In addition to being the caretakers of sacred forests, the Mijikenda community in southern Kenya practice agriculture and engage in livestock rearing. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
KAYA KINONDO, Kenya, Jun 23 2015 (IPS)

Travel into the heart of Kenya’s southern Coast Province, nearly 500 km from the capital city of Nairobi, and you will come across one of the planet’s most curious World Heritage Sites: the remains of several fortified villages, revered by the indigenous Mijikenda people as the sacred abodes of their ancestors.

"If you have evil intentions within this forest, a curse will befall you and we believe that you may not even come out alive.” -- Rashid Bakari, a member of Kenya's Mijikenda community
Known locally as ‘kaya’, these forested sites date back to the 16^th century, when a migration of pastoral communities from present-day Somalia is believed to have led to the creation of several villages covering roughly 200 km across this province’s low-lying hills.

Having thrived for centuries, developing their own language and customs, the kayas began to disintegrate around the early 20^th century as famine and fighting took hold.

Today, although uninhabited, the kayas continue to be worshipped as repositories of ancient beliefs and practices.

Thanks to careful nurturing by the Mijikenda people, the groves and graves in the kayas are all that remains of what was once an extensive coastal lowland forest.

But they are under threat.

The discovery in the last three years of large deposits of rare earth minerals in this region has marked the kaya forests out as targets for extraction, development and displacement of the indigenous population.

As property developers and resource explorers eye these ancient lands, locals are squaring off for a fight in what the World Bank has called one of the fastest-growing economies in sub-Saharan Africa.

‘Bound to our forests’

Mnyenze Abdalla Ali, a representative of the Kaya Kinondo Council of Elders, which represents a kaya forest in Kwale County at the southern-most tip of the province, tells IPS that the Mijikenda people “consider themselves culturally and spiritually bound to their forests.”

Numbering some 1.9 million people, according to the most recent census, the Mijikenda community comprises nine distinct tribes who nevertheless share a language and culture.

Each tribe has its own unique kaya, which simply refers to ‘home’ or to a village built in a forest clearing, Ali explains.

Because the forests are believed to hold the secrets and spirits of ancestors passed, the community is vigilant about their protection. According to one resident of Kaya Kinondo, Hamisi Juma, “Nothing can be taken out of the forest – not even a fallen twig can be used as firewood in our homes.”

She tells IPS that forest debris is only used during rituals and traditional ceremonies, “when we slaughter goats and use twigs to lit the fire. This happens within the forest and only for the purposes of the ritual.”

As a result, some 50 kayas spread throughout Kwale County, Mombasa County and Kilifi County in the Coast Province are home to an exceptionally high level of biodiversity.

Kenya’s own ministry of environment, water and natural resources has declared the region a biodiversity hotspot and pledged to allocate the necessary funds and resources to its protection.

But it is more than just a rich ecological belt.

The local community carefully tends to the outskirts of kaya forests, which also serve as the ancient burial grounds of their ancestors, nurturing a diverse ecosystem that is home to rare plant and bird species. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

When the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) decided to add the kaya forests to its prestigious World Heritage List of over 1,000 protected sites back in 2008, it referred to the area as “an outstanding example of traditional human settlement […] which is representative of a unique interaction with the environment.”

UNESCO also noted that the kaya represent a “fundamental source of the Mijikenda people’s sense of ‘being-in-the-world’ and of place within the cultural landscape of contemporary Kenya.”

Furthermore, the forests are highly prized as a repository of medicinal plants and herbs, according to Eunice Adhiambo, project manager at Ujamaa Centre, a non-governmental organisation founded on the philosophy of “building social capital, not capital accumulation” as put forward by Tanzania’s first independent leader, Julius Nyerere.

Dedicated to empowering exploited communities in Kenya, the Ujamaa Centre supports the Mijikenda’s struggle to preserve these “unblemished and very unique landscapes”, Adhiambo tells IPS.

“Although kaya forests constitute about five percent of the remaining closed-canopy forest cover of Kenya’s coast, 35 percent of the highest conservation-value sites are found here,” she adds.

“If developers have their way,” she says, “we will lose so much of the richness that Mother Nature has given us. We have the responsibility of conserving this gift because we cannot buy it anywhere.”

But not all residents of this country of 20 million people share this view – particularly not economists, investors and policymakers keen to realise a forecasted economic growth rate increase from 5.4 percent in 2014 to six or seven percent over the 2015-2017 period.

Rare earth minerals – a tempting opportunity

Kenya’s profile as a potential top rare earth minerals producer rose significantly when, in 2012, mineral explorer Cortec Mining Kenya Ltd. announced it had found deposits worth 62.4 billion dollars.

At the time, the mineral exploration company planned to sink between 160 million and 200 million dollars into a drilling operation at its Mrima Hill prospect, also home to kaya forests.

The corporation projected initial output of 2,900 to 3,600 tonnes of niobium, an element used in high-temperature alloys for special kinds of steel, such as is used in the production of gas pipelines, cars and jet engines.

Experts estimated the deposit at Mrima Hill to be the sixth largest in the world, with a mine life of 16-18 years.

Fully exploited, it would put Kenya among the ranks of the major niobium exporters; in 2012, Brazil accounted for 95 percent of the world’s combined annual niobium production of 100,000 tonnes, while Canada followed at a distant second place.

As environmental groups and civil society organisations concerned about the impact of mining on sensitive ecological and cultural sites mounted a huge challenge, the government revoked an initial 21-year license granted to the company – though it did not cite environmental causes for its decision.

In early 2015, the government upheld a court decision to revoke the license, and announced plans to bring mineral exploration under state control.

On Mar. 20, Mining Minister Najib Balala stated in a press release, “Not […] Cortec or any other company will be allowed to do exploration at Mrima. It will be handled on behalf of the people of Kenya and especially the people of Mrima and Kwale County as a whole.”

This news has not, however, been met with much optimism from indigenous communities, who continue to view Kenya’s ambitious economic development agenda with trepidation.

Both the extractive and real estate sectors have emerged as major drivers of the country’s growth in the coming decade, and deposits of rare earth minerals could be a huge boon for the country.

Ernst & Young say demand for rare earth minerals is rising, with their market share estimated at between four and six billion dollars in 2015.

While China currently meets 90 percent of global demand, Kenya – along with other African nations like Somalia, Tanzania, Mozambique and Namibia – could crack the Asian giant’s monopoly.

In addition, discoveries of oil and natural gas in 2013 in Turkana County, on Kenya’s border with South Sudan, together with news that explorers had tapped into titanium deposits along the 500-km coastline, re-ignited fears of massive encroachment and destruction of kaya forests.

According to Kenya’s 2015 National Economic Survey, “The overall value of mineral production rose by 6.1 percent to stand at KSh 20.9 billion [about 212 million U.S. dollars] from KSh 19.8 billion [201 million U.S. dollars] in 2013, mainly on account of production of Titanium ore.”

The Ujamaa Centre says that some indigenous communities are beginning to give in to the pressures of extractive industries and the lure of quick money from real estate developers.

Kaya Chivara, located in Kilifi County, for instance, is completely degraded as a result of human encroachment, while others – particularly those in mineral-rich Kwale Country – are at high risk.

“Imminent niobium extraction will certainly degrade the forest,” Ujamaa’s Adhiambo predicts, stressing that the Mijikenda people are now poised to play a major role in halting any potentially destructive development.

‘A curse or a blessing’

So far, despite developers of all stripes hungering after the land – with some property developers even buying up tracts that encroach into protected areas – Kaya Kinondo remains in safe hands.

Some kaya forests, particularly in Kilifi County in Kenya’s Coast Province, have been heavily degraded due to extractive industries. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

The Council of Elders has been vigilant about protection of the forest, and the community has fallen back on their belief in powerful rituals to ward off bad omens.

Mijikendas say that two pillars govern the spirit of the kaya forests: either a curse or a blessing.

Rashid Bakari, a kaya guide who works with youth from the community to bring visitors into the forests, tells IPS, “If you have evil intentions within this forest, a curse will befall you and we believe that you may not even come out alive.”

For those who do not subscribe to his convictions, the Kenyan constitution is also proving to be a source of protection, with Article 44 providing for community participation in the resolution of disputes over customary land.

The Ujamaa Collective, which works to enhance popular participation in socio-economic processes and supports community based decision-making and governance, believes the government must be held accountable to these clauses.

Adhiambo also tells IPS that her organisation is “encouraging communities to work with the local governments to help them preserve what is left of their natural heritage.”

She says that community discussions with Josephat Chirema of the County Assembly Committee of Culture and Development has borne fruit, with the committee member promising to introduce debate in the Kwale County Assembly to establish and obtain detailed information about kayas – and the need to work with indigenous communities for their preservation.

Now, caretakers of several other kayas are working closely with the Kaya Kinondo Council of Elders, for lessons on how to salvage what is left of their hallowed heritage.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

This article is part of a special series entitled ‘The Future Is Now: Inside the World’s Most Sustainable Communities’. Read the other articles in the series here

This reporting series was conceived in collaboration with Ecosocialist Horizons

A child stands outside a classroom at a rural school in Nicaragua. Credit: Oscar Navarrete /IPS

By Valentina Ieri
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 2015 (IPS)

Despite commitments by the international community to achieve universal primary education by 2015, funds for education have been decreasing over the past ten years, according to a report released Friday by the global advocacy campaign ‘A World at School’.

Figures from a Donor Scorecard show that nine of the top 10 donor governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France, have been reducing their aid since 2010. Norway is the only major donor that showed a five-percent increase in education funding over the past four years.

The scorecard will be presented on the first day of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s spring meetings, scheduled to run from Apr. 17-19 in Washington DC, to highlight the need for international financial institutions (IFIs) to target their funds towards nations with the most number of out-of-school children, and specifically towards hard to reach populations.

According to the report, “In 2011, the bank provided 20 percent — the smallest share — of its total aid to basic education to low-income countries. More than 70 percent of funding went to countries with less than 20 percent of the out-of-school population.

Sarah Brown, co-founder of A World at School, remarked that it is “unacceptable” that aid for basic education has fallen every year since 2010, which means that “just when leaders should have been stepping up to achieve the 2015 target, they were pulling back.”

According to the Donor Scorecard, while investments in health have risen by 58 percent, those in education have fallen by 19 percent.

The report comes in the wake of worldwide “attacks” on education in 2014 and 2015, with war, conflict and terrorism destroying schools and interrupting the education of thousands of school going kids in places like Kenya, Pakistan, Syria, the Central African Republic and Gaza. The kidnapping of students in Nigeria and South Sudan are also major causes for concern.

According to a report released recently by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), about 58 million children are out of schools, and 100 million children do not complete primary education.

The UNESCO document also says education is still under-financed, affecting the poorest children, as many governments are not prioritising education as part of their national budgets.

There is an annual financing gap of 22 billion dollars over the 2015-2030 period for achieving quality pre-primary, primary and lower secondary education in lower- and middle-income countries, the report stated.

Campaigners with A world at School are calling for concrete aid strategies for basic education, which include the creation of a humanitarian fund for financing education in emergencies, and increasing aid initiatives for children in war-torn countries.

As Brown explained, “It is crucial that we reverse the decline in funding for education. The alternative is leaving 58 million children behind, particularly those hit hardest by conflict and emergencies, such as Syrian refugees and children out of school in countries affected by Ebola.”

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Community radio stations in Bangladesh provide newscasters the opportunity to discuss topics of relevance to rural women. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By Naimul Haq
DHAKA, Apr 8 2015 (IPS)

Judging by how often they make headlines, one might be tempted to believe that women in Bangladesh don’t play a major role in this country’s affairs.

A recent media monitoring survey by the non-governmental organisation Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha (BNPS) revealed that out of 3,361 news items studied over a two-month period, “Only 16 percent of newspaper stories, 14 percent of television news [items], and 20 percent of radio news [items] considered women as subjects or interviewed them.”

“Most of our audience are poor and they either don’t have access to television or cannot read newspapers. So FM radio, available even on the cheapest mobile phone, has been very popular." -- Sharmin Sultana, a news anchor for Radio Pollikontho in northeastern Bangladesh
Fewer than eight percent of all the stories had women as the central focus. Of the few women who actually made an appearance on the TV screen, 97 percent were reading out the news, while just three percent fell into the category of ‘reporters’.

Only 0.03 percent of all bylined stories studied during that period carried a woman’s name.

The monitoring report found that even though more women appeared in photographs than men, they were quoted far fewer times, proving the old proverb that, in this country of 157 million people, women are still “seen and not heard.”

While these statistics might seem daunting, women across the country who are not content to sit by and wait for the situation to change have taken matters into their own hands. They are doing so by getting on the airwaves and using the radio as a tool to raise the voices of women and bring rural issues into the limelight.

Women comprise 49 percent of Bangladesh’s population. Like the vast majority of people here they are concentrated in rural areas, where 111.2 million people – or 72 percent of the population – live.

Their distance from policy-making urban centres casts a double cloak of invisibility over women: according to data gleaned from the BNPS study, a mere 12 percent of newspaper articles, seven percent of TV news items and just five percent of radio stories focused on rural or remote areas – even though urban areas cover just eight percent of this vast country’s landmass, and host just 28 percent of the population.

The absence of women and women’s issues in the media is a dangerous trend in a country that ranked 142^nd out of 187 states in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s most recent Gender Inequality Index (GII), making Bangladesh one of the worst performers in the Asia-Pacific region.

Yet, even this is not mentioned in the news: the BNPS study showed that less than one percent of over 3,000 news items surveyed made any mention of gender inequality, while only 11 news stories challenged prevailing gender stereotypes.

Given that Bangladesh has an extremely low literacy rate of 59 percent compared to the global average of 84.3 percent, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the importance of radio cannot be underestimated.

Even in a nation where 24 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, radio is a widespread, relatively affordable means of plugging into the world, and is extremely popular among the millions of rural families that comprise the bulk of this country.

Lifting the voices of rural women

Momena Ferdousi, a 24-year-old student hailing from Bangladesh’s northwestern Chapai Nawabganj District, is one of the country’s up-and-coming radio professionals.

More and more women in Bangladesh are turning to community radio as a means of spreading awareness on women’s issues. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

She is the senior programme producer for Radio Mahananda, a community radio station launched in 2011 that caters primarily to the thousands of farming families in this agricultural region that comprises part of the 7,780-square-km Barind Tract.

She tells IPS she would not be where she is today without the support and training she, and scores of other aspiring female radio workers, received from the Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC).

Fellowships and capacity-building initiatives sponsored by BNNRC have resulted in a flood of women filling the posts of producers, anchors, newscasters, reporters and station managers in 14 regional community radio stations around the country.

“The road to my employment was challenging,” Ferdousi explains, “but BNNRC saw the potential in me and [other] female journalists and I believe we have made substantial changes by addressing gaps in women’s right to information.”

Miles away, the confident voice of Sharmin Sultana on Radio Pollikontho, broadcast in the northeastern district of Moulvibazar, reaches roughly 400,000 people spread over a 17-km radius.

With five hours of daily programming that focus largely on issues relevant to rural women, Radio Pollikontho has filled a huge gap in this community.

“It is an amazing feeling to conduct a programme, interact live with guests and respond to our audience’s requests to discuss health, women’s rights, social injustice, education and agriculture,” Sultana tells IPS. “When we began we had only one programme on women’s issues, now we run five programmes weekly, exclusively dedicated to women.”

“Most of our audience are poor,” she explains, “and they either don’t have access to television or cannot read newspapers. So FM radio, available even on the cheapest mobile phone, has been very popular and the demand for interactive live programmes is increasing by the day.”

The difficulties facing women here in Bangladesh are legion.

Only 16.8 million women are employed in the formal sector, with the vast majority of them performing unpaid domestic labour on top of their duties in the farm or field.

A lack of financial independence makes them extremely vulnerable to domestic violence: a recent study by the deputy director of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) found that 87 percent of currently married women have experienced physical violence at the hands of their husbands, while 98 percent say they have been sexually ‘violated’ by their spouses at some point during marriage.

The survey also revealed that one-third of all married women faced ‘economic abuse’ – the forcible withholding of a partner’s financial assets for the purpose of maintaining financial dependence on the perpetrator of violence.

In 2011, 330 women were killed in dowry-related violence.

Other issues, like child marriage, also make pressing news bulletins for community radio stations directed at women: according to United Nations data, some 66 percent of Bangladeshi girls are married before their 18^th birthday.

The situation is bleak, but experts say that as women become educated and aware of their rights, the tide will inevitable turn for the better.

BNNRC Chief Executive Officer A H M Bazlur Rahman, who pioneered rural radio broadcasting efforts around the country, tells IPS, “Issues like budget allocation, lack of appropriate sanitation, violence against women, fighting corruption, [and] education for girls are [often] neglected by policy makers. But if we can give women a voice, these problems [will] gradually disappear.”

It remains to be seen whether or not more women’s voices on the air will uplift the half of Bangladesh’s population in need of empowerment. But every time a woman’s voice crackles to life on a radio show, it means one more woman out there is hearing her story, learning her rights and moving closer to equality.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

The lead author of a United Nations water report has spoken out about media depictions of his findings, denying the report lays out a “doom and gloom” scenario.

The United Nations World Water Development Report 2015, released on Mar. 20 in conjunction with World Water Day, lays out a number of troubling findings.

The report predicts a world water shortage of 40 percent by 2050, largely due to a forecasted 55-percent rise in water demand, spurred by increased industrial demands.

It is estimated 20 percent of the world’s aquifers are over-exploited, and that shortages may lead to increased local conflicts over access to water. Water problems may also mean increased inequality and barriers to sustainable development.

Despite the grim outlook, the report’s lead author, Richard Connor, laid out a different picture at the U.N. headquarters in New York Monday.

“Most of the media attention [on the report] has focused on one message, a bit of a doom and gloom message, that there is a looming global water crisis,” Connor told a U.N. press briefing.

“The report is not a gloom doom report. It has a road map to avoid this global water deficit.”

Connor conceded, “[If] we don’t change how we do things, we will be in trouble,” but found many positives in the report.

Much of the report focuses on how institutional and policy frameworks can, and must, protect and promote water security.

“The fact is there is enough water available to meet the world’s growing needs, but not without dramatically changing the way water is used, managed and shared,” the report stated.

“The global water crisis is one of governance, much more than of resource availability, and this is where the bulk of the action is required in order to achieve a water secure world.”

Technology to improve water sanitation, recycling and efficiency is outlined as a major pathway to ensuring water security, to ensure water is used and reused as effectively as possible.

Rainwater harvesting, wastewater reuse, and more effective water storage facilities to safeguard against the effects of climate change are also detailed as important areas for investment.

On a government level, financing for water projects is also envisioned as a key component in a water secure future.

“The benefits of investments in water greatly outweigh the costs,” Connor said.

Also speaking at the briefing was Bianca Jimenez, director of hydrology for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

She too called the report “positive,” but stressed that swift action was needed to avoid catastrophic water shortages.

“This calls for greater determination from all stakeholders involved, to take responsibility and take initiative in this crucial moment,” Jimenez said.

The U.N. is currently reviewing progress made in the implementation of the International Decade of Action ‘Water For Life’, which ran from 2005 to 2015.

Follow Josh Butler on Twitter at @JoshButler

Nasreen Jehan, a high school student in eastern India, studies a leaflet on menstrual hygiene. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
BETTIAH, India, May 28 2014 (IPS)

Fifteen-year-old Nasreen Jehan, a student in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, proudly flaunts a yellow and red beaded bracelet encircling her wrist. This humble accessory, she tells IPS, is her most treasured possession.

“It helps me keep track of my menstrual calendar,” says the 9^th-grader, who attends a government-run, all-girls school in a town called Bettiah. “Also, it helps me talk about menstruation with my friends.”

Of the 24 small beads that comprise the delicate adornment, six are read, symbolising the days of her monthly period. Jehan made the bracelet herself at a menstrual hygiene workshop in Bettiah last year, organised by Nirmal Bharat Yatra (NBY) – a nationwide sanitation campaign spearheaded by the Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).

Educators at the workshop talked Jehan and her peers through the biological process of menstruation, offering tips on how to properly wash and dry menstrual cloths if sanitary napkins are unavailable.

“My mother and my aunt never stepped out of the house when they had their periods. That was our family tradition." -- Soumya Selvi, a 10th-grader in southern India
Finally, they gave Jehan the most important message of all: that menstruation is just as natural as hunger or sweating, and that there is nothing to be ashamed or afraid of.

It is rudimentary advice, but crucial in a country like India, where menstruation has long been perceived as a social taboo. In many parts of the country, a woman on her period becomes essentially “untouchable” – banned from cooking, handling water or entering places of worship.

According to a study undertaken by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) back in 2012, some 225 million adolescent girls attend one of the 1.37 million schools spread across the country. Of them, roughly 66 percent have no knowledge of menstruation before they reach puberty.

A full 88 percent of these girls do not have access to what the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) calls WASH facilities: water, sanitation and hygiene, including soap or sanitary supplies.

According to data compiled by AC Nielsen in 2011, the average Indian adolescent girl (between the ages of 12 and 18) misses 50 days of school a year as a result of inadequate facilities, or a lack of awareness of menstruation. Some 23 percent of all schoolgirls – over 50 million in total – drop out of school altogether once they hit puberty.

Of India’s roughly 335 million women, a mere 12 percent have access to sanitary napkins.

Because the subject is seldom discussed, even among families, peers or community members, many women resort to extremely unsanitary options during their period, including the use of unsanitised cloth, ashes or sand. Reproductive tract infections (RTIs) are 70 percent more common among women who engage in these practices.

This year, for the first time, the world will mark May 28 as Menstrual Hygiene Day, designed to address the very challenges countries like India are facing.

Against this backdrop, the NYB campaign is not only timely, it is essential if India hopes to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), development targets set by the world body in 2000 and set to expire in 2015.

Also known as the Great WASH Yatra, NYB aims to “improve policy and practice in an extremely challenging and taboo area of sanitation and hygiene: Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM).”

Launched in 2012, the 150,000-dollar campaign – generously supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – will continue until 2016.

Already it has reached over 12,000 women and girls around the country, an overwhelming majority of who are adolescent students who say that being empowered to break the silence around menstruation is making a huge difference in their lives.

This process, though, has not been easy. Urmila Chanam, a Bangalore-based MHM educator who travelled to six states during the early stages of the campaign, said the stigma against menstruation runs deep, having been embedded for years in the minds of men and women alike.

“When a girl in India gets her first period, everyone tells her that she is impure because the blood flowing out of her is dirty,” Chanam told IPS.

“So, she grows up convinced that this is a shameful thing that she must not discuss. The first challenge of an educator is to have the girl overcome this sense of shame and fear. Everything else comes after that,” added Chanam, who also runs a web-based campaign called ‘Breaking the Silence’ that encourages both women and men to openly discuss the issue.

The determined efforts of a handful of NGOs and activists like Chanam have set the wheels of a full-blown movement in motion, with thousands of young women across the country coming forward to share their experiences.

A fine example of this is Soumya Selvi, a 10^th-grade student in a girls’ school in Srirangam, a town located about 320 km south of Chennai city in southern India.

Three years ago, Selvi and her fellow classmates were privy to a UNESCO-led reproductive health campaign, and became virtual ambassadors for the issue. Selvi alone has shared her knowledge with nearly 50 other girls in her school and her neighborhood. She has also not missed a single day of school during her period.

“My mother and my aunt never stepped out of the house when they had their periods,” she told IPS. “That was our family tradition. But, I told them, ‘this will happen to me until I am 50 years old, perhaps older. Should I sit at home all my life?’

“After that, they never asked me to miss school,” she recounted with a wide smile.

Still, experts agree that independent efforts can only achieve so much. Without government support, it could take decades to reach every woman and girl who remains fearful and silent. What is needed, they say, are inclusive and targeted training programmes that can help scale up impacts of individual campaigns.

Mukti Bosco, an eminent activist and founder of Healing Fields, a Hyderabad-based NGO that works with schools on menstrual hygiene management, told IPS it is time for campaigns to target female teachers and mothers, who can “instill positive behaviour in the girls.”

Others emphasise the role of communication as in invaluable tool in spreading the message. Sinu Joseph, a Bangalore-based MHM educator, has so far trained 8,000 girls across the southwestern state of Karnataka using an animation video.

“Young girls often ask, ‘Why can’t I visit a temple when I have my period?’” Joseph told IPS. “To answer such questions, one has to first know the cultural history. [Educators] must earn the trust of women and girls, so that they are comfortable enough to speak. Then they… not only learn, but also feel empowered.”

(END)

Turkana County is Kenya’s most arid region. Experts say that the discovery of 200 billion cubic metres of water in the region this week must directly benefit the county’s mostly nomad community. Credit: GNR8R/CC by 2.0

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Sep 15 2013 (IPS)

For decades Zakayo Ekeno has walked Turkana County’s arid land, herding his livestock, and his father’s before that. Yet nothing about the persistently drought-stricken land in northern Kenya could have given him an indication of the wealth beneath it.

“I have asked myself many times whether anything good can come out of this godforsaken land,” Ekeno says. Turkana is the most arid and poorest of Kenya’s 47 counties and in 2011 almost 9.5 million people of the mainly nomad community here were affected by severe drought.

So few people could have even dreamt that beneath the sun-scorched, cracked earth was enough water to supply this entire country of 41.6 million people for 70 years.

On Sept. 11, the government and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) announced the discovery of an estimated 200 billion cubic metres of freshwater reserves in Turkana County’s Lotikipi basin.

“Every year our livestock die from lack of water and pasture. We also live in fear of cattle rustlers who steal our animals to replace what they lost. I have been injured during these raids. The water is a solution to this conflict,” Ekeno says.

Until now, the U.N. has categorised Kenya as a chronically water-scarce country and UNESCO statistics show that 17 million people here lack access to safe water. Kenya currently uses about three billion cubic metres of water a year.

While the discovery has been met with excitement, water and environment experts like scientist Judith Gicharu caution that this East African government has little capacity or legislation to manage this water sustainably.

“We have the Water Act of 2002 and the Environment Management and Coordination Act of 1999. But they provide no significant policy framework in regard to the management of underground water,” she tells IPS.

She explains that provisions exist within broader policy frameworks, but do not deal specifically with land use and groundwater management. She adds that decision-making in groundwater management is “often not based on any solid regulations”.

“But even where groundwater provisions exist, they are rarely acted upon. Implementation of whatever provisions exist has been compromised by an overlap of duties amongst various government agencies dealing with water and the environment,” Gicharu says.

In Kenya, all water resources belong to the state, and government agencies have to approve and issue permits for water use. But according to a 2011 World Bank report titled “Kenya – Groundwater governance case study”, there is a very limited understanding “of the land surface groundwater linkage among professionals in the relevant sectors, and as a consequence there is no strategic awareness of the need to protect groundwater resources.”

Ikal Ang’elei from Friends of Lake Turkana, a community environmental association, cautions that in the absence of a strong legislative framework that could guide “how resources are to be exploited and who benefits from them, and in what ways, this natural wealth may not improve the country’s fortunes in any significant way.”

“It’s still early in the day and yet the Turkana are missing from the water dialogue. The government is already talking about supplying the entire country with the ‘new’ water, but how much of it will go to the Turkana people?” she asks.

The water discovery is the second major natural resource find in Turkana County. In March 2012, oil exploration company Tullow Oil announced the discovery of millions of barrels of oil in Turkana County’s Lokichar basin.

“We cannot take the same direction that the oil dialogue has taken. Since the oil in Turkana was discovered, investors have only been interested in finding out when the oil will start flowing. They are not talking about the benefits to the community,” Ang’elei says.

Economist Arthur Kimani agrees. “The government needs to help the community understand that beyond drinking the discovered water, money can also come out of this resource by, for instance, using the water to grow cash crops.”

But an official in the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources tells IPS “that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, the Turkana people will get water in the next two weeks. We are also engaging the private sector for partnerships that are economically viable to the community.”

Kimani insists that government involvement is key to managing the groundwater supply. He adds that there needs to be public participation in agreeing how this will be done.

“Many companies tend to work with a small clique of well-connected people to come up with an opaque system of declaring the outputs of what has been extracted and revenues.

“The formulas of sharing revenue should be openly agreed upon to create the opportunity for public participation and discourage public officials from seeking personal benefits at the expense of the public, particularly the immediate community living in areas where the natural resources have been found.”

Samuel Kimeu, executive director of Transparency International, Kenya, tells IPS that transparency in the management of natural resources is needed in the entire extraction chain. He says not doing so compromises “the terms of the licenses against the public interest, thus swindling the public of possible revenue.”

Laila Mutebi, 26, is the voice of Evening Voyage, on Uganda’s 101.7 Mama FM. It claims to be Africa’s first women’s radio station. Credit: Amy Fallon/IPS

By Amy Fallon
KAMPALA, Jul 23 2013 (IPS)

It is 10.26 am in Kampala and a Ugandan woman is airing her gripe about the opposite sex on the airwaves.

Rose, a married shop attendant who works at Kiseka market in Kampala’s suburbs, is fed up with men who flirt with “smart-looking” ladies on the street, yet ignore their own wives at home.

Her call prompts a barrage of new ones on the same issue, before Mary rings in and changes the topic completely. She has no power in her area.

Welcome to talkback radio Uganda and to 101.7 Mama FM, which founders claim is Africa’s first women’s radio station, as all its key management positions are filled by women. Mama Boda Boda, a popular show on the station, is broadcast every Monday to Thursday between 10 am and 1 pm and is hosted by Charles Kabanda, a part-time drummer.

In August 2001, Mama FM was launched by the Uganda Media Women’s Association’s (UMWA) executive director, Margaret Sentamu Masagazi, and three other women.

This was after a feasibility report showed that there was room for another radio station to provide a platform for women and other groups sidelined by the mainstream media.

UMWA describes women’s voices as the “missing melody in the tune of sustainable development”. Masagazi, who is married and has two adult children, told IPS that Mama FM was given its name “because anytime your mother is talking to you, you’ll always give her an ear.”

Yet content is not limited to women’s voices and issues, although the channel targets mostly women in the 15 to 45 age bracket.

“We said it shouldn’t be biased towards women because we’ll cause issues with men and maybe men will not listen to the station because it’s owned by women,” said Masagazi.

In fact, male presenters at the station actually outnumber women 12 to nine. And when it comes to “phone-ins”, there are more male callers than female, according to Kabanda.

“Some still shy away, but it’s important (that women have a role in the Ugandan media) because we need to hear both sexes,” he told IPS.

“Research has shown that putting a woman at the head of a newsroom does not necessarily reduce masculinist perspectives,” he told IPS.

Radio is still by far the most widely used communication medium in Africa, Asia and other parts of the developing world, according to UNESCO.

The African Media Barometer Uganda 2012 study found nearly 68 percent of Ugandans received their daily news through radio. Most Ugandans own a radio, as a cheap FM set costs about 5,000 Ugandan shillings (two dollars), the report said.

Previously, women in Uganda were rarely featured on radio programmes and when they were, they were stereotyped, according to a 2009 Makerere University report involving Mama FM and two local commercial stations, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation and Central Broadcasting Service.

Mama FM, whose slogan is “The voice to listen to”, has its studios in Kisaasi, about eight km from Kampala’s city centre. It is funded by Norway’s Forum for Women and Development (FOKUS), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and the International Solidarity Foundation, a Finnish NGO. Radio Orakel 99.3 FM in Oslo, Norway, which has been described as the world’s first women’s radio station, provided technical support.

Today, Mama FM spans a 400-km radius, reaching over 13 million people in central, west, southwestern and eastern Uganda. Masagazi said a 2007 Steadman Group report found about two thirds of the country knew the station existed and nearly 15 percent were tuning in.

Shows are transmitted in English and Kiswahili as well as nine Ugandan languages, including Luganda, for 18 hours a day and are mostly live, instead of pre-recorded.

Highlights include Okwerinda (Health Matters) on Saturday morning, which centres on reproductive health, hygiene and HIV/AIDS. The Sunday afternoon lineup includes Papa Mama Round Table, a debate between men and women on how to “improve gender relations.”

The most popular show is Omumuli, the sports programme, which serves up commentary and analysis of the English Premier League, African football, volleyball and swimming, among others.

Because Mama FM survives on funding, it is little wonder that presenters are not paid big salaries. But Laila Mutebi, 26, the voice of Evening Voyage, a drive-time show, views the experience as invaluable if she wants to work at a bigger station one day.

“It’s hard getting a job here in Uganda, especially if you’re female and in the entertainment industry,” she told IPS.

Masagazi, 54, a former journalism lecturer, acknowledged that the presenters were virtually “volunteers”, but said having women on air was important. The media in Uganda was a male-dominated profession, with sexual harassment being a common feature, she claimed.

“Many times when you’re looking for a job and it is a man in the chair they ask for sexual favours,” she said. “Some women give in.”

The Great Barrier Reef is home to over 1,500 species of fish. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY, May 14 2013 (IPS)

Mining and port development coupled with decreasing water quality along Australia’s north-eastern coast are threatening the continent’s World Heritage-listed tourist drawcard, the Great Barrier Reef.

An assessment report of the reef by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has said the lack of “firm and demonstrable commitment” by either the Australian federal or the Queensland state government to limit port developments near the reef “represents a potential danger to the outstanding universal value of the property.”

Spread across an area of 348,000 square kilometres, the Great Barrier Reef includes about 2,500 individual reefs and over 900 islands and is home to breeding colonies of seabirds and marine turtles, snubfin dolphins and the humpback whale.

“Will we sacrifice the Great Barrier Reef and accept dangerous climate change as the inevitable cost of propping up just one industry?” - Greenpeace Senior Campaigner Dr. Georgina Woods
Australia’s resources boom, combined with increasing demand for coal in Asian markets, is attracting billions of dollars worth of investments in mining projects here. About 43 industrial development proposals are under assessment for their potential impact on the world’s most extensive coral reef ecosystem.

“With a number of major development (projects) coming up for approval in the coming weeks and months, the Australian government is playing a risky game if it continues to approve them because it may force the World Heritage committee to place the reef on their list of shame,” World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Spokesman Richard Leck told IPS.

Since 2011, UNESCO and the IUCN have expressed serious concerns about the management of the world heritage area.

“Australia has clearly ignored the recommendations. The federal government continues to approve new developments with no long-term commitment to restricting industrialisation to the existing footprint. The Queensland government has also weakened some of the laws that protect the reef from development and land clearing,” Leck told IPS.

WWF estimates that the clearing of tens of thousands of hectares of vegetation along rivers leading to the reef, and allowing dredge spoil to be dumped in coastal waters will have a significant impact on the protected site, which contains 400 types of coral, 1,500 species of fish, 4,000 types of mollusc, about 240 species of birds, and several sponges, anemones, marine worms and crustaceans.

The reef waters also provide major feeding grounds for threatened species, and hosts one of the world’s largest populations of the dugong.

According to Australian Marine Conservation Society’s Great Barrier Reef Campaign Director Felicity Wishart, “The development of port infrastructure and increased shipping movements require the dredging of millions of tonnes of seabed, often seagrass meadows which are the breeding and feeding areas for turtles, dugongs and other marine life.

“The sediments stirred up during dredging can travel tens of kilometres away, settling on coral ecosystems and plant life. This can damage or destroy vital wetlands, fish breeding grounds and other coastal habitats,” Wishart told IPS.

Moreover, environmentalists are concerned that increased shipping will aggravate the risk of oil spills in the reef. About 4,000 ships plow the Great Barrier Reef annually and this number is expected to grow to 6,000 ships by 2020.

To protect the healthiest and most pristine section of the reef from terrestrial threats, especially new ports and mining development, The Wilderness Society is seeking a World Heritage nomination for the Cape York Peninsula, located on the northern tip of Queensland.

“This would rule out the Balkanu Corporation’s Wongai coalmine proposal, which would open up new areas to development, and Rio Tinto’s South of Embley bauxite mine, which would require 900 shipping movements through the reef between the Weipa mine and the processing facility at Gladstone,” Gavan McFadzean, Wilderness Society’s northern Australia campaigner, told IPS.

According to projections by the Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics, coal exports from Australia, already the world’s leading exporter, will roughly double in a little over a decade. Over the past 10 years black coal exports have increased by more than 50 percent. Major Asian economies like Japan, China, the Republic of Korea, India and Taiwan account for 88 percent of all black coal exports.

Greenpeace Senior Campaigner Dr. Georgina Woods summed up the situation with a simple question: “Will we sacrifice the Great Barrier Reef and accept dangerous climate change as the inevitable cost of propping up just one industry?”

Research commissioned by Greenpeace estimates Australia’s coal export expansion is the second biggest of 14 proposed fossil fuel enterprises that will push the world beyond agreed global warming limits. Coral reefs around the world are unlikely to survive if global temperatures increase by 1.5 degrees. “Right now, we’re heading decisively for four degrees of warming,” Woods told IPS.

CEO of the Sydney-based Climate Institute, John Connor, warned that the Great Barrier Reef is under threat from climate change, both from ocean acidification and from increasingly severe storms, but said Australia had taken some important steps to reduce emissions by putting in place the necessary carbon laws.

“Australia’s carbon price mechanism regulates emissions by limiting them not just pricing them. It will reduce at least 12 million tonnes of carbon pollution a year and has the potential to reduce 1.1 billion tonnes by 2020,” Connor told IPS.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Labour Government has also announced it will pour 27 million dollars into improving the quality of water flowing into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. It will help reduce the run-off from farms causing coral bleaching and algae growth, which smothers seagrass beds and coral reefs.

Larissa Waters, senator for the Australian Greens, has introduced a bill in the Senate to adopt the World Heritage committee’s key recommendations and she is calling on both the Liberal and the Labour Party to support it.

“The government must stop putting the interests of big mining companies ahead of the reef and place a moratorium on all further developments until the joint government strategic assessment is finished in 2015 and also stop allowing new ports in pristine areas,” Waters told IPS.

Experts are worried about the economic impact of destruction to the reef, which contributes 822 million dollars a year to the national economy and supports about 60,000 jobs. Recent polling shows that 91 percent of Australians think protecting the reef is the most important environmental issue in 2013.

One of the students at the Gymnasia Herzliya School checks on the plastic bottles containing samples of a blue-green algae called Spirulina. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

By Pierre Klochendler
TEL AVIV, May 12 2013 (IPS)

At the Gymnasia Herzliya School in Tel Aviv, 20 ninth and tenth graders are testing the simplest, cheapest and fastest way to solve the problem of malnutrition among their peers around the world.

Under the guidance of their principal and biology teacher, these Israeli teenagers are attempting to breed a blue-green algae called spirulina, widely believed to contain a miraculous array of vitamins, minerals and nutrients.

Fourteen-year-old Miri Wolozhinski says her involvement in the experiment stems from a desire to help “those in need”, while her classmate, Anouk Savir-Carmon, rails against “the absurdity that in the 21^st century there are still hungry children.”

According to a United Nations report released last October, nearly 870 million people, or one in eight, suffered from chronic undernourishment between 2010 and 2012. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says malnutrition is caused by “inadequate or unbalanced food intake or … poor absorption of food consumed.”

The students here believe they can help rectify this bleak situation. Having studied the various properties of the microscopic algae, Savir-Carmon explains to IPS, “Sixty to 70 percent of its mass is protein; the rest contains carbohydrates, antioxidants, Omega-3 fats, vitamins, minerals – in short, everything needed for nourishment.”

A study published by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 2008, based on an experiment conducted in Mexico, showed that 10 grammes per day of powdered spirulina supplement were sufficient to combat child malnutrition.

The same study showed that severely malnourished infants admitted to a village health clinic in Togo recovered within weeks of taking 10 to 15-gramme doses of the dietary supplement mixed with millet, water and spices every day.

Known in the scientific community as multicellular photosynthetic Cyanophyceae, the algae is thought to have existed in salt water and some freshwater lakes for over three billion years.

It is considered a “complete protein”, containing all nine essential amino acids that human beings need to survive. Commonly dubbed a superfood, spirulina eclipses all other whole foods such as unpolished grains, beans, fruits and vegetables and non-homogenised dairy products.

Although the algae develops naturally in tropical lakes in Central and Eastern Africa, the derived dietary supplement – sold as flakes, pills or tablets – comes with a hefty price tag and is available only in select natural and health food stores.

Convinced that the prohibitive cost is a result of large-scale and ineffective breeding methods requiring expensive equipment, students at Gymnasia Herzliya are determined to find cheaper ways of growing the cyanobacteria.

They began by diluting a culture sample, obtained from the ‘Adama’ algae farm located in the Negev desert, with chemicals like sodium bicarbonate, potassium nitrate, sodium chloride, phosphate sulphate and magnesium sulphate “for optimal breeding and mandatory alkalinity,” explains a ninth grader named Fea Hadar.

Using the Internet as their guide, students taught themselves everything they could about the algae’s taxonomy, structure, nutritional benefits and growth conditions.

At first, each pupil was assigned the care of one recycled plastic bottle containing a sample of the culture. Since spirulina, like any other plant, needs carbon to photosynthesise, the students would simply “shake the solution every two hours,” recalls Savir-Carmon.

Four months ago, their algae advisor Boris Zlotnikov devised a more efficient system, arranging rows of bottles on a discarded wooden stand and hooking them up to an electric system of pumps, pipes and thin hoses that breathe air into the solution, stirring the algae constantly. “It now grows very fast,” notes tenth grader El’ad Dvash.

Last week, as the solution took on a dense emerald colour, they celebrated their first harvest, drying the biomass outdoors.

“With 650 litres of algae culture, we produced the equivalent of 65 kilos of dry matter,” boasts Dvash.

The class retained some algae in a makeshift reservoir in order to test more archaic breeding methods, without using electricity.

“We’re busy formulating a protocol for ultimate spirulina breeding – in pools, bottles, under various weather and economic conditions, with or without electricity, instruments or resources,” 15-year-old Ori Shemor tells IPS.

“We still have to conduct a series of experiments which will take into consideration light, temperature and humidity variations,” Shemor explains.

Already the project has generated a buzz, with researchers at the Bar-Ilan University’s Algae Biotechnology Centre volunteering to help the budding scientists devise a model to increase the algea’s protein concentration.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has offered to help the students circulate their protocol through its Associated Schools Project, a global network connecting nearly 10,000 education institutions in over 180 countries, while Rotary International has shown a willingness to partially fund the project.

Last month, an Ethiopian education official visited the breeding premises in Tel Aviv. The governments of South Africa and Lesotho have also expressed interest in the project, said Ze’ev Degani, the school’s principal and the brains behind the initiative.

He told IPS the pilot project has the potential to reach between 700 and 1,000 schools around the world. “Half a million children will be growing spirulina in pools and bottles for themselves within two years,” he predicted.

Though the students have registered their experiment under a start-up company entitled Algeed, they are determined to resist the laws of the free market.

Rather than sell the supplement, Savir-Carmon says he and his classmates will “transmit our knowledge to help other pupils around the world grow it for themselves.”

Some have criticised the experiment for having lofty goals, but Degani believes it has a clear rationale – to create a new kind of food chain based on solidarity, until food autonomy prevails and malnutrition becomes extinct.

A student of the renowned educator and philosopher Paulo Freire, Degani is of the firm opinion that teaching and learning must go beyond the walls of a classroom to touch the lives of those who struggle to survive war, poverty, and inequality.

“We’ll make protocols, not money,” he vows.