Opinion by Giulia Ribeiro Barao, Bosen Lily Liu (paris)
Inter Press Service
The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.
PARIS, Mar 08 (IPS) – In September 2020, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for women’s rights celebrated its 25th anniversary. It was, however, a bittersweet commemoration, mixing joy for the progress in gender equality achieved since 1995, and the stark realization about the multidimensional gaps awaiting tackling and the new divides brought by the social consequences of COVID-19.
In 2021, UNESCO projected that 11 million girls were at risk of not returning to school after the education interruptions caused by the pandemic. Even though the educational disruption accelerated the way into innovative learning practices, including distance and online education, it was not an equal reality for all social groups, since those already marginalized were also overrepresented in the offline population, including girls and women, and especially those living in poverty and rural communities (ECOSOC, 2021).
In 2020, worldwide, 57 percent of women used the Internet, compared with 62 per cent of men (ECOSOC, 2021). In the least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), Africa, and the Arab States, the gender gap in internet use remains more significant.
For instance, in LDCs, only 19 per cent of women are using the internet, which is 12 percentage points lower than men. Similarly, in Africa, 24 per cent of women use the internet compared to 35 per cent of men, while in the Arab States, the Internet usage rate is 56 per cent, compared to 68 per cent of men.
Girls and women who are kept without access to Internet and digital literacy will not benefit from the technological revolution that is currently transforming all areas of life, most centrally the educational sector and the job markets.
Even though innovation and technology for girls and women’s education is undoubtedly a critical topic in the contemporary scenario, we should notice that innovation itself extends beyond the boundaries of the digital world.
To further explore the field of innovation in education, the UNESCO Young People on Transforming Education Project (YPTEP) focuses on innovative learning practices – technological or non-technological tools and techniques – initiated and led by learners themselves for meaningful and transformative engagement in their own educational journeys.
One highlight of the project is on understanding the gender-responsive practices from girls and women.
Girls and women worldwide have long been innovative in fighting gender barriers and creating self-initiative and community strategies to accessing learning even when excluded from Internet access and other forms of innovation.
A female leader who creates a finance course for mothers, while providing turns of collective care for their children, is innovating in education. A girl who creates a book club with her friends to read and debate publications on feminism is innovating in education.
Women in STEM, taking part in research and development groups, although still underrepresented, are innovating in education.
So, here we are – right at the crossroad where education, innovation and gender inequalities meet. Not paying attention to those issues will only aggravate previous gaps, hampering the advancement of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
To contribute to this debate and pathways for solutions, the UNESCO team of Young People on Transforming Education Project (YPTEP) at UNESCO IESALC hosted a Fireside Chat on “Women and girls, innovation, and higher education” on 6 March 2023 to reunite women and girls from different countries and regions and celebrate their success not only to overcome challenges, but also to become changemakers in the field.
During the chat, we had the opportunity to engage with ten female storytellers who shared their stories on innovative learning and expand our understanding of innovation, creativity, and transformation in education.
Stories approached, in a broader sense, innovative paths in getting access to higher education; innovative learning practices to get through education and achieve learning goals; innovative tools and techniques that have enhanced their experiences as learners both inside and outside the classroom; and studying and working initiatives to design new technology and broader forms of innovation for education.
Participation in the Fireside Chat is also open and expected from all those who wish to share their experiences on innovative learning and higher education. We have organized interactive activities and will have “open chatbox” and “open mic” for anyone who are willing to present yourselves typing and tell your stories live.
References
Global Education Monitoring Report Team & UNESCO. (2021). #HerEducationOurFuture: keeping girls in the picture during and after the COVID-19 crisis; the latest facts on gender equality in education . UNESCO.
Opinion by Mercy Erhi Makpor (guimarães, portugal)
Inter Press Service
Guimarães, Portugal, Mar 07 (IPS) – The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8. The accelerating pace of digitalization has ushered humanity into a whole different era of information and communication. Today, digitalization permeates every aspect of our lives, socio-economically and politically.
BONN, Mar 07 (IPS) – The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8. When it comes to land, gender inequalities are pervasive. Today, nearly half of the global agricultural workforce is female – yet less than one in five landholders worldwide are women 1. ?
Women’s land rights are essential for their economic empowerment and the sustainable development of rural communities. However, women continue to face significant barriers to accessing and controlling land resources, which limits their ability to participate fully in agricultural production, improve their livelihoods, and contribute to broader economic growth.?
Moreover, the lack of access to land and other productive resources adversely impacts on women’s enjoyment of human rights.
According to a landmark study by UNCCD, gender equality remains unfinished business in every part of the world. For instance, in more than 100 countries today, women cannot inherit their husband’s property under customary, religious, or traditional laws and practices.
Andrea Meza MurilloDue to the COVID-19 pandemic, some women tragically lost not only their spouses but also access to their land. Even in countries where women have the same legal rights as men to own and access land – as is the case in Costa Rica – only 15.6% of farm ownership is currently in the hands of women.?In the Middle East and North Africa region, just 4% of women hold land titles.
Discrimination related to land tenure, credit access, equal pay and decision making often keeps women from playing an active role in sustaining land health. When they do have property rights, women often own smaller plots, and less fertile lands, compared to male landowners.
And when land becomes degraded and water is scarce, rural women?are usually the worst affected, often skipping meals in favour of other family members. ?
Globally, women already spend a collective 200 million hours every day collecting water. In some countries, a single trip to fetch water can take over an hour. Droughts make the situation even harder—they tend to increase the burden of unpaid care and domestic work shouldered by women and girls.?
But women are not only on the frontline of climate change and land degradation impacts; they can also be major actors in the global efforts to restore the land back to health and boost drought resilience.?
Evidence shows that when women and men have equal land tenure rights, women are more likely to invest in soil conservation and sustainable land management practices. For example, in Ethiopia, land certification and registration undertaken in the early 2000s increased tenure security for women and men and boosted landowners’ likelihood of investing in soil and water conservation measures by 20-30%.?
Gender equality is vital to deliver sustainable, progressive, and meaningful action to advance sustainable land stewardship. The recognition of women’s land and resource rights will accelerate land restoration efforts by opening doors to markets and finance, training and other services, and gender-appropriate sustainable land management tools and technologies.
It will also enable women to step up their contribution to the achievement of climate and biodiversity goals, keeping global temperature increase to 1.5°C and restoring at least 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030.
Already, women worldwide use traditional knowledge and innovative solutions to address desertification, land degradation and drought. In India, irrigation systems developed by women farmers rely on rainwater harvesting. In Jordan, a plant nursery entirely run by women using state-of-the-art methodologies and protocols is producing high-quality native seedlings for land restoration.?
The UNCCD has a long track record in placing gender equality firmly at the core of its mandate as a vital catalyst of progress. Gender-responsive land restoration is an obvious pathway to reduce poverty, hunger, and malnutrition.
When women are empowered to have a say in decision-making on land matters, entire communities and societies benefit, and these benefits can be passed on to future generations.?
We must urgently change the way both women and land are treated. We must invest more in women as the custodians of healthy land and thriving communities. It’s time for women and girls to be at the forefront of land restoration efforts.
For this, governments must take action to assess and reform legal and regulatory frameworks, promote gender-responsive policies and public services, and support successful programmes that promote women’s rights to land and resources.
Ending discrimination against women in their access to, use of, and control over land and other resources is crucial. In doing so, we can create a more just and sustainable world for all.
Andrea Meza Murillo is Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Prior to joining the Convention, she served as Minister of Energy and Environment for the Government of Costa Rica. She brings over 20 years of expertise in sustainable development, having worked in more than 15 Latin American countries to formulate public policies, participate in international negotiations, and execute climate, conservation and restoration projects.
Opinion by Magdalena Sepulveda (geneva, switzerland)
Inter Press Service
GENEVA, Switzerland, Mar 06 (IPS) – The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8. She will be called Aya. This is the name that nurses gave to the infant baby pulled from the rubble of a five-story building in Jinderis, northern Syria. A miracle. Beside her, the rescuers found her mother, dead.
She had given birth within hours of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on the night of February 6, 2023. Like her, more than 50,000 people died in the earthquake. As tragic as it is hopeful, this story has moved the international media.
It also reminds us that over 350,000 pregnant women who survived the earthquake now urgently need access to health care, according to the United Nations. And this is only one aspect of women’s vulnerability to natural disasters.
Floods, droughts, earthquakes, and other extreme events are not gender-neutral, especially in developing countries. Evidence shows that women and girls die in greater numbers and have different and uneven levels of resilience and capacity to recover.
Of the 230,000 people killed in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, for example, 70% were women. Because of gender barriers, they often have fewer survival skills: boys are taught to swim or read first. This makes it difficult for them to access early warnings or identify safe shelters.
In addition, it is more difficult for women to escape from danger, since they are most often responsible for children, the elderly, and the sick. Heightened tensions and fear, as well as the loss of income provoked by disasters, drive increased domestic violence against women and girls.
They are also the first victims of sexual violence and exploitation when entire populations are displaced – this was one of the first concerns in Pakistan when more than 8 million people had to leave their homes because of the terrible floods in June-August 2022.
Natural catastrophes negatively impact everyone economically, but women and girls are disproportionately affected. World Bank data show that female farmers suffer much more than male ones in rural areas.
Assigned to domestic tasks, they are more dependent than men on access to natural resources and are, therefore, the first to suffer when these become scarce. In every region, food insecurity is higher among women than men.
In 2020, it was estimated that nearly 60% of the people who go hungry are women and girls, and the gender gap has only increased since then. Their lack of access to bank accounts also means that women’s assets are less protected than men’s.
And, of course, recovery from any crisis builds on societal expectations related to gender roles. Consequently, women bear the brunt of the increased domestic burden after a disaster at the cost of missing out on other income-generating activities.
We know that women spend, on average, 3.2 times more time than men on unpaid care work, and the COVID-19 pandemic – another human-induced natural catastrophe – made evident how unequally unpaid care and domestic work is shared, and how undervalued and underrecognized it is.
This is a major constraint on women’s access to education, an obstacle to their entry into and advancement in the paid labor market, and to their political participation, with serious consequences in terms of social protection, income, and pensions.
Gender inequality exacerbates the impact of natural disasters, and the consequences of natural disasters exacerbate gender inequality. An unacceptable vicious cycle. With the world already facing a growing number of climate-related tragedies, governments must take immediate and long-term action to invest in universal access to health care, water and sanitation, education, social protection, and infrastructure for gender equality and the full enjoyment of women’s human rights.
Even in times of crisis, when state coffers are nearly empty, there are equitable solutions to raise revenues to fund the investments needed to strengthen women’s resilience: to make those who profit from the crises ravaging the planet, including from those natural disasters, pay, as recommended by the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT), of which I am a member alongside, among others, Joseph Stiglitz, Jayati Ghosh, and Thomas Piketty. Instead of implementing austerity programs that devastate the most disadvantaged, states can increase their fiscal space by taxing companies and the super-rich more.
It starts with taxing the super profits made by multinationals, and several countries in Europe and Latin America have already begun to do so. This is particularly true for the pharmaceutical giants that have made a fortune selling vaccines against Covid-19, which they were able to develop due to public subsidies. This is also the case for multinationals in the energy or food sector.
Oxfam estimates that their profits increased by more than two and a half times (256%) in 2022 compared with the 2018–2021 average. For the same reasons, it is urgent to tax the richest, who get away with paying hardly any taxes these days.
One cannot accept that, as Oxfam reminds us, a man like Elon Musk, one of the wealthiest men in history, is taxed at 3.3%, while Aber Christine, a market trader in Uganda who sells rice, is taxed at 40%.
Progressive taxation – making the richest people and multinationals pay their fair share – is one of the most powerful tools for reducing inequality of all kinds. As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, let’s keep in mind that it is impossible to build more resilient societies without fighting for gender equality.
Continuing to ignore it is a political choice, and an even more perilous threat to development than natural disasters themselves.
Magdalena Sepúlveda is the Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and a member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). From 2008-2014 she was the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights @Magda_Sepul
Pakistani women peacekeepers in the audience at the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad, where Secretary-General António Guterres delivered an address on the topic of peacekeeping. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten
Opinion by Simone Galimberti (kathmandu, nepal)
Inter Press Service
The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Mar 06 (IPS) – If you want to have a good reading on women and young girls’ activism, there is a high chance that you have missed an incredibly interesting report.
On the one hand, the special procedures under UN Human Rights focused on women should be re-organized and on the other hand, country level programs supporting women should become more unified. Meanwhile, a new global platform, building on the Generation Equality Forum, could bring these two complementary but vastly different realm of works, together to engage the global public and the leaders.
The blueprint offers a real and practical guidance on about how the direct involvement and engagement of women and young girls is essential if governments are serious about achieving gender equality and ends, once for all, any type of gender-based discriminations.
The Working Group is composed by five experts, mostly academician but also practitioners, on women’s rights and despite the low profile, it maintains a real busy annual schedule that makes its work incredibly relevant and valuable.
It does not only meet three times a year for planning and coordination and but also holds a dialogue at the Human Rights Council in June in addition to reporting to the General Assembly in October/November and also participates at the annual March meeting of the Commission on the Status of the Women.
On the top of all these tasks and consider that their commitment with the Working Group proceeds along their official and equally demanding full-time jobs, the members also conduct annual visits to member states to monitor and assess their work to protect women and girls against discrimination.
The problem is that its work does get neither visibility nor recognition.
One of the reasons is that the UN human rights architecture promoting and defending the rights of women is too complex and fragmented and requires a drastic overhaul.
There are too many mechanisms often with an almost overlapping mandates tasked to protect women’s rights, perhaps also a reflection on the inevitable rivalries at the UN and the consequent compromises that are always struck by the member states.
Her mandate is stronger and certainly more visible than those of the members of the Working Group even though she operates within UN Human Rights.
Though the former mechanism is focused on fighting discrimination and the latter is instead exclusively aimed at assessing cases of violence against women, you might wonder if it could be more effective and value for money to devise a more united approach, a more effective modality to monitor and defend the rights of women around the world.
Certainly, we cannot discount the fact that we are talking about special procedures mechanisms within the Human Rights Council, an intergovernmental body within the UN that is actually the only forum where the member states of the UN discuss, share and peer reviews their human rights.
The special procedures are important because they uniquely involve top experts in matters of human rights and their contributions provide even more legitimacy to the important work that the UN System is doing to uphold the rights of vulnerable persons around the world.
A possibility to strengthen their work could be to imagine a different “governance” that maximizes their opinions and reviews, even with the possibility to provide full time tenures and adequate resources to support their work and give it the visibility it deserves.
It is composed by twenty-three experts and one of its main tasks is to “assist States parties in the preparation of initial and subsequent periodic reports” and holding constructive dialogue with them and issue the so called “concluding observations” on what the member states present to show their commitment to CEDAW.
Officially started in 2017, the platform aims to “promote thematic and institutional cooperation between the UN and regional expert mechanisms on the elimination of discrimination and violence against women and girls with the view of accelerating domestication of international and regional standards, achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls”.
The reality is that this mechanism never got traction nor got the mandate to truly coordinate among UN and external, autonomous regional mechanisms outside of the purview of the UN system.
Mentioned earlier, the Commission on the Status of the Women is the oldest of all these mechanisms that, while proved to be indispensable over the last decades to mainstream women rights within the universal human rights agenda, is now outdated.
Till now we have been only focusing on mechanisms to uphold, monitor and protect the rights of women.
We have not yet discussed the “program” side of the equation, the work to prevent violence and discrimination against women and promote their empowerment being done by UN agencies and programs, including UN Women the agency that provides the secretariat of the Commission on the Status of Women.
In this respect, there is also, always within the UN System, the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality or IANWGE, bringing together all the main women focal points of all UN agencies and programs.
Under responsibility of UN Women, the Network appears weak and just a formality though we should assume that at country level, all the work related to women’s empowerment is coordinated under the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (formerly named United Nations Development Assistance Framework).
This is a process that itself could require a further upgrade to truly maximize cooperation and avoidance of overlaps between and among agencies and programs.
It is evident that in both domains, on the one hand, the human rights accountability mechanisms and on the other hand, the actions and programs on the ground to change the status quo, there is need of a much stronger synergy and coordination, something that might be objected by several members of the UN that are unlikely to support anything akin to strengthen mechanisms upholding human rights.
Even the Commission on the Status of Women itself, whose upcoming session will be held between the 6 and17 March, should be re-thought.
With a multiyear thematic plan, the Commission, is a toothless and unnoticed advocacy and knowledge creation institution that each year comes up with a topic up for analysis and discussion.
This year, for example, the focus will be on “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls” while last year’s theme was centered around climate change, environment and disaster prevention.
There are no doubts that it is important to have a global convening forum that brings together the top experts on issues that are so relevant to achieve SDG 5. Yet it is not hard to imagine how a stronger, more coordinated women centered architecture in the UN could achieve and produce more while spending less.
Let’s remind ourselves that the Agenda 2030 and the SDGs brought some institutional innovations in the way the UN operates, primarily the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, that is the major SDGs focused platform promoted by the UN.
Besides its usual gathering in July, this year the Forum will also host another SDG Summit in September, the biggest format to discuss about and review the SDGs at the highest levels of political leadership worldwide.
Yet, while we are referring to a strong advocacy and review mechanism with a considerable amount of convening power, the High-Level Political Forum is simply what it is, a review mechanism of countries’ performances towards accomplishing the SDGs and important vehicle for debating them.
A reform of a stronger UN System that is better positioned to truly achieve SDG 5, should acknowledge an existing deep gulf between promotion and defense of human rights focusing on women (as well other human rights issues) and, on the other end, actions on ground at legislative, judiciary and economic and social levels to change the status quo.
For example, UN Human Rights has no formal role in hosting the High-Level Political Forum that is instead organized by ECOSOC and has a very limited presence at countries level.
A better chance at ensuring that the rights of women are defended while their living conditions improve, could be based on two complementary internal reforms within the UN System: an improvement on how Human Rights operates and a drastic rethinking of how the women focused service, advocacy and delivery-oriented agencies of the UN work.
On the former, the UN Human Rights could undertake, with the aim of giving them more voice and authority, a major reform of its “accountability” mechanisms that rely on the professionalism, integrity and expertise of world class activists, advocates and legal scholars.
The role of the Commission on the Status of the Women should also be reviewed. As per now, its outreach and voice are limited within the development sector and it has become almost irrelevant and unknown to the global public opinion.
On the latter, in terms of programs and initiatives supporting women and their rights around the world, only a true One United Nations approach at country level could do the job with ultimately a much better coordination and one unified “delivery” channel.
Both processes of change and their respective spheres of work, accountability and program, could then be promoted through a united “Global Women” platform that could end up with the same visibility that COP process gained for climate action.
A recently created multi partnership forum could, potentially, become such main vehicle to achieve SDG 5. I am talking of Generation Equality Forum, a joint initiative of Mexico and France that has been facilitated by UN Women.
It holds a great potential to facilitate new collaborations that so far has been convened twice in 2021, first in Mexico City and then in Paris, paving the way for an ambitious global program of action, the Global Acceleration Plan.
The interesting part of it is that the Forum is truly action oriented with its members committing to take action through six sub areas groups, branded as Generation Equality Action Coalitions that include the entire spectrum of areas that would ensure achieving SDG 5.
From gender violence to economic justice, to bodily autonomy and sexual reproductive rights, to climate justice to technology and innovation, to leadership, the coalitions, made up by hundreds of civil society organizations, global foundations and private corporations, can really facilitate partnerships with private sector and civil society, a capacity that the UN System has never mastered.
Can this new and bold attempt to catalyze efforts and investments for the rights of women and girls around the world become the epicenter of a new women focused development architecture?
Can a hybrid vehicle to rally global investments and actions for women help galvanize global attention on their rights and at same time do the job of meeting the targets of SDG 5?
Finally, would a new women focused “governance” of development assistance also force the UN System to change for good its working modalities?
Even if the accountability mechanisms under UN Human Rights would remain formally separated by this process of renewal for women ‘rights, nevertheless the banner of the Generation Equality Forum transformed into a “Global Women” platform could be used to highlight and “empower” their work.
The fact that this year there will be another gathering of the Generation Equality Forum could offer additional new momentum to the initiative though last year only a very low key event celebrated its 1st year anniversary.
Yet it was still an important gathering because it was where the Forum’s first accountability report was unveiled.
In few days from now the Forum will actively participate in the upcoming session of Commission on the Status of Women but with some insights, perhaps, the opposite process should occur.
The Commission and all other women focused mechanisms and programs, at minimum, could become part of a much larger and more institutionalized institution that should also be fully aligned to and possibly become the central pillar for SDG 5 of The High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
Rather they should be truly embraced head-on. Meanwhile another great publication on women and young girls’ activism will be read by too few people.
Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE and co-initiator of the Good Leadership, Good for You & Good for the Society, both active in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives
A cell phone gives rural women access to financial services, training, networks, and, importantly, information and knowledge. Credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan (CCAFS)
Opinion by Nicoline de Haan (nairobi, kenya)
Inter Press Service
Dr. Nicoline de Haan is Director of the CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 06 (IPS) – While 100 million people worldwide are using the AI chatbot ChatGPT to get ahead on homework and try out for top jobs at Google, more than 370 million women in developing countries lack the services of a simple cell phone.
The world may be witnessing a quantum leap in the digital revolution, but cell phones and mobile internet would give these women enough of a foothold to access unprecedented opportunities to improve their incomes, nutrition and health.
For rural women and girls in low-income countries who rely on small-scale agriculture, ICT can unlock financial services, training and networks, and, importantly, information and knowledge. Without these core technologies, women are farming with one hand tied behind their backs, making up just a quarter of registered users of agricultural applications in Africa.
The potential of digital technology to transform farming and agriculture in countries across the Global South is increasingly compelling. Producers in sub-Saharan Africa who adopted online services were found to increase their incomes by up to 40 per cent while new forecasting and early warning systems can also help farmers stay ahead of climate shocks. Digital innovations are therefore an essential component of agricultural research strategies to strengthen food and economic security around the world.
Nicoline de Haan
Subsidising technologies like cell phones for women can be one effective way for governments and NGOs to start closing the digital gender divide while boosting overall agricultural productivity.
Women in sub-Saharan Africa are 15 per cent less likely to own a cell phone and more than 40 per cent less likely to use mobile internet than are men. Yet when women were given cell phones, SIM cards and time charge cards in one study in Tunisia, 75 per cent said they benefitted either through better connectivity to agricultural information, such as veterinary advice, or greater levels of communication.
Meanwhile, a project to provide app-based drone delivery of livestock vaccines is set to allow women in Ghana to overcome gender norms that dictate men farmers liaise with men veterinarians, and better care for their chickens and goats.
But to ensure that women get maximum benefit, both the technology and the training to use it must be optimized to account for different needs and contexts – and this needs ongoing investment into gender-responsive agricultural research.
While cell phones and SMS have increased the reach of agricultural information services, disproportionate levels of illiteracy among women require innovative forms of delivery to be impactful. For example, developing interactive voice response (IVR) technology and voice messages in local languages can allow women to receive the same valuable information in a format that acknowledges gendered differences in education levels.
Similarly, complementary technologies ensure that greater access translates into greater benefit. Using radio programming in combination with SMS, and avoiding gendered greetings such as “dear brother farmer”, can improve both women’s access to and capacity to leverage information.
Perhaps the greatest barrier when it comes to closing the digital gender divide are the norms that continue to limit women’s access to technology, and the slow social and cultural acceptance of women making use of digital tools in agriculture.
One approach is to support efforts to work with the gatekeepers of technology within the community, whether fathers, clerics or elders, to encourage behaviour change. Another promising tactic is for governments and research partners to develop community-based opportunities for women to access and act upon information technologies collectively.
Radio Listeners Clubs in Rwanda were found to help remove the significant disparities in awareness, access and use of climate information that usually exist between women and men smallholder farmers. The greatest improvements in income and social standing as a result were among women.
Digital innovations can themselves play a part in deconstructing gender norms. #BintiShujaaz (“Heroine Girl”), a social media campaign launched in Tanzania, used posts, videos, comics and two online panel discussions to showcase positive examples of young women in the chicken business. The campaign reached 4.4 million young Tanzanians, with more than 500,000 engagements, to help improve the perception of women in the poultry business.
Access to information through digital technologies can be a powerful leveller and a critical weapon in the arsenal. And when it comes to gender inequality, it can generate multiple benefits, not only for women but for their families, communities and economies.
It is vital that governments, development partners and agricultural research institutes do everything they can to ensure women not only have access to the information and knowledge they need but are empowered to use it in their best interests.
In the southern city of Taiz, 11-month-old Ameer Hellal receives WFP supplementary food for malnutrition. Photo: WFP/Albaraa Mansoor
by Alexander Kozul-Wright (geneva)
Inter Press Service
GENEVA, Mar 03 (IPS) – At a high-level UN event, global donors pledged US$1.2 billion in aid operations to Yemen in 2023. Millions of Yemenis require humanitarian assistance as the country continues to suffer from the fallout of a prolonged civil war.
While the Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths noted that the UN had received 31 commitments during the conference on February 30, 2023, in Geneva, the amount pledged remains well below the organisation’s target of US$4.3 billion.
The conflict in Yemen started in 2014 when Iranian-backed Houthi rebels – representing the country’s Zaidi Shia Muslim minority – seized the capital, Sanaa. The war intensified in 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition intervened on behalf of the government against the Houthis.
Owing to repeated Saudi-led bombardment campaigns and deep territorial divisions (half of the country remains under Houthi control in the north and the other half under government control in the south), Yemen’s economy has ground to a halt.
Last year, exogenous factors also led to steep falls in Yemen’s Rial relative to the U.S. dollar, pushing inflation up to 45 percent. Elsewhere, food prices surged by 58 percent. In 2022, 13 million people in Yemen relied on the UN’s World Food Program for basic staples.
To date, the conflict has killed more than 375,000 people, sixty percent from indirect causes (mainly from malnutrition and disease). The war has also razed the country’s civilian and physical infrastructure, including its oil sector – Yemen’s only source of foreign exchange.
Last year, warring parties agreed to an UN-brokered cease-fire. Though it expired in October, the six-month truce led to a reduction in casualties. It also enabled commercial traffic to flow through the port of Hodeida, increasing the supply of goods and aid into the country.
A slight improvement in food security at the end of last year meant two million fewer Yemenis suffered from acute hunger. The number of people in famine-like conditions also dropped from 161,000 to zero. But progress remains fragile.
Yemen continues to rely on foreign aid. “More than 21 million people, or two-thirds of the country’s population, will need humanitarian assistance in 2023,” said UN secretary-general António Guterres.
Among those in need, more than 17 million are understood to be living below Yemen’s poverty line. Meanwhile, an estimated 4.5 million Yemenis are internally displaced, largely due to climate-change-related events.
According to the UN, Yemen is “highly vulnerable” to the effects of rising global temperatures (notably arid weather). In recent years, severe droughts have exacerbated food shortages caused by the war.
Yemen Remains in Need of External Support
The UN’s US$4.3 billion funding objective is nearly double what it received last year. Looking ahead, reliance on external aid will be particularly acute in 2023 due to constrained oil exports linked to Houthi attacks on government-held oil terminals last October.
This week’s conference took place as the country’s rival groups agreed to an informal suspension of hostilities. Efforts are underway to declare a lasting peace after the parties failed to extend their UN-backed peace agreement last year.
“We have a real opportunity to change Yemen’s trajectory and move toward peace by renewing and expanding the truce,” noted Guterres at the pledging event, co-hosted by Sweden and Switzerland.
The meeting was attended by officials worldwide, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. In his speech, Blinken called on donors to step up their contributions, citing last year’s funding shortages.
The UN missed its financing target for Yemen by US$2 billion last year. Blinken also urged the international community to help restore Yemen’s economy, suggesting this would “reduce people’s suffering over the long term.”
“Large-scale investment will be needed to rebuild Yemen’s physical infrastructure. Securing peace, however, remains the top priority. “Without it, millions will continue to face extreme levels of poverty, hunger and suffering,” added Blinken.
Meanwhile, the UN secretary-general warned that aid funding would not provide a panacea for Yemen.
“Humanitarian assistance is a band-aid. It saves people’s lives but cannot resolve the conflict itself.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
Opinion by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana (bangkok, thailand)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 01 (IPS) – The writer is Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8. New technologies and innovations are reshaping our world and its future, often at a dizzying pace. Yet women and girls continue to be left behind in this burgeoning digital universe. How, then, can we harness these developments to create a better future for all of us?
This year’s International Women’s Day theme, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality,” seeks to answer exactly that question.
We know that women and girls are less likely than men and boys to use the internet or own a smartphone. In fact, only 54 per cent of women in Asia and the Pacific have digital access, cut off from opportunities to move any digital needles forward.
The root causes are many and varied: deep-rooted discriminatory social norms, increased gender-based violence (including online violence), and the unequal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work. Addressing these impediments to women realizing their full potential requires our joint and immediate attention and response.
One child, one teacher, one pen
When and where women and girls are discouraged from studying and working in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) fields, we let them down. And we have left a whole generation of women and girls behind. We need the talents and voices of women and girls brought to the boardrooms and coding rooms.
Today many innovations in AI, medicine, entertainment, transportation, work and other fields treat men as the standard and ignore women’s physical and social differences – to the detriment of half of the world’s population.
Getting more women into careers in technology starts with breaking down the gender stereotypes that prevent girls from studying STEM subjects. Comprehensive changes to the way STEM subjects are taught and targeted programs to support girls’ learning are needed.
In Viet Nam, the Ministry of Education and Training has updated the country’s National Early Childhood Education curriculum on “de-stereotyping” women and girls and has included gender-sensitive budgeting into the Education Sector Plan. Through changes such as these, governments can foster girls’ enthusiasm for technology, expanding the future digital workforce.
Harnessing technology to support women entrepreneurs
Women entrepreneurs play a key role in developing economies. Supporting them to start and grow businesses through technology will lead to more sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Women have historically struggled to access capital because they are less aware of funding options.
They are less likely to own land or have large savings to offer as collateral and have not been included in traditional financial networks. Technological innovations provide an opportunity to connect women entrepreneurs across the region with new financing models that cater to their particular needs.
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship project has unlocked almost USD 65 million in capital to support women entrepreneurs in several countries.
Through identifying and backing a number of experimental technology-driven business models, the project has supported women-led micro, small and medium enterprises through a range of technology solutions such as payment platforms, online marketplaces, bookkeeping and inventory management.
Enabling women to become drivers of inclusive innovation
If we pair the untapped potential of women and girls to contribute to our common future together with the potential of the innovations of digitalization, science and technologies, we may well have cracked the code to rectifying many of the inequalities and injustices created by generations past.
Women have the know-how to harness technology and innovation. Given equal opportunities, they will flourish and contribute to creative solutions to tackle the world’s multi-faceted challenges.
Women leaders in Asia and the Pacific are already using technology to address inequalities and gender-based violence. Founded by Virginia Tan, Rhea See, and Leanne Robers, She Loves Tech, headquartered in Singapore, runs the world’s largest start-up competition for women and technology and aims to unlock over USD 1 billion in capital by 2030 for women-led businesses.
Safecity is a crowd-mapping platform for people to share experiences of sexual harassment in public spaces and allows communities to identify problems and work towards solutions. The platform was launched by three women, including current leader Elsa Marie D’Silva, in response to incidents of gender-based violence in the region.
“We can all do our part to unleash our world’s enormous untapped talent – starting with filling classrooms, laboratories, and boardrooms with women scientists,” said United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently. Indeed, we need women in leadership roles in all science and technology spaces to accelerate inclusive innovation.
Let’s work together towards our dream of achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. What better way to do so than to use innovations and new technologies to overcome inequalities in the digital age?
Shahd, a 12-year-old girl with a hearing disability, stands in front of a window facing her father, in the house her family live in, Azaz, Aleppo, Syria. Credit: Human Rights Watch.
Opinion by Emina Cerimovic (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Feb 28 (IPS) – Emina Cerimovic is a senior disability rights researcher at Human Rights Swatch.A few days ago, I saw a photo shared to Twitter of Sham, a young Syrian girl rescued from under the rubble in northwest Syria, sitting upright in her hospital bed, According to the Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer humanitarian group also known as the White Helmets, Sham will lose both her legs because of injuries from the quake.
Looking at her photo, I couldn’t help but think of the additional human rights abuses Sham will experience on the basis of her disability. She will join the ranks of all the children with disabilities who are surviving the 12-year-conflict in Syria without equal access to humanitarian aid.
And so will others who experienced traumatic physical and psychological injuries in the wake of the earthquakes: a girl who had spent 30 hours under the rubble in the heavily affected town of Jindires in northwest Syria and who had lost both her legs; a 3-year-old boy in Jinderis who was trapped for 42 hours and whose left leg was amputated; a young Syrian man living in Gaziantep, Turkey, whose right hand was amputated.
As issues of humanitarian aid access to various affected parts of Syria dominatethe news, relief efforts should not overlook the short and long-term needs of people with disabilities and the thousands of earthquake survivors who have sustained physical and psychological injuries that could lead to permanent disabilities.
As two more powerful earthquakes struck the region on February 20, panic and fear spread among earthquake survivors in both Syria and Turkey, bringing into sharp focus the psychological trauma caused by the natural hazard and, for Syrians, by over 12 years of war.
In Syria, approximately 28 percent of the current population – nearly double the global average – are estimated to have a disability, and their rights and needs are largely unmet. As I found in my September report on the greater risk of harm and lack of access to basic rights for children with disabilities caught up in the Syrian war, the design and delivery of humanitarian programs in Syria are not taking into account the particular needs of children with disabilities. In some cases, such programs explicitly exclude them.
As an example, some educational activities and child-friendly spaces excluded children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Children with disabilities are growing up without safety, basic necessities, education, assistive devices, or psychosocial support, in ways that put their lives and rights at risk.
They experience stigma, psychological harm, and higher levels of poverty. The situation is no better for adults with disabilities who also face systematic challenges in accessing humanitarian services on an equal basis with others.
This crisis should serve as a wake-up call for UN agencies, donor states, humanitarian organizations, and charities to properly respond to all children’s rights by ensuring the rights and needs of children with disabilities are also met.
They should develop and implement their response and recovery action plans with people with disabilities at their core. The attention and investment in children – like Sham – and adults with disabilities will enhance human rights for everyone.
Opinion by Kwan Soo-Chen, David McCoy (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb 28 (IPS) – Global warming and climate breakdown are going to be disruptive to say the least. Humanity’s insistence on unsustainable development and rising greenhouse gas emissions will make the settlements of millions of people increasingly prone to extreme weather events and full-blown natural disasters.
Many places will also become uninhabitable. As a consequence, many people are going to have to move from their current homes, either temporarily or permanently.
The term ‘climate mobility’ is used to describe three forms of climate-induced movement of populations: displacement, where people are forced to leave their homes; migration, where movement is to some degree voluntary; and planned relocation, where movement in proactively instigated, supervised and carried out by the state.
In reality, these three forms of mobility overlap and may occur concurrently, making it difficult to accurately quantify and monitor trends over time. Furthermore, when considering the impacts of climate change on human mobility, there is a need to consider the inability or unwillingness of communities to move despite being at risk from harm, loss and damage.
There are several drivers of ‘climate mobility’. The most obvious is the direct destruction of homes and infrastructure by acute severe weather events and floodings. Less obvious drivers include the more chronic impact of sea level rise, soil erosion, erratic weather patterns, salination and forest degradation on water supply, agriculture and livelihoods.
Data on climate mobility are sketchy and it is hard to attribute any instance of displacement or forced migration to only one set of factors. Political and economic factors may often be significant co-factors. Similarly, movements and migration attributed to economic forces or armed conflicts may have some underlying relationship to environmental degradation.
According to the 2022 Global Report of Internal Displacements (GRID) by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) in Geneva, there were 38 million individual instances of displacement in 2021 globally, with 14.3 million (37.6%) coming from the East Asia and Pacific region.
These numbers include people who were displaced more than once. More than half of these displacements (23.7 million) globally, and 95% in the East and Pacific region were due to weather-related disasters, and most of these were concentrated in LMICs.
In the Asia Pacific region, 225.3 million internal displacements caused by disasters have been recorded from 2010 to 2021, where 95% were weather related and the other 5% were geophysical. The Southeast Asian countries with the highest incidence of displacements due to natural disasters in 2021 were the Philippines (5,681,000), Indonesia (749,000), Vietnam (780,000) and Myanmar (158,000).
The two biggest causes of disaster-related displacements in the region are floods and storms which were responsible for over 80% of disaster-related displacements between 2008 and 2020.
Attempts are also being made to monitor the scale of planned relocations. One study, for example, identified 308 planned relocations globally in 2021, of which more than half were in Asia (160). This included 29 cases in the Philippines, and 17 in both Vietnam and Indonesia.
Importantly however, half all of these ‘planned relocations’ involved populations in rural areas including the indigenous communities, and half of them had already been displaced by acute weather events. The number of households involved in each planned relocation ranged from as little as four households to 1,000 households, with the majority involving less than 250 households.
Although Southeast Asia is known as being a ‘hot spot’ for acute severe weather events, it is also vulnerable to the effects of more chronic environmental degradation. For example, the large low-lying coastal areas of the region – such as in Vietnam and Thailand and around the Mekong delta – are already being affected by sea level rise and its impacts on settlements through coastal erosion and saltwater intrusion.
Although projections of the scale of future climate mobility are uncertain, significant growth is indicated. Already we have seen the number of internal displacements increased from 3.9 million per year in 2008-2010 to 6.4 million per year in 2019-2021.
According to the Groundswell Report of the World Bank, the number of internal climate migrants in the East Asia and Pacific region will reach 49 million by 2050, representing 2% of the regional population. The lower Mekong subregion in Southeast Asia is projected to see between 3.3 million and 6.3 million new climate migrants between now and 2050 (1.4% to 2.7% of the country population) depending on different scenarios.
The high-risk outmigration hotspots include the coastal areas of Vietnam (threatened by sea level rise) and central Thailand and Myanmar (threatened by water scarcity and reduced agriculture productivity).
While most climate mobility occurs within a country, there will be growing pressure on national borders as climate change worsens. However, there appears to be little modelling of future scenarios involving cross-border migration due to climate change and environmental breakdown.
Such pressure might be expected around land borers within the Greater Mekong sub-region affecting Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. But given the physical geography of the region, cross-border migration by sea may become an issue as the effects of climate change worsen.
Clearly this will pose international security as well as humanitarian challenges. Currently however, the 1951 Refugee Convention does not give people fleeing from environmental disasters or climate-related threats the right to be recognized as refugees, even though the term ‘climate refugees’ is increasingly used in popular and academic discourse.
The non-binding Global Compact for Migration which was developed in line with the SDG target 10.7 on migration policies and adopted by majority of the UN Member States in December 2018 is a good start to strengthening international cooperation in tackling the challenges and human rights-related aspects of cross border migrants from climate change.
The negative health impacts of being forcibly moved from one’s home are significant, but will also depend on the form of migration (temporary or permanent, short or long distance, internal or cross-border) and the social, economic and political conditions of their home and new environments.
Furthermore, there are different health needs and impacts for populations on the move and those that are settled, as well as for receiving communities and those that are left behind. While certain risks and threats will be reduced by movement, many will face new health hazards in their new settings including a lack of economic opportunities, as well as the mental health risks associated with social and cultural loss.
Climate mobility is a current and pressing issue in Southeast Asia. Even if everything is done to mitigate further global warming, millions of people in the region will likely be forced to move from their current settlements over the next few decades.
Whether we are adequately prepared for this is at best an open question. What is clear however is that the responsibilities of governments towards both current and future climate migrants is considerable.
Crucially, health systems will have to provide for both physical safety and health of vulnerable populations, as well as the burden of mental illness produced by forced migration.
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