Tag: Development & Aid

Scaling up Climate-Smart Trade Policies in the Pacific — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Sudip Ranjan Basu – Juan Rodrigo – Alexey Kravchenko (bangkok, thailand)
  • Inter Press Service

BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 17 (IPS) – The impacts of the climate crisis are acutely felt in the Pacific region. In recent years, the region has been hit by devastating climate events, which cause widespread destruction and significant loss of lives and livelihoods across countries.

These events are a grim reminder of the increasingly severe climate events that are becoming the norm as a result of the changing regional climate patterns in the Pacific small island developing States (PSIDS).

To address climate catastrophes, there is a heightened need in adopting environmentally sustainable practices, including through international trade. In fact, climate-smart trade policies involve incorporating climate concerns into their trade policies.

Climate-smart trade policies are poised to play a catalytic role in enabling the PSIDS to access goods and services that can mitigate climate change. This approach can facilitate the shift towards a more environmentally friendly trade practice.

Harnessing technology for climate-smart strategies

With the growing scale of digitalization of trade processes, there are emerging opportunities to make trade more efficient, and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emissions. However, the digitalization of trade itself can contribute to GHG emissions and so, it’s crucial to ensure a balance between the benefits and drawbacks of digital trade.

To mitigate these impacts, governments are increasingly adopting “climate-smart” trade policies, as highlighted in ESCAP’s 2021 Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report, prepared in collaboration with UNCTAD and UNEP.

Governments have been implementing measures such as tariff reductions on renewable energy technologies, digital goods and other less polluting items. In the Pacific, climate smart initiatives such as the Agreement on Trade and Sustainability aims to reduce barriers on the trade of environmental goods as well as eliminating fossil fuel subsidies and encouraging voluntary eco-labelling programs and mechanisms.

At the national level, Samoa suspended import duties on renewable energy materials and Papua New Guinea reduced tariffs on solar equipment imports.

In addition, the digitization of cross-border trade procedures leads to faster clearance times, more transparency and reduced bureaucracy. Implementing digital trade facilitation has the potential for increased competitiveness and reduced GHG emissions.

However, PSIDS have the lowest implementation rate of trade facilitation measures, with limited adoption of paperless trade measures. Only five out of the twelve PSIDS have ratified the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, with only Vanuatu having implemented an electronic single window system.

In particular, the implementation of the system in Vanuatu resulted in considerable environmental gains and has led to a 95 per cent decrease in the use of paper, which is equivalent to a reduction of at least 5,827 kg of CO2 emissions and a decrease of 86 per cent in trips between the customs department and the Biosecurity administration.

Furthermore, other Pacific Island States can emulate Tuvalu’s move by joining “The Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific“. This United Nations treaty aims to boost digital trade facilitation measures, thereby hastening trade transaction efficiencies, ultimately reducing emissions, and fostering trade growth.

Preparing the regulatory frameworks

Despite these efforts, only a few countries with the PSIDS have created trade strategies that reflect environmental concerns and climate-smart policies. Tuvalu is an exception, as they, with the help of the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) for Trade Related Assistance for the Least Developed Countries and ESCAP, have incorporated “climate-smart” elements into their national trade development strategy.

The situation is further complicated by persistent digital divides in the region, with low internet penetration rates and high costs of fixed and mobile broadband in many of the smaller PSIDS. The high cost of energy consumption in the telecommunications sector is also a major concern, with energy usage accounting for 20 to 40 percent of telecommunications operating expenses.

As PSIDS work to improve broadband coverage and access, ensuring energy efficiency in the telecommunications sector will become increasingly important for advancing climate-smart and digital trade.

Despite the potential benefits of implementing digital trade facilitation in the Pacific, the implementation rate of trade facilitation measures in PSIDS remains the lowest among other regions, at only 40.1 per cent. There are also considerable policy gaps in the PSIDS in areas related to e-transactions laws, consumer protection, privacy data protection and cybersecurity.

By putting in place these regulations, consumers, producers, and traders can engage in online transactions, while securing sustainable digital trade environment.

Advancing climate-smart and digital trade

Advancing climate-smart and digital trade is crucial for PSIDS. To support this development aspiration, the following policy actions need to be prioritized:

    • implement digital & energy policies to democratize digital service access.
    • remove tariffs on climate-friendly goods/services including renewable energy & IoT tech.
    • develop regulation for cross-border paperless trade and updating their regulatory framework for fostering digital trade.
    • reducing reliance on fossil fuels and eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, including those in the fisheries sector.
    • green logistics and transportation sectors with reduced costs and zero-emission vessels
    • invest in human resources for climate-smart and digital trade.
    • integrate climate smart provisions on their trade agreements.

These measures can enhance the PSIDS’ digital and energy infrastructure, competitiveness, efficiency, reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and also be complemented with nature-based solutions, such as riparian zone restoration to enhance carbon sequestration and to mitigate the impact of tidal surges

Readers will find further details and policy recommendations in the report which is now available on the ESCAP website.

Sudip Ranjan Basu is Deputy Head and Senior Economic Affairs Officer; Juan Rodrigo is ESCAP Consultant and Alexey Kravchenko is Economic Affairs Officer.

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‘Stone-Age’ Donkey-Drawn Carts Ply Zimbabwes Abandoned Remote Routes — Global Issues

Bad roads in rural Zimbabwe mean the community have to rely on donkey carts and jalopy cars as bus operators are not prepared to travel there. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
  • by Jeffrey Moyo (mwenezi, zimbabwe)
  • Inter Press Service

MWENEZI, Zimbabwe, Mar 15 (IPS) – From the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway in Zimbabwe at a spot popularly known as Turn-P, the road passing through Neshuro Township has been degraded, disused, and derelict for over two decades, with buses avoiding the route. Now donkey-drawn carts that operate alongside jalopy vehicles have become the new alternative for remote travellers around Mwenezi villages.

The scotch carts have become even more common in areas around Maranda and Mazetese in Mwenezi as villagers switch to them for transport to hospitals and clinics.

Such has become a life for 64-year-old Dennis Masukume of the Mazetese area.

The diabetic patient is forced to use alternative means of transport.

“I board a scotch cart every time I want to travel to Neshuro hospital for my medication, which means I use the scotch cart up to somewhere in Gwamatenga where I then get some private cars that ply the route to Neshuro at nominal fares,” Masukume told IPS.

At Tsungirirai Secondary school and Vinga Primary school in the Mwenezi district, the rare availability of public transport means that even teachers have to cope with scotch carts each time they have to travel to Maranda, where they catch jalopies to the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway on paydays.

In fact, with road infrastructure badly damaged in most rural areas in Zimbabwe, villagers are resorting to olden ways of transport-using scotch carts and walking to reach places where they can access essential services like health care.

The unpaved rural roads have become impassable for buses.

Now, some villagers are capitalizing on the crisis, using their scotch carts to earn a living.

Mwenezi district, located in Masvingo Province, south of the country, has become famed for routes plied by scotch carts.

Entrepreneurs have turned to making easy money from scotch carts. Twenty-four-year-old Clive Nhongo, who resides closer to Manyuchi dam in Mwenezi, said the bad roads had meant good business for him.

“I’m charging a dollar per passenger every trip I make with my scotch cart taking people anywhere around my area, and I can tell you I make about 20 USD daily depending on the number of customers I get, considering that villagers rarely travel here,” Nhongo told IPS.

While many villagers fume at the damaged roads and lack of a proper modern transport system, many, like Nhongo, have something to smile about.

“I provide the alternative transport, and until roads are rehabilitated and buses return on our routes, I might remain in business, which is fine for me,” said Nhongo.

He (Nhongo) has made wooden seats and installed them on his scotch cart to accommodate passengers.

More and more villagers, cornered with transport woes amid derelict roads in villages, are now having to rely on donkey-drawn scotch carts owned by village entrepreneurs like Nhongo.

Public transport operators like 56-year-old Obed Mhishi, based in Masvingo, Zimbabwe’s oldest town, said there was no way he could endure damaging his omnibuses plying routes with defunct roads.

Donkey-drawn carts have taken over.

“It’s not only me shunning the routes the ones in Mwenezi and its villages, but we are many transport operators shunning the routes owing to deplorable roads, and yes, scotch cart operators are capitalizing on that to fill the vacuum. That’s business,” Mhishi told IPS.

Yet even as scotch carts operators cash in on the growing crisis in the Southern African country, local authorities have said donkey-drawn scotch carts have never been regularized to ferry people anywhere in Zimbabwe.

An official working at Mwenezi Rural District Council, who said he was not authorized to speak to the media, said, “scotch carts don’t pay road tax, nor do they have insurance for passengers.”

But for ordinary Zimbabwean villagers in Mwenezi, like 31-year-old Richmore Ndlovhu, with dilapidated roads that have been neglected for years, the scotch carts have become the only way—insurance or not.

Buses that used to reach areas like Mazetese now prefer not to go beyond the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway, where scotch carts and a few jalopy vehicles scramble for passengers alighting from buses. These are the passengers wanting to proceed with their journeys into villages.

Zimbabwe’s rural roads in districts like Mwenezi have remained unpaved for more than four decades after gaining independence from colonial rule.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwean President Emerson Mnangagwa has been on record affirming that his country would become a middle-income state by 2025, just about two years from now.

Yet for opposition political activists here, like Elvis Mugari of the Citizens Coalition for Change, Mnangagwa may be building castles in the air.

“With corruption in his government and the sustained hatred for the opposition, Mnangagwa won’t achieve a middle-income Zimbabwe. That is impossible,” Mugari told IPS.

Batai Chiwawa, a Zimbabwean development expert, blamed the regime here for taking the whole country backwards.

“Is it not taking the country to the stone age era when villagers now have to use scotch carts as ambulances? Is it not a return to the dark ages when people now have to walk long distances because there is no public transport in their villages? This is embarrassing, deeply embarrassing, when people start using scotch carts as public transport in this day and era,” Chiwawa asked when commenting to IPS.

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Terrorism & its Impacts on Water Access in the Sahel — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Armand Houanye (ouagadougou, burkina faso)
  • Inter Press Service

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso, Mar 14 (IPS) – The writer is Regional Executive Secretary of the Global Water Partnership in West Africa (GWP-WA)Burkina Faso’s interim President Captain Ibrahim Traoré spoke late last year of the conflicts that are now blighting his country and much of his region. He described the situation in Burkina Faso as predictable given the endemic weaknesses in governance that he believes have led to the economic abandonment of many young people, particularly outside of urban areas.

He delivered these remarks on November 13th to political parties, civil society organizations, and traditional and customary leaders in Ouagadougou to raise awareness of Burkina Faso’s rapidly degrading security situation. Of particular note was his focus on water, as he described seeing people throughout the Southwest, Northwest and Sahel regions including Gorom-Gorom, Tinasane and Markoye carrying jerry cans to fetch water.

This led him to question why there were no development projects in these impoverished regions. The people walk, he lamented, for miles to get water for the cattle that die on the way.

There are no roads for trucks to even transport livestock feed to sustain livestock, he reflected, before referring to the Kongoussi-Djibo road bridge built in the 1950s that has fallen into such dilapidation that it can no longer support the trucks that would otherwise take the now rotting local produce to market.

All he says, because of a lack of investment in the construction and the maintenance of essential infrastructure.

His speech depicts a reality across the Sahel region where terrorist attacks have been rampant since 2012, following Mouammar Kadhafi’s assassination and the subsequent looting of Libya’s weapons deposits. Many villages have since been abandoned in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, with thousands of people having been displaced with no proper government intervention to curb the violence.

As clean drinking water is a basic need, lack of access to it triggers many problems at every level of society. Traditionally, villages are located close to waterways to allow for the smooth provisioning of water, as well as the practice of gardening to produce basic ingredients for food which can be consumed and sold for cash for the community.

With the rise of terrorist attacks mostly in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso but reaching coastal countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Togo and Benin, many villages have been abandoned or are under the control of armed terrorist groups who impose their own rules and dictates on the local people.

Displaced populations are deprived of their traditional water sources, be they natural water courses, standpipes or boreholes, cutting off their water supply and therefore the access to their means of physical and economic sustenance.

“They lay down the law for the management and use of water and other natural resources by delimiting areas to be exploited,” said a local elected authority to me in a terrorist dominated zone in the Central-Southern part of Mali, adding that, “the cultivable areas are reduced and they occupy the wooded areas suitable for agriculture and which contain the local water reserves.”

The chiefs of villages occupied under duress are obliged to cooperate with these groups. They are therefore the preferred interlocutors of all those who “seek permission to operate” in these controlled areas.

The opinion of the village chief is conditional to the prior agreement of the group to which the village belongs. There are real negotiations with these terrorist groups before any projects or partners are allowed to enter the territory.

The reality in Sahelian countries in general is that successive governments since independence have concentrated their “administration” on urban areas. But once you leave the urban areas the populations are left to their own devices with an administration that is more oppressive and not in the least concerned with providing sustainable responses to the development needs of these localities.

The agents of the land registry (customs), law enforcement (police, gendarmes), and nature protection (water and forests) are quicker to find ways to engage in racketeering than to offer the poor the services they require.

“We have lost a lot of funding which has been transferred to other localities deemed more accessible,” explained a local government official to me recently in one of the areas under control. “Given the fact that the groups themselves need to have privileged access to drinking water, they facilitate the arrival of certain partners to install water supply systems,” he added.

GWP West Africa is implementing the European Union funded project “water for growth and poverty reduction in the Mekrou sub catchment in Niger” but it was not been able to launch the project as planned in August 2020 due to a terrorist attack that tragically killed eight people.

Water management and development is but one of many sectors affected by terrorist activities in the region, but water, unlike some other sectors, is a matter of survival.

There is therefore a critical need to enhance and improve the governance of water resources and land while ensuring that required investments are put in place to sustainably respond to the water related development needs of people living in urban and rural areas at all levels in Sahelian countries.

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Solar Powered Freezer Improving Immunization Coverage in Hard-to-Reach Rural Villages — Global Issues

Benson Musyoka rides his motorcycle from Kamboo health centre to transport vaccines to Yindalani village. Photo Joyce Chimbi/IPS
  • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
  • Inter Press Service

NAIROBI, Mar 13 (IPS) – Up until 2019, nurses in three health facilities located in the semi-arid south-eastern Kenya region of Makueni County struggled to bring critical health services closer to a hard-to-reach population scattered across three remote, far-flung villages.

“Kamboo, Yindalani and Yiuma Mavui villages are located 17 and 28 kilometres away from Makindu sub-county hospital, and 10 and 22 kilometres away from the nearest electricity grid,” Benson Musyoka, the nurse in charge of Ndalani dispensary in Yindalani village tells IPS.

Without a cold chain capacity to store vital vaccines and drugs, health facilities records show vaccination coverage across these villages was well below 25 percent.

Babies were delivered at home because mothers could not raise 6 to 12 USDs to hire a boda boda or motorbike taxi, which is the only means of transportation in the area. Others could not reach the hospital in time to deliver.

“Every morning, I would collect vaccines at Makindu sub-county hospital and transport them inside a vaccine carrier box to Ndalani dispensary. Once the vaccines are inside the carrier box, they are only viable for up to six hours, at which point whatever doses will have remained unused must be returned to storage at Makindu sub-county hospital for refrigeration or thrown away,” Musyoka expounds.

In February 2019, a groundbreaking donation of a solar-powered freezer to the Kamboo health centre significantly improved availability and access to vaccinations as well as maternal health services across the three villages and surrounding areas.

Francis Muli, the nurse in charge of Kamboo health centre, tells IPS that without a fridge or freezer, “you cannot stock Oxytocin, and without Oxytocin, you cannot provide labour and delivery services.”

He says it would be extremely dangerous to do so because Oxytocin is injected into all mothers immediately after delivery to prevent postpartum haemorrhage. Oxytocin is also used to induce labour.

As recommended by the World Health Organization, Oxytocin is the gold standard for preventing postpartum haemorrhage and is central to Kenya’s ambitious goal to achieve zero preventable maternal deaths.

In 2017, the Ministry of Health identified sub-standard care in 9 out of 10 maternal deaths owing to postpartum haemorrhage. Overall, postpartum haemorrhage accounts for 25 percent of maternal deaths in this East African nation.

Usungu dispensary and Ndalani dispensary are each located 10 kilometres away from Kamboo health centre in different directions. Nurses in charge of the facilities no longer make the long journey of 28 kilometres to and another 28 kilometres from Makindu to collect and return unused vaccine doses on vaccination days.

“We collect vaccine doses from Makindu sub-county hospital at the beginning of the month and store them in the freezer at Kamboo health centre. The freezer is large enough to store thousands of various vaccine doses collected from the sub-county hospital for all three facilities,” says Antony Matali, the nurse in charge of Usungu dispensary in Yiuma Mavui village.

Two to three times a week, Matali and Musyoka collect doses of various vaccines, including all standard routine immunization vaccines, with the exception of Yellow Fever. The vaccines are transported to their respective dispensaries in a carrier box that can hold up to 500 doses of different vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccines. All three facilities have recorded significant improvement in immunization coverage from a low of 25 percent.

At Kamboo health centre, where the freezer is domiciled, records show measles immunization rate has surpassed the target of 100 percent to include additional clients outside the catchment population area of 4,560 people. Overall immunization coverage is at 95 percent, well above the government target of 90 percent.

At Ndalani dispensary, the immunization rate for measles has also surpassed the target of 100 percent as additional patients, or transit patients from four surrounding villages and neighbouring Kitui County, receive services at the dispensary. The overall vaccination rate for all standard vaccines is 50 to 65 percent.

In the Usungu dispensary, the vaccination rate for measles is at 75 percent, and for other vaccines, coverage is hovering at the 50 percent mark.

“Usungu and Ndalani have not reached the 90 percent mark because we suffer from both missed opportunities and dropouts. Missed opportunities are patients who drop by a facility seeking a service and find that it is not available at that very moment. Dropouts are those who feel inconvenienced if they do not find what they need in their subsequent visits, so they drop out along the way,” Musyoka explains.

A cold chain or storage facility such as the solar-powered freezer, Muli says, is the cornerstone of any primary health unit in cash-strapped rural settings, and all services related to mother and child are the pillars of any health facility. Without these services, he emphasizes, all you have is brick and mortar.

“At Usungu and Ndalani, we are currently not offering labour and delivery services because we do not have Oxytocin in the facility at all times due to lack of storage, and we cannot carry it around in the hope that a delivery will materialize that day due to the six-hour time limit,” Musyoka expounds.

Still, pregnant women receive the standard tetanus jabs and all other prenatal services, but close to the delivery period, Ndalani and Usungu refer the women to the Kamboo health centre and follow-up to ensure that they receive referred services. Facility records show zero infant and maternal mortality.

Annually, the Ministry of Health targets to vaccinate at least 1.5 million children against vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, polio, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and pneumonia. Currently, one in six children under one year does not complete their scheduled vaccines.

Only one in two children below two years have received the second jab of Measles-Rubella, and only one in three girls aged 10 have received two doses of the HPV vaccine which protects against cervical cancer.

Ongoing efforts are helping address these gaps. For instance, the HPV vaccine was introduced in Makueni in March 2021. Musyoka vaccinated 46 girls aged 10 years with the two doses of HPV vaccine in 2021, and another 17 girls received their first HPV dose in 2022 and are due for the second dose in November 2022.

Healthcare providers say the freezer has transformed the delivery of mother and child services in the area by bringing critical immunization services closer to a marginalized and highly vulnerable community.

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Pandemic Accord Text Falls Short of Expectations — Global Issues

The WHO working group met to consider 307 amendments proposed by governments to update current regulations. February 2023. Credit: World Health Organization (WHO)
  • Opinion by Nicoletta Dentico, Ashka Naik (geneva)
  • Inter Press Service

GENEVA, Mar 13 (IPS) – As countries recently gathered in Geneva for the fourth round of negotiations on the WHO proposed pandemic treaty or accord, close examination of the current text by civil society experts has revealed significant gaps.

Critical concerns about the underlying vision of the draft text have been highlighted in a public statement led and endorsed by civil society organizations globally. The statement has been shared with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB4) that is mandated with the pandemic treaty negotiation.

These concerns still stand true. And it is urgent that the INB begins to tackle them before the next round of negotiations are upon us.

First and foremost, our analysis focuses on the fact that several parts of the text rely on voluntary arrangements, and that the binding regime of the text appears discouragingly vague and weak. One such instance relates to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities in pandemic prevention, preparedness and response,” which the draft borrows from the climate instruments.

This notion is extremely important to avoid pandemics, and it cannot be made voluntary, if the world is serious about the goal of reaching systemic capacity to respond to future health crises.

The draft text’s failure to provide safeguards or an accountability framework regarding the role of the corporate sector is another major source of concern. The WHO negotiation places the new UN’s ‘whole of society’ approach – which has been pushed in other negotiating fora – at its core through multistakeholderism, against the backdrop of striking and unfettered geopolitical power asymmetries. The involvement of the private sector in the COVID-19 response has been extremely problematic.

Countries desperately needing a concerted effort to tackle the pandemic were held ransom to the whims of power and profits of both the philanthropic and pharmaceutical industry.

The proposed treaty or accord mustn’t make the same mistakes, and all attempts to bring the corporate sector into the negotiation of any pandemic prevention, preparedness, or response must be strictly regulated at best, and prevented whenever there is a risk of public interest health policies being hijacked for profit.

It is clear that the financing approach outlined in the draft text blatantly ignores that the global financial system has historically prevented low- and middle-income countries from investing in public health.

Tax dodging by corporations, lack of fiscal and policy space for domestic resource mobilization, and crippling national debts are major barriers that prevent many countries from strengthening their public health services and institutions.

In low-income countries, debt has increased from 58% to 65% between 2019 and 2021. Thirty nations in sub-Saharan Africa have seen a debt-to-GDP ratio exceeding 50% just in 2021.

While the current draft misses taking into account the challenges of the global financial architecture, there is a blind spot with no substantive acknowledgement that public health crises are often engendered or exacerbated by a systematic destruction of the planet, at the intersection of the climate and environmental crises, food insecurity, and the mounting inequality crisis enshrined in gender and racial discrimination.

So far, the draft text hardly does justice to the urgency of preventing pathogen spillover at the animal-human interface. A narrow focus on the biomedical approach to dealing with future pandemics, without considering these intrinsic systemic factors, is bound to remain largely insufficient in dealing with any future pandemics.

Way Forward

Governments and various relevant socio-political actors engaged in the WHO diplomatic initiative on the pandemic treaty or accord have different and diverging interests and the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), which has done impressive work to keep pace with the agreed negotiations’ roadmap, has to reckon with these diverse political demands and conflicting pressures.

However, it is clear that to carry out the original intent of the new pandemic treaty or accord, unambiguous wording is needed that conveys a binding character of the agreement. This also means that the multistakeholder model under which the entire process of the treaty is being managed has to be re-examined and re-imagined instead of its current ‘whole of society’ form.

In future, none of the promises made by member states in the WHO pandemic treaty or accord will result in the desired change needed if the robust and reliable compliance mechanisms that enable governments to be held accountable are absent.

These demands are not unique to this treaty, but have similarly been made by civil society in ongoing negotiations in the UN on climate change and in the UN treaty on business and human rights. These were also incorporated into the tobacco control binding policy that the WHO established nearly 20 years ago.

At the same time, public health, public governance, public systems, and public funding must be at the center of the pandemic planning, prevention, and response. It is important to finally recognise that the global financial architecture must be overhauled, especially for low income and developing countries to have sovereign control over their fiscal and policy space, and to resource their public health needs through progressive taxation policies.

It is imperative to understand that the private sector cannot fulfill the current funding gaps and needs no leveraging by international development and financial institutions. Healthcare privatization is not the way to go to face the health challenges of the present and the future.

Lastly, all efforts must be made to make sure that the text creates a deliberate interconnection between the right to health and the right to a healthy environment, now explicitly adopted as a human right by the United Nations, as well as the rights of nature to exist and thrive.

It is about time that this global public health discourse reckons with the reality of populations and the environments from the ground, rather than from the ivory towers of corporate investors and vested policy-making.

Ashka Naik is the Director of Research and Policy at Corporate Accountability, and directs its food program, which focuses on structural determinants of food systems, nutrition, and public health

Nicoletta Dentico leads the Global Health Justice program at Society for International Development and co-chairs the Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2)

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Why Free & Public Education Should be Every Womans Right — Global Issues

The 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (6-17 March) gets underway at UN headquarters in New York . Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías
  • Opinion by Dana Abed (beirut)
  • Inter Press Service
  • The writer is Global Campaigns Strategist for Gender Rights and Justice at Oxfam International.

BEIRUT, Mar 10 (IPS) – This month, government and civil society organization representatives gathered in New York for the United Nations’ 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to discuss technology as a tool to facilitate access to education for women and girls.

But what should have been discussed were the basic issues of gender equality in education. As more than 85% of the world is living under austerity, and with 70% of countries cutting funding to education services, access to education for women and girls is being devastated by the lack of public funding.

The gap between boys and girls when it comes to school enrolment continues to be major, and quite concerning. Data consistently shows – particularly in low- and middle- income countries – that girls from poor families are the children most likely to be, and remain, out of school.

And the cost of education is one of the main barriers for access – which raises the question of affordability when it comes to technological integration.

While technological innovation has the potential to support instruction and education governance, we cannot turn a blind eye to the reality of digital inequality, the possibility of increased fees, and the privatization of education.

That is on top of the existing risks that are associated with the use of technology, including online violence and abuse and the lack of digital protection for girls, further locking girls out of their rights to education.

Austerity measures, public funding cuts, and privatization severely limit the goal of universal education. In a report published last November, Oxfam found that austerity is a form of gender-based violence.

And during CSW67, we emphasized that access to public and quality education is fundamental to gender equality and the realization of the rights of women and girls.

Oxfam does not claim that austerity measures are designed to hurt women and girls, but as policy makers design those policies, they tend to ignore the specific needs of women and girls and turn a blind eye to the disproportionate impact that those policies have on our communities.

We’ve reached this conclusion by gathering evidence from around the world, which showed that governments do not prioritize the needs to women and girls. For instance, more than 54% of the countries planning to cut their social protection budget in 2023 have minimal or no maternity and child support.

In their misguided attempts to balance their books against a looming global economic crisis, governments are treating women and girls as expendable. Women, particularly those from marginalized racial, ethnic, caste, and age groups, are inherently discriminated against when it comes to economic and social opportunities and accessing available public resources. Additional cuts to inequality-combatting public services mean these groups are the hardest hit.

Cuts to both the public wage bill and public health and social protection services – measures that women and their families rely on for survival – mean that women and girls bear the brunt of this austerity because health, education, feeding the family, paying the bills, caring for children and elderly all fall most heavily onto them.

For example, cutting wages in the public work force – especially in sectors like health where women represent 90% of the workforce or education where they represent 64% of the workforce – will directly impact job security.

We must resist austerity and should instead be taxing the wealthiest corporations and people properly. A progressive tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.1 trillion more than the savings that governments are currently planning to make through their austerity cuts.

With such funding, governments could adopt feminist budgeting across all sectors that put women and girls in all their diversity at the heart of policy making, including ensuring access to quality, and public education.

Feminist movements have for years pushed for bold alternatives to our neo-liberal, capital-oriented economies, and Oxfam raises its voice with them. The integration of technology in education must be looked at from an intersectional lens, taking into consideration barriers to access for girls and low- and middle-income countries, and should not come with an additional cost to the education bill.

We need to stand in solidarity with the women’s rights and feminist movements in demanding that our leaders stop peddling the gender-based violence of austerity as the solution and support more feminist progressive representation beyond identity politics.

We must resist creating societies that prioritize the needs of the most privileged at the expense of everyone else – and instead work to create communities and policies that reflect our diverse backgrounds and identities.

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Vanuatu Twin Cyclones Underscore the Pacific’s Vulnerability to Compounding Climate-Disaster Risks — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Sudip Ranjan Basu, Sanjay Srivastava (bangkok, thailand)
  • Inter Press Service

BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 10 (IPS) – Two destructive Category 4 tropical cyclones, Judy and Kevin, and an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude impacted over 80 per cent of the Vanuatu population from 1 to 3 March 2023. To address this emergency situation, the UN, along with Pacific member States have deployed personnel on the ground to coordinate humanitarian assistance and prepare post-disaster damage assessment.

Sitting in the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” Vanuatu experiences frequent volcanic and seismic activity. And along with the other Pacific small island developing States (SIDS), Vanuatu faces existential threats due to rising sea level, ocean acidification and the increased frequency and severity of natural disasters and is on the front line of climate crisis.

The twin cyclones and an earthquake in just 48 hours remind the world that seismic and climate risks are converging and intensifying – no community feels this stronger than those of the Blue Pacific Continent.

On macro-economic impact, in fact, Pacific SIDS face Average Annual Losses from multiple hazards totaling to US$ 1.1 billion in the current scenario. This figure is set to increase to US$ 1.3 billion under moderate and US$1.4 billion under worst-case climate warming scenarios. As a percentage of GDP, Vanuatu, Tonga and Palau are projected to face highest losses – Vanuatu is projected to lose a staggering 20 per cent GDP annually due to disasters.

Figure 1: Tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin track with wind speed zones (UNITAR-UNOSAT)

Intensifying and expanding climate crisis

In ESCAP’s recent report, the analysis shows that at 1.5 to 2.0 °C warming, there are likely intensifying annual wind speeds of tropical cyclones and that the risk of tropical cyclones is expected to expand and include newer areas beyond the historical tracks (Figure 2). Vanuatu in particular, will experience higher risk of tropical cyclone both in terms of the intensification as well as geographic expansion of the riskscape.

As cyclone hazards are intensifying and deviating from their traditional tracks, their greater complexity results in deeper uncertainties in the ability to predict. Our Blue Pacific Continent is not sufficiently prepared.

Figure 2: Intensifying and expanding cyclone risks under new climate change scenarios

Formulating transformative actions

As the climate changes, the riskscape is transforming. These disaster risks compound and cascade to amplify the great hardship experienced by the Pacific SIDS in terms of population and critical infrastructure exposure. The argument for transformative action to mitigate and adapt to intensifying and expanding disaster risks in the Blue Pacific Continent has never been more compelling.

First, early warning for all is an imperative, needs to capture compounding risks.

The UN Secretary-General highlighted that every person on the planet is to be covered by early warning systems by 2027. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction sets the increase in availability and access to of multi?hazard early warning systems as a distinct target, Target G, to be achieved by 2030. As per the latest Sendai Framework reporting of Target G, large gaps remain for many countries in the Pacific SIDS (See Figure 3).

Relative to other countries in the subregion, Vanuatu’s Target G scores are high, reporting substantial to comprehensive coverage of multi-hazard early warning systems across all indicators. WMO’s Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre in Nadi, Fiji was providing early warnings in the face of power outages and surmounting uncertainties – as a result, there have been no reported fatalities.

Figure 3: Sendai Framework for DRR Target G scores for countries in the Pacific region

Second, transformative adaptation solutions are needed.

To minimize and prevent systemic and cascading risk, we need to make new infrastructure and water resource management more resilient. Improving dryland crop production and using nature-based solutions such as increasing mangroves protection are also priority adaptation solutions.

1.5 per cent of GDP for adaptation investment is estimated to be needed in Pacific SIDS – three times less than the average losses projected. These adaptation investments must be risk-informed and strategically directed towards policy actions that yield high cost-benefits. Where there are multi-hazard risk hotspots across the region, risk-informed policy and transformative actions should capitalize on inter-sectoral synergies and co-benefits.

Third, the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent provides a clear pathway

With the adoption of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent in July 2022, Pacific SIDS have developed a clear pathway to synergize regional priorities with accelerated implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the SAMOA Pathway.

Next generation risk analytics, advances in climate science, geo-spatial modeling, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning must be at the heart of people-centered and evidence-based decision-making. And, the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific is an ideal platform to take forward some of the policy decisions.

Strengthening subregional and regional cooperation platform

Tropical cyclones, often transboundary in nature, require an architecture of regional co-operation mechanisms to effectively manage the shared risks. In this instance, local capacities and regional support mechanisms should be commended. To further strengthen this work, the lesson from Vanuatu’s back-to-back cyclones and earthquake is to have effective, impact-based and risk informed early warning systems that can capture the complexity and dynamisms of a compounding risk.

The Asia-Pacific Risk and Resilience Portal was developed by ESCAP with the goal of creating a user-friendly one stop platform for policymakers to access a vast array of scientific information and decision support tools to promote risk informed policy decisions.

Furthermore, the Vanuatu incidents underscores the need for conducting a rapid post-disaster needs assessment that can support formulation of a long-term recovery strategy and plan for its reconstruction by applying a standardized approach with innovative methodology and framework.

The overlapping and transboundary nature of risks experienced by countries of the Blue Pacific Continent cannot be addressed without solidarity and collective action towards strengthening regional cooperation platform.

Sanjay Srivastava is Chief, Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP);

Sudip Ranjan Basu is Deputy Head, ESCAP Subregional Office for the Pacific

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Breaking the Link between Polycrisis and Poverty — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Vidya Diwakar (brighton, uk)
  • Inter Press Service

BRIGHTON, UK, Mar 09 (IPS) – This year marks the halfway point— eight years in and eight years out— of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty and reduce inequalities.

Yet we are a long way off from these commitments, and multiple crises – now known as ‘polycrisis’ – such as conflict, disaster and extreme poverty are converging on low income and lower-middle income countries, necessitating systemic change in our poverty eradication efforts.

The scale of the challenge before us is undeniable. Poverty has long been concentrated in certain low- and lower middle-income countries that continue to experience conflict and a high number of conflict related fatalities, and high numbers of people affected by disasters from earthquakes, to floods, fires or drought.

These are just two causes of impoverishment and chronic poverty, which often combine with other crises and shocks including ill health.

This isn’t just a concern, however, at the country level. The challenge we are increasingly facing because of polycrisis in many parts of the world is that inequalities within countries are also worsening. The complex and often multi-layered nature of today’s crises means that policymakers need to develop longer term solutions, instead of firefighting crises as they emerge.

Our work at the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) in Afghanistan saw that the pandemic, layered with the transition in power, drought, and heightened economic crises, all combined to drive poverty and a dramatic increase in hunger.

Its consequences were especially worrying for certain groups, not least women and girls, and with intergenerational consequences.

In Nigeria, research points to a confluence of hardships over the years experienced by the poorest populations due to sequenced, interdependent crises. The poorest households pre-pandemic were more likely to experience hunger and sell agricultural and non-agricultural assets to cope during COVID-19 in 2020.

As time went on they were also more likely to pay more than the official price for petrol in 2022 during rampant economic crisis, and to expect drought and delayed rains to negatively affect them financially into 2023.

Yet despite interconnected crises, most governments and international agencies respond to each disaster individually as it arises. This could limit the effectiveness of poverty eradication interventions or create additional sources of risk and vulnerability amidst polycrisis.

For example, the singular focus of many countries responding to COVID-19 often diverted resources from other interventions including peacebuilding operations, thereby allowing new conflict risks to arise.

Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ polycrisis: centring equity and risk

To reach the goal of poverty eradication and reducing extreme inequities, it is critical to respond in a way is sensitive to working in places experiencing polycrisis. This requires at a minimum upholding principles of ‘do no harm’ and being sensitive to local conditions and contexts.

At the same time, we need to find ways of proactively working on polycrisis, by responding to multiple crises simultaneously rather than one at a time. In other words, building on learning from conflict contexts, we need to be working in and on polycrisis in the road to zero poverty.

Many countries worked ‘in’ polycrisis when responding to climate-related disasters during COVID-19. For example, the Bangladesh government adapted its Cyclone Preparedness Plan through various actions including modifying dissemination of messaging through public announcements and digital modalities, and combining early warning messaging with COVID-19 prevention and protection messaging.

Afghanistan disaggregates needs by sector, severity, location, and population groups in its humanitarian needs overview, which when considered holistically can help ensure responses that prioritise benefiting people in poverty.

There are equally important lessons from working ‘on’ polycrisis. The World Food Programme’s operational plan in response to COVID-19 was regularly updated to consider evolving layered crises and support pre-emptive action, scale-up direct food assistance, and reinforce safety nets.

There are also examples we can draw on for reducing poverty from around localised decision making, relying on the knowledge that local communities, women’s rights organisations, and local disaster risk management agencies have about populations in the areas in which they operate.

Flexibility in funding is important in this process to be able to respond to rapidly changing contexts and needs.

Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ polycrisis together necessitates matrix thinking, rebooting and recasting what we know of complexity of intersectionality. While we previously recognised intersecting inequalities primarily by identity markers, such as gender, caste, and socio-economic status, we need to increasingly be aware of how inequalities of people and place converge over time, and how we might centre equity in risk-informed responses.

This requires a fundamental shift from single-issue technocratic approaches to crisis management. For example, though social protection – direct financial assistance for people – was heralded as a key mitigation measure during COVID-19 and in response to recent food and energy price inflation, most cash transfer programmes averaged just four to five months during the pandemic.

Social protection could be adjusted to increasingly target the vulnerable as well as people in poverty, and within those categories the people who have arguably been most disadvantaged by these crises. Recovery programmes by governments and international agencies also need to go on for longer than they typically do to build people’s resilience in times of uncertainty.

Disaster-risk management agencies within government could also consistently integrate conflict considerations in their activities. There are examples of anticipatory action such as early warning systems that draw on local, customary knowledge that could be built on in this process.

Investments in coordination between disaster risk, social protection, and peacebuilding agencies, as well as multilateralism between governments, civil society, and international organisations more broadly are needed to anticipate and adapt to systemic risk.

But this risk-informed development will only get us so far, if equity is not centred alongside risk management. Just as crises are increasingly layered and interdependent, we need to similarly integrate our responses to break the link between polycrisis and poverty.

Vidya Diwakar is Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies and Deputy Director, Chronic Poverty Advisory Network

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International Women’s Day, 2023 – Digital Inclusion is Vital for Strengthening Women’s Rights in Africa — Global Issues

Credit: Equality Now, Millicent Kwambai
  • Opinion by S. Mona Sinha (new york)
  • Inter Press Service
  • The writer is Global Executive Director at Equality Now. The following opinion piece is part of a series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

NEW YORK, Mar 08 (IPS) – The internet has a pivotal role to play in empowering women and girls across Africa, but preexisting forms of gender discrimination and marginalization are underpinning a widening digital gender divide.

The root causes preventing millions from getting online need to be urgently addressed, because until we close the technology gap, longstanding gender inequalities will be exacerbated, and new expressions of discrimination will manifest.

More women are coming online, but progress is slow

In a speech to the UN General Assembly for International Women’s Day 2023, UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke about how “centuries of patriarchy, discrimination, and harmful stereotypes have created a huge gender gap in science and technology.”

Warning that “gender equality is growing more distant” and will take 300 years to achieve on the current trajectory, the Secretary General called on governments, civil society, and the private sector to work collectively to bridge the digital gender divide.

ITU estimates that in 2022, 66% of the world’s population used the internet. This is a 24% increase since 2019, with 1.1 billion more people coming online. Despite this substantial uptake, 2.7 billion people remain offline – the majority of whom are female.

According to GSMA’s Mobile Gender Gap Report 2022, mobile phones are the primary way people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) access the internet, accounting for 85% of broadband connections in 2021.

But over 1.7 billion women do not own a mobile phone, and women globally are 14% less likely to have one than men, with the largest disparities in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Worryingly, GSMA found that globally the gender gap in mobile internet use has worsened from 15% in 2020 to 16% in 2021. And although women’s uptake of mobile internet in LMICs continues to grow, adoption has slowed, with just 59 million women coming online in 2021 compared to 110 million the previous year.

This significant shortfall means many women and girls are missing out on the benefits of digital, social, and financial inclusion, and this is especially acute amongst those burdened with intersectional discrimination linked to characteristics like race, caste, religion, poverty, and disability.

Smartphones are key to connectivity

Smartphone ownership offers life-changing connectivity by opening portals to crucial resources, markets, and services for education, healthcare, business, and finance. Providing important and timely information that might otherwise be hard to obtain, handsets are a vehicle for formal and informal learning and enable social and civic networking and participation.

According to the UN, over 90% of jobs worldwide now have a digital component. Digital literacy expands a person’s employment and economic prospects and facilitates greater earning potential. Without digital adoption and use, women have fewer employment opportunities and face additional barriers to workforce participation.

Unequal access to the digital realm is undermining women’s economic independence, financial prospects, and decision-making power. It limits their life chances, increases their risk of gender-based violence and exploitation, and makes it harder to escape abusive situations or obtain justice when rights have been violated.

Barriers to internet access faced by women and girls

For many women and girls in the Global South, low literacy and digital skills are major barriers to phone ownership and use. They are more likely to live in poverty and have less schooling, and this translates into underconfidence in utilizing technology. A Web Foundation study found that women are 1.6 times more likely than men to report a lack of skills as a block to internet use.

Language exclusion is also a challenge. Nine in ten users in Africa have to switch to a second, often European colonial language, to use apps and websites, while over half of the world’s 7,151 languages have no digital footprint – effectively shutting out those who only speak local dialects.

To overcome this, more local language internet services and operating systems are required, alongside video content tailored to women’s contexts and needs.

Another hurdle is money. Global Digital Inclusion Partnership estimates that for 2.5 billion people, buying the cheapest available smartphones would cost over 30% of their monthly income. For many women, this is unaffordable, particularly as they are more likely to have lower earnings.

Mobile data is a burdensome cost, partly because of exorbitant pricing. African countries have some of the world’s most expensive data due to issues such as high taxation in the telecom industry, and unavailability of infrastructure. Coming top on the continent is Equatorial Guinea, where one gigabyte can be a whopping $49.67.

Only half of the 1.1 billion people in the Least Developed Countries have access to electricity – 13% of the global population – and many more face regular disruptions to energy supplies, making it harder to keep devices charged.

Especially in rural and remote locations, reliable and affordable electricity is limited or absent. With over half of Africa’s women living in rural areas, energy scarcity too has a gender dimension.

Strengthening online safety

Harmful social norms in the offline world impede women’s and girls’ access to and experiences of the digital domain. Gender stereotypes and power hierarchies within households can result in males having priority over using digital tools.

Some communities view the internet as posing a risk to the traditional social order, with male family members acting as gatekeepers that control and monitor female access to devices and the internet.

Safety concerns also discourage online engagement, and not without cause. A report by Equality Now found that governments are failing to effectively address an alarming increase in online sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls because national and international laws are not keeping up with advances in technology and cybercrime, leaving perpetrators unpunished.

Governments need to urgently review and update legislation and policies, and implement comprehensive laws that clearly specify the legal responsibilities that digital service providers have to people using their platforms, and for the content posted on their sites.

Equality Now and Women Leading in AI have launched the Alliance on Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi), a global campaign calling for “the adoption of a universal digital rights framework, rooted in human rights law and underpinned by an intersectional feminist, anti-discrimination analysis.”

AUDRi has produced a set of Digital Principles that articulate how human rights should be applied to the digital sphere, with binding agreements buttressing these rights so that governments and the private sector can be held more accountable.

Strengthening digital inclusion for women and girls in Africa is crucial to upending harmful gender norms and stereotypes, and preventing backsliding on women’s rights. Across the continent, digital technologies must be better harnessed to accelerate progress towards closing the gender equality gap.

To achieve this, state institutions, policy-makers, industry, and civil society have to collaborate to understand and eliminate the root causes hindering women’s and girls’ digital participation, and enact universal legal protections that foster a safe, inclusive, accessible online world for all.

For media inquiries please contact: Tara Carey, Equality Now Global Head of Media, E: [email protected]; M: +447971556340 (WhatsApp)

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International Women’s Day, 2023 – The Power of Technology — & the Increased Exclusion, Inequalities & Gender Discrimination — Global Issues

Credit: Kyrgyz Space Program
  • Opinion by Achim Steiner (united nations)
  • Inter Press Service
  • The following opinion piece is part of a series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 08 (IPS) – Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tremendous power of technology and innovation has become clear to the world. However, it has also increased exclusion, discrimination, and inequalities — especially for women and girls.

On International Women’s Day, we must re-imagine a world whereby innovation and technologies are more intentionally leveraged towards transforming our societies and economies so that resources and power are more equitably distributed.

Women and girls across the globe are anxious for this radical change, and it’s easy to understand why.

There is a growing gender digital divide and a mistaken assumption that the use of digital tools and services will simply increase with universal internet access. 95 per cent of the world’s population has access to a mobile broadband network.

Yet just one-quarter of people in lower-income countries use the internet, with 21 per cent of women in those countries online compared to 32 per cent of men. In tandem, many women and girls — especially women politicians, voters, human rights, and environmental defenders, LGBTIQ+ people, activists, feminist groups, and young women — face widespread forms of violence online, threatening their participation as well as their mental health and wellbeing.

Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator

We witness the call for social transformation from women who are at the forefront of movements for social change — online and in the streets — in their countries and around the world.

Digital technology can nurture democracy and human rights by boosting civic engagement and political participation. That includes using behavioural science to help ensure that women can access their property rights in Syria, an effort supported by the UNDP Accelerator Lab there.

Or consider the eMonitor+ platform developed in Tunisia that uses Artificial Intelligence to identify mis/disinformation, hate speech, and violence against women around elections.

Or look to new innovations that are using solar power to capture rainwater and treat it to produce drinking water in Tanzania — allowing women and girls to avoid trekking for kilometres every day to collect water.

At a time when women and girls are denied access to education in countries such as Afghanistan, the STEM4ALL platform coordinated by UNDP and UNICEF aims to increase the representation of women and girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

This network of ‘STEMinists’ plans to expand from 34 countries to a global reach — part of much-need efforts to help ensure that women can lead our new digital societies that will drive forward everything from climate action to the restoration of our natural world.

UNDP is working with key partners like UN Women to support countries to build inclusive digital ecosystems that work for women in all their diversity, guided by our Gender Equality Strategy 2022-2025 and our Digital Strategy 2022-2025.

All of us have a role to play in amplifying women’s voices; women’s participation in public life and access to justice, including through e-governance initiatives.

More efforts are also needed to tackle discrimination and violence against girls with disabilities. And digital finance will be a key means to allow women to gain full control over their finances — perhaps the most powerful means to reduce poverty and advance the Global Goals. In short, women and girls must be an intrinsic part of answering people and planet’s most pressing challenges.

Achim Steiner is Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

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