Tag: Economy & Trade

Digital Treatment of Genetic Resources Shakes Up COP15 — Global Issues

The executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, highlighted on Friday Dec. 16 the results of the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and fair benefit sharing at an event during COP15 in the Canadian city of Montreal. But the talks have not reached an agreement on the digital sequencing of genetic resources. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS
  • by Emilio Godoy (montreal)
  • Inter Press Service

MONTREAL, Dec 16 (IPS) – In addition to its nutritional properties, quinoa, an ancestral grain from the Andes, also has cosmetic uses, as stated by the resource use and benefit-sharing permit ABSCH-IRCC-PE-261033-1 awarded in February to a private individual under a 15-month commercial use contract.

The permit, issued by the Peruvian government’s National Institute for Agrarian Innovation, allows the Peruvian beneficiary to use the material in a skin regeneration cream.

But it also sets restrictions on the registration of products obtained from quinoa or the removal of its elements from the Andean nation, to prevent the risk of irregular exploitation without a fair distribution of benefits, in other words, biopiracy.

The licensed material may have a digital representation of its genetic structure which in turn may generate new structures from which formulas or products may emerge. This is called digital sequence information (DSI), in the universe of research or commercial applications within the CBD.

Treatment of DSI forms part of the debates at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which began on Dec. 7 and is due to end on Dec. 19 at the Palais des Congrès in the Canadian city of Montreal.

The summit has brought together some 15,000 people representing the 196 States Parties to the CBD, non-governmental organizations, academia, international bodies and companies.

The focus of the debate is the Post-2020 Global Framework on Biodiversity, which consists of 22 targets in areas including financing for conservation, guidelines on digital sequencing of genetic material, degraded ecosystems, protected areas, endangered species, the role of business and gender equality.

Like most of the issues, negotiations on DSI and the sharing of resulting benefits, contained in one of the Global Framework’s four objectives and in target 13, are at a deadlock, on everything from definitions to possible sharing mechanisms.

Except for the digital twist, the issue is at the heart of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization, part of the CBD, signed in that Japanese city in 2010 and in force since 2014.

The delegations of the 196 States Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity have failed to make progress at COP15 in the negotiations on new targets for the protection of the world's natural heritage, in the Canadian city of Montreal. In the picture, a working group reviews a proposal on the complex issue. CREDIT: IISD/ENB
The delegations of the 196 States Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity have failed to make progress at COP15 in the negotiations on new targets for the protection of the world’s natural heritage, in the Canadian city of Montreal. In the picture, a working group reviews a proposal on the complex issue. CREDIT: IISD/ENB

Amber Scholz, a German member of the DSI Scientific Network, a group of 70 experts from 25 countries, said there is an urgent need to close the gap between the existing innovation potential and a fair benefit-sharing system so that digital sequencing benefits everyone.

“It’s been a decade now and things haven’t turned out so well. The promise of a system of innovation, open access and benefit sharing is broken,” Scholz, a researcher at the Department of Microbial Ecology and Diversity in the Leibniz Institute’s DSMZ German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, told IPS.

DSI stems from the revolution in the massive use of technological tools, which has reached biology as well, fundamental in the discovery and manufacture of molecules and drugs such as those used in vaccines against the coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD COP10, were missed by the target year, 2020, and will now be renewed and updated by the Global Framework that will emerge from Montreal.

The targets included respect for the traditional knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities related to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, their customary use of biological resources, and the full and effective participation of indigenous and local communities in the implementation of the CBD.

Lack of clarity in the definition of DSI, challenges in the traceability of the country of origin of the sequence via digital databases, fear of loss of open access to data and different outlooks on benefit-sharing mechanisms are other aspects complicating the debate among government delegates.

Through the Action Agenda: Make a Pledge platform, organizations, companies and individuals have already made 586 voluntary commitments at COP15, whose theme is “Ecological civilization: Building a shared future for all life on earth”.

Of these, 44 deal with access and benefit sharing, while 294 address conservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, 185 involve partnerships and alliances, and 155 focus on adaptation to climate change and emission reductions.

Genetic havens

Access to genetic resources for commercial or non-commercial purposes has become an issue of great concern in the countries of the global South, due to the fear of biopiracy, especially with the advent of digital sequencing, given that physical access to genetic materials is not absolutely necessary.

Although the Nagoya Protocol includes access and benefit-sharing mechanisms, digital sequencing mechanisms have generated confusion. In fact, this instrument has created a market in which lax jurisdictions have taken advantage by becoming genetic havens.

Around 2,000 gene banks operate worldwide, attracting some 15 million users. Almost two billion sequences have been registered, according to statistics from GenBank, one of the main databases in the sector and part of the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Argentina leads the list of permits for access to genetic resources in Latin America under the Protocol, with a total of 56, two of which are commercial, followed by Peru (54, four commercial) and Panama (39, one commercial). Mexico curbed access to such permits in 2019, following a scandal triggered by the registration of maize in 2016.

There are more than 100 gene banks operating in Mexico, 88 in Peru, 56 in Brazil, 47 in Argentina and 25 in Colombia.

The largest providers of genetic resources leading to publicly available DSI are the United States, China and Japan. Brazil ranks 10th among sources and users of samples, according to a study published in 2021 by Scholz and five other researchers.

The mechanisms for managing genetic information sequences have become a condition for negotiating the new post-2020 Global Framework for biodiversity, which poses a conflict between the most biodiverse countries (generally middle- and low-income) and the nations of the industrialized North.

Brazilian indigenous activist Cristiane Juliao, a leader of the Pankararu people, calls for a fair system of benefit-sharing for access to and use of genetic resources and their digital sequences at COP15, being held at the Palais des Congrès in the Canadian city of Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Indigenous people and their share

Cristiane Juliao, an indigenous woman of the Pankararu people, who is a member of the Brazilian Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of the Northeast, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, said the mechanisms adopted must favor the participation of native peoples and guarantee a fair distribution of benefits.

“We don’t look at one small element of a plant. We look at the whole context and the role of that plant. All traditional knowledge is associated with genetic heritage, because we use it in food, medicine or spiritual activities,” she told IPS at COP15.

Therefore, she said, “traceability is important, to know where the knowledge was acquired or accessed.”

In Montreal, Brazilian native organizations are seeking recognition that the digital sequencing contains information that indigenous peoples and local communities protect and that digital information must be subject to benefit-sharing. They are also demanding guarantees of free consultation and the effective participation of indigenous groups in the digital information records.

Thanks to the system based on the country’s Biodiversity Law, in effect since 2016, the Brazilian government has recorded revenues of five million dollars for permits issued.

The Working Group responsible for drafting the new Global Framework put forward a set of options for benefit-sharing measures.

They range from leaving in place the current status quo, to the integration of digital sequence information on genetic resources into national access and benefit-sharing measures, or the creation of a one percent tax on retail sales of genetic resources.

Lagging behind

There is a legal vacuum regarding this issue, because the CBD, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, in force since 2004, do not cover all of its aspects.

Scholz suggested the COP reach a decision that demonstrates the political will to establish a fair and equitable system. “The scientific community is willing to share benefits through simple mechanisms that do not unfairly burden researchers in low- and middle-income countries,” she said.

For her part, Juliao demanded a more inclusive and fairer system. “There is no clear record of indigenous peoples who have agreed to benefit sharing. It is said that some knowledge comes from native peoples, but there is no mechanism for the sharing of benefits with us.”

IPS produced this article with support from Internews’Earth Journalism Network.

© Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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Four Ways to Overcome Corruption in the Race Against Climate Crisis — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Francine Pickup (new york)
  • Inter Press Service

NEW YORK, Dec 16 (IPS) – The writer is Deputy Director, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, UNDPClimate change is the defining issue of our time. In the words of the UN Secretary General at COP27, “we are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.” Cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050 is crucial when it comes to meeting the 1.5 degrees Celsius target.

At the same time, if we don’t effectively deal with corruption in climate action, it will severely impede our abilities to fight the climate crisis through scaled-up adaptation and mitigation efforts.

According to Transparency International, up to 35 percent of climate action funds, depending on programme, have been lost to corruption in the last five years.

Corruption and the climate crisis reinforce each other

On the one hand, corruption fuels the climate crisis by depriving countries of much-needed revenues to act on climate change and build resilience, while also significantly altering the efficient allocation and distribution of resources to achieve development objectives.

For example, according to the U4 Anti-corruption Resource Centre, the top recipients of climate finance are among the riskiest places in the world for corruption.

On the other hand, climate impacts reinforce corruption by creating economic and social instability and inequality, fostering an environment more conducive to corruption and misuse of funds, that ultimately deprives the poorest and hardest hit.

Overcoming corruption in the race against the climate crisis requires collective action and bold partnerships between government, private sector, and civil society to recognise and combat the issue through more effective management of resources and programmes.

This calls for:

    • Governments to step up their efforts in environmental governance,
    • Businesses to strengthen business integrity,
    • Media, youth, and communities to continue to advocate against corruption.

The three immediate actions that require commitment from all actors:

1. Management of funds: A much greater transparency and accountability is needed in the use and management of climate finance in adaptation and mitigation programmes.

Access to finance is often presented as the main obstacle to achieving a just transition and transformative climate action, but that’s only one side of the problem. The other side is to make sure that the much-needed resources to address climate crisis are not lost due to corruption and mismanagement.

One good example is that of the Colombian climate finance tracking system, which provides updated data on domestic, public, private, and international climate funding.

It is one of the first countries in the world to have developed a comprehensive Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) framework to transparently track the inflow and outflow of climate finance from public, private and international sources.

2. Voice and Accountability: This means leveraging the power of advocacy and accountability mechanisms, and providing civic spaces for meaningful participation of society, empowering them to hold policy makers and private sector accountable.

For example, UNDP is empowering communities in Uganda and Sri Lanka, to use digital tools to mainstream integrity and transparency in environmental resource management. In Sri Lanka,

UNDP has launched a digital platform, in collaboration with the Ministry of Wildlife and Forest Conservation and other partners, for citizens to engage and monitor illicit environmental activities. The initiative is supported through UNDP’s Global Project – Anti-Corruption for Peaceful and Inclusive Societies (ACPIS) funded by the Norad— Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.

Meanwhile, in Uganda, UNDP and the National Forestry Authority have launched the Uganda Natural Resource Information System (NARIS), designed to monitor and mediate deforestation throughout Uganda to protect the country’s forests and biodiversity.

In the climate change agenda, fighting corruption is not only about the money. It is also about building trust in institutions and restoring hope in the future. Studies show that ‘eco-anxiety’ is increasing, particularly amongst young people.

A global study of 10,000 youth from 10 countries in 2021 found that over 50 percent of young people felt sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty about climate change. But we have also seen youth, civil society and communities taking action against the environmental damage and climate change from Serbia to India.

Through UNDP’s Climate promise alone, more than 110,000 people have been engaged in stakeholder consultations to revise key national climate strategies, known as nationally determined contributions –, helping to build social consensus and explicit recognition of the roles of youth and women’s leadership in renewed climate pledges in 120 countries.

3. Private sector has a key role to play: Public capacity needs to be strengthened to implement policies to regulate private sector activities to protect the environment. At the same time, businesses should also play their part with fair, human-rights based business practices, business integrity, and environmental sustainability goals.

4. The normative framework to protect human rights: An intensified focus on ‘environmental justice’ at global and national level is needed. On 28 July 2022, the UN General Assembly adopted a historic resolution that gave universal recognition to the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment (R2HE). UNDP promotes responsible business by strengthening human rights standards across 17 countries, with support from Japan.

UNDP has supported over 100 national human rights institutions to address the human rights implications of climate change and environmental degradation. In Tanzania, UNDP has supported the ‘Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance’ to manage disputes related to environmental human rights violations. In Chile, UNDP has supported an ongoing process of constitutional reform which includes strong references to environmental rights.

The development community needs to ensure integrated approaches and break the siloes between the governance and environmental communities; and between public and private sectors to tackle the interlinked crises of corruption and climate change.

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New Political Agreement Finally Tackles Venezuela’s Social Crisis — Global Issues

The World Food Program has been active in Venezuela since last year, delivering bags of food to families of schoolchildren in some poor areas, such as remote areas accessed by river in the Arismedi municipality, in the southwestern plains state of Barinas. CREDIT: Gabriel Gómez/WFP
  • by Humberto Marquez (caracas)
  • Inter Press Service

CARACAS, Dec 15 (IPS) – The social crisis and humanitarian emergency in Venezuela became international headline news again once the government and the opposition, bitter adversaries for two decades, agreed to direct three billion dollars in state funds held abroad to social programs.

When the pact was signed on Nov. 26, renowned nutritionist Susana Raffalli published a photograph of the legs of a girl whose height is eight centimeters shorter than what is appropriate for her age. “I measured her today. Her growth has been irreversibly stunted,” she said.

“Between the first announcement of the social roundtable (meetings to that purpose were already held in 2014) and the one signed today in Mexico, a generation of Venezuelans like her was born. The agreement is not a trophy. It is a commitment to hope,” Raffalli stated.

The Social Agreement signed in Mexico “is an important contribution, which could mean urgent aid for children, the elderly, the disabled and indigenous people, whose situation is extremely critical,” Roberto Patiño, founder of Alimenta la Solidaridad, a network of soup kitchens for children, told IPS.

The resources involved in the agreement are Venezuelan state funds frozen in the United States and European nations that in 2019 refused to accept the re-election of President Nicolás Maduro, in power since 2013, adopted sanctions and recognized opposition lawmaker Juan Guaidó as president.

Now, in talks between the government and the opposition, with the mediation of governments from this region and Norway, an agreement was reached to unfreeze part of the funds and allocate them to social programs under United Nations supervision.

The United States and European countries are participating in the deal as sanctioning parties and the UN as manager of the released funds and social programs covered by them.

“These are absolutely insufficient resources in the face of the crisis, but well-managed they can have a positive impact given the country’s complex humanitarian emergency,” Piero Trepiccione, coordinator of the network of social centers in Latin America and the Caribbean run by the Catholic Jesuit order Society of Jesus, told IPS.

The HumVenezuela Platform, made up of dozens of civil society organizations, has maintained since 2019 that the social situation in this South American country is a complex humanitarian emergency, based on its records on food, water and sanitation, health, basic education and living conditions.

The sharp deterioration in the living conditions in this country over the last decade has gone hand in hand with the decline of the Venezuelan economy – a collapsed oil industry and several years of hyperinflation – whose most visible international consequence has been the migration of seven million Venezuelans.

Renowned nutritionist Susana Raffalli published, as an example of a generation of children born and growing up with malnutrition and other problems in Venezuela, a photograph of the legs of a girl who, the day the government-opposition agreement was reached, was eight centimeters shorter than the appropriate size for her age. CREDIT: Susana Rafalli/Twitter

Barrier against life

In recent years, U.S. sanctions and the political clash with other governments, as in the case of Colombia, a neighbor with which the borders and the transit of people and goods were closed, have had a major impact.

For example, tragedy struck the low-income family of Michel Saraí, a five-year-old girl with pneumonia who was treated at a small hospital in La Fría, a small town in the southwest near the border with Colombia, which lacked the equipment needed for the necessary tests and treatment.

When her health took a turn for the worse on Nov. 30, her parents decided not to take her to the public hospital in the regional capital, San Cristóbal, because they did not have the dozens of dollars charged there to accept patients, who must bring their own supplies and pay for tests.

A Civil Defense ambulance, with fuel donated by a neighbor – gasoline is scarce in the state of Táchira and others – took the girl and her mother some 25 kilometers to the border bridge in the town of Boca de Grita, so that she could be treated free of charge in the cities of Cúcuta or Puerto Santander, on the Colombian side.

With the border formally closed, the Colombian military agreed to receive the ambulance due to the emergency, but the Venezuelan National Guard refused to allow passage of the vehicle carrying the little girl connected to oxygen.

“We had no money to offer them to see if they would let her get through,” the father, Jonathan Pernía, told local reporters a few days later.

In desperation, the mother and an aunt accepted what seemed like the only alternative: disconnecting her from the oxygen, placing her on a wheelbarrow – “as if she were a sack of potatoes,” Pernía lamented – and running with her through the rain to the Colombian side of the bridge, where another ambulance was waiting for them. But the little girl arrived without vital signs.

At the morgue of the hospital in San Cristobal her parents picked up the body. A week later they were still trying to find the money needed to pay the burial expenses.

Jonathan Pernía, the impoverished father of a little girl who died when an ambulance was prevented from crossing the border between Venezuela and Colombia to give her emergency treatment, shows journalists the bill for the funeral expenses, which he has not been able to cover either. CREDIT: Courtesy of Bleima Márquez

Figures behind the crisis

In Venezuela, poverty – defined as those who cannot afford the basic food basket – currently affects 81.5 percent of the population (90.9 percent in 2021), according to the Living Conditions Survey of the Andrés Bello Catholic University, which surveyed 2300 households throughout the country. This is the first time in seven years that it has gone down, partly attributable to a rebound in the economy and remittances from migrants.

Meanwhile, multidimensional poverty – which takes into account housing, education, employment, services and income – fell from 65.2 percent in 2021 to 50.5 percent in 2022, and extreme poverty dropped from 68 percent in 2021 to 53.3 percent in 2022.

Venezuela is the most unequal country in the Americas, and along with Angola, Mozambique and Namibia is one of the most unequal in the world, as the richest 10 percent earn 70 times more (553.20 dollars per month on average) than the poorest 10 percent (7.90 dollars).

Seven million children are in school, down from 7.7 million in 2019, and an estimated 1.5 million children and adolescents are not in the educational system. Preschool and daycare coverage is just 56 percent.

The survey reported an improvement in formal employment and income this year, with average monthly earnings of 113 dollars for public employees, 142 dollars for the self-employed, and 150 dollars for people working in private sector companies.

As a consequence, food insecurity declined from 88 percent of Venezuelans worried about running out of food in 2021, to 78 percent, while the proportion of people who have gone a whole day without eating dropped to 14 percent, from 34 percent in 2021.

More than 90 percent of poor households have received food assistance from the government -especially carbohydrates- but only one third receive these products monthly.

In health, according to the survey, the use of public services is decreasing (70 percent) and health care is becoming more expensive because, while prices in private clinics are skyrocketing, 13 percent of those who turned to public services had to pay in outpatient clinics and 16 percent in hospitals, and in 65 percent of the cases they had to pay themselves for the medicine that was prescribed for them.

Venezuelan government and opposition negotiators, meeting in Mexico with that country’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and Norwegian mediator Dag Nylander, agreed to help address social needs in their country, as a preliminary step to a possible agreement to solving the political crisis. CREDIT: National Assembly of Venezuela

Mexican formula

Jorge Rodríguez, president of the legislative National Assembly and the ruling party’s lead negotiator, said that with the funds released after the agreement reached in Mexico, the infrastructure and materials in 2300 schools will be covered, and the vaccines required in accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines will be purchased.

Medicine for oncological and HIV patients will be obtained, radiotherapy programs, blood banks and at least 21 hospitals will be revived, while more than one billion dollars will be allocated to the national electricity grid.

The World Food Program (WFP), meanwhile, which now delivers food to families of 100,000 schoolchildren in poor areas in the north of the country, hopes to raise funds to provide meals to more than one million people by the end of 2023.

According to Trepiccione, of the Jesuit network, resources should be directed “to the recovery of the infrastructure of hospitals and schools, which are in terrible condition, because that generates a chain of jobs, services and economic activity along with the obvious improvements in the provision of health care and the quality of education.”

“The same can be said of reactivating the electrical system, hit by blackouts that affect above all the economy and the life of people in the western part of the country,” he added.

Patiño, from the network of soup kitchens, said priorities were “programs for early childhood care, pregnant women, school feeding, as well as care for the elderly and indigenous communities, segments where many are dying too young due to lack of urgent health care.”

Groups of retirees and pensioners hold constant demonstrations in Caracas and other cities in protest against their tiny pensions, which in Venezuela are equal to the legal minimum wage and this December barely reached the equivalent of nine dollars for the entire month. CREDIT: Courtesy of Efecto Cocuyo

Government pensions, which are equal to the minimum wage, were equivalent to 30 dollars at the beginning of the year, but with the depreciation of the local currency they are equivalent to just nine dollars per month as of this December.

“We must also emphasize that this social agreement is absolutely insufficient in the face of the precarious conditions that exist in our country. These are resources that will be exhausted and the needs will not disappear,” said Patiño.

In his view, “the only thing that can really solve the crisis, the best possible social program, is a decent job, with a sufficient income and with a social security and public health program that takes care of the most needy.”

Funds for the agreement, frozen in banks in industrialized countries, will be released gradually under the supervision of a government-opposition committee and with UN agency management to tender, implement and oversee the programs, in 2023 and 2024.

And over the coming year new meetings will be held and further political agreements are expected, which may lead to an easing or lifting of sanctions and, eventually, to an improvement in the living conditions of Venezuela’s 28 million people.

© Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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The case of Congo and Ukraine — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Jan Lundius (stockholm, sweden)
  • Inter Press Service

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Dec 15 (IPS) – During November, soldiers of the March 23 Movement (M23) have been approaching Goma in the eastern territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), close to the Rwandan border. About 180.000 people are now leaving Goma, a city with a million inhabitants. Many stakeholders are involved in the conflict and there is an apparent danger that the overall carnage that affected the Congolese eastern border areas fifteen years ago will resume. At the same time, war is ranging in Ukraine, which name likely comes from the old Slavic term for borderland.

Disputed border areas have often been hotbeds for horrific and widespread wars. World War I began with border conflicts between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia, while World War II was ignited through German allegations of Czech and Polish mistreatment of Germans living on their side of the border. Tensions are constantly brewing along borders between India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine, Ethiopia and Sudan, Armenia and Azerbaijan – just to mention a few border conflicts present all over the world.

Throughout history, borderlands have suffered from looting, massacres and ethnic violence, generally triggered off by incursions from neighbouring countries, causing chaos and destruction. Borderlands are generally speaking a result of clearly defined borders between European nations, established after the Westphalian Peace Agreements in 1648, ending the Thirty Years’ War, a conflagration between religious factions that devastated Germany, killing 30 per cent of its population.

Before mid-17th century, European borders were quite diffuse. A royal realm had its heartland, a centre from which it could expand through wars, treaties and negotiations. In medieval Europe the more or less undefined areas between different sovereignties were called marks, or marches, words deriving from an Indo-European term meaning edge. A mark/march often served as a buffer zone, more or less independently governed by a marquis/margrave.

As a result of the Westphalian Peace, national borders became demarcated by border markings and lines drawn upon maps. Such boundaries were eventually introduced to the rest of the world. In Africa, border demarcations became common after the Berlin Conference, 1884-1885, when leaders of fourteen European nations and the United States agreed upon a “partitioning” of Africa, establishing rules for amicably dividing resources among Western nations. Notably missing was any representative from Africa.

One of the proclaimed aims of the Berlin Conference was to bring “civilization” to Africa, in the form of free trade and Christianity. Accordingly could King Leopold II of Belgium, by playing the part of a beneficent monarch, succeed in convincing his counterparts that he would personally bring order, faith and prosperity to the heart of Africa. Congo was thus formally recognized as Leopold’s personal possession. An extraordinarily rich territory, with ivory, minerals, palm oil, timber and rubber, was used by Leopold to increase his personal wealth. Missionary stations and trade routes were established, while slave labour extracted the natural resources. If production targets were not met, the autochthonous population risked severe punishment, ranging from having their families held hostage in concentration camps, to torture, the severing of a hand, and eventual execution.

Between 1900 and 1930, European colonial powers completed cartographic surveys of African territories. However, surveys focused solely on land control while disregarding the impact recently established borders might have on the well-being of the original population. Local communities suffered limitations to their daily activities and nomadic practices. Traditional life, administrative structures, and economic safety were negatively affected. Furthermore, colonial rule tended to instigate conflicts. Imposed borders gradually set off hostile relations among borderland dwellers and eventually enabled post-independent governments and political elites to use such divisions for political means.

The sheer size of the territory, which eventually became the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), made its governance extremely challenging. This vast nation is about the same size as Western Europe and has 10,500 kilometres of external borders. In the middle of the country is an almost impenetrable and vast jungle area. Border control is largely non-existent, providing neighbouring countries with an opportunity to exert influence into remote peripheries. For many Congolese, it is easier to reach the capital of a neighbouring state than travelling to the capital city, Kinshasa.

As in other areas of the world, people on both sides of Congolese borders exchange goods, spouses, languages and customs. Nevertheless, in spite of all this mixture and exchange, most people living along borders generally continue to be aware of their roots in different cultural settings. Even if they might share a lingua franca, several of them tend to maintain their original language and specific customs. Border communities thus find themselves in a precarious balance, which might be upheld for centuries but also runs the risk of becoming swiftly overturned by armed attacks from national armies, warlords, or hordes of bandits and uprooted former soldiers, as well as massive influxes of refugees.

During the so called First– and Second Congo Wars, and their aftermath, approximately 5.4 million died between 1994 and 2008, deaths mainly caused by disease and malnutrition, though massacres committed by all the warring factions also killed staggering numbers of civilians. Nine African nations and around twenty-five armed groups were involved in the wars. The mayhem began in April 1994, when about 1.5 million Rwandans settled in eastern DRC. These refugees included Tutsis fleeing Hutu mass murderers, and eventually one million Hutus fleeing the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s (RPF) subsequent retaliations.

The shooting down of a plane carrying Rwandan President Juevénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, served as catalyst for a genocide lasting for approximately 100 days. Between 500,000 and 1 million Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were in Rwanda killed during well-planned attacks, ordered by an interim government. This genocide ended when the Tutsi commanded Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) gained control and took over the Rwandan Government, making approximately two million Hutus fleeing across the border into neighbouring Zaire. Estimates of the number of Hutu civilians killed in subsequent revenge massacres by the RPF range from 25,000 to 100,000.

Rwandan incursions into Zaire occurred after years of Congolese internal strife, dictatorship and economic decline. Zaire, as the country was called at the time, was in 1994 a dying State. In many areas, increasingly corrupt state authorities had in all but name collapsed, with infighting militias, warlords, and rebel groups wielding local power.

International response to the Rwandan genocide had been lame and limited, though this time international opinion reacted immediately. Massive relief support was directed to refugees in eastern Zaire. In the meantime, several, heavily armed Rwandan g?nocidaires, genocide perpetrators, organized themselves among Hutu refugees. In their attacks on Banyamulenge, a Tutsi minority who for centuries had been living in Congo, the g?nocidaires were often joined by local militia. Banyamulenge were resented by several Congolese agriculturists, who suspected them of planning to take over their land.

Currently it is the rebel group M23, which is the main aggressor. The rebel group was in 2012, according the UN, created and commanded by the Rwandan army. The Rwandan Government did in 2013 officially cease its support to M23; its members surrendered and were transferred to a refugee camp in Uganda. However, M23 reappeared in 2017, evidently with renewed Rwandan support. The Congolese mayhem is just one example of what might happen in border areas when control and peaceful interaction between neighbours collapse under the pressure of foreign interventions and enter a bloody, anarchic chaos.

Like in central Africa, Ukraine border conflicts have at several occasions triggered massacres and bloody chaos. For more than 500 years, Ukraine was divided and ruled by a variety of external powers, including the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Cossack Hetmanate, Poland, the Tsardom of Russia, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany

From the beginning of the last century to 1921, millions fled Ukraine, including more than 2 million Jews. Ukrainians were killed en masse by Austrians, Poles and warring political factions, while approximately 110,000 Jews were murdered during so called pogroms. Worse was yet to come when Nazi invaders within the same areas murdered approximately 1.7 million Jews. In Nazi-occupied Ukraine, 5.7 million locals died between 1941 and 1945. And now, during Russia’s aggressive invasion, the suffering and slaughter of innocents have been resumed.

The curse of borders, between nations and people, continues to haunt us. To safeguard the future – for our earth and children – we have to learn that general well-being depends on collaboration between nations and peoples, regardless of ethnicity, gender, and ideologies. Wars, like Russia’s ruthless attack on a sovereign nation and the central African mayhem, are crimes against humanity and must be stopped through peaceful solutions. Time is running out and cannot be wasted on armed conquests and bloodshed.

Sources: Stearns, Jason K. (2011) Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. New York: PublicAffair and Veidlinger, Jeffrey (2021) In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918-1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust. London: Picador.

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The Poor, Squeezed by 10 Trillion Dollars in External Debts — Global Issues

About 60% of the poorest countries are already at high risk of debt distress or already in distress. Credit: Pixabay.
  • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
  • Inter Press Service

MADRID, Dec 14 (IPS) – The external debt of the world’s low and middle-income countries at the end of 2021 totalled 9 trillion US dollars, more than double the amount a decade ago. Such debt is expected to increase by an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars in 2023.

Moreover, the debt-service payments, projected to top 62 billion US dollars in 2022, put the biggest squeeze on poor countries since 2000, according to the World Bank.

As defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), debt service refers to payments in respect of both principal and interest.

Actual debt service is the set of payments actually made to satisfy a debt obligation, including principal, interest, and any late payment fees. Scheduled debt service is the set of payments, including principal and interest, that is required to be made through the life of the debt, OECD goes on.

High risk of debt stress

According to the World Bank’s report: International Debt Report, the poorest countries eligible to borrow from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) now spend over a tenth of their export revenues to service their long-term public and publicly guaranteed external debt—the highest proportion since 2000.

In addition, rising interest rates and slowing global growth risk tipping a large number of countries into debt crises. “About 60% of the poorest countries are already at high risk of debt distress or already in distress.”

Over the past decade, the composition of debt owed by IDA countries has changed significantly. The share of external debt owed to private creditors has increased sharply. At the end of 2021, low- and middle-income economies owed 61% of their public and publicly guaranteed debt to private creditors—an increase of 15 percentage points from 2010.

Unbearable impact

The same day the World Bank’s report was released, 6 December 2022, another international institution: the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), warned that the spiralling debt in low and middle-income countries has compromised their chances of sustainable development.

Rebeca Grynspan, the head of this UN trade facilitation agency, reported that between 70% and 85% of the debt that emerging and low-income countries are responsible for, is in a foreign currency.

“This has left them highly vulnerable to the kind of large currency shocks that hit public spending – precisely at a time when populations need financial support from their governments.”

Speaking at the 13th UNCTAD Debt Management Conference, UNCTAD’s chief explained that so far this year, at least 88 countries have seen their currencies depreciate against the powerful US dollar, which is still the reserve currency of choice for many in times of global economic stress.

And in 31 of these countries, their currencies have dropped by more than 10 percent.

This has had a hugely negative impact on many African nations, where the UNCTAD chief noted that currency depreciations have increased the cost of debt repayments “by the equivalent of public health spending in the continent”.

Wave of global crises

UNCTAD’s conference –held online on 6 to 7 December in Geneva– took place as a “wave of global crises has led many developing countries to take on more debt to help citizens cope with the fallout.”

Government debt levels as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased in over 100 developing countries between 2019 and 2021, said UNCTAD.

“Excluding China, this increase is estimated at about $2 trillion.”

This has not happened because of the bad behaviour of one country. This has happened because of systemic shocks that have hit many countries at the same time, Grynspan said.

Sharp rise of interest rates

With interest rates rising sharply, the debt crisis is putting enormous strain on public finances, especially in developing countries that need to invest in education, health care, their economies and adapting to climate change.

“Debt cannot and must not become an obstacle for achieving the 2030 Agenda and the climate transition the world desperately needs”, she argued.

UNCTAD advocates for the creation of a multilateral legal framework for debt restructuring and relief.

Such a framework is needed to facilitate timely and orderly debt crisis resolution with the involvement of all creditors, building on the debt reduction programme established by the Group of 20 major economies (G20) known as the Common Framework.

Debts to increase to 10 trillion dollars

UNCTAD said that if the median increase in rated sovereign debts since 2019 were fully reflected in interest payments, then governments would pay an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars on the global debt stock in 2023, estimates show.

This amount is almost four times the estimated annual investment of 250 billion US dollars required for climate adaptation and mitigation in developing countries, according to an UNCTAD report.

Indebted countries have reiterated once and again that they have already exceeded several times the total amount of their debts in the form of interest rates they have been paying.

Alongside a high number of economists and experts, they have reiterated their appeals for cancelling those debts.

Uselessly: such a fair –and due– step continues to fall on deaf ears.

© Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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Solar Energy Benefits Children and Indigenous People in Northern Brazil — Global Issues

Aerial view of the Municipal Theater of Boa Vista and its parking lot covered by solar panels, near the center of a city of wide avenues, empty spaces, abundant solar energy and high quality of life compared to other cities in Brazil’s Amazon region. In the background is seen the Branco River, which could be dammed 120 kilometers downstream for the construction of a hydroelectric plant that would flood part of the capital of the state of Roraima. CREDIT: Boa Vista city government
  • by Mario Osava (boa vista, brazil)
  • Inter Press Service

BOA VISTA, Brazil, Dec 13 (IPS) – Solar energy is booming in Roraima, a state in the far north of Brazil, to the benefit of indigenous people and children in its capital, Boa Vista, and helping to provide a stable energy supply to the entire populace, who suffer frequent electricity shortages and blackouts.

The local government of Boa Vista, a city of 437,000 people, installed seven solar power plants that bring annual savings of around 960,000 dollars.

“We have used these savings to invest in health, education and social action, which is the priority of the city government because we are ‘the capital of early childhood’,” said Thiago Amorim, municipal secretary of Public Services and Environment.

Solar panels have mushroomed on the roofs of public buildings and parking lots around the city. The largest unit was built on the outskirts of Boa Vista – a 15,000-panel power plant with an installed capacity of 5,000 kilowatts.

In the city, the parking lot of the Municipal Theater, a bus terminal, a market and the mayor’s office itself stand out, covered with panels. There are also 74 bus stops with a few panels, but many were damaged when parts were stolen, Amorim told IPS in an interview in his office.

In total, the city had a solar power generation capacity of 6700 KW at the end of 2020, equivalent to the consumption of 9000 local households. It also promotes energy efficiency in the areas under municipal management.

“Eighty percent of the city is now lit up by LED bulbs, which are more efficient. The goal is to reach 100 percent in 2023,” said the municipal secretary.

The solar energy park about 10 kilometers from downtown Boa Vista has 15,000 panels with an output of 5,000 KW. It is one of the seven electricity generation units built by the city government to save some 960,000 dollars a year in energy and thus increase the social spending that makes Boa Vista “the capital of early childhood”. The plant is located on the plains of northeastern Roraima, an extensive savannah of 42,706 square kilometers, which stands in contrast with the image of the Amazon jungle. CREDIT: Boa Vista city government

The mayor’s office, during the administration of Teresa Surita (2013-2020), was a pioneer in the installation of solar power plants and also in comprehensive care for children from pregnancy to adolescence, for youngsters in the public educational system.

The city’s Welcoming Family program provides coordinated health, education, social assistance and communication services for mothers and children, from pregnancy through the first six years of the children’s lives. The day-care centers are called Mother Houses.

In recent years, students in the local municipal elementary schools have performed above the national average, coming in fifth place in student testing among Brazil’s 27 state capitals.

This was an especially outstanding achievement because the influx of Venezuelan migrants more than doubled the number of students in Boa Vista schools in the last decade.

Despite this, the quality of teaching was not affected, according to the indicators of the Education Ministry’s Basic Education Evaluation System.

A “little Amazon jungle” in the center of the city of Boa Vista with giant animal sculptures is the main children’s park of the three dozen in the city, with animal playground toys and structures. The playgrounds in the capital of Roraima, a state in the extreme north of Brazil, aim to educate children about the Amazon rainforest. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The results of the local early childhood policy have been recognized by several national and international specialized entities, including the United Nations Children’s Fund, which awarded it the Unicef Seal of Approval in 2016 and 2020.

More visible than the solar panels are the 30 playgrounds of varying sizes scattered around the city, in some cases featuring large playground equipment and structures in the shape of national wild animals, such as crocodiles and jaguars. They are called “selvinhas” (little jungles).

The use of solar power has spread to other sectors of life in Roraima, a state with only 650,000 inhabitants, despite its large area of 223,644 square kilometers, twice the size of Honduras, for example.

In May, there were 705 solar plants in homes, businesses and private companies, in addition to public buildings, in the state, with a total installed capacity of 15,955 KW (just under one percent of the region’s total).

In Roraima there are solar plants in the courthouses in four cities, in an aim to cut energy costs through a program called Lumen.

The secretary of Public Services and Environment of Boa Vista, Thiago Amorim, stands next to a map of the city which shows the areas already illuminated by energy-efficient LED bulbs. They now light up 80 percent of the city, which stands out for its solar energy generation and for programs that prioritize children, coordinating and combining educational, health and social action policies. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The Federal University of Roraima (UFRR) is also building a 908-panel plant, to be inaugurated by March 2023, with the capacity to generate 20 percent of the electricity consumed on its three campuses.

“The main objective is to save energy costs, and the goal is to expand to cover 100 percent of consumption. But it will also be useful for electrical engineering studies,” Emanuel Tishcer, UFRR’s head of infrastructure, told IPS.

The training of specialists in renewable sources, research into more efficient and cheaper panels, the comparison of technologies and innovations all become more accessible with the availability of an operating solar power plant, which serves the university’s electrical energy laboratory.

Edinho Macuxi, general coordinator of the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR), the largest organization of native peoples in the state, said “the great objective (of solar energy) is to prove that Roraima and Brazil do not need new hydroelectric plants.”

The Bem Querer (Portuguese for “good will”) plant on the Branco River, Roraima’s main river, “will have direct impacts on nine indigenous territories” and will also affect other nearby indigenous areas if it is built, as the central government intends, he told IPS.

That is why the CIR is involved in three projects – two solar energy and a wind energy study – in territories assigned to different indigenous ethnic groups, he said.

A view of the Branco River, some five kilometers upstream of the point where the Brazilian government plans to build the Bem Querer hydroelectric power plant. Because the river has little gradient on the central plains of the northern state of Roraima, the reservoir would flood an extensive area, including part of the capital Boa Vista, which has 436,000 inhabitants. This has triggered heavy opposition to the project, by the local indigenous population as well. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The government’s hydroelectric plans, which currently prioritize Bem Querer, but include other uses of local rivers, have sparked a renewed debate on energy alternatives in Roraima, which has an installed electricity capacity of only 300 megawatts, since it has almost no industry.

From 2001 to 2019, Roraima relied on electricity from neighboring Venezuela, generated by the Guri hydroelectric plant in eastern Venezuela, the deterioration of which caused a growing shortage over the last decade, until the supply completely ran out in 2019, two years before the end of the contract.

Diesel thermoelectric plants had to be reactivated and new plants had to be built, including one using natural gas transported by truck from the Amazon jungle municipality of Silves, some 1,000 kilometers away, in order to guarantee a steady supply of electricity that the people of Roraima did not have until then.

It is costly electricity, but its subsidized price is one of the lowest in Brazil. The subsidy drives up the cost of electric power in the rest of the country. That is why there is nationwide pressure for the construction of a 715-kilometer transmission line between Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, also in the north, and Boa Vista.

With this transmission line, Roraima will cease to be the only Brazilian state outside the national grid, and local advocates believe it will be indispensable for a secure supply of electricity, a long-desired goal.

The three members of the board of the Roraima Renewable Energy Forum, Conceição Escobar (L), Ciro Campos and Rosilene Maia (R), which discusses with the local society the energy alternatives that would make it possible to avoid the construction of the Bem Querer hydroelectric plant and the environmental and social impacts of the reservoir. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

To discuss this and other alternatives, a group of stakeholders created the Roraima Alternative Energies Forum in September 2019, to promote dialogue between all sectors, in search of “the strategic construction of solutions to make the use of renewable energies viable in the state.”

“Our focus is energy security. The Forum is focused on photovoltaic sources and distributed generation. But it seeks a variety of renewable energies, including biomass,” said Conceição Escobar, one of the Forum’s coordinators and president of the Brazilian Association of Electrical Engineers in Roraima.

“There is an opportunity for everyone to be involved in the discussion. The construction of transmission lines and hydroelectric plants takes a long time, we have perhaps ten years to develop alternatives,” she told IPS.

“I am against Bem Querer, but the government of Roraima supports it. The Forum listens to all parties, it does not want to impose solutions. We want to study the feasibility of combined sources, with solar, biomass and wind, and encourage the use of garbage,” said biologist Rosilene Maia, who also forms part of the three-member board of the Forum.

© Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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Needed Global Financial Reforms Foregone yet Again — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
  • Inter Press Service

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 13 (IPS) – Calls for more government regulation and intervention are common during crises. But once the crises subside, pressures to reform quickly evaporate and the government is told to withdraw. New financial fads and opportunities are then touted, instead of long needed reforms.

Global financial crisis

The 2007-2009 global financial crisis (GFC) began in the US housing market. Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), credit default swaps (CDSs) and other related contracts, many quite ‘novel’, spread the risk worldwide, far beyond US mortgage markets.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Transnational financial ‘neural-like’ networks ensured vulnerability quickly spread to other economies and sectors, despite government efforts to limit contagion. As these were only partially successful, deleveraging – reducing the debt level by hastily selling assets – became inevitable, with all its dire consequences.

The GFC also exposed massive resource misallocations due to financial liberalization with minimal regulation of supposedly efficient markets. With growing arbitrage of interest rate differentials, achieving balanced equilibria has become impossible except in mainstream economic models.

Financialization has meant much greater debt and risk exposure as well as vulnerability for many households and firms, e.g., due to ‘term’ (duration) and currency ‘mismatches’, resulting in greater overall financial system fragility.

This has worsened global imbalances, reflected in larger trade and current account deficits and surpluses. In unfavourable circumstances, exposure of firms and households to risky assets and liabilities has been enough to trigger defaults.

Bold fiscal efforts succeeded in inducing modest economic recoveries before they were nipped in the bud soon after the ‘green shoots of recovery’ appeared. Instead, the US Fed initiated ‘unconventional’ monetary policies, offering easy credit with ‘quantitative easing’.

Currencies in flux

The seemingly coordinated rise of various, apparently unconnected asset prices cannot be explained by conventional economics. Thus, speculation in commodity, currency and stock markets has been grudgingly acknowledged as worsening the GFC.

The exchange rates of many currencies have also come under greater pressure as residents borrowed in low interest rate currencies such as the Japanese yen. In turn, they have typically bought financial assets promising higher returns.

Thus, higher interest rates attract capital inflows, raising most domestic asset prices. Exchange rate movements are supposed to reflect comparative national economic strengths, but rarely do so. But conventional monetary responses worsen, rather than mitigate, contractionary tendencies.

Globalization of trade and finance has generated contradictory pressures. All countries are under pressure to generate trade or current account surpluses. But this, of course, is impossible as not all economies can run surpluses simultaneously.

Many try to do so by devaluing their currencies or cutting costs by other means. But only the US can use its ‘exorbitant privilege’ to maintain both budgetary and current account deficits by simply issuing Treasury bonds.

Currency markets can also undermine such efforts by enabling arbitrage on interest rate differentials. International imbalances have worsened, as seen in larger current account deficits and surpluses.

Contrary to mainstream economics, currency speculation does not equilibrate national, let alone international markets. It does not reflect economic fundamentals, ensuring exchange rate volatility, to damaging effect.

Commodity speculation

Thanks to currency mismatches, many companies and households face greater risk. Exchange rate fluctuations, in turn, exacerbate price volatility and its harmful consequences, which vary with circumstances.

Changes in ‘fundamentals’ no longer explain commodity price volatility. Meanwhile, more commodity speculation has resulted in greater price volatility and higher prices for food, oil, metals and other raw materials.

These prices have been driven by much more speculation, often involving indexed funds trading in real assets. The resulting price volatility especially affects everyone, as food consumers, and developing countries’ agricultural producers.

Sharp increases in commodity prices since mid-2007 were largely driven by speculation, mainly involving indexed funds. With the Great Recession following the GFC, most commodity producers in developing countries faced difficulties.

Since then, nearly all commodity prices fell from the mid-2010s as the world economic slowdown showed no sign of abating until economic sanctions in 2022 pushed up food, energy, fertilizer and other prices once again.

Besides hurting export revenues, lower commodity prices and even greater volatility have accelerated depreciation of earlier investments in equipment and infrastructure following the commodity price spikes.

Integrated solutions needed

The uneven financial system meltdown following the GFC raised expectations that ‘finance-as-usual’ would never return. But lasting solutions to threats, such as currency and commodity speculation, require international cooperation and regulation.

Meanwhile, goods and financial markets have become more interconnected. Thus, a truly multilateral and cooperative approach has to be found in the complex interconnections involving international trade and finance.

In this asymmetrically interdependent world, policy reforms are urgently needed. All countries need to be able to pursue appropriate countercyclical macroeconomic policies. Also, small economies should be able to achieve exchange rate stability at affordably low cost.

Although prompt actions were undertaken in response to the GFC, the world economy experienced a protracted slowdown, the ‘Great Recession’. Myopic policymakers in most developed economies focus on perceived national risks, ignoring international ones, especially those affecting developing countries.

Contrary to widespread popular presumption, the Bretton Woods multilateral monetary and financial arrangements did not include a regulatory regime. Nor has such a regime emerged since, even after US President Nixon unilaterally ended the Bretton Woods system in 1971.

With the gagged voice of developing countries in international financial institutions and markets, the United Nations must lead, as it did in the mid-1940s.

It is the only world institution which could legitimately develop a better alternative. Thankfully, the UN Charter assigns it responsibility to lead efforts to do so.

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Africas Processing Industry Holds Promise for Broader Economic Growth — Global Issues

Abou Fumarou Mahamadou poses amid millet stalks dried in the sun. She belongs to a co-op of 32 women farmers in the commune of Tibiri in southwest Niger. Credit: Stephan Gladieu / World Bank
  • Opinion by Chakib Jenane (washington dc)
  • Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON DC, Nov 30 (IPS) – As a central pillar of African diets for thousands of years, millet has a prized position as one of the continent’s most important crops.

And with the onset of climate change, millet offers valuable security to the continent’s smallholder farmers due to the crop’s tolerance for dry soils.

Yet, the rise of an increasingly affluent urban middle class across Africa is threatening to shift diets away from traditional staples like millet in favor of higher-value and more convenient processed foods often sourced from outside the continent.

However, Africa’s homegrown processing industry can increasingly deliver more sophisticated products, turning unprocessed millet into nutritious ready-to-eat meals such as rice-like products, porridges, and more. This is a win-win for farmers and consumers alike.

Africa’s emerging agrifood processing industry clearly offers a major opportunity to capitalize on the growing demand for processed foods which, to date, has been met in large part by imported products.

Growing this sector can provide valuable opportunities for African livelihoods and economies across the region, all the while reducing the continent’s food import bill, which stands at roughly USD 35 billion a year.

Chakib Jenane

The recently released Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS) Annual Trends and Outlook Report (ATOR) shows that Africa’s agrifood processing sector is the essential link in connecting the continent’s smallholder farmers to growing urban markets with changing preferences.

Still, the sector as it exists today is just the tip of the iceberg, and data from across the continent highlights its enormous untapped potential, particularly in terms of the long-cultivated staples.

For instance, the rise of the millet processing sector in Senegal has reversed declining consumption trends due to growing urban populations and their needs for quicker and more convenient staples.

The share of millet has risen to close to 30 percent of the cereal consumption of high-income earners in Senegal, roughly the same as imported rice.

The introduction of more sophisticated millet products has also opened up new market opportunities for smallholder producers, which, alongside rising demand, is boosting the prices they can expect to receive in markets.

This means not only greater economic growth for national economies, but greater spending power and more resilient livelihoods for Africa’s small-scale producers, too.

Another interesting case study is the tomato, the fourth most economically valuable food crop produced in low- and middle-income countries. Fresh tomato is often more accessible to small-scale processors than larger plants, leaving significant potential to develop greater value products.

As a result, the rise of Africa’s processing sector is introducing new opportunities for tomato production by helping to add value and reduce post-harvest losses, stabilizing supplies for consumers throughout the year, while ensuring steady revenue streams for producers.

Meanwhile, some African countries are already seizing on the vast opportunities offered by their processing sectors to deliver a double win for economies and livelihoods.

Roughly 68 percent of Tanzania’s manufacturing exports, for instance, are agri-processed and resource-intensive goods, such as bottled juices, cooking oils, and packaged flours. A large majority of these goods are also being shipped to other African countries, demonstrating how greater agri-food processing capacity on the continent can meet African demand with African processed products.

This not only replaces demand for intercontinental imports, but equally ensures the benefits of processing for producers and consumers remain in Africa to deliver economic growth for future generations.

The growth of Africa’s agrifood processing sector clearly offers sustainable income-generating opportunities for the continent’s smallholder farmers through higher-value products that appeal to changing urban markets.

It also offers many prospects for jobs creation for the continent’s growing youth population – the fastest growing in the world.

With African food tastes and dietary preferences evolving, so too must its agrifood industry if it wishes to stay competitive, successful, and sustainable, delivering growth and improved livelihoods for millions.

Unlocking the potential of the continent’s processing sector, in particular, offers a clear path forward to achieving this goal.

Chakib Jenane joined the World Bank Group in 2014 and is currently Practice Manager for the Agriculture and Food Practice covering West and Central Africa.

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Can Asia and the Pacific Get on Track to Net Zero? — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana (bangkok, thailand)
  • Inter Press Service

BANGKOK, Thailand, Nov 29 (IPS) – The recent climate talks in Egypt have left us with a sobering reality: The window for maintaining global warming to 1.5 degrees is closing fast and what is on the table currently is insufficient to avert some of the worst potential effects of climate change. The Nationally Determined Contribution targets of Asian and Pacific countries will result in a 16 per centincrease in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 from the 2010 levels.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

The Sharm-el Sheikh Implementation Plan and the package of decisions taken at COP27 are a reaffirmation of actions that could deliver the net-zero resilient world our countries aspire to. The historic decision to establish a Loss and Damage Fund is an important step towards climate justice and building trust among countries.

But they are not enough to help us arrive at a better future without, what the UN Secretary General calls, a “giant leap on climate ambition”. Carbon neutrality needs to at the heart of national development strategies and reflected in public and private investment decisions. And it needs to cascade down to the sustainable pathways in each sector of the economy.

Accelerate energy transition

At the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), we are working with regional and national stakeholders on these transformational pathways. Moving away from the brown economy is imperative, not only because emissions are rising but also because dependence on fossil fuels has left economies struggling with price volatility and energy insecurity.

A clear road map is the needed springboard for an inclusive and just energy transition. We have been working with countries to develop scenarios for such a shift through National Roadmaps, demonstrating that a different energy future is possible and viable with the political will and sincere commitment to action of the public and private sectors.

The changeover to renewables also requires concurrent improvements in grid infrastructure, especially cross-border grids. The Regional Road Map on Power System Connectivity provides us the platform to work with member States toward an interconnected grid, including through the development of the necessary regulatory frameworks for to integrate power systems and mobilize investments in grid infrastructure. The future of energy security will be determined by the ability to develop green grids and trade renewable-generated electricity across our borders.

Green the rides

The move to net-zero carbon will not be complete without greening the transport sector. In Asia and the Pacific transport is primarily powered by fossil fuels and as a result accounted for 24 per cent of total carbon emissions by 2018.

Energy efficiency improvements and using more electric vehicles are the most effective measures to reduce carbon emissions by as much as 60 per cent in 2050 compared to 2005 levels. The Regional Action Programme for Sustainable Transport Development allows us to work with countries to implement and cooperate on priorities for low-carbon transport, including electric mobility. Our work with the Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade also is helping to make commerce more efficient and climate-smart, a critical element for the transition in the energy and transport sectors.

Adapting to a riskier future

Even with mitigation measures in place, our economy and people will not be safe without a holistic risk management system. And it needs to be one that prevents communities from being blindsided by cascading climate disasters.

We are working with partners to deepen the understanding of such cascading risks and to help develop preparedness strategies for this new reality, such as the implementation of the ASEAN Regional Plan of Action for Adaptation to Drought.

Make finance available where it matters the most

Finance and investment are uniquely placed to propel the transitions needed. The past five years have seen thematic bonds in our region grow tenfold. Private finance is slowly aligning with climate needs. The new Loss and Damage Fund and its operation present new hopes for financing the most vulnerable. However, climate finance is not happening at the speed and scale needed. It needs to be accessible to developing economies in times of need.

Innovative financing instruments need to be developed and scaled up, from debt-for-climate swaps to SDG bonds, some of which ESCAP is helping to develop in the Pacific and in Cambodia. Growing momentum in the business sector will need to be sustained. The Asia-Pacific Green Deal for Business by the ESCAP Sustainable Business Network (ESBN) is important progress. We are also working with the High-level Climate Champions to bring climate-aligned investment opportunities closer to private financiers.

Lock in higher ambition and accelerate implementation

Climate actions in Asia and the Pacific matter for global success and well-being. The past two years has been a grim reminder that conflicts in one continent create hunger in another, and that emissions somewhere push sea levels higher everywhere. Never has our prosperity been more dependent on collective actions and cooperation.

Our countries are taking note. Member States meeting at the seventh session of the Committee on Environment and Development, which opens today (29 November) are seeking consensus on the regional cooperation needed and priorities for climate action such as oceans, ecosystem and air pollution. We hope that the momentum begun at COP27 and the Committee will be continued at the seventy-ninth session of the Commission as it will hone in on the accelerators for climate action.

In this era of heightened risks and shared prosperity, only regional, multilateral solidarity and genuine ambition that match with the new climate reality unfolding around us — along with bold climate action — are the only way to secure a future where the countries of Asia and the Pacific can prosper.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

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Black Fraud-Days and the Shocking Cost of Staying Fashionable — Global Issues

Around 7,500 litres of water are used to make a single pair of jeans, equivalent to the amount of water the average person drinks over seven years. Credit: pexels
  • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
  • Inter Press Service

MADRID, Nov 25 (IPS) – Please take a quick look at this short report before rushing to shop on a Black Friday, Christmas sales and all those long chains of big discounts and wholesales, most of them are fake, as often denounced by consumers organisations that report that the business usually inflates prices before launching such deals.

Just a couple of figures to start with: the fashion industry is responsible for more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.

Consequently, it is widely believed that this business is the second major producer of greenhouse gases, just after the other industries using fossil fuels.

And it is a big business, which is estimated as valued at upward of 3 trillion dollars.

Did you know all this?

Now back to its worrying impacts. According to the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and other UN agencies, and non-governmental organisations worldwide:

Wastewater: The fashion industry is responsible for producing 20% of global wastewater and 10% of the global carbon emissions – more than the emissions of all international flights and maritime shipping combined,

Seven years of needed drinking water for an average person are consumed for producing just one single pair of blue jeans: 7.500 litres,

Enough water to quench the thirst of five million. According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), some 93 billion cubic metres of water, is used by the fashion industry annually,

Around half a million tons of microfibre, which is the equivalent of 3 million barrels of oil, is now being dumped into the ocean every year, polluting the oceans, the wastewater, and toxic dyes,

Plastic microfibres: The textiles industry has recently been identified as a major polluter, with estimates of around half a million tonnes of plastic microfibers ending up in the world’s oceans as polyester, nylon or acrylic are washed each year,

A truckload of abandoned textiles is dumped in landfill or incinerated every second, according to the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, partner of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). This means that of the total fibre input used for clothing, 87% is incinerated or sent to landfill.

Dangerous working conditions: Fashion is often a synonym for dangerous working conditions, unsafe processes and hazardous substances used in production, with continued cruel abuses of modern slavery and child labour, and the exploitation of underpaid workers.

Fast fashion, fast money, fast destruction

The business of fashion years ago ‘invented’ what is known as ‘fast fashion,’ i.e, nice-looking clothing and footwear at low-price.

In fact, the dominant business model in the sector is that of “fast fashion”, whereby consumers are offered constantly changing collections at low prices and encouraged to frequently buy and discard clothes.

Many experts, including the UN, believe the trend is responsible for a plethora of negative social, economic and environmental impacts and, with clothing production doubling between 2000 and 2014, it is crucially important to ensure that clothes are produced as ethically and sustainably as possible.

The consequence is that it is estimated that people are buying 60% more clothes and wearing them for half as long.

“New season, new styles, buy more, buy cheap, move on, throw away waste, and emissions of fast fashion are fueling the triple planetary crisis,” UNEP warned on 24 November, just one day before the usual ‘Black Friday.’

According to the world’s leading environmental organisation, the annual Black Friday sales on 25 November are a reminder of the need to rethink what is bought, what is thrown away, and what it costs the planet.

“Sustainable fashion and circularity in the textiles value chain are possible, yet this century the world’s consumers are buying more clothes and wearing them for less time than ever before, discarding garments as fast as trends shift.”

A big alliance versus a big business

In a bid to halt the fashion industry’s environmentally and socially destructive practices, and harness the catwalk as a driver to improve the world’s ecosystems, 10 different UN organisations established the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, which was launched during the 2019 UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi

Elisa Tonda, Head of the Consumption and Production Unit at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), one of the 10 UN bodies involved in the Alliance, explained the urgency behind its formation:

“The global production of clothing and footwear generates 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and, with manufacturing concentrated in Asia, the industry is mainly reliant on hard coal and natural gas to generate electricity and heat.”

“If we carry on with a business-as-usual approach, the greenhouse gas emissions from the industry are expected to rise by almost 50% by 2030.”

© Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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