Bukes Saliu, a forklift driver, is a Nigerian woman who challenging stereotypes. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS
by Promise Eze (lagos)
Inter Press Service
LAGOS, Sep 28 (IPS) – Bukes Saliu wakes up very early every workday to beat the gruesome Lagos traffic to head to a job quite unusual for a woman to engage in Nigeria. She is a forklift operator in one of the busy depots in the coastal city, a task traditionally meant for men in the West African country.
In a country where women are seen as second-class citizens and whose roles are expected to be confined to the kitchen, Saliu is not letting patriarchal norms put her in a box.
“People are always thrilled when I tell them what I do. Sometimes I get snide remarks from some men I work with, but I don’t allow that to get to me,” Saliu says.
In August 2022, her curiosity was piqued when she came across a post on WhatsApp from her friend featuring a woman confidently posed beside a forklift machine. That ignited her interest in the job. Soon after, she enrolled in training to become a skilled forklift operator.
“It was a change of career path for me. I used to be a project manager with a non-profit, but I left the job to be a forklift operator. The first day I started work, I was a bit afraid, but now I operate the machine like any other man would do. I believe that women should be allowed at the table because it brings different perspectives, ideas, and experiences,” she adds.
Patriarchy Lives in Nigeria
Discrimination against women has been a serious problem in Nigeria. Women still grapple with an array of challenges and are marginalized despite the Nigerian constitution providing for gender equality and nondiscrimination
Although the government has attempted to tackle these deep-rooted issues, the pace of progress remains sluggish. Women’s representation within politics and decision-making spheres remains poor. For example, out of a total of 15,307 candidates in the 2023 general elections, only 1,550 were women. Only three women were elected as senators as against nine in the last election, and only one woman emerged as a presidential candidate.
Women are often excluded from economic prospects. Within Nigeria’s populace exceeding 200 million, a mere 60.5 million people contribute to its labor force. Among this workforce, around 27.1 million women participate, a significant portion of whom find themselves involved in low-skilled employment. Nigeria’s position on the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index is a lowly 123rd out of 156 nations.
Swimming Against the Tide
A limited number of women are challenging conventional gender norms for the purpose of livelihood, stepping into roles that are male dominated in Nigeria. However, this transition is often met with resistance and negative reactions.
In 2021, Iyeyemi Adediran gained widespread attention for her exceptional mastery of driving long-haul trucks for oil companies. However, despite her remarkable skill, the then 26-year-old shared that she faced derogatory remarks for daring to break gender norms associated with truck driving—an occupation traditionally considered male-dominated.
In 2015, Sandra Aguebor, Nigeria’s first female mechanic, gained widespread attention for her all-female garages across the country. However, she revealed that her mother initially did not support her ambitions, believing that fixing cars should only be done by men.
Faith Oyita, a shoemaker in Benue State, Nigeria, is not letting patriarchal norms stop her. Despite Aba, a growing men-led market in southeast Nigeria, dominating the shoemaking industry, Oyita has been determined to make a name for herself since 2015, even though she resides kilometers away. She says she has trained over 300 other people on how to make shoes.
“When I first started, I didn’t care about the challenges that came with shoemaking. I had a deep passion for it, and I wanted to beautify people’s legs. Even though it was a skill dominated by men, I was determined to do things differently. I knew that greatness doesn’t come from convenience. In the beginning, many people questioned why I chose shoemaking. Even the man who taught me was hesitant and doubted my potential. I was the only female among all his apprentices, and many assumed that I came because I wanted to date him. Despite all the negative remarks, I never gave up,” she tells IPS.
Patriarchy Came Through Colonialism
“A lot of what is happening today is not how we originally lived our lives as Nigerian women. Patriarchy actually entered our society during the colonial era. Before colonization, both men and women were able to do things without being restricted by gender. Historically, women were involved in trading goods and services, and they could even marry multiple wives for themselves.
“However, when the colonialists arrived, they distorted our culture and, using religion, promoted the idea that men held more power. We should strive to correct this narrative. It’s unfortunate that we have been socialized to believe that men should always be in leadership positions and that women should only be in a man’s home,” says Añuli Aniebo Ola-Olaniyi, Executive Director, HEIR Women Hub.
Speaking further, Ola-Olaniyi argues that women who want to break gender norms must have a change of mindset and be ready to face challenges.
“The country that colonized us has their women driving buses and flying planes. They have progressed from where they colonized us. But Nigeria has failed to empower its women. When a Nigerian woman does something that is traditionally seen as only for men, it is seen as a big accomplishment. However, she has always been capable of doing those things. It’s just that the opportunities were not available. I don’t even think it’s a switch in gender roles. I believe that women are simply starting to realize their potential,” she tells IPS.
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 27 (IPS) – In recent years, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have spread rapidly. While usually profitable for the private partners, PPPs have generally not served the longer-term public interest.
PPPs as miracle all-purpose solution
As Eurodad has shown, PPP financing has grown in recent years, particularly in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) funding discourses. Adopted by the UN in September 2015, the SDGs endorsed PPP financing.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Earlier, the mid-2015 Third UN Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa had failed to ensure adequate financing. This was mainly due to rich nations opposing a UN-led international tax cooperation initiative.
Instead, PPPs were strongly endorsed in the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda. Weeks later, SDG17 referred to PPPs as ‘means of implementation’. This all sought to “encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships”.
PPPs have been promoted as a means to finance and deliver infrastructure, social services and, increasingly, climate-related projects. Advocates claimed PPPs would also help overcome other problems besides funding. PPPs, they claimed, would help improve project selection, planning, implementation and maintenance.
PPP promotion
Some advocates even claim only the private sector can deliver high-quality investment and efficiency in infrastructure and social service delivery. Private financing reduces budget-constrained governments’ need to raise funds upfront to finance, develop and manage projects.
Increased private financing supposedly also overcomes public sector incapacity to deliver high-quality infrastructure and public services. Undoubtedly, many government capacities have been diminished by decades of structural adjustment, austerity and less public finance.
This has been worsened by rich countries’ unmet commitments to contribute 0.7% of national income as official development assistance (ODA) on concessional terms. The global North has also been unwilling to effectively stem illicit financial outflows, e.g., due to tax dodging.
PPP promotion has involved many means, media and institutions, including ‘donor’ agencies, multilateral development banks (MDBs), UN agencies, international consultants, transnational accounting firms, and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The World Bank has long promoted private financial investments in development, as well as ‘blended finance’ and PPPs more recently. In 2022, the influential WEF even proclaimed PPPs as essential for pandemic recovery.
Promoting private finance
Such promotion of private finance has implications far beyond the actually modest amount of funds raised through ‘blended finance’ and PPPs. Almost every project so funded is touted as proof that private finance should be privileged, including by guaranteeing returns using public finance.
The World Bank and other MDBs are devoting considerable effort to advise governments on the use of PPPs. By contrast, they have not put comparable efforts into improving the quality and effectiveness of publicly financed infrastructure and social services.
Over the years, the World Bank Group has produced different tools – including model language for PPP contracts, which favour private sector interests – often to the detriment of the public partner, ultimately governments in need of financing.
Regional development banks – such as the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank – have strategic frameworks, networks and dedicated offices to support countries implementing PPPs.
National PPP promotion
PPP advocacy has led to changes in laws, regulatory frameworks and policy environments at international, national and local levels. Developing countries have also started including PPPs – to scale up infrastructure and public service provision – in national development plans.
Many developing countries have enacted laws enabling PPPs and set up ‘PPP Units’ to implement PPP projects. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and regional development banks work closely with private partners to provide policy guidance advising governments on how to best enable PPPs.
All this has transformed policy formulation for public service provision to attract private investors – an agenda Daniela Gabor dubs the ‘Wall Street Consensus’. This implies “an elaborate effort to reorganize development interventions around partnerships with global finance”.
PPPs have not delivered
But actual experiences have not confirmed this favourable impression promoted by PPP advocates. Instead, PPPs have become a major cause for concern. Reliable data on international PPP trends are hard to find. Also, different PPP definitions and terminology have confused reporting.
The World Bank’s Private Participation in Infrastructure Projects Database reports on economic infrastructure – such as for energy, transport, water and sewerage – in 137 low- and middle-income countries.
The Covid-19 pandemic undoubtedly disrupted PPP planning, preparation and procurement. But even the World Bank admits that delays and cancellations were not only due to Covid-19 as the pandemic exposed projects already in trouble for other reasons.
Nonetheless, PPPs’ financial impacts to date have been small, as the public sector continues to dominate. But little private investment – including PPPs – goes to low-income countries. Most such projects are concentrated in a few countries.
PPPs tend to be found in countries with large and developed markets allowing faster cost recovery and more secure revenues. This implies market ‘cherry-picking’ – a selection bias – with private investments going to more affluent urban areas rather than to the needy.
The major setbacks to both the SDGs and climate progress in the last decade are not only due to financing. But they are more than enough to underscore that recent reliance on blended finance and PPPs has worsened, rather than helped the situation. The empire of private finance has no clothes!
Jamaat-i-Islami party stage protest in Peshawar against price-hikes. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
by Ashfaq Yusufzai (peshawar, pakistan)
Inter Press Service
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN, Sep 26 (IPS) – “We are under extreme stress about skyrocketing prices of essential edible commodities and the cost of gas and electricity. The situation is becoming worse because every day. We must pay more for wheat flour, sugar, tea, milk, oil, etc.,” Azizullah Khan, a civil servant, says.
Khan draws a monthly salary of 30,000 rupees (USD100), but the cost of living is increasing daily, making it hard for his family of eight to survive.
The electricity bill for August was 20,000 rupees (USD67), and two-thirds of his salary went into paying that, while the remaining 10,000 rupees (USD33) is meant to pay for gas and other family expenses, which, he says, is next to impossible.
“Now, we are seriously thinking of selling the small house we inherited from our parents because we have to repay loans to the shopkeepers and pay the school fees of three children,” says Khan, 30. He lives on the outskirts of Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s four provinces.
Pakistan’s leading economy and business analyst, Khurram Hussain, told IPS that the country has been seeing relentless and unending pressure on the exchange rate and price levels for more than two and a half years.
“The present bout of exchange rate volatility began in May 2021 and has continued unabated since then,” Hussain says. The dollar had from around 150 rupees to the dollar to about 300 to the dollar, he says.
Quoted in Dawn, a newspaper in Pakistan, he noted: “It took ten years for the dollar to double in value from 75 to 150 rupees, from 2008 till 2019. It took less than two and a half years to double again from May 2021 till today.
At the same time, inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, started to skyrocket a few months after May 2021 and has risen relentlessly until now, with a few interruptions.
Muhammad Raees, 28, a daily wager, is severely hit by the cost of living.
“One year back, the price of 20 kg wheat four was Rs1300, which has now increased to Rs3000. I don’t find work every day because the construction activities have nosedived due to cement, iron, marble, and tile prices, and most of the contractors have stopped work,” Raees, a father of two, says.
“Many times, I have thought of committing suicide, but then I think of my children and wife,” he says.
At least ten people have committed suicide in the past two months.
“They were unable to pay electricity bills. Now, the government is mulling about jacking up the gas price by 50 percent. The poor population is the worst hit,” he says.
Javid Shah, a vegetable seller in Nowshera city adjacent to Peshawar, is fed up with life. “Cost of transportation has increased, and so the prices of vegetables and, as a result, sales have declined. Many who bought 1 kg of tomatoes, lady fingers, and potatoes daily are now taking half a kg,” he says. “I have to discard rotten vegetables daily for lack of sales.”
Akram Ali, a fruit seller in a tiny shop, also constantly complains of high inflation and devaluation of rupees. Ali says his business has reached a standstill as people no longer buy fruits due to high prices.
“As a result, I am going to close shop and start the business in a hand pushcart to save on rent.”
“My two sons are going to school, but the last one and half years have been tough, and I cannot pay their fees. Both have quit schools and sit at home,” he complained.
Saleem Ahmed, a local economist, tells IPS that pulses, considered poor men’s diet, are so expensive they are out of reach of many.
“All pulses are imported in dollars, so their prices have increased. The people are struck by inflation, and they cannot buy items, like pulses, which used to be cheap,” he said.
Prices were stable until former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed in April 2022 in a no-confidence vote at the National Assembly.
“People have been running from pillar to post for two square meals. As if inflation wasn’t enough, huge smuggling of sugar, wheat flour, pulses, oil, etc. to neighboring Afghanistan have hammered the last nail in the coffin of the poverty-stricken masses,” he said.
Ahmed says the government is taking loans from the IMF, the World Bank, and other lenders with high interest rates, impacting the cost of living.
In such a scenario, Afghan refugees living in Pakistan are jubilant over the rising Afghan economy under the Taliban, and many are weighing options to return to their country.
“In Pakistan, the US dollar is equal to 300 rupees while it is traded for 75 Afghani back home,” Muhammad Mustafa, an Afghan with a sanitary business in Peshawar, says.
Mustafa says he had sent his elder son to Kabul to search for the rented shop so he could shift his business there.
“All my family live in Kabul, and we want to be there. The time is ripe for us to shift (back) there,” he says.
Petrol is being sold at 312 rupees (USD1.5) per liter in Pakistan, while its rate was 80 Afghani (USD1.02) in Kabul.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Sep 26 (IPS) – Maryam al-Khawaja’s journey home ended before it had begun: British Airways staff stopped her boarding her flight at the request of Bahraini immigration authorities. Maryam was no regular passenger: her father is veteran human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, in jail in Bahrain for 12 years and counting.
Abdulhadi was sentenced to life in prison on bogus terrorism charges for his role in 2011 democracy protests, part of the ‘Arab Spring’ regional wave of mobilisations. His health, weakened due to denial of medical care, has further declined as he joined other political prisoners in a hunger strike demanding improvements in prison conditions.
Emerging from the unlikeliest place – a prison designed to break wills and destroy the desire for freedom – this hunger strike has become the biggest organised protest Bahrain has seen in years.
Maryam has four judicial cases pending in Bahrain but was ready to spend years in prison if this was what it took to save her father’s life. This is far from Abdulhadi’s first hunger strike, but his family warns that his fragile health means it could be his last. In denying Maryam the chance to see her father, the Bahraini regime has reacted as those who rule by fear often do: in fear of those who aren’t afraid of them.
A prison state
The Bahraini cracked down severely on the 2011 protests, unleashing murderous security force violence to clear protest sites, arresting scores of protesters, activists and opposition leaders, subjecting them to mass trials and stripping hundreds of citizenship. It sentenced 51 people to death and has executed six, while 26 wait on death row having exhausted their appeals. Most were convicted on the basis of confessions obtained through torture.
Many of those arrested in the 2011 protests and subsequent crackdown remain behind bars. According to estimates from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, over the past decade the government has arrested almost 15,000 people for their political views, and between 1,200 and 1,400 are still jailed, mostly in Jau prison in Manama, the capital. Abdulhadi is one of many.
On 7 August, Jau’s political prisoners went on hunger strike. Their demands include an end to solitary confinement, more time outside cells – currently they’re only allowed out for an hour a day, permission to hold prayers in congregation, amended visitation rules and access to adequate medical care and education. Over the following weeks the numbers taking part grew to more than 800. Their families took to the streets to demand their release.
On 31 August, the political prisoners extended their protest after rejecting the government’s offer of only minor improvements.
On 11 September, a two-week suspension of the strike was announced to allow the government to fulfil promises to improve conditions, including ending isolation for some prisoners. It seemed clear the government had shifted position to avoid embarrassment as Bahrain’s Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa prepared to meet US President Joe Biden.
Abdulhadi, however, soon resumed his hunger strike after being denied access to a scheduled medical appointment, only to suspend it a few days later when he was promised improvements in conditions, including a cardiologist appointment. But the next day it became apparent that these were all lies, and he resumed his hunger strike. It felt, as Maryam put it, ‘like psychological warfare and an attempt to kill solidarity’.
International solidarity urgently needed
In her attempt to return to Bahrain, Maryam received strong international support. Several Bahraini, regional and international civil society groups backed a joint letter urging European Union authorities to call for the immediate and unconditional release of all Bahrain’s political prisoners. A similar letter was sent to the UK government.
In late 2022, backlash from human rights organisations forced Bahrain to withdraw its candidacy for a UN Human Rights Council seat. And earlier this year, during the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s global assembly in Bahrain, which the regime sought to use for whitewashing purposes, parliamentarians called on Bahrain to release Abdulhadi and send him to Denmark for medical treatment.
But while Bahrain’s political prisoners have many allies, some powerful voices aren’t among them.
Bahrain’s foreign allies include not only repressive autocracies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates but also democratic states, notably the UK and the USA, which clearly value stability and security far more highly than democracy and human rights.
Following Bahrain’s independence in 1971, the UK has continued to back the institutions it established – and has pretended to see progress towards democratic reform. In July, Bahrain’s Crown Prince made an official visit to the UK, where he met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and signed a ‘Strategic Investment and Collaboration Partnership’ between the two countries. This included a US$1 billion investment deal in the UK. Barely a month before the start of the hunger strike, Sunak welcomed ‘progress on domestic reforms in Bahrain, particularly in relation to the judiciary and legal process’.
For the USA, Bahrain has been a ‘major non-NATO ally‘ since 2002 and a ‘major security partner’ since 2021. Bahrain was the first state in the region to be accorded major non-NATO ally status, the first to host a major US military base and the first, in 2006, to sign a free trade agreement with the USA. The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, one of seven around the world, is stationed there, and the country hosts the headquarters of the US Naval Forces Central Command.
On 13 September, the Crown Prince visited Washington DC and signed a ‘Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement’ meant to scale up military and economic cooperation with the USA.
Only in the last paragraph of its pages-long announcement, meticulously detailed in every other respect, did the White House briefly acknowledge that human rights were an item of discussion. Nothing was said about the content or outcome of those alleged conversations.
The USA has been repeatedly chastised for a ‘selective defence of democracy‘. President Biden promised a foreign policy centred around human rights, but that rings hollow in Bahrain. It’s high time the USA, the UK and other democratic states use the many levers at their disposal to urge the Bahraini government to free its thousands of political prisoners and move towards real democratic reform.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Sep 19 (IPS) – It’s a year since a photo of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini – bruised and in a coma she would never recover from after being arrested by the morality police for her supposedly improperly worn hijab – went viral, sending people onto the streets.
The protests became the fiercest challenge ever faced by Iran’s theocratic regime. The unprecedented scale of the protests was matched by the unparalleled brutality of the crackdown, which clearly revealed the regime’s fear for its own survival.
Led by women and young people, mobilisations under the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ banner articulated broader demands for social and political change. They spread like wildfire – to streets across Iran, to universities, even to cemeteries where growing numbers of the regime’s victims were being buried. They were echoed and amplified by the Iranian diaspora around the world. The Iranian people made it abundantly clear they wanted the Islamic Republic gone.
A year on, the theocratic regime still stands, but that doesn’t mean nothing has changed. By sheer force, the authorities have regained control – at least for now. But subtle changes in daily life reveal the presence of active undercurrents that could once again spark mass protests. The regime knows this, hence the fear with which it has awaited this date and its redoubled repression as it neared.
A glimpse of change
Last December, as protests raged and the authorities were busy trying to stop them, women could be seen on Iranian streets without their hijabs for the first time in decades. After the protests were quelled, many simply refused to resubmit to the old rules. A tactical shift followed, with mass street mobilisation turning into more elusive civil disobedience.
Women, particularly Gen Z women just like Mahsa, continue to protest on a daily basis, simply by not abiding by hijab rules. Young people express their defiance by dancing or showing affection in public. Cities wake up to acts of civil disobedience emblazoned on their walls. Anti-regime slogans are heard coming from seemingly nowhere. In parts of the country where many people from excluded ethnic minorities live, protest follows Friday prayers. It may take little for the embers of rebellion to reignite.
Preventative repression
Ahead of the anniversary, family members of those killed during the 2022 protests were pressured not to hold memorial services for their loved ones. The lawyer representing Mahsa Amini’s family was charged with ‘propaganda against the state’ due to interviews with foreign media. University professors suspected to be critical of the regime were dismissed, suspended, forced to retire, or didn’t have their contracts renewed. Students were subjected to disciplinary measures in retaliation for their activism.
Artists who expressed support for the protest movement faced reprisals, including arrests and prosecution under ridiculous charges such as ‘releasing an illegal song’. Some were kept in detention on more serious charges and subjected to physical and psychological torture, including solitary confinement and beatings.
Two months ago, the regime put the morality police back on the streets. Initial attempts to arrest women found in violation of hijab regulations, however, were met with resistance, leading to clashes between sympathetic bystanders and police. Women, including celebrities, have been prosecuted for appearing in public without their hijab. Car drivers carrying passengers not wearing hijab have been issued with traffic citations and private businesses have been closed for noncompliance with hijab laws.
The most conservative elements of the regime have doubled down, proposing a new ‘hijab and chastity’ law that seeks to impose harsher penalties, including lashes, heavy fines and prison sentences of up to 10 years for those appearing without the hijab. The bill is now being reviewed by Iran’s Guardian Council, a 12-member, all-male body led by a 97-year-old cleric.
If not now, then anytime
In the run-up to 16 September, security force street presence consistently increased, with snap checkpoints set up and internet access disrupted. The government clearly feared something big might happen.
As the anniversary passes, the hardline ruling elite remains united and the military and security forces are on its side, while the protest movement has no leadership and has taken a bad hit. Some argue that what made it spread so fast – the role of young people, and young women in particular – also limited its appeal among wider Iranian society, and particularly among low-income people concerned above all with economic strife, rising inflation and increasing poverty.
There are ideological differences among the Iranian diaspora, which formed through successive waves of exiles and includes left and right-wing groups, monarchists and ethnic separatists. While most share the goal of replacing the authoritarian theocracy with a secular democracy, they’re divided over strategy and tactics, and particularly on whether sanctions are the best way to deal with the regime.
Ever since the protests took off last year, thousands of people around the world have shown their support and called on their governments to act. And some have, starting with the USA, which early on imposed sanctions on the morality police and senior police and security officials. New sanctions affecting 29 additional people and entities, including 18 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and security forces, were imposed on the eve of the anniversary of the protests, 15 September, International Day of Democracy. That day, US President Joe Biden made a statement about Mahsa Amini’s inspiration of a ‘historic movement’ for democracy and human dignity.
The continuing outpouring of international solidarity shows that the world still cares and is watching. A new regime isn’t around the corner in Iran, but neither is it game over in the quest for democracy. For those living under a murderous regime, every day of the year is the anniversary of a death, an indignity or a violation of rights. Each day will therefore bring along a new opportunity to resurrect rebellion.
Alfalfa farmer Dionisio Antiquera stands in front of one of the wastewater treatment ponds at the modernized plant in Cerrillos de Tamaya, a rural community in the Coquimbo region of northern Chile. The thousands of liters captured from the sewers are converted into clear liquid ready for reuse in local small-scale agriculture. CREDIT : Orlando Milesi / IPS
by Orlando Milesi (coquimbo, chile)
Inter Press Service
COQUIMBO, Chile, Sep 18 (IPS) – The reuse of treated wastewater in vulnerable rural areas of Chile’s arid north is emerging as a new resource for the inhabitants of this long, narrow South American country.
The Coquimbo region, just south of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest in the world, is suffering from a severe drought that has lasted 15 years.
According to data from the Meteorological Directorate, a regional station located in the Andes Mountains measured 30.3 millimeters (mm) of rain per square meter this year as of Sept. 10, compared to 213 mm in all of 2022.
At another station, in the coastal area, during the same period in 2023, rainfall stood at 10.5 mm compared to the usual level of 83.2 mm.
Faced with this persistent level of drought, vulnerable rural localities in Coquimbo, mostly dedicated to small-scale agriculture, are emerging as a new example of solutions that can be replicated in the country to alleviate water shortages.
The aim is to not waste the water that runs down the drains but to accumulate it in tanks, treat it and then use it to irrigate everything from alfalfa fields to native plants and trees in parks and streets in the localities involved. It is a response to drought and the expansion of the desert.
“We were able to implement five wastewater treatment projects and reuse 9.5 liters per second, which is, according to a comparative value, the consumption of 2,700 people for a year or the water used to irrigate 60 hectares of olive trees,” said Gerardo Díaz, sustainability manager of the non-governmental Fundación Chile.
These five projects, promoted by the Fundación Chile as part of its Water Scenarios 2030 initiative, are financed by the regional government of Coquimbo, which contributed the equivalent of 312,000 dollars. Of this total, 73 percent is dedicated to enabling reuse systems, for which plants in need of upgrading but not reconstruction have been selected.
The common objective of these projects, which together benefit some 6,500 people, is the reuse of wastewater for productive purposes, the replacement of drinking water or the recharge of aquifers.
Díaz told IPS that the amount of reuse obtained is significant because previously this water was discharged into a stream, canal or river where it was perhaps captured downstream.
The Huatulame treatment plant in the rural municipality of Monte Patria in northern Chile is being completely repaired with the support of the local municipality. Waterproof plastic sheeting and rocks have been installed, and in the final stage sawdust and earthworms will be incorporated before receiving wastewater from local households for reuse. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS
A successful pilot experience
In Coquimbo, which has a regional population of some 780,000 people, there are 71 water treatment plants, most of which use activated sludge and almost all of which are linked to the Rural Drinking Water Program (APR) of the state Hydraulic Works Directorate.
Activated sludge systems are biological wastewater treatment processes using microorganisms, which are very sensitive in their operation and maintenance and rural sectors do not have the capacity to maintain them.
“Most of these treatment plants are not operating or are operating inefficiently,” Diaz acknowledged.
But one of the plants, once reconditioned, has served as a model for others since 2018. Its creation allowed Dionisio Antiquera, a 52-year-old agricultural technician, to save his alfalfa crop.
“We have had a water deficit for years. This recycled water really helps us grow our crops on our eight hectares of land,” he said in the middle of his alfalfa field in Cerrillos de Tamaya, one of the Coquimbo municipalities that IPS toured for several days to observe five wastewater reuse projects.
Raúl Ángel Flores stands in his nursery, where the plants and trees are irrigated with recycled water from the Punta Azul project in the town of Villa Puclaro, in Chile’s Coquimbo region. All profits from the town’s wastewater treatment are reinvested in its maintenance. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS
He explained that using just reused water he was able to produce six normal alfalfa harvests per year with a yield per hectare of 100 25-kg bales.
“That’s 4500 to 4800 bales in the annual production season,” he said proudly.
These bales are easily sold in the region because they are cheaper than those of other farmers.
The water he uses comes from an APR plant that has 1065 users, 650 of whom provide water, including Antiquera.
On one side of his alfalfa field is a plant that accumulates the sludge that is dehydrated in pools and drying courts, and on the other side, the water is chlorinated and runs into another pond in its natural state.
“This water works well for alfalfa. It is hard water that has about 1400 parts per million of salt. Then it goes through a reverse osmosis process that removes the salt and the water is suitable for human consumption,” the farmer explained.
In Chile, treated wastewater is not considered fresh water or water that can be used directly by people, and its reuse is only indirect.
Antiquera sold half a hectare to the government to install the plant and in exchange uses the water obtained and contributes 20 percent to the local APR.
He recently extended his alfalfa field to another seven hectares, thanks to his success with treated water.
Deysy Cortés, president of a rural drinking water system in Huatulame, stands in front of the dry riverbed of the town of the same name. Today there is no water in the river, where local residents swam and summer vacationers camped on its banks 15 years ago. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS
Flowers and trees also benefit
In Villa Puclaro, in the Coquimbo municipality of Vicuña, Raúl Ángel Flores, 55, has an ornamental plant nursery.
“I’ve done really well. My nursery has grown with just reuse water….. I have more than 40,000 ornamental, fruit, native and cactus plants. I deliver to retailers in Vicuña and Coquimbo,” a port city in the region, he told IPS.
The nursery is 850 square meters in size, and has an accumulation pond and pumps to pump the water. He has now rented a 2,500-meter plot of land to expand it.
Flores explained to IPS that he manages the nursery together with his wife, Carolina Cáceres, and despite the fact that they have two daughters and a senior citizen in their care, “we make a living just selling the plants…I even hired an assistant,” he added.
In the southern hemisphere summer he uses between 4,000 and 5,000 liters of water a day for irrigation.
“I have water to spare. Here it could be reused for anything,” he said.
Joining the project made it possible for Flores to make efficient use of water with a business model that in this case incorporates a fee for the water to the plant management, which is equivalent to 62 cents per cubic meter used.
Arnoldo Olivares operates the water treatment and recycling plant in Plan de Hornos, northern Chile. The plant’s infrastructure and operation have been upgraded, and it can now deliver water to rural residents to irrigate trees and plants, instead of using potable water. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS
Eliminating odors, and creating new gardens
In the community of Huatulame, in the municipality of Monte Patria, Fundación Chile built an artificial surface wetland to put an end to the bad odors caused by effluents from a deficient waste-eater earthworm vermifilter treatment plant.
“This wetland has brought us peace because the odors have been eliminated. For the past year people have been able to walk along the banks of the old riverbed,” Deysy Cortés, 72, president of the APR, told IPS.
The municipality of Monte Patria is financing the repair of the plant with the equivalent of 100,000 dollars.
“The sprinklers will be changed, the filtering system will be replaced, and sawdust and worms will be added. It will be up and running in a couple of months,” explained agronomist Jorge Núñez, a consultant for Fundación Chile.
As in other renovated plants, safe infiltration of wastewater is ensured while the project simultaneously promotes the protection of nearby wells to provide water to the villagers.
The Huatulame treatment plant in the rural municipality of Monte Patria in northern Chile is being completely repaired with the support of the local municipality. Waterproof plastic sheeting and boulders have been installed, and in the final stage sawdust and earthworms will be incorporated before receiving wastewater from local households for reuse. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS
Cortés warned of serious difficulties if no more rain falls in the rest of 2023, despite the relief provided by the plant for irrigation.
“I foresee a very difficult future if it doesn’t rain. We will go back to what we experienced in 2019 when in every house there were bottles filled with water and a little jug to bathe once a week,” she said.
During a recent crisis, the local APR paid 2500 dollars to bring in water from four 20,000-liter tanker trucks.
In Plan de Hornos, a town in the municipality of Illapel, irrigation technology was installed using reused water instead of drinking water to create a green space for the community to enjoy.
The project included water taps in people’s homes for residents to water trees and flowers.
Arnoldo Olivares, 59, is in charge of the plant, which has 160 members.
“I run both systems,” he told IPS. “I pour drinking water into the pond. After passing through the houses, the water goes into the drainage system, where there is a procedure to reclaim and treat it.”
“This water was lost before, and now we reuse it to irrigate the saplings. We used to work manually, now it is automated. It’s a tremendous change, we’re really happy,” he said.
Antiquera the alfalfa farmer is happy with his success in Cerrillos de Tamaya, but warns that in his area 150 to 160 mm of rainfall per year is normal and so far only 25 mm have fallen in 2023.
“The water crisis forces us to find alternatives and to be 100 percent efficient. Not a drop of water can be wasted. They have forecast very high temperatures for the upcoming (southern hemisphere) summer, which means that plants will require more water in order to thrive,” he said.
Díaz, the sustainability manager of Fundación Chile, said the Coquimbo projects are fully replicable in other water-stressed areas of Chile if a collaborative model is used.
He noted that “in Chile there is no law for the reuse of treated wastewater. There is only a gray water law that was passed years ago, but there are no regulations to implement it.”
He explained, however, that due to the drought, “rural localities today are already reusing wastewater or gray water. This is going to happen, with or without us, with or without a law. The need for water is so great that the communities are accepting the use of treated wastewater.”
The governor of Coquimbo, Krist Naranjo, argued that “a broader vision is needed to value water resources that are essential for life, especially in the context of global climate change.”
“We’re working on different initiatives with different executors, but the essential thing is to value the reuse of graywater recycling,” she told IPS from La Serena, the regional capital.
A view of the Altos de Florida neighborhood in Bogotá, Colombia. Overcoming poverty is the first of the Sustainable Development Goals, and in the Latin American and Caribbean region there is not only slow progress but even setbacks in the path to reduce it. CREDIT: Freya Mortales / UNDP
by Humberto Marquez (caracashttps://ipsnoticias.net/2023/09/america-latina-solo-hace-parte-de-su-tarea-para-cumplir-los-ods/)
Inter Press Service
CARACAShttps://ipsnoticias.net/2023/09/america-latina-solo-hace-parte-de-su-tarea-para-cumplir-los-ods/, Sep 15 (IPS) – The Latin American and Caribbean region is arriving at the Sustainable Development Goals Summit on the right track but far behind in terms of progress, at the halfway point to achieve the SDGs, which aim to overcome poverty and create a cleaner and healthier environment.
“We are exactly halfway through the period of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but we are not half the way there, as only a quarter of the goals have been met or are expected to be met that year,” warned ECLAC Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs.
However, the head of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) stressed, in response to a questionnaire submitted to him by IPS, that “the percentage of targets on track to be met is higher than the global average,” partly due to the strengthening of the institutions that lead the governance of the SDGs.
The 17 SDGs include 169 targets, to be measured with 231 indicators, and in the region 75 percent are at risk of not being met, according to ECLAC, unless decisive actions are taken to forge ahead: 48 percent are moving in the right direction but too slowly to achieve the respective targets, and 27 percent are showing a tendency to backslide.
The summit was convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres for Sept. 18-19 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, under the official name High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
The stated purpose is to “step on the gas” to reach the SDGs in all regions, in the context of a combination of crises, notably the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, new wars, and the climate and food crises.
The SDGs address ending poverty, achieving zero hunger, health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, and reducing inequalities.
They also are aimed at sustainable cities and communities, responsible production and consumption, climate action, underwater life, life of terrestrial ecosystems, peace, justice and strong institutions, and partnerships to achieve the goals.
Drinking water is distributed from tanker trucks in the working-class Petare neighborhood in eastern Caracas. Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is another of the goals that are being addressed with a great variety of results within Latin American and Caribbean countries, and there is no certainty that this 2030 Agenda target will be reached in the region. CREDIT: Caracas city government
Progress is being made, but slowly
“In all the countries of the region progress is being made, but in many not at the necessary rate. The pace varies greatly and we are not where we would like to be,” Almudena Fernández, chief economist for the region at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), told IPS from New York.
Thus, said the Peruvian economist, “there is progress, for example, on some health or energy and land care issues, but we are lagging in achieving more sustainable cities, and we are not on the way to achieving, regionally, any of the poverty indicators.”
Salazar-Xirinachs, who is from Costa Rica, said from Santiago that “the countries that have historically been at the forefront in public policies are the ones that have made the greatest progress, such as Uruguay in South America, Costa Rica in Central America or Jamaica in the Caribbean. They have implemented a greater diversity of strategies to achieve the SDGs.”
A group of experts led by U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs prepared graphs for the UN on how countries in the various developing regions are on track to meet the goals or still face challenges – measured in three grades, from moderate to severe – and whether they are on the road to improvement, stagnation or regression.
According to this study, the best advances in poverty reduction have been seen in Brazil, El Salvador, Guyana, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay, while the greatest setbacks have been observed in Argentina, Belize, Ecuador and Venezuela.
In the fight for zero hunger, no one stands out; Brazil, after making progress, slid backwards in recent years, and the best results are shown by Caribbean countries.
In health and well-being, education and gender equality, there are positive trends, although stagnation has been seen, especially in the Caribbean and Central American countries.
In water and sanitation, energy, reduction of inequalities, economic growth, management of marine areas, terrestrial ecosystems, and justice and institutions, Sachs’ dashboard shows the persistence of numerous obstacles, addressed in very different ways in different countries.
Many countries in Central America and the Caribbean are on track to meet their climate action goals, and in general the region has made progress in forging alliances with other countries and organizations to pave the way to meeting the SDGs.
Young people in a Latin American country share a vegetable-rich meal outdoors. The notion of consuming products produced with environmentally sustainable techniques is gaining ground, and a private sector whose DNA is embedded in the search for positive environmental and social repercussions is flourishing. CREDIT: Pazos / Unicef
Even before the pandemic that broke out in 2020, Fernández said, the region was not moving fast enough towards the SDGs; its economic growth has been very low for a long time – and remains so, at no more than 1.9 percent this year – and growth with investment is needed in order to reduce poverty.
In this regard, Fernández highlighted the need to expand fiscal revenues, since tax collection is very low in the region (22 percent of gross domestic product, compared to 34 percent in the advanced economies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), “although progress will not be made through public spending alone,” she said.
Salazar-Xirinachs pointed out that “in addition to financial resources, it is very important to adapt actions to specific areas to achieve the 2030 Agenda. The measures implemented at the subnational level are of great importance. Specific problems in local areas cannot always be solved with one-size-fits-all policies.”
Fernández underlined that the 2030 Agenda “has always been conceived as a society-wide agenda, and the private sector plays an essential role, particularly the areas that are flourishing because it has a positive social and environmental impact on their DNA, and there are young consumers who use products made in a sustainable way.”
ECLAC’s Salazar-Xirinachs highlighted sensitized sectors as organized civil society and the private sector, for their participation in sustainable development forums, follow-up actions and public-private partnerships moving towards achievement of the SDGs.
Finally, with respect to expectations for the summit, the head of ECLAC aspires to a movement to accelerate the 2030 Agenda in at least four areas: decent employment for all, generating more sustainable cities, resilient infrastructure that offers more jobs, and improving governance and institutions involved in the process.
ECLAC identified necessary “transformative measures”: early energy transition; boosting the bioeconomy, particularly sustainable agriculture and bioindustrialization; digital transformation for greater connectivity among the population; and promoting exports of modern services.
It also focuses on the care society, in response to demographic trends, to achieve greater gender equality and boost the economy; sustainable tourism, which has great potential in the countries of the region; and integration to enable alliances to strengthen cooperation in the regional bloc.
In summary, ECLAC concludes, “it would be very important that during the Summit these types of measures are identified and translate into agreements in which the countries jointly propose a road map for implementing actions to strengthen them.”
A protest for women’s rights in Puebla, Mexico. Credit: Melania Torres/Forus
Opinion by Bibbi Abruzzini, Marie LHostis (new york)
Inter Press Service
The 2023 Special Edition of the SDG Progress Report emphasized that we’re falling short in implementing the SDGs. In April this year, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres deplored that “Progress on more than 50 per cent of targets of the SDGs is weak and insufficient; on 30 per cent, it has stalled or gone into reverse,” disproportionately impacting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.
As we approach the halfway mark of the 2030 Agenda, we urge world leaders at the UN General Assembly to address the precarious state of SDG implementation. Here’s our 5 asks.
Walk the talk with clear implementation plans and benchmarks for the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals.
“In Guatemala, there are two worlds, one for a small group that benefits from this macroeconomic stability, this weakness of democracy, this co-optation of state institutions, and a large majority of the population that faces poverty and inequality,” says Alejandro Aguirre Batres, Executive Director of CONGCOOP, the national platform of NGOs in Guatemala that recently published an alternative report on the implementation of the SDGs in the country.
Human rights activists in Cartagena, Colombia from the Coalition of Human Rights in Development at the Finance in Common Summit. Credit: Sebastian Barros/Forus
Governments must make specific national implementation plans to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, with clear benchmarks on when to achieve the targets set in 2015. Following the SDG Summit, we call on the United Nations and its partners to ensure that the “National Commitments to SDG Transformation” called for by the Secretary-General are adequately compiled and tracked, including by providing a transparent and inclusive platform for showcasing these commitments, helping to ensure adequate implementation, follow-up and accountability.
All efforts and commitments must focus on breaching the increassing gap in inequalities, healing polarisation and restoring socio-environmental rights at the core of Agenda 2030 implementation as no form of development should come at the cost of environmental degradation and injustice.
Presenting a viewpoint from Asia, Jyotsna Mohan Singh, representing the Asia Development Alliance, emphasizes that while the SDGs look good on paper, their real-world implementation remains far from satisfactory. She explains, “Governments should develop a policy coherence for sustainable development roadmap with timebound targets,” adding that it’s all about creating spaces grounded in equity where civil society and other stakeholders can join discussions and connect with local communities.
In regions like the Sahel, stretching 5,000 kilometers below the Sahara Desert from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, challenges like conflict, political instability, extreme poverty, and food insecurity affect nearly 26 million people. Yet, this region is teeming with opportunities, boasting abundant resources and a young population, including 50% young women and girls.
As civil society leader Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule, Forus Chair and President of SPONG, the Burkina Faso NGO network, puts it, “What unfolds in the Sahel and in so many other forgotten communities ripples across the globe, impacting us all even if we choose to look away.
Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals is vital to unlock a different future. But for global change to truly happen, we need countries to come together, we need solidarity, horizontal spaces, and for world leaders to start listening and acting accordingly.”
Commit to the protection of civic space and human rights.
“Although the state of Pakistan has ratified many global instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the SDGs, the irony is that none of them have been transformed into local policies and regulatory frameworks. Unfortunately, civil rights advocates and organizations have either transformed themselves into humanitarian organizations or practiced self-censorship to avoid state atrocities. Pakistan is failing to achieve SDGs due to disengagement with civil society and other stakeholders.
Ironically, the government is unable to provide reliable data on any of their own priority indicators to measure progress towards the implementation of SDGs, particularly on rights-based indicators,” says Zia ur Rehman, National Convener of the Pakistan Development Alliance. Their newly published Pakistan Civic Space Monitor reveals a generally restricted civic space, including restraints on freedom of speech, assembly, information, rule of law, governance, and public participation, with further deterioration. This rings true for 92% of Forus members – comprising national and regional civil society networks in over 124 countries – who consider the protection of civic space and human rights a top priority.
Fridays for Future activists during a Climate March in Brussels, Belgium. Credit: Both Nomads/Forus
Indeed, over the past decade, thousands of civil society organizations have faced increasing challenges due to restrictions on their formation and activities. Nine out of 10 people now live in countries where civil liberties are severely restricted, including freedoms of association, peaceful assembly, and expression, according to the CIVICUS Monitor. Forus reports confirm that civil society deals with increasing restrictions, involving extra-legal actions, misinformation and disinformation about their work both online and offline.
Research also highlights the insufficiency of current institutional mechanisms to ensure an enabling environment for civil society, including addressing impunity for attacks on civil society and human right defenders, implementing supportive laws and regulations, and facilitating effective and inclusive policy dialogue. A recent ARTICLE 19 report highlights the inadequate integration of crucial elements like freedom of expression and access to information into SDGs, hampering progress.
Journalist killings increased in 2022. Additionally, monitoring access to information mainly focuses on having a legal framework, ignoring its quality and adoption. Strengthening these rights is vital for advancing all SDGs. The growing number of human rights defenders being killed every year – at least 401 in 26 countries were murdered for their peaceful work in 2022 – is another worrying trend that needs to be reversed as the protection and promotion of human rights is the cornerstone of achieving sustainable development. Without human rights we will just move backwards.
Strengthen and Catalyze Robust Financing for the SDGs.
From the recent Summit for a new global financing pact to the Finance in Common initiative, it’s clear that the focus this year has been on increasing investment. But we need quality not just quantity, as expressed in a join civil society declaration aimed at public development banks signed by over 100 civil society organisations from 50+ countries.
While we welcome UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s call for a SDG Stimulus, we remind Governments, International Financial Institutions, public development banks and donors that more efforts must be done to scale up investments for the realization of the SDGs at all levels, including through additional support for civil society and by involving communities in all “development talks”.
The role of the private sector and financial institutions in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda must be talked about openly. It is important to include in all development projects being carried out specific budgets for actions linked to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Discussions about financial reforms that are being repeatedly undertaken by several countries cannot happen behind close doors and in non-inclusive forums such as the G7 and G20. Instead, they should be open, inclusive, and transparent, involving a broader spectrum of protagonists, including civil society, to ensure fairness and sustainability in shaping global financial policies.
“The SDGs are severely off track as we reach the critical half-way point of Agenda 2030. We need a renewed global ambition on financial commitments to make progress on the SDGs. Reforms of global financial architecture are a crucial part of this to ensure we have a fairer, more effective, inclusive and transparent system supporting lower-income countries that are at the forefront of the global climate, debt, poverty, food, and humanitarian crises. It’s not about a lack of finance, it is about political will and getting our priorities right,” says Sandra Martinsone, Policy Manager – Sustainable Economic Development at Bond UK.
Mobilize Transformative Commitments for SDG16+.
Recognizing the vital role of SDG16+ as a critical enabler for the entire 2030 Agenda, governments should come to the SDG Summit with targeted, integrated, focused and transformative commitments to accelerate action on SDG16+.
As developed in the #SDG16Now collective campaign, this includes domestic policies and resources, legal reforms and initiatives to advance SDG16+ at the international, national and local levels, as well as ambitious global commitments to strengthen multilateralism and international resolve to promote peace, justice, the rule of law, inclusion and institution-building.
Additionally, governments must use key moments – such as the 2024 High-Level Political Forum and the Summit of the Future – to advance implementation and delivery of the SDGs through similar commitments to action, and ensure adequate follow-up to these commitments going forward.
Ensure civil society participation and listen to communities, reinvigorate commitments to SDG17.
The 2030 Agenda overall cannot be achieved without building on the role of civil society and fostering a true global partnership. Every year at the fringes of the UN General Assembly, initiatives such as the Global People’s Assembly bring to the ears of world leaders the voices of communities historically marginalised. Governments need to reinvigorate engagement towards SDG17 to trengthen the means of implementing sustainable development goals and revitalising global partnerships for sustainable development.
It’s high time we move away from conducting discussions about the future of development in closed-door settings. Tokenistic participation of civil society, where their involvement is merely symbolic or superficial, undermines the core principles of nclusivity, hurting genuine progress and meaningful collaboration. A more inclusive approach must be embraced that actively involves civil society and communities. Let’s #UNmute their voices and perspectives by bringing about reforms to current participation mechanisms, and giving them a real platform to be heard.
In 2015 every government in the world agreed as a global community on what we want for our comon future for people and planet. So many efforts and work went on to reach such an agreement. Now is the time for governments and world leaders to walk the walk and prioritize people and the planet, delivering the 2030 Agenda, essential to secure our shared future. It is time for world leaders to act decisively and uphold their commitments to the SDGs.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Sep 13 (IPS) – On 26 August, Gabon went through the motions of an election. Official results were announced four days later, in the middle of the night, with the country under curfew. Predictably, incumbent President Ali Bongo, in power since the death of his father and predecessor in 2009, was handed a third term. Fraud allegations were rife, as in previous elections. But this time something unprecedented happened: less than an hour later the military had taken over, and the Bongo family’s 56-year reign had ended.
In Gabon, people welcomed the military with open arms, thanking them for liberating them from the authoritarian yoke they’d lived under, most for all their lives. But overturning an oppressive regime isn’t the same as achieving democratic freedom. Studies show that although democracies are occasionally established in the wake of coups, too often it’s new authoritarian regimes that emerge, bringing even higher levels of state-sanctioned violence and human rights abuses.
A predatory autocracy
Omar Bongo gained power in 1967 and kept it for more than 40 years. He only started allowing multi-party competition in 1991, after making sure his ironically named Gabonese Democratic Party would retain its grip through a combination of patronage and repression.
His son and successor retained the dynasty’s power with elections plagued by irregularities in 2009 and 2016. In both instances it was widely believed that Bongo wasn’t the real winner. The constitution was repeatedly amended to allow further terms and electoral rules and timetables were systematically manipulated.
In 2016, blatant fraud sparked violent protests that were even more violently repressed. In 2018, Bongo suffered a stroke that took him out of the public eye for almost a year, fuelling concerns that he might be unfit to rule. But a 2019 attempted military coup failed and was followed by a media crackdown, arrests of opposition politicians and a hardening of the Penal Code to criminalise dissent.
Under the Bongos’ dynastic reign, corruption, nepotism and predatory elite behaviour were rampant. A small country of 2.3 million, Gabon has vast oil reserves, accounting for around 60 per cent of its revenues. In terms of per capita GDP, it’s one of Africa’s richest countries – but a third of its population is poor, a stark contrast with the incalculable ill-gotten wealth of the Bongo family and their inner circle.
Why now and what next?
The coup was presented as a reaction to an undoubtedly fraudulent election. Upon seizing power, the self-appointed ‘Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions’ announced the annulment of the vote and the dissolution of executive, legislative, judicial and electoral institutions.
Bongo was placed under house arrest along with his eldest son and advisor before being released and allowed to leave the country on medical grounds. Several top officials have been arrested on charges of treason, corruption and various illicit activities, and large quantities of cash have been reportedly seized from their homes.
Coup leader General Brice Oligui Nguema is now the head of the supposedly transitional junta in power. He’s assured that the dissolution of institutions is only ‘temporary’ and that these will be made ‘more democratic’. There’ll be elections, he’s said, but not too soon. First a new constitution will have to be drafted, along with a new criminal code and electoral legislation.
But while celebrations broke out in the streets, the international condemnation was swift, starting with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. The African Union suspended Gabon until constitutional order is restored, as did the Economic Community of Central African States.
Condemnation came from the European Union and several of its member states, and the Commonwealth, which Gabon was allowed to join in June 2022 despite not complying with minimum democracy and human rights standards. The president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, expressed concern about the ‘autocratic contagion’ spreading across Africa. Tinubu is currently leading efforts by the Economic Community of West African States to reverse the recent coup in Niger.
Some observers argue that this coup is different from others in Central and West Africa since it wasn’t based on security concerns but rather the absence of democracy, focused on election fraud and the corruption and mismanagement that stopped institutions meeting people’s basic demands. This is the position many in Gabonese civil society are taking, placing them at odds with the international institutions they accuse of having tolerated the Bongos for so long.
But others disagree, even if they’re happy to see the Bongos go. The opposition candidate widely believed to have been the real election winner, Albert Ondo Ossa, expressed his disappointment at what he described as a ‘palace revolution’ and a ‘family affair’. He’d hoped for a recount, which could have placed him at the head of a new, democratic government. What he saw instead was a transitional government that could be seen as a continuation of the ousted regime, not least because of the family links between the Bongos and General Nguema, also the happy owner of a fortune of unknown origins. Some of the new government appointments appear to confirm Ossa’s suspicions.
Beyond its composition, there’s the key question of how long this government intends to last. The pomp of Nguema’s inauguration ceremony belies its avowedly temporary tenure.
This is the eighth successful military coup in West and Central Africa over the past four years. Nowhere have the military retreated to the barracks after implementing what were invariably described as ‘corrective’ and ‘temporary’ measures.
On taking over, the military has seized not only political power but also control of the economic wealth that sustained the Bongo kleptocracy. They’re unlikely to let go willingly, and the longer they stay, the harder it will be to unseat them.
The coup government has so far shown a moderate face, but there’s no guarantee this will last. If the people who took to the streets to celebrate the coup ultimately do so again to protest at the lack of real change, repression will surely follow.
The international community must continue to urge the military to commit to a plan for a rapid transition to fully democratic rule. Otherwise, the danger is that the Gabonese people will merely move from one dictatorship to another, and nothing will remain of that fleeting moment when freedom seemed within reach.
NEW YORK, Sep 07 (IPS) – This September, world leaders and public policy advocates from around the world will descend on New York for the UN General Assembly. Alongside conversations on peace and security, global development and climate change, progress – or the lack of it – on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is expected to take centre-stage. A major SDG Summit will be held on 18 and 19 September. The UN hopes that it will serve as a ‘rallying cry to recharge momentum for world leaders to come together to reflect on where we stand and resolve to do more’. But are the world’s leaders in a mood to uphold the UN’s purpose, and can the UN’s leadership rise to the occasion by resolutely addressing destructive behaviours?
Sadly, the world is facing an acute crisis of leadership. In far too many countries authoritarian leaders have seized power through a combination of populist political discourse, outright repression and military coups. Our findings on the CIVICUS Monitor – a participatory research platform that measures civic freedoms in every country – show that 85% of the world’s population live in places where serious attacks on basic fundamental freedoms to organise, speak out and protest are taking place. Respect for these freedoms is essential so that people and civil society organisations can have a say in inclusive decision making.
UN undermined
The UN Charter begins with the words, ‘We the Peoples’ and a resolve to save future generations from the scourge of war. Its ideals, such as respect for human rights and the dignity of every person, are being eroded by powerful states that have introduced slippery concepts such as ‘cultural relativism’ and ‘development with national characteristics’. The consensus to seek solutions to global challenges through the UN appears to be at breaking point. As we speak hostilities are raging in Ukraine, Sudan, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Sahel region even as millions of people reel from the negative consequences of protracted conflicts and oppression in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Syria and Yemen, to name a few.
Article 1 of the UN Charter underscores the UN’s role in harmonising the actions of nations towards the attainment of common ends, including in relation to solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character, and to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all. But in a time of eye-watering inequality within and between countries, big economic decisions affecting people and the planet are not being made collectively at the UN but by the G20 group of the world’s biggest economies, whose leaders are meeting prior to the UN General Assembly to make economic decisions with ramifications for all countries.
Economic and development cooperation policies for a large chunk of the globe are also determined through the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Established in 1961, the OECD comprises 38 countries with a stated commitment to democratic values and market-based economics. Civil society has worked hard to get the OECD to take action on issues such as fair taxation, social protection and civic space.
More recently, the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – grouping of countries that together account for 40 per cent of the world’s population and a quarter of the globe’s GDP are seeking to emerge as a counterweight to the OECD. However, concerns remain about the values that bind this alliance. At its recent summit in South Africa six new members were admitted, four of which – Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – are ruled by totalitarian governments with a history of repressing civil society voices. This comes on top of concerns that China and Russia are driving the BRICS agenda despite credible allegations that their governments have committed crimes against humanity.
The challenge before the UN’s leadership this September is to find ways to bring coherence and harmony to decisions being taken at the G20, OECD, BRICS and elsewhere to serve the best interests of excluded people around the globe. A focus on the SDGs by emphasising their universality and indivisibility can provide some hope.
SDGs off-track
The adoption of the SDGs in 2015 was a groundbreaking moment. The 17 ambitious SDGs and their 169 targets have been called the greatest ever human endeavour to create peaceful, just, equal and sustainable societies. The SDGs include promises to tackle inequality and corruption, promote women’s equality and empowerment, support inclusive and participatory governance, ensure sustainable consumption and production, usher in rule of law and catalyse effective partnerships for development.
But seven years on the SDGs are seriously off-track. The UN Secretary-General’s SDG progress report released this July laments that the promise to ‘leave no one behind’ is in peril. As many as 30 per cent of the targets are reported to have seen no progress or worse to have regressed below their 2015 baseline. The climate crisis, war in Ukraine, a weak global economy and the COVID-19 pandemic are cited as some of the reasons why progress is lacking.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is pushing for an SDG stimulus plan to scale up financing to the tune of US$500 billion. It remains to be seen how successful this would be given the self-interest being pursued by major powers that have the financial resources to contribute. Moreover, without civic participation and guarantees for enabled civil societies, there is a high probability that SDG stimulus funds could be misused by authoritarian governments to reinforce networks of patronage and to shore up repressive state apparatuses.
Also up for discussion at the UN General Assembly will be plans for a major Summit for the Future in 2024 to deliver the UN Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda report, released in 2021. This proposes among other things the appointment of a UN Envoy for Future Generations, an upgrade of key UN institutions, digital cooperation across the board and boosting partnerships to drive access and inclusion at the UN. But with multilateralism stymied by hostility and divisions among big powers on the implementation of internationally agreed norms, achieving progress on this agenda implies a huge responsibility on the UN’s leadership to forge consensus while speaking truth to power and challenging damaging behaviours by states and their leaders.
The UN’s leadership have found its voice on the issue of climate change. Secretary-General Guterres has been remarkably candid about the negative impacts of the fossil fuel industry and its supporters. This July, he warned that ‘The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived’. Similar candour is required to call out the twin plagues of authoritarianism and populism which are causing immense suffering to people around the world while exacerbating conflict, inequality and climate change.
The formation of the UN as the conscience of the world in 1945 was an exercise in optimism and altruism. This September that spirit will be needed more than ever to start creating a better world for all, and to prove the UN’s value.
Mandeep S. Tiwana is chief officer for evidence and engagement + representative to the UN headquarters at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance.
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This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
