Aya, a 5-year-old girl clutching her doll to ease her fear, gazes at Gaza’s sky filled with warplanes from inside an UNRWA school in the Gaza Strip. Credit: UNRWA
by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Nov 20 (IPS) – As the global community marks World Children’s Day, every child should be guaranteed their rights, including those in the Gaza Strip, where heavy bombardment and military operations by Israel have killed more than 11,000 people, 40 percent of them children.
“Under international humanitarian laws and the Safe Schools Declaration, civilians—in particular children, schools, and school personnel—must be protected. What we are seeing in this conflict are bombs pounding the most densely populated area on earth, schools and other civilian infrastructures being attacked, and an entire population being trapped in the most dire conditions, with no safe place to flee to. Surviving children are maimed, orphaned, or have lost close and extended family. Horrors of unimaginable proportion are unfolding before our eyes,” Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, tells IPS.
“No child can or should have to be prepared for what is happening in Gaza. Children and adolescents are hurting and traumatized. According to UNRWA, initial assessments in October showed that at least 91 percent of children are demonstrating signs of acute stress and trauma and are in need of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS).”
According to the UN, children account for nearly half of the population in Gaza. More than 625,000 students and 22,564 teachers have been affected as attacks continue. At least 86 percent of school buildings are either being used as shelters for the displaced population, catering for up to four times their capacity, or have been destroyed.
Camilla Lodi, Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) Global Psychosocial Support Head of the Better Learning Programme, told IPS the impact of war on children was devastating.
“When children experience conflict, war, and displacement, they go through personal, ongoing life threats—constantly witnessing violence and its effects. Prolonged exposure to such traumatic events increases the risk of complications in processing trauma. When the fighting stops, the journey to recovery starts for children and adults who have gone through high levels of stress and trauma. Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) is not a luxury but a necessity. It helps regain a sense of normalcy,” she said.
“NRC works specifically on a psychosocial support program within broader education in emergency interventions. Simply, children cannot learn unless they feel well and safe. MHPSS is an essential, necessary, and mandatory intervention that should be embedded in every education in emergency programs. The Better Learning Programme (BLP) is NRC’s signature non-specialized classroom-based psychosocial support intervention that helps restore learning capacities for children that have gone through trauma and high levels of stress.”
The program has been at the forefront of providing immediate and long-term critical care and psychosocial support for more than a decade, investing in children’s futures in 33 countries, such as Ukraine, Sudan, and Palestine. Lodi stresses that MHPSS is critical in crises and emergencies.
Sherif stresses that as homes and schools lie in ruin in this high-level stress cycle, surviving children are at risk of severe lifelong mental health problems. A life of debilitating chronic anxiety, depression, and various degrees of trauma now beckons for more than 224 million children and adolescents in conflict and crises globally. She adds that Education Cannot Wait, which supports education programs for children in over 40 countries affected by emergencies and protracted crises, has included MHPSS as a core component of all its country-level investments since 2020. This includes support for the NRC’s Better Learning Programme.
“ECW has prioritized MHPSS to protect and promote students’ and teachers’ well-being, as mental health is the foundation of learning. We have a target to invest at least 10 percent of our resources for mental health and psychosocial support services,” says Sherif.
ECW recently announced a $10 million 12-month grant in support of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and UNICEF to provide children in Gaza with life-saving mental health and psychosocial support.
“For Gaza specifically, it is a humanitarian catastrophe defined by a relentless cycle of violence. Past research within the Better Learning Programme found that 1093 students (6–17 years of age) who sought help for nightmares and sleep disturbances reported recurrent traumatic nightmares on average 4.57 nights per week, with an average duration of 2.82 years,” Lodi says.
“We always talk about the cost of inaction. Neglecting MHPSS can result in five significant risks, notably the perpetuation of cycles of violence and trauma. As a conflict concludes, the suffering and psychological impact on children commence and, if left unaddressed, can endure throughout their lives. This neglect also results in the loss of educational and developmental milestones, increasing susceptibility to mental health disorders. Additionally, the diminishing sense of community connectedness, a stabilizer for peace, is compromised. There is also an economic fallout, as increased healthcare costs and long-term productivity losses contribute to a substantial financial and economic impact.”
Lodi stresses that no child should pay the price of adults’ conflict and that a ceasefire is urgent to help re-establish a sense of safety and predictability and for children to resume recreational play and education activities in a safe environment, which will allow a safe break for their body in “emergency, flight mode.”
“The catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza cannot continue. All parties must respect the UN Charter, international humanitarian law, and universal human rights. I join my colleagues in the United Nations’ call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire now,” says Sherif.
If soul-shattering human suffering is not halted and safety restored, Sherif says our moral standing as an international community will be questioned by the young generation today and for generations to come. How can we make promises to children in crisis during this World Children’s Day, whose theme is For Every Child, Every Right? Children everywhere in the world, including more than 224 million crisis-affected children, deserve every right and promise delivered despite, and especially because, of their hardships.
David Obwona at his seed rice farm in Katukatib village, Amoro district, northern Uganda. The farmer is part of a group that is now engaged in seed rice farming to climate-proof agriculture courtesy of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building Agriculture. Credit: Maina Waruru/IPS
by Maina Waruru (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Nov 14 (IPS) – Smallholder farmers from the Global South benefit from a grossly disproportionate 0.3% of international climate finance despite producing a third of the world’s food and despite holding the key to climate-proofing food systems.
The family farmers and rural communities received around USD 2 billion from both public and private international climate funds out of the USD 8.4 billion that went to the agriculture sector in 2021, even as over 2.5 billion people globally depended on the farms for their livelihoods.
The USD 8.4 billion was almost half of the USD 16 billion that was availed for the energy sector and is only a fraction of the estimated USD 300-350 billion needed annually to “create more sustainable and resilient food systems,” a new report has found.
The amount was also quite different from the USD 170 billion that smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa alone would require per year, the study on global public finance for climate mitigation and adaptation conducted by Dutch climate advisory company Climate Focus has found.
The low level of climate finance for agriculture, forestry, and fishing is of concern, given the impact of climate change on food production and the extent to which food and agriculture are fueling the climate and biodiversity crisis.
Agricultural productivity has declined by 21 percent due to climate change, while the food and agriculture sector as a whole is responsible for 29 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and 80 percent of global deforestation, the study explains.
The farmers have been sidelined by global climate funders and locked out of decision-making processes on food and climate despite being the engines of rural economic growth. This is especially so in Sub-Saharan Africa, where up to 80 percent of agriculture is by smallholder farmers and where 23 percent of regional GDP is attributable to the sector.
It reveals that 80 percent of international public climate finance spent on the agri-food sector is channeled through governments and donor country NGOs, making it hard for smallholder farmers’ organizations to access it. This is because of complex eligibility rules and application processes and a lack of information on how and where to apply.
Many family farmers also lack the infrastructure, technology, and resources to adapt to climate impacts, with serious implications for global food security and rural economies as well, it notes.
The study ‘Untapped Potential: An analysis of international public climate finance flows to sustainable agriculture and family farmers,’ published on 14 November, laments that only a fifth of international public climate finance for food and agriculture supports sustainable practice. The money mainly goes to the Global North, even as agriculture becomes the third biggest source of global emissions. and the main driver of biodiversity loss.
“Climate change is hitting harvests and driving up food prices across the globe. It has helped push 122 million people into hunger since 2019. We need to create more sustainable and resilient food systems that can feed people in a changing climate, but we can’t do this without family farmers,” the report compiled on behalf of ten farmer organizations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific says.
“Family farmers are also key to climate adaptation. They are at the forefront of the shift to more diverse, nature-friendly food systems, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is needed to safeguard food security in a changing climate,” it further notes.
The groups are led by the World Rural Forum and include African groups—the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation, Eastern and Southern Africa small-scale Farmers Forum, the Regional Platform of Farmers’ Organisations in Central Africa, and the Network of West African Farmers’ and Producers’ Organisations. Also part of the group is Northern Africa’s Maghreb and North African Farmers Union.
The Asian Farmers Association for Sustainable Rural Development, the Pacific Island Farmers Organization Network, the Confederation of Family Producers’ Organizations of Greater Mercosur, and the Regional Rural Dialogue Programme are also represented in the study.
Many of the farmers are already practicing climate-resilient agriculture, including approaches such as agroecology, which implies a wider variety of crops, including traditional ones, mixing crops, livestock, forestry, and fisheries, while reducing agrochemical use, and building strong connections to local markets.
The study by the new alliance of farmer networks representing over 35 million smallholder producers ahead of COP28, which is set to agree on a Global Goal for Adaptation, is concerned that since 2012, overall, only 11% of international public climate finance has been targeted at agriculture, forestry, and fishing, which amounts to an average of USD 7 billion a year.
In 2021, the World Bank, Germany, the Green Climate Fund, and European Union institutions contributed around half—54 percent, amounting to USD 4 billion collectively, while Nigeria, India, and Ethiopia were the top recipients, receiving a combined USD 1.8 billion. Notably, some of the world’s most food insecure countries, including Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, each received less than USD 20 million, it discloses.
“As the climate crisis pushes the global food system ever closer to collapse, it is vital that governments recognize family farmers as powerful partners in the fight against climate change,” it warns.
Hakim Baliriane, Chair of the Eastern and Southern Africa small-scale Farmers Forum, observed: “Climate change has helped push 122 million people into hunger since 2019. Reversing this trend will not be possible if governments continue to tie the hands of millions of family farmers.”
The study defines small-scale family farms as those of less than two hectares, mainly in developing countries.
On the other hand, international climate finance broadly refers to finance channeled to “activities that have a stated objective to mitigate climate change or support adaptation. These include multilateral flows in and outside the (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement, as well as bilateral flows at national and regional levels, including the Global Environment Facility, Adaptation Fund, and Green Climate Fund, and are usually disbursed as grants and concessional loans
The study finds that family farms are also the backbone of rural economies, supporting over 2.5 billion people globally who depend on family farms for their livelihoods. It says that in Sub-Saharan Africa, where up to 80 percent of farming is done by smallholder farmers, agriculture contributes 23 percent to regional Gross Domestic Product.
Family farmers are also key to climate adaptation in that they are at the forefront of the shift to more “diverse, nature-friendly food systems,” which, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), are critical in safeguarding food security in a changing climate.
It finds that millions of smallholder farmers are already practicing climate-resilient agriculture, including approaches such as agroecology—growing a wider variety of crops, including traditional crops, mixing crops, livestock, forestry, and fisheries, reducing agrochemicals use while building “strong connections to local markets.”
It concludes that governments must ensure that available climate finance for sustainable climate-resilient practices is increased, including that of agroecological approaches.
It explains: “This means funds to support diverse, nature-friendly approaches and to create community-based solutions that build on traditional expertise and experience.
It recommends that small-scale family farmers ought to have direct access to more climate finance and that financing mechanisms and funds should be developed with the participation of farmers’ organizations to meet their needs.
In addition, efforts should be made to ensure longer-term, flexible funding so that communities can determine their own priorities.
The role of the farmers as powerful catalysts for climate action, food system transformation, and the protection of biodiversity should be acknowledged and given a “real say” in decision-making on food and climate at the local, national, regional, and international levels. This should include decisions on land reform and agricultural subsidies.
The COP28 in Dubai later this month has food systems as a big part of the agenda.
An August report by the UK’s ActionAid has found that climate adaptation and green transition initiatives in the Global South received 20 times less financing when compared to main global emitters, fossil fuels, and intensive agriculture sectors in the last seven years.
It found that leading banking multinationals funded the emitters’ activities in the southern hemisphere to the tune of USD 3.2 trillion since 2015 when the Paris Agreement on Climate was adopted. German agrochemical giant Bayer was the biggest recipient of the financing, receiving an estimated USD 20.6 billion since 2016.
Gernot Laganda, Director / Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction at United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
by Stella Paul (hyderabad, india)
Inter Press Service
HYDERABAD, INDIA, Nov 14 (IPS) – ‘If you ask what climate justice is, then the litmus test for climate justice is at the local level. So, climate justice needs to be judged by how many people are protected from climate-vulnerable conditions that they have no hand in creating.’ – Gernot Laganda, Director of Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
It is crucial to narrow the gaps and ensure that climate finance goes to where people are most vulnerable, says Gernot Laganda, Director of Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)—especially as the most fragile states only receive USD 2.1 per capita while non-fragile states receive USD 161.
Laganda leads WFP country offices to support governments dealing with the effects of climate change on food systems, prioritize concrete actions to avoid, reduce, or transfer growing climate risks in-country programs, and work with new and emerging climate finance mechanisms to implement adaptation solutions for the most vulnerable and food-insecure communities.
In this exclusive interview with IPS, Laganda speaks about a wide range of issues, including the climate disasters that WFP has responded to this year—and the impact of the humanitarian aid the programme has provided across the world, among the most vulnerable people who climate-induced disasters have directly impacted. As the world zooms towards 1.5 degrees of global warming, the number of climate disasters is rapidly increasing, and so is the requirement for more humanitarian aid. However, the current aid financing methods are not able to meet this unprecedented need, and there is always a gap between the requirement and the actual funding received.
As the 28th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) draws near, Laganda speaks of the funding challenges humanitarian aid agencies are facing—an issue that requires urgent attention from the governments and investors gathering at the COP. He also speaks of his expectations from the negotiations, the actions, and the decisions that will determine the success of the conference.
Gernot Laganda, Director / Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction at United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
Here are excerpts from the interview:
IPS: Which climate disasters did WFP respond to this year, and what kind of assistance did you provide?
Laganda: This year, of course, is a very peculiar year because it is really on track to become the warmest year on record. We have an El Niño phenomenon that overlays with global warming. Last month, on the 2nd of October, we had 86 days above the 1.5-degree threshold, so this year was out of the ordinary. This year, in March, we had tropical cyclone Freddie, which hit Madagascar, Mozambique, and Malawi. This was the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record for Africa. It killed 860 people with floods and landslides. But it had a peculiar behavior. Typically, cyclones are fed by heated energy from the oceans, so they lose intensity when they touch land. But Freddie developed in February on the west coast of Australia, across the Indian Ocean, made landfall in Madagascar, then to Mozambique before returning to the ocean. But then it gained more energy and hit land again in Malawi. So, it’s a very uncommon behavior.
The response related to humanitarian assistance, of course, is related to supporting the governments with relief operations. For example, in Malawi, which was badly hit by cyclone Freddie, we helped distribute two months of food basket items targeting the most affected districts. We used schools as entry points to provide emergency rations. And, in the case of farmers from whom we buy food for local school meal programs, we substituted these with a feeding (scheme) to allow farmers to recover from the loss. So, there’s the typical humanitarian response machine that kicks into gear. These climate extremes are now happening more frequently; they hit more strongly, and this humanitarian response needs more finances, which is currently not there in the system.
To give you some numbers, in the Horn of Africa, we had an unprecedented sequence of drought in three countries – Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya; 47,000 people died in Somalia during the drought in 2022 (and) WFP distributed food assistance to a record 4.7 million people.
IPS: What kind of loss and damage did these disasters cause?
Laganda: First, there’s a national picture, and then after the disaster, you have the loss and damage figures, and the context is very different in different parts of a country, especially in countries like Somalia, where there is also an overlay of climate effects on conflict, on inflation and economic shock. However, the biggest impact is on housing and natural capital.
IPS: Can you elaborate further?
Laganda: Okay. For example, when you are a farmer in a developing country, you have several assets or capitals, including natural capital. This natural capital includes your natural resources like forest and fiber products, cattle, land, and soil. Then, there are disaster preparedness elements like insurance coverage, access to savings, and access to insurance protection. If these capitals are strong and intact, you can recover from disaster shocks and overcome the disaster impact shocks. You can also recover if you have soil restoration, insurance coverage, and access to savings.
But when many of these natural capital areas are degraded or hit (as happened in these above-mentioned disasters), you have no protective shields.
IPS: Three years ago, at COP25, you had said that only 60 percent of the climate finance that’s needed in the aftermath of a disaster is funded, while 40 percent is not funded. Has this ratio changed since then? How?
Laganda: Unfortunately, humanitarian aid after disasters remains chronically underfunded. Also, over the period of five years, UN humanitarian appeals after climate disasters were only funded 54 percent on average. At the same time, we see that these disasters increase, and our requirements are now eight times higher than they were 20 years ago. So, we are really in a time when humanitarian needs are increasing very sharply, especially when it comes to people suffering from acute hunger, but there is not enough financing to meet all these needs after climate disasters.
It’s the same with climate finance. As the recently published Adaptation Gap Report shows, there is a massive gap in investment in adaptation. Also, from 2014 to 2021, the climate finance available per capita in non-fragile states was USD 161, while it was only USD 2.1 in extremely fragile states. So, there is a huge disparity between where that money goes and where people are most vulnerable. This means two things: we need to make sure there is more funding in the system for the humanitarian needs after climate disasters, but it also means we need to invest much more strategically and faster because we are already in the state where we are reaching the 1.5-degree threshold as mentioned in the Paris Agreement. So, we need more targeted efforts in climate projection and protection in the most vulnerable context.
IPS: What is the main reason behind this continued funding gap? Is there some sort of fatigue among funders, or is this just a case of reduced priority?
Laganda: Many disasters are now compound and protracted. That means there are many countries and sectors where humanitarian aid needs to stay for decades. So, it’s not like there is one disaster, then there is humanitarian relief, and then it’s over. You have decades of humanitarian needs that never stop, right? So, it’s really hard to sustain that financing commitment in an ever-growing number of countries where people have this acute humanitarian need. For example, the number of people facing acute hunger has doubled only in a span of three years. We have been seeing a situation where people are caught between these different risk drivers: conflict, economic shocks, and climate change. And so, the old models of humanitarian aid that we have just don’t work anymore.
IPS: Currently, all eyes are on the Loss and Damage Fund. Civil society is already alleging that the fund is compromised and that it lacks the commitment to human rights. What are your thoughts?
Laganda: The Loss and Damage Fund was a very difficult negotiation, and I think it’s understandable that the fund should be guided by human rights. If you ask what climate justice is, then the litmus test for climate justice is at the local level. So, climate justice needs to be judged by how many people are protected from climate-vulnerable conditions that they have no hand in creating. That’s ultimately what we all want to do. But the mechanism that we have available for loss and damage—this has been a very polarized conversation. I understand that there was some disappointment with the way the reference to human rights was being discussed, but I am sure that when this conversation happens again at COP28 in Dubai, there will be a great push to put this language back into the agreement.
At this point, there is a provisional way forward, and I do not think this will be a smooth process, but I do hope that at the end of COP28, there will be a functioning operational modality for a loss and damage facility because this is really a very important aspect to the entire climate change policy landscape.
A decade ago, we were excited about climate change mitigation and adaptation. But now we are failing at mitigation, and adaptation is too little too late. We need an expansion of this conversation from climate mitigation and adaptation to loss and damage, and I think at COP28, this will take center stage. I think it’s important to have that agreement because nobody wants to have a COP28 that is not successful, and that would be an important part of the success.
IPS: And what are your expectations from the COP28? What actions should be prioritized to combat climate-induced hunger?
Laganda: It’s a good question. When we stay on these three headlines – climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, loss, and damage, it’s clear that on the mitigation side, we would like to see greater ambition, and where governments are making investments, the actions are compatible with the rhetoric because at the moment there is a gap between the rhetoric and the reality.
The Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) need to be more ambitious. We need to bend the temperature curve – there is no question about it. We cannot adapt our way out of the problem. The Adaptation Gap report says there is only USD 21 billion in public financing per year. We need at least USD 40 billion, which is also the goal that the UN secretary-general has. Also, adaptation investment needs to happen much faster and in a less bureaucratic manner, so more funding and more efficient deployment of that financing. And, in loss and damage, we would like to see a successful conclusion to the negotiations so that a Loss and Damage Fund is established with operational criteria that live up to the needs. We have to protect vulnerable people on the frontline of the climate crisis. So, this loss and damage fund makes sure that vulnerable people are protected immediately and not five years from now because 2024 and 2025 are critical years as we are already crossing the 1.5-degree threshold of the Paris Agreement.
These are the expectations I have for COP28, and this is how we will judge its success by the end of the day.
IPS: Finally, do you think the ongoing conflict in Gaza and the conflict-effected humanitarian aid needs will overshadow the discussions of climate-induced humanitarian aid requirements in Dubai?
Laganda: COP28 is the first COP that dedicates an entire day to peace and fragility. There is, for the first time, a recognition that there is a link between climate and fragility and that there needs to be more investment in climate action in a fragile context and in a conflict-inflicted context. There really is a bridge between the climate theme and conflict theme, which will make us think about how we can place investments in places like Yemen, Syria, and Somalia. So, I don’t think this (political conflict) will overshadow it, but how climate risks and conflict risks intersect will be prominent.
Earthquake orphans are cared for at the Kuramaa Center in the Idlib Governorate, Northern Syria. Credit: Sonia Al Ali/IPS
by Sonia Al Ali (idilib, syria)
Inter Press Service
IDILIB, SYRIA, Oct 13 (IPS) – Seven-year-old Salim al-Bakkar was orphaned in the earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, 2023.
Saved by members of the civil defense team who pulled him from the rubble, doctors had to amputate his left leg – which had been crushed in the 7.7 magnitude quake that killed more than 55,000 people and destroyed at least 230,000 buildings.
Salim, from Jenderes, north of Aleppo, Syria, was pulled from the rubble but, suffering from crush syndrome, had his leg amputated.
His only surviving relative, his grandmother Farida al-Bakkar, tells IPS of the pain and the sadness of caring for her grandchild.
“When my grandson woke up and saw me, he asked me about his mother, but I could not tell him that his mother and father had died because he was devastated.”
Salim is not alone; thousands of children survived without their families and now experience loneliness, psychological stress, and physical pain.
Even seven months after the earthquake, the fear Salim felt that day has remained engraved in his memory, according to his grandmother.
Dr Kamal Al-Sattouf, from Idlib, in northern Syria, says the earthquake resulted in many diseases.
“Thousands of buildings were completely and partially destroyed as a result of the earthquake, while the infrastructure of water and sanitation networks in the regions was damaged, increasing the risk of epidemics and infectious diseases such as cholera.”
The doctor stressed the spread of respiratory diseases, such as lung infections, especially among children and the elderly, and diarrhea of all kinds, viral and bacterial, cholera, and malaria, due to vectors spreading among the rubble, such as mosquitoes, flies, mice, and rodents.
Al-Sattouf said that people pulled alive from the rubble were often also affected by what is known as ‘crush syndrome.’ The hospital where he works received many cases, the severity of which is often related to the time the survivors spent under the rubble, usually made up of heavy cement blocks.
According to the doctor, crush syndrome results when force or compression from the collapsed buildings cuts off blood circulation to parts of the body or the limbs.
Psychological Impacts
A 10-year-old girl, Salma Al-Hassan, from Harem, in northern Syria, keeps asking to visit her old house destroyed by the earthquake. This was where she lost her mother and her sister.
Her father explains: “My daughter suffers from a bad psychological condition that is difficult to overcome. With panic attacks, fear, and continuous crying, she refuses to believe that her mother and sister are dead.”
He points out that his daughter became withdrawn after she witnessed the horrors of the earthquake. She loves to be alone and refuses to talk to others. She also refuses to go to school.
He and his daughter were extracted alive from under the rubble more than 8 hours after the earthquake.
Dalal Al-Ali, a psychological counselor from Sarmada, Northern Syria, told IPS: “Many people who survived the earthquake disaster, especially children, still suffer from anxiety disorders and depression, which is one of the problems. Symptoms of this disorder are persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness, loss of interest in activities, and changes in appetite and sleep patterns.”
She pointed out that the child victims of the earthquake urgently need psychosocial support in addition to life-saving aid, including clean water, sanitation, nutrition, necessary medical supplies, and mental health support for children, both now and in the long term.
Al-Ali stresses the need to provide an atmosphere of safety and comfort for children and to establish a sense of security and protection by moving them to a safe place as far as possible from the site of danger, in addition to providing group therapy and individual therapy sessions for parents, as well as for children, to help them overcome anxiety, and allow them to express their feelings by practicing sports and the arts.
She confirms that children need more attention than adults in overcoming the impacts of the earthquake because children saw their whole world collapse before their eyes and continue to feel the trauma acutely.
Victims of Earthquake, also Victims of Syrian Conflict
The Syrian Network for Human Rights, in a report published earlier this year, said it had documented the deaths of 6,319 Syrians due to the earthquake.
Of these, 2,157 victims were killed in areas of Syria not under the control of the Syrian regime and 321 in areas controlled by the Syrian regime. regime, while 3,841 Syrian refugees died in Turkey.
The group stressed the need to investigate the reason for the delays in the response of the United Nations and the international community because this led to more preventable deaths of Syrian people – and those responsible for the delays should be held accountable.
The network says the high death toll was in a highly populated area because of internal displacement due to conflict within the Syrian regime.
Even more tragically, the report adds, these traumatized people had to live through the horrors of indiscriminate bombing by the Syrian regime in the IDP camps in which they live.
With the aim of caring for the earthquake orphans in Idlib Governorate, Northern Syria, the (Basmat Nour) Foundation opened the Kuramaa Center to take care of the children.
The director of the Kuramaa Center, Muhammad Al-Junaid, says to IPS: “Many children lost their families and loved ones during the devastating earthquake, so we opened this center that provides care for orphaned children, and provides all their educational requirements, psychological support activities, and entertainment.
There are now 52 children at the center, which can take up to 100.
Al-Junaid added: “The staff work hard to put a smile on the children’s faces, and our goal is to make them forget the pain that they cannot bear and take care of them by all possible means to live a normal life in a family.”
Eight-year-old Fatima Al-Hassan, from Idlib, lost her entire family in the earthquake. She lives in the center and has found tenderness and care.
“I spend my time teaching, drawing, and playing with my peers in the care home.”
But Fatima still remembers her family with love and sadness.
IPS UN Bureau Report
A partial view of the exterior of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, that was destroyed by a truck bomb on August 19, 2003. Credit: UN Photo/Timothy Sopp
Opinion by Khaled Mansour (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Sep 08 (IPS) – Twenty years ago this month, a colleague saved me from a likely gruesome death. He insisted I stay in his Baghdad office of the World Food Programme (WFP) for a hot drink. “You can’t leave us without trying the tea I made for you! The best in Iraq.”
I drove back to my office half an hour later than scheduled. Near the grim building of the Canal Hotel, the UN headquarters in the Iraqi capital, I caught sight of a column of smoke and a grey cloud forming on the horizon.
A tragedy was unfolding. People were shouting and crying, while dust, sweat and the scent of molten iron irritated my eyes and nostrils. An American soldier stopped me, brandishing his weapon. He and his unit usually stood idly by their armoured vehicle, leaving the main entrance under the care of local security men. “Let me through, this is my office, I work here!!”
The soldiers didn’t speak or argue; they were tense and firm as they held their weapons in a ready position. What happened while I was away? Why couldn’t I get into my office? I felt an urge to force my passage through the soldiers, to enter the apocalyptic grounds.
Khaled Mansour
The gate at the back of the compound was open.
Inside, survivors were scattered, their faces pale and covered with a film of dust, sweat and blood. Many were sitting on the grass scorched by the summer heat in the spacious garden or on the grounds of the parking lot, staring into nothingness, while others trembled in tears as they embraced each other.
“Sérgio is dying,” cried a colleague before collapsing into my arms.
I slipped through a small back door and onto my office on the second floor. The broken glass of shattered windows crushed under my feet as I cautiously took one step after another in dim dusty corridors. I passed over doors torn off their hinges by the force of the blast, thrown onto the ground or leaning against the wall. Desks, drawers, shelves and paper littered the corridors.
My laptop was there but many keys had popped out due to the force of the explosion. Large, sharp glass fragments had lodged in the back of my chair. Had I been there, any of them could have pierced my back.
I walked in darkness until a soldier stopped me at the office of Sérgio Vieira de Mello, the head of the UN mission in Iraq. De Mello had been sent there a few weeks earlier by the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. His mission was to help the invading Americans reach a political way out and hand over power to Iraqis, after the military and political foundations of Saddam Hussein’s regime had been destroyed earlier that year in an ill-conceived and illegal war that had not even been sanctioned by the UN Security Council.
I asked the soldier to let me through. With a vacant look in his eyes, he said, “There’s no ‘through’. There is nothing there; that part of the building is vaporised. If you stepped behind that door, you’d fall several stories onto rubble, iron rods, and concrete blocks.”
A partial view of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad that was destroyed by a truck bomb on 19 August 2003. Credit: UN Photo/Timothy Sopp
I entered the adjacent office where a colleague and I used to smoke whenever we had the chance. Her cigarettes and lighter were on her desk covered by a thin layer of dust that enveloped everything in the room. She was among the missing, and I would later learn that she died in the explosion.
What I had missed
It took hours for us to piece the initial story together. Around 4:30pm on 19th August, 2003, a suicide bomber drove a truck heavily loaded with explosives into the UN compound. His deadly cargo detonated upon impact, destroying a whole corner of the building, burying those inside it under the collapsed floors. The attack killed 22 people, most of whom were UN staff members.
I spent the evening that day in a UN vehicle with colleagues moving from one hospital and medical centre to another, checking on the wounded and searching for some missing UN staff. We ferried some walking wounded back to their hotels.
For a few days, we worked all our waking hours, surrendering ourselves to an immense flow of adrenaline, meetings, calls, and emails.
There was no time to be angry about the UN failure to anticipate the attack or better protect its staff. There was no time to be angry at the mindless, murderous terrorists, or to contemplate the role of the US invasion and the disastrous de-Ba’athification policy, and the emerging Baath/jihadi coalitions which created a wave of terror that haunts the region today. There would be time for that, later.
I remained oblivious to how the attack impacted me psychologically for several weeks until the long-delayed recognition of the enormity of this horror finally arrived after I returned home to New York. I began tough journey of recovery, where I had to deal with survivor’s guilt and disturbing flashbacks, not to mention what happens usually in such circumstances when upsetting memories swept under the rug of the unconscious creep up and pull you down to very dark caves.
I was very fortunate (and the UN was probably very worried about liability and litigation) to be able to have a fully paid year of leave during which I underwent intensive psychotherapy, also paid for by my health insurance. Millions of Iraqis, including UN contractors, were not that lucky.
It took years to fully integrate this harrowing experience and move on. I now accept, rather than avoid, the waves of sadness—and sometimes anger—this memory brings. I know now how not to inflict my suffering on others. This required hard, personal work, and the support and love of friends, family members, and professionals.
I managed to return to work, including in conflict zones, after about a year.
Who was accountable?
The direct responsibility for this horrific attack rested with the terrorist Al-Qaeda group. For them the UN was a proxy target, easier to hit than the US military, which was then their nemesis, but had been an ally of their jihadi ideological fathers in Afghanistan in the 1980s. A wave of propaganda relying on a grain of truth that the UN was whitewashing the American invasion dominated Iraqi and even wider Arab conversations about the international organisation. Al-Qaeda recruiters exploited it cleverly to convince volunteers and followers that the UN was a legitimate target.
In a few months, the UN completed a detailed investigation and pointed the internal fingers of blame at dysfunctional security systems and officials. It shied away from directly blaming the decision-making process for hasty deployment of such political and humanitarian aid missions to danger zones without adequate planning, especially when such decisions were pushed by interested influential capitals.
I remember long discussions among senior UN officials and colleagues before and after the attack on how humanitarian aid had become too politicised and how this had turned us, aid workers, into a soft target for attacks which had been increasingly aimed at civilians and civilian infrastructure.
The day of the attack
On 19th August, 2003, a few hours before the attack, a colleague was trying to park our car inside the UN compound after passing through extensive security checks. As I got out of the car, I noticed a woman and a child behind a side unguarded gate. The child had managed to insert himself in the slight opening of the gate held together by a rusty chain and an old padlock. His slim figure was almost inside the compound when he noticed me. We exchanged conspiratorial smiles. Before he could fully push his body through, his mother grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
I thought I should inform the UN security officer, who was walking towards me, about what had just happened. They had excessive security measures at the main entrance while leaving that side gate easily passable for a small person. Before I could utter a word, the security officer shouted, “Move your car from here, these spots are reserved for the mission leadership!”
We exchanged some terse words. I pointed towards the gate. The woman and the child had already left. I said that this was a serious security lapse. He got angrier and shouted, “This is my job, don’t teach me my job, move your car now!”
A few hours later, the explosives truck drove into this rickety side gate dislodging it.
Undoubtedly, there was a clear failure and negligence on the part of security personnel and systems. Some of them faced subsequent administrative sanctions. However, understanding how the flawed security system allowed the terrorists to easily carry out the attack does not help us understand why they considered and planned such an attack against the UN in the first place.
How the UN became a target
Over the past 30 years, many people, especially in societies that receive aid or are affected by the UN resolutions and interventions, have increasingly viewed the organisation as a part of a scheme to maintain a western-dominated international order. From jihadists and armed militias to aid-receiving governments and communities, the UN has increasingly been perceived as subservient to neoliberal ideologies and western capitalist interests. My colleagues and I have heard this from government officials in Khartoum and Kabul, militia men in Darfur and Faizabad, and from refugees and displaced people in Palestine and Lebanon. Those who receive UN assistance always appreciated the help but often complained that aid had not addressed the root causes of their misery. They sometimes raised doubts about the motives of big aid agencies.
In the face of complex and unresolved conflicts, it is easier to adopt a superficial and simplistic view of how the UN works and claim that its myriad of organisations and programmes are mere tools of western foreign policy. And there is probably a grain of truth to such claims, especially since the end of the Cold War. Western capitals provide over 75 per cent of the funding for humanitarian organisations, they dominate their governance systems, and monopolise the top positions in the most important global humanitarian organisations, namely Unicef, WFP and the UNHCR. The first two have almost always been led by Americans, some of whom had served in senior political positions in their governments.
During the 20th century, the aid enterprise became increasingly intertwined with transnational politics. In addition to altruistic motivations and legal underpinnings, it was also increasingly influenced by realpolitik considerations to ensure that conflicts, poverty, and natural disasters did not undermine the stability of strategically important interests or region.
With the evaporation of the Soviet bloc in the late 1980s, disintegrating states and armed non-state actors emerged as the main threat to the international world order championed by the west. Al-Qaeda, though a former ally of the US in its global anti-Soviet campaigns, attacked the US on the home front. The murderous terrorist carnage on 11th September led to a massive and excessive response by the US and its allies in Afghanistan in 2001 and then in Iraq in 2003. The humanitarian enterprise played a large, albeit secondary, role to mitigate the impact of these wars on civilians. This role was largely shaped and funded by the US and its allies.
Since then, ideologically driven armed militias, remnants of the hard Stalinist left, and also some liberal and realist circles, started to perceive UN organisations as largely dominated by western capitals, and as a part of their toolbox in global undertakings, whether peaceful or military.
These are factual elements that fed the conspiratorial world view which enabled the bombing of Baghdad UN offices 20 years ago.
Modern humanitarian aid has not been free from political prerogatives since its formal evolution in the early 20th century. It became one of the Cold War battlegrounds after World War II. Then it metamorphosed again in the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union, as the dominant powers tried to subject it to their national priorities. This was evident in several conflict areas in the 1990s. For example, in the Balkans, the UN created safe havens to partly prevent the flow of refugees to western Europe. While food and shelter were provided, protection was not available, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Bosnians in places like Srebrenica.
Humanitarian organisations operate in a hyper-political environment while striving to adhere to principles of neutrality, independence, and impartiality. It is true, however, that UN senior leaders and staff on the ground can sometimes take inappropriate decisions and carry out their work in ways that are inconsistent with UN values. Such actions taint the entire UN and contributes to blanket perceptions such as “the UN is corrupt”.
None of this is to excuse, much less justify, a vicious strategy by armed groups involved in acts of terror that target international aid groups. It is to try to understand the environment in which these groups recruit and operate. It is also to show how innocent people can be crushed between the political machinations of the international community and the armed groups (or states) that control their lives.
How the train of politics twisted the tracks of humanitarian work
The politicisation of humanitarian aid was evident when I joined the UN in 1999 in Afghanistan, where the Taliban on the ground and donors in Washington and other capitals held many of the levers for the allocation and delivery of aid.
After 11th September, meetings with USAid in Islamabad focused on trying to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan after the US invasion. Afghanistan was already suffering from cyclical droughts, poor social services and a crumbling economy after being dominated by armed conflict for decades. They did not want to allow the Taliban to use the humanitarian cost of the war against them. The UN flooded the country with flour, oil and essential food items, and the feared famine never materialised.
Aid politicisation went into a higher gear of integration in 2002, during the months leading up to the Iraq War. The then US Secretary of State Colin Powell believed that foreign aid provided political incentives, supported free market democracy, and helped counter disorganised transnational migration.
In the autumn of 2002, humanitarian plans by UN organisations were shared with Washington. Before the war broke out organisations sought firm financial commitments from the US to start pre-positioning supplies.
Predictably, the shift in Middle Eastern and South Asian public opinion against the UN and aid agencies continued with rising allegations of bias and subservience to western interests. The complexity of functions, the competition for funding and a perception of clashing roles and priorities within UN organisations further complicated efforts to counter these allegations.
For example, the UN Security Council has at various stages imposed sanctions on Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Syria—measures that have severely affected the civilian populations rather than the targeted regimes and their proxies. Meanwhile, UN aid organisations like Unicef, the UNHCR, and the WFP continued to spend hundreds of millions of dollars (the total global budget of these organisations in 2022 exceeded $26bn) on millions of refugees, internally displaced persons and those harmed by the war and by these very sanctions.
Some of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, notably Russia and the US, have been implicated in strikes on medical and health facilities during conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, launching drone attacks against enemy targets killing many civilians in the process (what they call collateral damage), assassination attempts against opponents and arbitrary detentions. At the same time, they joined other western countries and Japan in providing the largest share of humanitarian needs (over $20bn in 2022 ), sometimes in the same places where they carry out or support seemingly endless military conflicts, such as in Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan.
These examples illustrate the complexity of behaviours of states and international organisations driven by often clashing motives and considerations.
However, in an era of dis- and misinformation and the quest for the ultimate sound bite, it becomes easier to view the UN as a failed international humanitarian conglomerate serving western political interests, incapable of leading the world to achieve just peace, enhance sustainable development or better protect human rights. (These were the three main pillars of the UN when its charter was put together after World War II.)
On the other hand, the authorities in recipient countries influence decisions about aid distribution: who receives assistance and who gets local contracts. A well-documented report in 2022 about aid operation in Syria revealed transactions involving tens of millions of dollars between UN organisations and private sector companies, some of which were owned or controlled by security agencies or senior Syrian officials who had been subject to western sanctions. These companies received around 47 per cent of the total UN contracts in 2019 and 2020.
Until the bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq in 2003, humanitarian workers took simple and logical security precautions—most notably, the display of their insignias on their offices, homes, and vehicles. The message that we, the UN, were neutral and impartial largely worked.
This started to change in the 1990s and early 2000s with new concepts such as the Responsibility to Protect, which started to give the UN a role that could be seen as interventionist. The reputation of UN organisations started to suffer. Many people, especially in recipient communities, increasingly perceived the UN as a western agent or a weak, subservient actor. Those who work with the UN have consequently become easier targets for criticism and, tragically, attacks.
In 2000 and 2001, I rode in rundown yellow taxis to go to the market in Kabul, where Taliban soldiers roamed the streets. I drove my own car bearing UN license plates to tribal areas in Pakistan, where jihadist groups, drug gangs, and arms dealers were present.
A few years later, during my missions in conflict zones, I needed security clearances to be able to leave my well-fortified offices. I wore a bulletproof vest and used two cars, one of them armoured, to attend meetings.
Relief workers started to be separated from people they were meant to assist, not merely by protective helmets and vests, but they also stayed inside homes and offices surrounded by sandbags and shock-absorbing barriers. These buildings became isolated behind barbed wires and high-security systems in locations far removed from the communities they were meant to serve. The walls around UN offices grew taller, and most of those working in conflict zones moved to live within fortified sanctuaries. International organisations also sent fewer international staff to unsafe areas.
All these changes help explain the decrease in casualties among foreign relief workers.
In 2003, a total of 117 local relief workers were killed, injured, or abducted, compared to 26 of their international colleagues. By 2022, the number of casualties among local workers had risen to 421, while the number of foreign relief worker casualties had decreased to 23. It is evident that the risks have increased, but their distribution has radically reversed, with local workers bearing much more of the burden.
Why I returned
My actual return to work in 2005 did not mean that I returned to who I was on the morning of 19th August, 2003, before the Baghdad attack occurred. In addition to my emotional and psychological shifts, I have also become more aware of limitations of humanitarian interventions and the urgent need for reforms in the international aid system.
By the time I decided to leave the UN in 2013, I had voiced almost all my concerns about the aid industry while working within the system.
Now, on the anniversary of the Baghdad explosion that I survived, I think a lot about the person I was 20 years ago when I lost 22 of my colleagues. I reflect on the price I paid and how much I have changed. I cherish the memory of friends and colleagues who lost their lives, were wounded or abducted over the past two decades—around 6,000 of them. The most recent was my late colleague, Moayad Hameidi, the head of the World Food Programme office in Taiz, Yemen, who was gunned down in late July. He survived Iraq but not Yemen.
The senseless Baghdad explosion compelled me to change, hopefully for the better, but the UN has been much slower in reforming itself while fully adhering to the principles on which it was founded—most importantly, humanity. Overhauling massive institutions might be much harder than healing and changing individuals. Perhaps our only choice here is to continue to work patiently to advance reforms step by step, programme after programme, until the UN better embodies the spirit of its charter, signed in San Francisco nearly 80 years ago.
Khaled Mansour is a writer, consultant and an adjunct professor on humanitarian aid, human rights and peacekeeping. He spent 13 years working for the United Nations, including for Unicef, peacekeeping missions and the World Food Programme
Global community urged to decarbonise their economy. Fossil fuels emit the highest carbon footprint of all fuel types and are considered dirty energy, followed by coal. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Sep 07 (IPS) – To cool down a burning planet, Africa’s Head of State and Government at the inaugural Africa Climate Summit unveiled the ‘Nairobi Declaration’ as curtains fell on the inaugural Africa Climate Summit held in Nairobi, September 4-6, 2023, under the theme “Driving Green Growth and Climate Finance Solutions for Africa and the World.”
The joint declaration is a unified approach and political leadership on an African vision that simultaneously pursues climate change and development agenda. As climate change pushes an already fragile continent between a rock and a hard place, Africa’s leaders say immediate action is needed.
Included in the declaration is an acknowledgement of the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2023, stating that the world is not on track to keeping within the 1.5°C limit agreed in Paris and that global emissions must be cut by 45 per cent in this decade.
“The report is particularly important because it highlights the interdependence of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies – the value of diverse forms of knowledge, and the close linkages between climate adaptation, mitigation, ecosystem health, human well-being, and sustainable development,” James Njuguna from the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources tells IPS.
As such, the Nairobi declaration underscores the IPCC confirmation that “Africa is warming faster than the rest of the world and, if unabated, climate change will continue to have adverse impacts on African economies and societies, and hamper growth and wellbeing.”
Against this backdrop, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, while speaking at the Nairobi climate summit, stressed that “an injustice burns at the heart of the climate crisis, and its flame is scorching hopes and possibilities here in Africa. This continent accounts for less than 4 per cent of global emissions. Yet it suffers some of the worst effects of rising global temperatures: extreme heat, ferocious floods, and tens of thousands dead from devastating droughts.”
To push the continent’s climate agenda forward, the declaration identifies several collective actions needed to halt the speed of the ongoing climate crisis and to build climate resilience. African leaders urged the global community to act with speed in reducing emissions and honouring the commitment to provide USD100 billion in annual climate finance, as promised 14 years ago at the Copenhagen conference.
Other actions include accelerating all efforts to reduce emissions to align with goals set forth in the Paris Agreement, upholding commitments to a fair and accelerated process of phasing down coal, and abolishment all fossil fuel subsidies. And swiftly operationalise the Loss and Damage facility agreed at COP27 and accelerate implementation of the African Union Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan (2022-2032).
Reducing dependency on fossil fuels and increasing reliance on renewable energy is an important tool in the fight against climate change. Fossil fuels emit the highest carbon footprint of all fuel types and are considered dirty energy, followed by coal. Africa’s abundance of wind and solar energy can simultaneously meet development and climate change adaptation and mitigation goals.
Mitigation costs for a clean energy transition in Africa are about USD 190 billion per year until 2030. In 2009, during the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15), developed countries committed to a collective goal of mobilizing USD 100 billion per year by 2020 for climate action. As the global community heads to COP28, the pledge is still very much a broken promise.
Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan incurred an estimated USD 7.4 billion of livestock losses due to climate change and yet rich nations paid less than 5 per cent of the USD53.3 billion East Africa needs to confront the climate crisis.
To meet the cost of climate adaptation and mitigation efforts, Africa’s head of state and government are seeking: “New debt relief interventions and instruments to pre-empt debt default – with the ability to extend sovereign debt tenor and include a 10-year grace period. New universal global instruments to collect additional revenue.
“Decisive action on the promotion of inclusive and effective international tax cooperation at the United Nations with the aim to reduce Africa’s loss of USD 27 billion annual corporate tax revenue through profit shifting by at least 50 per cent by 2030 and 75 per cent by 2050.”
Towards pushing the continent’s climate agenda forward, the Nairobi declaration proposes to establish a new financing architecture that is responsive to Africa’s needs, including debt restructuring and relief, including the development of a new Global Climate Finance Charter through the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and COP processes by 2025.
African leaders have yet another critical platform to push the climate agenda forward at the Climate Ambition Summit to be held on September 20, 2023, during the high-level week of the UNGA – as an opportunity for ‘First Movers and Doers’.
‘First Movers and Doers’ is in reference to people and institutions from Government, business, finance, local authorities, and civil society who are already engaged in climate action and can offer pointers into how climate action can be accelerated. Further, the Nairobi declaration will form the basis of negotiations at the COP28 summit as Africa’s common position in global climate change processes.
Actioning the declaration is particularly urgent for the injustice of climate change is such that climate-induced disasters have cornered an already fragile continent, and a most vulnerable African population is in the eye of a deadly storm.
Malawi, Mozambique, and Madagascar were in February and March this year in the crosshairs of the most severe storms in the last 20 years. Deadly floods affected countries such as Chad, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya are experiencing the most severe drought in the last 40 years due to five consecutive rainy seasons. Children in 48 out of 49 African countries assessed by UNICEF are at high or extremely high risk of the impacts of climate change. Children in the Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Guinea, Somalia, and Guinea Bissau are the most at risk.
To cushion vulnerable communities against the vagaries of climate change, the declaration seeks to hold rich nations accountable for their contribution to the climate status quo and to therefore reach new global carbon taxes, restructure global climate financial infrastructure and decarbonise the global economy in favour of a green economy.
BRAC International recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bihar Government’s Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society to launch Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana Shahari, the first government-led urban Graduation programme in Asia. Credit: BRAC
by Rina Mukherji (pune, india)
Inter Press Service
PUNE, INDIA, Aug 30 (IPS) – In a bid to tackle the complexities of urban poverty, the Government of Bihar’s Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) has launched Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana Shahari (SJY Urban). The program will include a time-bound series of multifaceted interventions addressing food security, social inclusion, and sustainable economic livelihoods to enable participating households to achieve a better standard of living.
As part of this program, BRLPS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with BRAC International, which will serve as a thought partner to the Government of Bihar for the project development and also is building a consortium of partners to support the government in its implementation. Project Concern International (PCI), for example, is taking on management responsibilities and will also host thematic workshops across departments and with civil society experts to support inclusive learning and dialogue.
Mobile Creches will create a community cadre of childcare providers who will support maternal and child health. They have a 50-year-old history of providing childcare support, maternal and nutritional health, and WASH training to urban women in the slums of Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune. Quicksand will support the learning process to consolidate the design through ethnographic methods, prototyping, and other design elements. These learnings will help inform the project about the fabric of each respective urban community and provide a feedback loop once the rollout starts.
SJY Urban was inspired by the existing rural programme, Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana (SJY), locally known as JEEVIKA, the largest government-led Graduation programme in the world, which has reached over 150,000 households as of early 2023 and is still expanding. SJY Urban is modelled on the rural programme’s six basic modules: 1) Building up the aspirations and confidence of households; 2) Financial Inclusion; 3) Improvement of Health, Nutrition, and Sanitation; 4) Social Development; 5) Livelihood generation; and 6) Government Convergence.
While taking inspiration from JEEVIKA, the Urban Programme will be adapted to respond to the unique challenges people in poverty face within the urban context.
“Urban poverty is complex and inadequately addressed,” said Shweta S Banerjee, Country Lead – India, BRAC International. “SJY Shahari is a unique project in the many challenges it has accepted, including supporting project participants during extreme heat waves. BRAC is excited and committed to serving as a thought partner to the Government of Bihar as we take the time to test, learn, relearn, and deploy the project design.”
Applying Learnings from the Rural Programme to the Urban
The 36-month SJY Urban Programme will be launched in five wards in Patna and five wards in Gaya for now and will be scaled up in a year’s time. Given the unique challenges in urban settings, where research and solutions are more limited in comparison to rural settings, the programme will incorporate learnings from the SJY programme.
“In keeping with the requirements in an urban setting, we intend to provide improved skill sets in carpentry, plumbing, welding, and the like that can help workers access better employment opportunities both within and outside Bihar. For instance, there are around 50,000 to 100,000 Bihar workers in the Tiruppur hosiery industry. We intend to provide them with the necessary skill certification through the National Skill Development Council,” Jeevika CEO Rahul Kumar told IPS.
Designed with a focus on women’s empowerment, SJY has made a pronounced difference for people living in extreme poverty in Bihar, particularly through inclusive livelihood development and access to financial security through self-help groups (SHGs). The urban programme will also utilise SHGs to improve financial opportunities along with sustainable livelihood options.
While the livelihood options are different, there is still a great opportunity for skill development for people living in urban poverty. JEEVIKA plans to pursue livelihoods for participants through conventional entrepreneurship, building up specific skills for trades, and partnerships with public utilities. The existing bank sakhi programme, a program that has trained rural women to assist customers in opening accounts and other administrative bank-related services, as part of JEEVIKA, saw 2,500 bank sakhis leverage Rs 10,000 crore in business for various banks.
According to Rahul Kumar, the bank sakhi programme could be introduced in across Bihar and offer additional financial products such as insurance and mutual funds.
There are also climate-responsive livelihoods that have been utilised in the rural programme that can work for an urban setting as well, such as waste management, recycling of waste, and the use of e-rickshaws. With climate change contributing to rapid urbanisation across Asia and driving millions more into poverty, affecting those furthest behind first, sustainable, resilient livelihood development will be a critical component of SJY Urban. The programme will work to further enhance resilience among participants by providing them with resources and training to develop food security and social inclusion.
Creating a Stronger Ecosystem Through Convergence
Similar to the rural programme, SJY Urban will bring together different existing government schemes and agencies to best serve those living in extreme poverty. The programme will also leverage the existing enterprises within the rural programme and promote them in the urban programme as well, such as market poultry and dairy products.
There are existing livelihood initiatives that rural participants are driving forward, such as running nurseries across the state, which have provided saplings to the Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Department for planting. These saplings can be used by urban plantations and gardens that are also under the department. Similarly, there are kiosk carts that sell Neera or palm nectar that are processed and made by JEEVIKA participants. There is an opportunity to expand this enterprise to the urban setting as well.
JEEVIKA will also engage other government agencies to support the design and implementation of the urban programme. Most recently, JEEVIKA and BRAC convened an inaugural workshop in preparation for launching the Urban Poor Graduation Project, in collaboration with the Departments of Urban Development and Housing, Labour Resources, Social Welfare, Women and Child Development Corporation. The workshop brought together government representatives and experts with diverse sectoral expertise to reflect on existing solutions for urban poverty and share key insights that could help inform the design and delivery of the Urban Poor Graduation Project. The workshop also brought together practitioners and leveraged knowledge from Graduation-based programmes outside Bihar and India.
The shared expertise and convergence in existing government schemes and partnerships will allow the programme to address unique challenges facing the urban environment and enhance coordination, which will ultimately improve overall impact.
Challenges and Learning Opportunities in an Urban Environment
This will be one of the first urban Graduation programmes at scale that combine skills development and livelihood support to alleviate urban poverty.
The unique constraints presented by the urban environment in Bihar, such as limited land availability, the migratory nature of the population in urban poor neighbourhoods, and heatwaves impacting the ability to work, present an opportunity to learn and adapt programming further to test what works.
“The kind of social cohesion prevalent in rural areas is lacking in urban centres. This makes social mobilisation, on which the programme rests, a difficult task,” Kumar said.
The first phase in designing the programme, along with the learnings from the first cohort of participants, will offer valuable insights on how to combat the challenges of those living in urban poverty face. Such learnings can then be shared across the Global South to support broader efforts to respond to rapid urbanisation and an increase in urban poverty.
SJY Urban is poised to move head-on, with its consultants scheduled to hammer out a clear strategy in the coming months. In a year’s time, Kumar says the programme aims to cover all 240 urban local bodies in the state.
Goat rearing is contributing to economic independence and improved livelihoods of women thanks to a post-COVID-19 empowerment project. CREDIT: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS
by Umar Manzoor Shah (milonpur, india)
Inter Press Service
MILONPUR, INDIA, Aug 08 (IPS) – Seema Devi is a 39-year-old woman hailing from India’s northeastern state of Assam. She lives in a village called Milonpur, a small hamlet with no more than 1 000 inhabitants. While most men from the village, including Devi’s husband, move to cities and towns in search of work, women are left behind to take care of the house and kids.
Devi says that after the COVID-19 lockdown in India in the year 2020, the family income drastically plummeted. As most of the factories were shut for months, the workers, including Devi’s husband, were jobless. Even after the lockdown ended and workers were called back to the factories, the wages witnessed a dip.
“Earlier my husband would earn no less than Rs 10 000 a month (125 USD), and after the lockdown, it wasn’t more than a mere 6 000 rupees (70 USD). My children and I would suffer for the want of basic needs like medicine and clothing, but at the same time, I was considerate of the situation and helplessness of my husband,” Devi told IPS.
However, there were few alternatives available at home that could have mitigated Devi’s predicament. With the small area of ancestral land used for cultivation, the change in weather patterns caused her family and several households in the village to reap losses.
However, in 2021, a non-government organization visited the hamlet to assess the situation in the post-COVID scenario. The villagers told the team about how most of the men in the village go out to cities and towns in search of livelihood and work as labourers in factories and that their wages have come down due to economic distress in the country.
After hectic deliberations, about ten self-help groups of women were created. They trained in livestock farming and how this venture could be turned into a profitable business.
The women were initially reluctant because they were unaware of how to make livestock farming profitable. They would ask the members of the charitable organisation questions like, “What if it fails to yield desired results? What if some terrible disease affects the animals, and what if the livestock wouldn’t generate any income for them?”
Wilson Kandulna, who was the senior member of the team, told IPS that experts were called in to train the women about cattle rearing and how timely vaccinations, proper feed, and care could make livestock farming profitable and mitigate their basic living costs. “At first, we provided ten goat kids to each women’s group and made them aware of the dos and don’ts of this kind of farming. They were quick to learn and grasped easily whatever was taught to them,” Wilson said.
He added that these women were living in economic distress due to the limited income of their husbands and were desperately anxious about the scarcity of proper education for children and other daily needs.
Devi says that as soon as she got the goat kids, she acquired basic training in feeding them properly and taking them for vaccinations to the nearby government veterinary hospital.
“Two years have passed, and now we have hundreds of goats as they reproduce quickly, and we are now able to earn a good income. During the first few months, there were issues like feeding problems, proper shelter during monsoons and summers, and how and when we should take them out for grazing. As time passed and we learned the skills, we have become very trained goat rearers,” Devi said.
Renuka, another woman in the self-help group, told IPS that for the past year, they have been continuously getting demands for goat milk from the main towns. “People know about the health benefits of goat milk. They know it is organic without any preservatives, and that is the reason we have a very high demand for it. We sell it at a good price, and at times, demand surpasses the supply,” Renuka said.
For Devi, livestock farming has been no less than a blessing. She says she earns more than five thousand rupees a month (about 60 USD) and has been able to cover daily household expenses all by herself. “I no longer rely on my husband for household expenses. I take care of it all by myself. My husband, too, is relieved, and things are getting back on track,” Devi said, smiling.
Kalpana, a 32-year-old member of the group, says the goats have increased in number, and last year, several of them were sold in the market at a good price.
“The profits were shared by the group members. Earlier, women in this village were entirely dependent on their husbands for covering their basic expenses. Now, they are economically self-reliant. They take good care of the house and of themselves,” Kalpana told IPS News.
Note: Names of some of the women have been changed on their request.
Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown. Credit: UN
by Abigail Van Neely (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 01 (IPS) – Civilian infrastructure is under attack in cities across Ukraine, and the need for long-term aid grows. However, the United Nations’ 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan for Ukraine is only 30 percent funded, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, told journalists.
The response plan for the year calls for USD 3.9 billion to continue frontline deliveries several times a week, prepare Ukraine for winter, and support long-term recovery and rebuilding in the country. Brown said that funding meant to help at least 11 million Ukrainians has been inadequate due to unexpected demands.
Access to water for drinking and irrigation has become a key issue following the destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam. Top-floor residents have watched their downstairs neighbors evacuate flooded apartments. Several thousand people have been displaced due to water damage. Brown said that while the situation has been managed in the short term, the UN team continues searching for long-term solutions to water contamination.
Brown highlighted that the need for trauma support is growing at a fast pace. While it is too early to assess the long-term psychological effects of the current war, a 2019 study found a high prevalence of PTSD and depression in Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
The Black Sea city of Odesa has been attacked by Russia several times in the past weeks. The city is an important hub for the UN and the humanitarian community because it acts as a staging area for frontline responses, Brown explained. She recently traveled there to check on UN staff.
In Odesa, Brown visited the historical Orthodox cathedral. The Transfiguration Cathedral is in the center of a protected part of the city and within 700 meters of where most UN staff live and work. Brown learned that neighboring civilians had taken shelter in a bunker in the cathedral when an air siren went off, not knowing it would be hit. There was damage throughout the building, with one wing completely destroyed. A team of UNESCO experts has been deployed to further assess the condition of the cathedral. Brown said she was heartened to see community members gather to clean up broken glass.
“What I saw in Odesa last week with my own eyes is being repeated across many big cities in Ukraine,” Brown said.
According to Brown, big cities with a UN presence nearby are regularly targeted. Whole neighborhood blocks have been struck, and entire buildings have come down. Attacks on infrastructure like critical ports have hurt civilian workers, Ukrainian farmers, and vulnerable people in the Global South who rely on grain from the region. Access to resources has been a particular concern since Russia’s termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
The UN continues to advocate for access to Russian-occupied territories for the purpose of providing aid. Brown said they have been denied due to “security concerns.”
“The humanitarian situation hasn’t changed… the only thing that’s going to relieve that situation is if the war stops,” Brown said.
ABUJA, Aug 01 (IPS) – Not all wars are fought on the battleground. The Cold War has taught us that certain wars could go on for decades, without overt violence. Perhaps, we are in the middle of another one with China as the new rival to the United States of America. This time, the ‘battlefield’ is Africa.
Similarly, we all know of how the United States has heavily supported many countries in Africa through trade and in the fight against insurgency; putting boots on the ground, supplying top-grade artillery, training security agencies etc.
There is no point in rehashing the dysfunctional relationship Africa has had with… hmmm, what’s the right term? The global north? Developed nations? Let’s just say ‘richer nations’.
Also, there is no need to debate how that wealth came to be. The point is that Africa has, for the longest time, depended on wealthier nations for humanitarian aid and oftentimes, this aid always comes with strings attached.
Recently, I was at an event organized by Devex where Congresswoman Sara Jacobs spoke on US-Africa relations. She made very valid points about how the United States has, over the years, used a carrot-stick approach with the continent, dangling humanitarian aid for alignment with the United States policies and ideologies and sanctions for derelictions (my words, not hers).
She highlighted the positive impact of some of these policies like the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which I had not heard of prior to her mentioning it but has yielded interesting returns for Nigeria and the U.S. She went on to caution against the U.S limiting diplomatic relations with Africa to a strategic competition to simply be one-up over China.
Then she said something that got me thinking really hard. She talked about the United States giving Africa agency. In fairness to her, I do not remember the full statement she made and her points of view were largely refreshing to hear but my mind went off on a tangent, pondering a question, “Will the USA ever really accept Africa’s agency, even when we do not agree with them?”
The truth is that Africa does not need any country or ‘superpower’ to give it agency. Absolutely not! Africa is made up of sovereign nations who already have agency and while these nations may not act like it as they go cap-in-hand seeking foreign aid, this is a fact.
Why would nations so far removed make decisions for a whole continent? Why does Africa have to be a pawn in a scheme that it has no business with? Why is there even a conversation about strengthening relations with Africa on the basis of having an advantage over another nation?
The goal of this article is not to point accusatory fingers at the United States or China. After all, some of these humanitarian efforts have truly improved certain communities, albeit at a great cost. More so, as our people say, when you point one finger, the others point back at you. What have our leaders done to reposition the continent? How has the continent looked inward to build itself?
The questions abound but I believe this is the start. There are so many development organizations in Africa, but how many of them are thinking of systemic change rather than merely providing direct service?
Do not misunderstand me: direct service is important in bridging immediate gaps to improve the quality of life in various communities. Nonetheless, if we are going to initiate long-term change then we should be thinking of systems change, policy advocacy, looking at the big picture and laying the building blocks for posterity.
Irrespective of the sectors you may be working in- governance, health, education, environment etc.- as you provide services for the ‘now’, you must also have a bird’s eye view of how to improve your community for the long run and eliminate the factors that perpetuate the status quo.
With the expertise you have in your local context, you should be the one directing even international grantmakers on how best to engage communities. This is the concept of localization, that I wrote about here. This is why collaboration and coalition-building in the development space is important. Development work is not a competition even though grantmaking has made it seem that way.
Ultimately, Africa needs to stand up for itself. There is no one coming to save us. Otherwise, we will sit by, twiddle our thumbs and find ourselves back in 1884.
Angela Umoru-David is a creative social impact advocate whose experience cuts across journalism, program design and corporate/development communications, and aims to capture a plurality of views that positively influence the African narrative
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