNICEF and USAID are too limited to meet the centres’ needs.

“With 15 million dollars, we could educate 900,000 children every year. But the roughly 300,000 dollars which these partners make available is not nearly enough to support the CRS system in Congo…”

But, he added, the Congolese government itself has allocated only 125,000 dollars – less than 0.01 percent of its 2011 budget – to these educational institutions.

“These centres are simply upholding the right to education that all children should enjoy. This is in line with several international instruments for the protection of the child that have been ratified by DRC,” said Joseph Lukubu, coordinator of the Network for International Training in Human Rights for Sustainable Development in Africa, an NGO based in Kikwit.

But Arsène Ngondo, a member of Congolese civil society, wants many more CRSs to be opened in rural areas, saying “Why are there more remedial education centres in urban centres, while there are thousands of children in rural areas who don’t enjoy the same advantages?”

In the forest in Gbarpolu County, northwest Liberia, a group of men work on a surface gold mine unaware of the environmental impact their work has. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Travis Lupick
MONROVIA, Jun 15 2012 (IPS)

Deep in the forest in Gbarpolu County, northwest Liberia, a group of men working a surface gold mine are asked what will happen to the land when they are finished with it.

They laugh, and shoot each other confused glances.

Gbessay Musa, who says he left Sierra Leone in search of work three years ago, delivers a cheerful response.

“We will leave the place when there is nothing left,” he exclaims. “We will find another site where there is money. The land here, it will just be here.”

Happy for a break from digging under the day’s hot sun, the young men are in good spirits, and more laughter follows. Musa is asked if he cares about the land, or just his gold.

“The people down here, they are getting by,” he answers, not fully understanding the question; his only consideration is for the livelihoods of the men who work with him.

The miners’ indifference is understandable. After 14 years of civil conflict that only ended in 2003, opportunities for education and meaningful employment in Liberia remain limited. The war devastated this West African nation.

A March 2011 World Bank report  states that Liberia’s energy infrastructure was “completely demolished,” that piped water access fell from 15 percent in 1986 to less than three percent in 2008, and that the national road network was left in “a state of severe disrepair.”

To say that the government of Liberia has a number of competing priorities would be an understatement. It could easily share the attitude of the miners in Gbarpolu and forego concerns for the environment amid the rapid development of the country’s natural resources.

Yet ahead of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference for Sustainable Development scheduled for Jun. 20 to 22, the impoverished nation is leading a push out of Africa that calls for economic prosperity and environmental sensitivity, and asks that the two no longer be treated as mutually exclusive.

As executive director of the Liberia Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it is Anyaa Vohiri’s job to ensure that Liberia’s natural resources are managed in a sustainable manner. The task can be a challenge, she tells IPS.

“You’re looking at immediate needs. So my role at the EPA is to say, ‘Okay, yes, we need all of the economic benefits, but not in a way that shoots our self in the foot,’ ” Vohiri says.

On May 25, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf gave Vohiri’s office a major show of support.

Delivering the plenary address at the Summit for Sustainability in Africa  in Gaborone, Botswana, Sirleaf said that striking a balance between immediate needs and long-term sustainable development is a top priority. She warned that the continent must ensure it does not deplete its natural resources while trying to meet short-term needs. She also stressed that in order to plan and implement a sustainable economic future, policymakers must take the future into account.

“How do we ensure that our watersheds, forests, fisheries and other ecosystems are protected from overuse and degradation because we need one more hospital or one more school?” Sirleaf asked. “Development and conservation can go hand in hand, provided we develop a framework for action around a shared vision.”

At the end of the two-day summit the Gaborone Declaration  was drafted. It states that “urgent, concerted actions be undertaken to restore and sustain the ability of the Earth to support human communities…and thereby contribute to the prosperity of future generations.”

Vohiri says that the Gaborone Declaration will be carried to Rio+20 and defended there.

“What we give the world right now is our biodiversity,” she emphasises. “So if we do not get support for sustainably managing our ecosystem, we are in trouble. The world is in trouble.”

According to data supplied by the EPA, Liberia’s mean annual temperate is projected to rise between two and four degrees Celsius by 2100. An EPA presentation on climate change dated May 2012 lists key climate hazards for Liberia as increases in temperature, changes in rainfall patterns, tropical storms, and rising sea levels and coastal flooding.

An August 2010 United Nations Development Programme report  states that Liberia has already started to experience the effects of climate change, “which include reduced soil moisture, shifts in temperature, erratic rainfall and heat waves.” The document emphasises that 70 percent of Liberia’s labour force is employed in agriculture, and that that sector is the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

“This desk study revealed that the increase in heat intensity and erratic rainfall patterns could be symptoms of climate change which have an adverse effect on crop yields and livestock production beyond the impacts expected,” the document continues.

One of Liberia’s most outspoken advocates for climate change mitigation is Sieane Abdul-Baki, a special assistant to the Minister of Gender and Development. She says that specific attention needs to be given to the disproportionate impact that climate change is expected to have on women and children.

Abdul-Baki says that her hope for Rio+20 is to see strategies for sustainable development incorporate considerations for gender sensitivity. She notes that in developing countries, household tasks such as food production and the procurement of water are largely the responsibilities of women, and those are areas where the effects of climate change can most acutely be felt.

“Women usually make decisions when it comes to what kind of fuel they will use for lighting their homes,” Abdul-Baki says. “So they may be driving deforestation. But when you have them informed about the impacts of climate change, they may be able to change their attitudes. So when it comes to adaptation and mitigation, we have to build women’s capacity.”

Abdul-Baki concedes that at an international summit as big as Rio+20, the priorities of developing countries can be overlooked.

“The smaller countries, we usually align ourselves into groups, or blocs,” she says.

“Because when we put ourselves into groupings, our voices become louder than when we negotiate on an individual basis.”

Abdul-Baki notes that at Rio+20, Liberia will be participating in negotiations and workshops as part of several coalitions, including the Africa Group, the Group of 77 and China, and the Least Developed Countries Group.

Vohiri says that such stakeholders have the opportunity to do development right and in a way that is sustainable. But the support of the rest of the world is needed.

“Smaller countries may not feel that they have the power to make change,” Vohiri says. “That is why we have to be there, that is why we have to speak.”

Junior Toe (right) discusses farming techniques with a graduate of the community youth network programme's agriculture school. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Travis Lupick
MONROVIA, Jun 11 2012 (IPS)

With his gold chain, baseball cap, and baggy denim shorts, Junior Toe wears the uniform of Liberia’s urban youth. Spend just a few minutes with the young man and it is evident that he possesses the street smarts to match the look.

However, Toe’s area of expertise lies outside the city and on the farm.

“Look at the pepper seed there,” he says while touring a community farm not far from downtown Monrovia. “Put it in the ground, water it a few times, and you will make some money.”

Toe is the founder and executive director of the Community Youth Network Program (CYNP), which trains young people in agriculture and livestock farming.

“Over there, we have a nursery for cabbages,” he continues. “If you try and grow cabbage in the ground now, the rains will give it a hard time. This is the kind of knowledge we share.”

Food security and meaningful employment for Liberia’s youth have long been major challenges for this West African nation. Now, a number of community-based programmes and government initiatives are working to address both. Officials say they are hopeful that this is the start of a major shift in how young Liberians participate in the agricultural sector.

According to a 2010 report by the United Nations Development Programme, 30 percent of Liberia’s land is arable and close to 90 percent of crop areas receive adequate rain. Yet according to the Liberia Food Security Outlook report for 2012, 60 percent of the population is classified as “food insecure”.

Liberia’s agricultural sector was devastated by decades of mismanagement and war. In 1980, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe seized power in a coup and his rule, which ended 10 years later, was characterised by incompetent policies that hindered development.

In 1989, the country broke out in a civil war that continued sporadically until 2003. Those years saw warlord – and later, president – Charles Taylor plunder the country’s resources and fuel violence that killed 250,000 people. Even greater numbers fled Liberia or were repeatedly displaced.

According to a 2009 assessment by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), between 1987 and 2005 the production of the country’s staple food, rice, fell by 76 percent.

“Agricultural production has increased in recent years as the sector slowly recovers, but yields are still well below the regional average and food insecurity is high,” the document states, adding that Liberia still only produces roughly 40 percent of the rice it needs to feed its almost four million people.

Also affected by the conflict were Liberia’s youth, tens of thousands of whom were coerced into joining rebel factions when they were just boys and girls. Rehabilitation projects run by the U.N. attempted to reintegrate ex-combatants and victims of the war, but those programmes are now widely criticised as failures.

“I went through the disarmament process, through the one week of training,” Toe says, chuckling.

“But many people really never took advantage of that….The men were traumatised; they were used to the gun, used to money, and used to getting what they wanted fast.”

Toe says that after seeing the shortcomings of the rehabilitation programmes, he set out to launch his own, one that would be better suited to Liberia. He reasoned that with fertile soil and a warm and wet climate, agriculture was the way to go. So he founded the CYNP in 2007.

The organisation now has a training centre in Bensonville, Montserrado County (roughly an hour’s drive northeast of Monrovia). In the county, land is divided into eight farms where former trainees and partners manage plots on either their own property or on community land. The Young Farmers Forum keeps participants connected and works to create awareness and attract new recruits.

Crucial to CYNP’s success, and what sets it apart from the U.N.’s past work with ex-combatants, is an emphasis on ownership. “We work with you to develop your own project in your community where you manage it,” Toe says.

According to Toe, there are currently around 100 youths enrolled in six-month long programmes at the Bensonville facility, and as many as 500 graduates are now farming in communities around Montserrado.

A number of those graduates can be found working a plot of unused government land in the Fiamah neighbourhood of Monrovia. Alfred Kapehe says that CYNP helped him progress from subsistence agriculture to smallholder commercial farming. Likewise, James Paylay says the small farm he keeps brings in enough money for him to rent a home, feed his family, and pay his children’s school fees.

“Everything comes from the garden,” Paylay says.

Liberian Deputy Minister for Youth Development Sam Hare acknowledged an often-cited USAID (the U.S. government agency providing economic and humanitarian assistance) statistic indicating that just three percent of Liberian youths are interested in farming. But, in an interview with IPS, he maintains that the situation is changing.

“Agriculture has been identified as the key to breaking the youth unemployment challenge,” he says.

“We have been working with the Ministry of Agriculture and other stakeholders to make people see that agriculture, viewed in the right perspective, is a tool for wealth.”

Hare says that the challenge is to convince young people that they can take farming beyond a subsistence level and make a commercial enterprise of it.

“Our vocational training priorities now need to be redefined and restructured to meet the real needs of Liberia. And youth and agriculture should be the focus,” he adds.

Joseph Boiwu, a FAO programme officer for Liberia, says that another impediment slowing youths’ entry into agriculture is the labour-intensive nature of the work. To address this problem the FAO and partners distributed 24 power tillers to small groups of farmers in Bong, Lofa, and Nimba counties in 2010.

“We’re going to now reassess the interest of the youth,” Boiwu says. If the initiative is deemed a success, it could grow to include heavy machinery such as tractors.

Prince Sampson, head of Youth for Development and Progressive Action in Bong County in north-central Liberia, describes a programme his organisation runs that is similar to the CYNP’s. Like Toe, he says that he learned from the mistakes of post-war workshops that failed to make long-term investments in people.

“The ex-combatants had training in carpentry, masonry, and other skills,” Sampson says.

“And then after that, there wasn’t anything substantial for them to do. You had them trained, and then they didn’t have a source of income. So they went back to square one.”

Sampson, who has worked with war-affected youth since 1992, maintains that agriculture is different because there is an element of immediate responsibility.

“The guys…They eat the very rice they grow. The vegetables are sold, the proceeds are divided among them, and they have some cash for their pockets.”

Sampson describes the importance of involving the country’s former combatants in agriculture as a matter of food security.

“We make them understand the usefulness of the years still ahead, in spite of the years that were wasted during the war,” he says.

“We let them understand that the strength they had – their youthful exuberance – can still be harnessed.”

*Additional reporting from Al-Varney Rogers in Monrovia.

(END)

As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Friday the appointments of two of his most senior officials, he has also broken new ground in his global search for a new team: an advertisement in a British weekly calling for applicants for vacant high-ranking jobs in the Secretariat.

Sussana Malcorra of Argentina has been appointed as the secretary-general's new chief of staff. Credit:UN Photo/Mark Garten

But the ad in the current issue of the Economist is confined to only four senior posts in the Secretariat: the under-secretaries general (USG) for public information; management; economic and social affairs; and general assembly and conference management.

“Advertising available posts in the Economist is not new,” Samir Sanbar, a former assistant secretary-general and head of the department of public information, told IPS. “But advertising USG posts is new.”

“A decision to advertise USG posts seems to be a move in the right direction, as long as the final decision remains really with the secretary-general, who is the only accountable official selected by the Security Council and elected by the General Assembly,” said Sanbar, who has served under five different secretaries-general.

Although the advertisement gives the impression that Ban is being transparent in his appointments, he has named several new officials without recourse to advertising, including the two he announced Friday: Jan Eliasson of Sweden, a former president of the General Assembly, as the new deputy secretary-general, and Sussana Malcorra of Argentina, the former USG for Field Support, as the new chief of staff.

At a press briefing Friday, Ban said his four USG appointments (spelled out in the ad) will be “open and public nominations”.

However, a former senior U.N. official who served under Kofi Annan was sceptical of the ad, even though he said it was the right move.

Speaking off the record, he told IPS, “Why the selectiveness (in advertising only four of the posts)? Why not others, like (the USG) for the Office of Disarmament Affairs (ODA) and even the USG for Political Affairs?”

He questioned why the posts of deputy secretary general and chief of staff were also not advertised.

“This is – as far as I know – the first time USG posts have been advertised and it is to be welcomed as a transition towards transparency and open competition for the second tier jobs in the United Nations,” he said.

“It will hopefully replace the back-room horse-dealing among great powers and regional groups for key slots where interest groups and not genuine talent was the determining factor,” he noted.

The downside is the delay in getting this process under way and the gap between the departure of the old order and the arrival of the new, with negative consequences in the U.N. administration, he added.

The secretary-general has so far announced several new appointments – both USGs and assistant secretaries general (ASGs) – without recourse to any advertising.

But he did write to the 193 member states asking for nominations for some of the vacant posts prompted by his decision to ask all senior officials to resign if they have completed five years of service.

Ban, who began his second five-year term in January, has said he wants a new team of officials to work with.

The three criteria for appointments are merit; gender, with preference being given to women provided they have the right qualifications; and geographical balance.

The USG posts that will fall vacant (and not advertised) include the Office for Disarmament Affairs, the special representative for children and armed conflict, head of political affairs, and the special adviser for prevention of genocide.

Sanbar told IPS that it was generally felt that the secretary-general should have the discretion – and the wisdom – to select his team from as wide a geographical and political representation as feasible.

“I recall when serving on the U.N.’s Appointment and Promotion Board in the late 1980s representing the staff we asked the then- Personnel Director Kofi Annan (later secretary-general) to advertise more widely externally available posts and to invite more participation from all regional/cultural backgrounds.

“And when I chaired the Board (which Annan later abolished) from 1993-1997, we particularly focused on (advertising in) the Economist, the Financial Times and using U.N. Information Offices for relevant regional media, hoping to attract the attention of more young intellectuals worldwide,” he added.

Historically, successive secretaries-general have been under pressure either from major donors or the big five powers – the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia – for some of the plum posts in the Secretariat.

And virtually all secretaries-general have caved in to outside pressure.

Asked if the advertisement was a cover for appointments already decided, Sanbar said, “Even if it is maybe in certain cases a cover for some appointments already decided, the momentum generated by such an open process could help break down long- imposed barriers.”

Like any new precedent, he said, it could be either a liberating card to strengthen the hand of the secretary-general or a wild Joker card that could be used by others to tie his hands.

“It depends on who would be the dealer – and whether it turns out to be bridge or baccarat,” said Sanbar.

Meanwhile, Ban also announced last week several new ASGs: Kate Gilmore of Australia, as one of the two deputy executive directors of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA); Sima Sami Bahous of Jordan as assistant administrator and director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States at the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP); Jens Wandel of Denmark as UNDP assistant administrator and director of the bureau of management; and Ayse Cihan Sultanogu of Turkey as UNDP assistant administrator and director of the Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

(END)

By Mekonnen Teshome and Miriam Gathigah
ADDIS ABABA , Feb 21 2012 (IPS)

Ethiopia says that the double-digit economic growth the country has experienced over the last seven years has started benefitting its majority by boosting their income and productivity in agriculture and small-scale businesses.

While the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank state that the country has registered 8.7 percent GDP growth, the government claims the economy has grown by 11.4 percent.

However, the country was declared the second-fastest growing economy in Africa for 2011, after Ghana, in the annual economic report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

In the past, Ethiopia has made headlines for recording some of the worst famine situations in Africa, and for its poor health indicators – it has posted one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. In 2005, 871 women died per 100,000 live births.

But this is slowly changing as the government has made progress in the provision of social services such as health, education and infrastructure.

“In 2010, Ethiopia continued to register the fast growth, as it has for the last five years. GDP growth in 2010 remained strong at 8.8 percent. Growth is driven by the service sector (14.5 percent), followed by the industrial (10.2 percent) and agricultural (six percent) sectors,” the ECA report indicated.

In an exclusive interview with IPS, State Minister of the Office of Government Communication Affairs, Alemayehu Ejigu, said Ethiopia has registered remarkable growth by increasing major crop production from 11.9 percent in 2005 to 18.08 percent by the end of 2010. People’s lives are changing for the better in rural and urban areas because of health facilities and infrastructure development, he said.

Ejigu attributed the success to the effective implementation of the national five-year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP). He said that the country’s GTP for 2011 to 2016 would help Ethiopia join the grouping of middle-income countries.

Ejigu also told IPS that the government planned job creation opportunities through the construction of 73,000 kilometres of rural roads. “This would create an opportunity for farmers to easily transport agricultural products to market,” Ejigu said.

Abeba Bezu, an economic affairs consultant in Addis Ababa, said that under the country’s ambitious Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty government had reduced poverty from 38.7 percent in 2005 to 31 percent five years later.

“Although struggling with a large population estimated to be 82 million people, making it the second-most populous country in Sub-Saharan Africa, there has been significant progress towards improving livelihoods. There is notable development.”

However, assistant Professor Teshome Adugna at the Economics Department of the Ethiopian Civil Service University cautioned that as GDP considers the market value of goods and services, it cannot be a perfect instrument to show the country’s actual growth, given Ethiopia’s poor record handling and management systems.

“Since the GDP reporting does not provide information on who produces how much, it is difficult to know how individual citizens benefit from the reported growth,” he said.

Adugna described Ethiopia’s growth as “broad-based”, which he attributed to the growth of the agricultural, industrial and service sectors.

“Of course, we should not expect urban unemployment to end very shortly,

“I can say that many people are benefiting from the economic growth in Ethiopia, but I would not say that the life of the majority has improved. We need time to bring about social development that can change the lives of the majority.”

Ten years ago, only two thirds of Ethiopians had access to healthcare services, leaving another 68 million people across the expansive rural areas in dire need.

“Since 2004, the Ministry of Health has expanded access to healthcare through the Health Extension Programme (HEP), which targets the rural population,” said Amanuel Ayalew, a volunteer health worker in northern Ethiopia.

As a result, Ethiopia’s country report by the Department for International Development (DFID), the United Kingdom’s government department responsible for promoting development and poverty reduction, revealed that the impact of the health programme is notable since HEP reaches nine million households. DFID will spend an average of 524 million dollars per year in Ethiopia until 2015.

With more than 35 million insecticide-treated bed nets for malaria, there has been a 73 percent reduction in malaria cases. This, coupled with a massive and consistent vaccination programme for children under five against killer diseases, has seen deaths in that age group reduced by a significant 62 percent in villages with access to HEP.

There are now about 1.4 million more women on contraceptives than there were in 2005, and the gross primary school enrolment rate has risen from 91.3 to 96 percent between 2005 and 2010.

However, challenges remain.

“In spite of a constituent economic growth of double digits in the last five years with economic analysts projecting a similarly impressive growth, sustainable growth and poverty reduction remains a challenge,” Bezu said.

A majority of rural poor are still grappling with severe climate change and are still highly susceptible to drought.

It is a situation that government partially acknowledges. “When we say the country is growing it does not mean that every citizen has no problem…even in the United States there are people who are provided with food aid,” Ejigu said. He, however, added that no one would die of starvation as there would be no food shortages in the country.

It is a view that the leader of the opposition Ethiopian Democratic Party, Mushe Semu, does not agree with.

“Ethiopia is a country where many citizens are starved. It is not a question of having food two or three times a day,” Semu told IPS.

He said it was impossible for Ethiopia to become a middle-income country. “When we think of the majority of the Ethiopian population we are talking about our farmers and rural communities that are 85 percent of the people. Here, the land management and fertility should be considered,” he said.

He said that without effectively distributing all arable land to people, and with the prevailing land degradation, it was not possible to bring about development.

The country is not conducive for private sector growth, analysts say.

The newly completed African Union building in downtown Addis Ababa. Credit: Mekonnen Teshome/IPS

“Although the government envisions a private sector led development, the environment is not conducive for the growth of the private sector. In fact, private investment as a percentage of GDP has remained on the decline since 2004,” Bezu said.

In a World Bank global survey dubbed Ease of Doing Business, in 2010 and 2011 Ethiopia ranked 103 and 104 respectively out of 183 countries.

But meanwhile, civil servant Abiy Getahun said that the double-digit economic growth repeatedly propagated by the government media has not yet brought the desired social development to his life. He cited the low wages paid in Ethiopia, which, according to him, are low compared to the rest of Africa. In the 2011 U.N. Development Programme’s Human Development Report Ethiopia ranks 174 out of 187 countries worldwide.

He said that most people, especially urban dwellers, could not withstand the skyrocketing price of good and services.

“The total salary increment I got over the last 10 years is only 400 Ethiopian Birr (less than 25 dollars) while the price of goods and services has risen in an unbelievable manner.”

* Additional reporting by Miriam Gathigah in Nairobi.

(END/2012)

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