Tabeth Gowere (76) makes extra cash from weaving plastic waste. A group of seniors started weaving plastic out of a need to improve the environment and make some extra cash. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
by Jeffrey Moyo (harare)
Inter Press Service
HARARE, Oct 20 (IPS) – They do not have a pension nor financial support from families or relatives, but they have themselves. Now they have become collectors of plastic waste, which they turn into products as they battle for survival – earning money from the growing plastic pollution in Zimbabwe.
Such are the lives of the country’s senior citizens, like 76-year-old Tabeth Gowere and 81-year-old Elizabeth Makufa, both hailing from Harare’s Glenora high-density suburb, where they become famous as plastic waste collectors.
Gowere and Makufa, thanks to plastic waste, now care for themselves financially despite their old age, so they said.
“At first, we saw plastic waste just being flown around by the wind, and we started to pick these, cleaning the environment, burning it, but later realized we could make something out of these plastics and earn money. So, using plastic waste, we started weaving different things, including mats to decorate sofas. Many people were impressed by our work, and they started placing orders for the plastic products we were making,” Gowere told IPS.
Makufa, like Gowere, has also seen gold in the dumped plastic waste.
“We say this is waste, but from it, we find something that is helping us to sustain us in life. I make 30 US dollars daily at times from selling the products I make from plastic waste, which means at least I get something to survive,” Makufa told IPS.
The young are learning from the lessons from the senior plastic waste entrepreneurs – like 40-year-old Michelle Gowere.
“Weaving things using plastics is a skill I learned from my mother-in-law, Mrs Gowere. We spend time together daily, and because of this, I ended up learning the skill from her; this is helping me to, at least, help my children with food to carry in their lunch boxes when they go to school,” Michelle told IPS.
To Michelle’s mother-in-law and many others, the environment has been the secondary beneficiary of the geriatrics’ initiative collecting plastic waste.
“You would see that in our area, waste collectors from the council rarely come to empty the refuse bins. So, as we use plastic waste to make our products, we are making our environment clean,” Michelle told IPS.
Zimbabwe Environmental Management Agency (EMA) about 1.65 million tonnes of waste are produced annually in Zimbabwe, with plastic making up 18 percent of that.
However, Makufa says it was not the love of money that swayed them into getting into plastic waste but improving the environment.
“It was not because we lacked money that we turned to collecting plastic waste, but we copied some people who were doing it, and we started doing the same. We thought of removing plastic waste from our environment, and we told ourselves if we could take those plastics and weave them together, we could have impressive products that we could sell and earn some money,” Makufa told IPS.
As the group of elderly people are making a difference in collectively fighting plastic waste, the local authorities welcome their contribution but add that it is everybody’s responsibility to care for the environment.
“The job of caring for the environment is not a responsibility of the council alone. In fact, it is the duty of everyone to make sure where they live there is cleanliness. As a council, we thank people who are beginning to realize that there is money in plastic waste. It’s not every waste that should be dumped; there is what we call recycling, and some people make money from it, but the duty to take care of our surroundings is not a prerogative of the council, but ordinary people as well,” Innocent Ruwende, Harare City Council spokesperson, told IPS.
Priscilla Gavi, director of Help Age Zimbabwe, a non-governmental organization mandated to take care of the elderly’s needs, says the elderly, too, are critical in the fight against plastic waste.
“Old age does not make someone incapable of supporting their families and taking care of themselves. It doesn’t stop the aged from working for their country. In fact, old age gives people opportunities to use skills gained during their prime ages, and they, for instance, make use of plastics, producing different things for sale from plastic waste as they also rid the environment of the plastic waste,” Gavi told IPS.
Yet for many like Makufa, collecting plastic waste has also turned out to be therapeutic in addition to being an economic venture.
“These things that we make with our own hands using plastic waste help us to rest from mental stress owing to problems we have these days that strain us psychologically. So, this helps us to be always occupied and refrain from overthinking about things we don’t have control over,” said Makufa.
According to the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), an estimated 1.65 million tonnes of waste are produced annually in Zimbabwe, with plastic making up to 18 percent of that.
Gowere and Makufa and other elderly recyclers and plastic entrepreneurs have drawn the admiration of organizations like EMA.
“This is a commendable initiative that is promoting upcycling of waste and upscaling recycling as a business. This reduces the amount of waste that ends up in landfills and the environment. Plastic waste takes hundreds of years to decompose, and it releases harmful toxins into the environment when burned,” Amkela Sidange, spokesperson for EMA, told IPS.
Opinion by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana (bangkok, thailand)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 20 (IPS) – Cities have always been dynamic hubs of culture, education, economic growth and opportunity, and most importantly, centres of social interaction attracting residents and visitors alike.
It is no surprise then, that Asia and the Pacific has in recent years become predominantly urban as people seek greater opportunities and services in cities of all sizes, from coastal communities in the Pacific to mega-cities such as Bangkok, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and in smaller towns and emerging urban centres, each with unique characteristics reflecting our region’s diversity.
The megatrend of urbanization, however, has not been free of difficulties, with many of the global crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the increasing effects of climate change, biodiversity loss and various forms of pollution, all converging in our cities. These challenges have made more visible long-standing issues such as inequalities and urban poverty, access to affordable housing and an infrastructure gap.
Our most vulnerable communities often are those most affected. This is clear in our cities where climate-related disasters disproportionately impact the poor, and women and children are unable to access essential urban services.
Meanwhile, a lack of affordable housing hinders the poor and middle classes alike, and inadequate infrastructure too frequently results in persons with disabilities being left behind. Collectively, these challenges not only can harm cities and their residents but will hinder progress toward the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its goals, many of which intersect in cities.
When cities shuttered during the pandemic, economic activity, tourism, education and urban services all suffered seemingly irreparable harm. Yet, in the aftermath of the global pandemic, we realize that a sustainable future for Asia and the Pacific runs through our cities, and we must take the necessary steps to address existing urban challenges and plan urbanization to be inclusive and resilient to future shocks and crises.
And we know how to get there. ESCAP, UN-Habitat and partners have developed a new flagship report, Crisis Resilient Urban Futures: The Future of Asian & Pacific Cities 2023. Through analysis of the crises and their effects, the report offers practical guidance across four key thematic areas for inclusive urban policies, partnerships, and innovations:
First, urban and territorial planning remains the foundation of how all cities manage their growth and plan urban services. Having seen how crises can disrupt these systems, we know that holistic urban planning that prioritizes multi-use, compact development, low-carbon transportation and mobility, affordable housing and efficient delivery of services are essential for creating safe, sustainable and livable cities for all citizens.
Next, as we are all too frequently reminded by the number of climate-induced disasters in our region, effectively responding to the climate emergency must be a priority, and cities are well positioned to lead innovation and new practices for low-carbon and resilient pathways. A resilient city engages all stakeholders, from the most vulnerable communities to civil society and policy makers from the local to national level, all working to co-develop solutions.
We also live in a more digitally connected world, where urban digital transformations and smart city technologies, if managed effectively, can improve operational efficiencies, bridge the digital divide and ensure access for all. The pandemic underlined the need to include everyone in shaping our digitally transformed future.
Finally, the multiple crises highlighted the urgency to safeguard urban finances. Expanding, diversifying, and increasing municipal revenue should be a key strategy for cities to stimulate local economic recoveries. And as no city can go it alone, robust multi-level governance, supported by transparent public frameworks for intergovernmental transfers, is needed, while more stable policies and incentives can open doors to private sector investment.
Recovery from any shock or crisis takes time and collective action. We must ensure that our urban areas guard against future risks while building safe, sustainable and livable communities and putting us back on track to achieve the 2030 Agenda.
The eighth Asia-Pacific Urban Forum (APUF-8), which is being held next week (23-25 October) in Suwon, Republic of Korea, is a key platform to share urban solutions and enhance partnerships to address the multitude of challenges. Though the task is formidable, with the right policies, innovations, cooperation and the engagement of citizens, we can ensure that our region’s cities remain vibrant hubs.
Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
Egypt is sacrificing a historic area to make way for a road network to assist with traffic flow in Cairo. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS
by Hisham Allam (cairo)
Inter Press Service
CAIRO, Oct 18 (IPS) – The Egyptian government is clearing a vast area in Historic Cairo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, to make way for new main roads and flyover bridges, which it says will improve traffic flow in the sprawling, congested megacity.
The developments are being pitched as part of an effort to modernize Egypt and connect the heart of the capital with a new administrative one being built 45km (28 miles) to the east.
However, the affected gravesites are mostly from the past century and include some in the famous City of the Dead, where Egypt’s notables have long been buried, often in fancy marble tombs engraved with Arabic calligraphy.
The city’s two main cemeteries radiate north and south from a central citadel known as the City of the Dead. Building the new highway will entail removing thousands of family graves, including those of historic figures from Egyptian history and culture.
Dr Islam Assem, an assistant professor of modern and contemporary history, told IPS that the demolition of these historic cemeteries is a “disaster by any measure.” He said that there is no rational justification for the demolition and that it is a decision that was not made after any study.
“Under any circumstances, we cannot destroy our heritage with our own hands and erase our identity and history,” Assem said.
He cited the example of Egypt’s construction of the Aswan High Dam, where it was discovered that the reservoir would cover archaeological sites behind the dam. Egypt worked with UNESCO to save the Abu Simbel Temple and other antiquities that were threatened by flooding.
“The government should have taken its time and found logical solutions for these cemeteries, such as moving them in a respectful way,” Assem said.
He added that the cemeteries “carry a history of at least 250 years that is not written in books but is written on the tombstones of these places.”
Heritage enthusiasts are collecting tombstones, plaques, inscriptions, and unique mausoleums from 17 cemeteries being demolished by the government in Historic Cairo. They are afraid that these items will be stolen or destroyed. The tombs of Ali Pasha Fahmi and the Daramli family, as well as the tomb of the freedmen of Prince Ibrahim Helmy, which was built over a century ago, are being demolished.
Historian Sameh Al-Zahar said that Historic Cairo is entirely listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, including the cemeteries, which is the area where development and demolition work is taking place. This is regardless of whether some of the cemeteries are registered or not.
Al-Zahar, a specialist in Islamic antiquities, added that the officials’ comment that the demolition is taking place on unregistered cemeteries is “a true statement with a false intention.” The meaning of the government not registering them is that this denies their significance, as some employees believe that we have enough antiquities and, therefore, there is no need to register them.
Some of these cemeteries date back historically between 700 and 1,000 years. Al-Zahar explained that this land was allocated by Omar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of the Muslims, to be a city for the dead for Egyptians for 1,400 years.
He continued that eviction operations are taking place without legal, moral, or humanitarian justification, as the owners of these cemeteries own them with official contracts. Therefore, no one has the right to expropriate their property and transfer their remains without their consent and the consent of their families.
According to Al-Zahar, the government is using double standards by registering some places as archaeological buildings, such as the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s home and the Rifa’i Mosque, even though they are less than 100 years old, simply because they are associated with historical and important figures. He stated that the government demolished the graves of al-Maqrizi and Ibn Khaldun in Sufi cemeteries in the 1990s, so the demolition strategy of historic cemeteries is not new.
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 18 (IPS) – A senior manager of the world’s largest investment firm has ‘blown the whistle’ on ESG (environment, social and governance) ‘greenwashing’, especially on supposed climate finance.
Wall Street whistle-blowerTariq Fancy was Chief Investment Officer (CIO) for Sustainable Investing at BlackRock, managing over $9 trillion in assets. Founded in 1988, headquartered in New York City, and with the world’s largest investment portfolio, BlackRock can move financial markets.
Jomo Kwame SundaramHence, Fancy’s insider critique of corporate ESG pretensions – often associated with ‘responsible’ and ‘impact investing’ – has had a major impact. It has been seen as confirming and even elaborating on longstanding criticisms of ESG ‘greenwashing’.
Rejecting ‘stakeholder capitalism’, shareholder capitalism guru Milton Friedman long emphasized that a corporation’s primary and sole duty is to maximize profits for shareholders.
Managers are legally required to prioritize shareholder financial interests above all else. This means corporations must never sacrifice profits or their funds, however noble the cause.
Ethical or responsible actions can only be justified if they enhance ‘shareholder value’. Thus, companies can take morally desirable actions to improve their ESG ratings only if and when they enhance profitability.
As Friedman emphasized, corporate executives have strict fiduciary responsibilities under the law in ‘shareholder capitalism’ in the US, UK and elsewhere. Their managerial obligations and conduct thus limit potentially positive ESG impacts.
Prioritizing their corporate fiduciary duties above all else, they cannot enhance social or environmental benefits without maximizing returns for shareholders. By law, social, community or national ethical duties or moral values must always be secondary.
Is green financing progressive?
Corporate practices respond to changing understandings of profit-maximization in the medium to long-term. With changing national and international requirements, companies may be able to maximize long-term financial gains by investing in sustainability.
Thus, investing in green transitions – e.g., renewable energy or re-afforestation – can become profitable in the longer-term if the regulatory environment changes soon enough to sufficiently change incentives for long-term investments.
So, long-term profitability can be enhanced at the expense of short-term gains if conducive regulations, incentives and deterrents are introduced early enough.
Companies changing to more environmentally sustainable practices – like adopting solar panels, investing in re-afforestation, or other green initiatives – may thus become more profitable over the longer-term.
But ‘business-as-usual’ investments are still likely to yield more short-term gains in the near-term. And stock markets are more interested in short-term corporate performance, undermining longer-term profitability considerations. Thus, short-termist corporate governance norms deter green transitions.
Do green bonds accelerate green transitions?Larry Lohmann has shown how difficult it is to confirm that finance raised by companies issuing ‘green bonds’ is actually additional. It is often difficult to verify such bonds are funding new projects that would not have happened anyway.
Sometimes, companies had already planned to make certain investments using conventional financing. With ready access to such finance, they would not have issued green bonds if not for the pecuniary advantages of doing so.
In such circumstances, green bonds have the same results as conventional finance if not for the incentives to claim otherwise. Hence, green bonds cannot claim credit for green investments and transitions if they would have happened anyway by other means.
This raises larger questions about the supposedly transformative impact of green bonds. Companies may even obscure environmentally unsustainable or even harmful practices by bundling them together with ostensibly ‘green’ investments.
Thus, green bonds may finance certain genuinely sustainable or environment-friendly projects without changing the rest of their investment portfolios and business practices.
Stock market discipline?
Despite lacking strong supportive empirical evidence, advocates claim ESG-compliant stocks outperform non-compliant ones in the share market. Similarly, they claim such compliance improves overall ESG indicators and contributes significantly to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
But there is no strong evidence that ESG-inspired stock market or corporate strategies have improved the environment, society or governance. After all, shareholders and companies prioritize short-term financial goals over longer-term considerations, including ESG and long-term profitability.
Divestment of shares in companies which are not ESG-compliant may only have limited impact if others buy non-compliant stocks, especially after their prices have fallen.
Also, even if some investors sell their shares in companies which are not ESG-compliant, it is unlikely the stock market will ‘green’ corporate behaviour more broadly.
Such stocks are mere drops in the ocean of wealth and finance, and one cannot realistically expect the tail to ‘wag the dog’. In 2021, the world economy had $360 trillion worth of wealth, with nearly $6 trillion in private equity.
Disciplining companies
Divestment means selling shares and thus losing ‘voice’ in company governance. But for shareholder engagement, it is necessary to retain stock ownership. Holding stock gives shareholders voice which can be used to try to pressure companies to be more ESG-compliant.
Without financially damaging effects for its reputation and share price, a company would not be compelled to become more ESG-compliant. Only significant stock price collapses – following massive share divestment due to reputational damage – are likely to motivate companies to become ESG compliant.
Undoubtedly, adverse publicity for particular companies hurts their stock prices, at least temporarily. And this may force companies to improve their behaviour. But such success implies a ‘name and shame’ approach – not ESG-compliance – can be effective.
And while some share prices may be more sensitive to adverse ESG publicity in some societies, there is no strong evidence this is true everywhere. Nor is there any strong evidence that systematic ESG reporting has generated desirable outcomes in most societies.
Divestment may not strongly affect company profitability or share prices. But actions such as consumer boycotts directly influence company revenue and financial performance. This may prompt strong corporate responses due to their impacts on companies’ ‘bottom lines’.
Cattle quench their thirst at a drying river as worsening drought conditions continue in Isiolo County, Kenya. Credit: ILRI/Geoffrey Njenga
by Maina Waruru (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Oct 17 (IPS) – Women in pastoralist areas of East Africa are critical to the health of livestock in their communities, holding the key to effective animal vaccination campaigns meant to protect herds against deadly diseases.
They are, therefore, an important part of any vaccination strategies designed to guard the animals against killer outbreaks and need to be involved in such efforts for them to be successful.
Achieving the goals of such campaigns has become increasingly important as the effects of climate change introduce new diseases that threaten the sector and, by extension, household incomes.
It has become critically important to integrate females in such health campaigns, and one barrier to their success is the failure of authorities and development agencies to involve them.
While women, due to cultural reasons, do not commonly own livestock, they act as caregivers when the animals are sick, and with incidents of disease outbreaks rising, involving them, in the end, ensures improved food and financial security for families.
Besides, an increasing number of households in the region where livestock keeping is the economic mainstay are being headed by women who also act as providers to their families.
Unsurprisingly, as many as 43 percent of livestock insurance policyholders in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, where the policies have been introduced in the recent past, are women, scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) say.
“Besides taking care of animals when they are sick, women influence the allocation of resources at the household level, determining things such as how money should go to buying vaccines, for example. Therefore, a strong gender strategy to allow women access to disease control is very important,” said Dr Bernard Bett, ILRI Senior Scientist, Animal and Human Health Program.
In its disease surveillance and response strategy, ILRI engaged “community disease reporters,” local leaders, and village women’s champions, including women heads of households, to gather information on outbreaks and to create awareness about vaccination campaigns, says Bett.
At times he noted, women got intimidated in queues by men during mass vaccination exercises, making them lose valuable time for other chores at home as they waited for their turn in the queue.
Authorities and organizations carrying out the missions have responded by enforcing a first–come–first–serve policy in the interest of fairness and increased animal health personnel staffing levels for orderly vaccinations, he explained.
Recognizing that conflict with household tasks was a permanent reality for women, ILRI practiced and advocated for early communication to enable better planning through community messaging while actively supporting females’ role in caring for livestock, he added.
Climate change, evidenced by frequent droughts and flood incidents in arid and semi-arid areas of East Africa that are the home of pastoralism in the region, Bett observed, presented a major disease burden with incidents of outbreaks of diseases such as Rift Valley Fever being a major threat.
“Highly climate-sensitive diseases causing pathogens attracted by changes in weather conditions, including those caused by vectors such as ticks and tsetse flies, become common. Efficient delivery of disease control measures, including vaccinations, is therefore important,” he told a recent media briefing in Nairobi.
Owing to the nomadic nature of pastoralists in search of pastures and water in times of shortage it is women are the ones who take care of households when the men are away with cattle and camels, while women are left behind caring for goats, calves, and vulnerable animals, making them also effectively in charge of their households.
Like their counterparts in the crop farming areas of the region, women pastoralists are faced with the challenge of providing food for their families, which is made worse by lack of income due to livestock deaths, noted Dr Rupsha Bernerjee, ILRI senior scientist attached to livestock and climate initiative.
“Whenever there are shocks such as droughts which in turn lead to food shortages, women skip meals to ensure their families are fed. It is therefore important to promote social inclusion in livestock health programs to ensure no one is left behind,” she said.
The impressive uptake of livestock insurance among women increases the resilience of herder communities, enabling them to cope with climate-induced risks, she added.
“Payments made to herders when droughts are very severe help in reducing distress sales of livestock guaranteeing that families are cushioned against possible malnutrition, thus the importance of women livestock health,” she told the briefing at the global body’s Nairobi headquarters.
In appreciating the important role in the health of livestock IDRC, Global Affairs Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation established the Livestock Vaccine Innovation Fund (LVIF), which supports the development and production of innovative vaccines to improve livestock health and the livelihoods of farmers.
The agency notes that worldwide, more than 750 million people keep livestock as a source of income, 400 million being women, but animal diseases, such as Newcastle disease in chickens and peste des petits ruminants (PPR) in goats, create widespread devastation, with women disproportionately affected because “they are less likely than men to be able to access vaccines to prevent such losses.”
“Millions of women livestock holders face financial and animal losses when diseases sweep through their farms. These infections are often highly preventable with a simple vaccination, so what is preventing women from taking measures to protect their assets?” the IDRC poses.
To answer find answers to the imbalance, the partners launched a regional livestock vaccine initiative called SheVax+ research project was launched in 2019, bringing together Cumming School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University-US, the Africa One Health University Network (AFROHUN) together and implementing partners, Makerere University, University of Nairobi, and University of Rwanda.
Helen Amuguni, the SheVax+ principal investigator, identifies three primary barriers to livestock vaccine uptake among women smallholder livestock farmers in East Africa, including gender norms, which lead to women having less access to information on vaccinations, animal health, and livestock management practices.
Stereotypes, she says, affect the way women are viewed in relation to livestock ownership, leading to their exclusion during vaccination information campaigns. Power relations also mean some women require permission from the male household head to attend training or control livestock-related resources.
As a result, many women lack understanding of, among other things, the availability and importance of vaccines, while those who do have awareness may be prevented from acting upon it, she explains.
Besides carrying out disease control and management initiatives insuring livestock, as happens with the Index-Based Livestock Insurance pioneered by ILRI to ‘de-risk’ the sector, was a critical component of cushioning the sector’s well-being and incomes for households, according to Bernard Kimoro, head of climate change and livestock sustainability in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Kenya.
Operational in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, the insurance utilizes satellite data to determine and read the conditions of the vegetation, where herders get compensation when the vegetation turns brown/yellow to indicate drought or shortage of foliage.
Desperation in the pure livestock systems in the region due to frequent climate change-linked droughts in the region called for both new animal disease control and feeds and nutritional strategies, he said.
The droughts have led to keepers using unsustainable feeds with high methane gas levels owing as the owners tried to keep animals alive during the dry spells, the official regrets.
The Greater Horn of Africa region is predicted to experience El Nino weather conditions characterized by higher than usual rainfall beginning this October to early 2024.
WASHINGTON DC, Oct 13 (IPS) – As the Minamata Convention on Mercury’s fifth Conference of the Parties (COP5) approaches, momentum builds to adopt the Africa Region’s proposed amendment to phase out dental amalgam – a cavity filling material that is approximately 50% mercury.
Specifically, the Africa Region has filed a proposal to amend the Minamata Convention to add a 2030 phase-out date for amalgam, bringing it in line with many other mercury products. The proposal also adds common-sense measures to facilitate this phase-out, including (1) submitting to the Secretariat a national plan for phasing out the use of dental amalgam and (2) excluding the use of dental amalgam in government insurance policies and programs.
This amendment is already getting support from governments around the world. On 9 October the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry hosted a webinar on phasing out amalgam, featuring distinguished speakers ranging from the Honorable MP Nilto Tatto of Brazil to the Honorable Minister Roger Baro of Burkina Faso, from Dr. Luu Hoang Ngoc of Vietnam, the longest-serving Minamata delegate in Asia, to Joshua Sam of SPREP, architect of the Mercury-Free Pacific campaign—as well as dentists from three continents.
The momentum to end use of this primitive pollutant from the colonial era is substantial; more than 40 nations have enacted amalgam bans or partial bans:
• Ending amalgam use in children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding women (e.g., the European Union, Vietnam)
• Setting a phase-out date for all amalgam use (e.g., Tanzania, Italy)
• Banning amalgam use by law (e.g., Philippines, Moldova, Mongolia, Bolivia, New Caledonia)
• Ending amalgam use by shareholder consensus (e.g., St. Kitts & Nevis, Zambia)
• Ending amalgam imports (e.g., Cuba, Colombia)
• Ending amalgam use in public programs (e.g., Indonesia, Poland)
• Ending amalgam use in armed forces (e.g., India, Bangladesh)
These countries are working to end amalgam because they understand the many benefits of moving away from mercury products like amalgam – and toward a mercury-free world.
First, moving away from amalgam protects the environment from amalgam’s mercury. Between 226 and 322 tonnes of dental mercury is used around the world annually. Dental mercury enters the environment via many unsound pathways, polluting air via cremation, dental clinic emissions, and sludge incineration; water via dental clinic releases and human waste; and soil via landfills, burials, and fertilizer.
Studies show that after environmental costs are factored in amalgam is more expensive than mercury-free fillings, but these mercury-free alternatives eliminate the high environmental costs of amalgam.
Second, moving away from amalgam reduces human exposure to mercury. Dental amalgam releases mercury throughout its lifecycle. Higher levels of exposure to mercury (for both patients and dental workers) are associated with placement and removal of dental amalgams.
Once implanted in teeth, dental amalgam continues to release low levels of mercury vapor, with higher amounts released during mastication, gum chewing, tooth grinding, and tooth brushing. Phasing out amalgam will eliminate this source of exposure.
Third, moving away from amalgam actually improves oral health because of the advantages of mercury-free fillings. Studies show mercury-free composite fillings can last as long as – and even longer than – amalgam.
They preserve tooth structure that must be removed to place an amalgam filling, which can increase the longevity of the tooth itself. They can even help prevent future caries.
While support for the Africa Region’s proposed amalgam phase-out amalgam has been steadily building, the amalgam industry has been pushing back. Led by the pro-mercury World Dental Federation, the industry has issued a controversial letter that seemingly promotes a two-tiered system of dentistry: toxic-free dentistry for wealthy countries and mercury-based dentistry for lower-income countries.
Such health inequity and environmental injustice is unacceptable. The world has witnessed such outrageous disparities before, such as when Western nations banned lead paint at home but sold it to Asian, African, and Latin American nations. All countries worldwide, not only wealthy ones, deserve to benefit from mercury-free dental care.
At COP4, held last year in Indonesia, the Parties to the Minamata Convention added the Children’s Amendment, which requires each Party to “…Exclude or not allow, by taking measures as appropriate, or recommend against the use of dental amalgam for the dental treatment of deciduous teeth , of patients under 15 years and of pregnant and breastfeeding women…”
Now the Parties have a great opportunity take the next logical step at COP5: phase out the 200-year mistake of mercury amalgam dental fillings. During the week of 30 October to 3 November, the world will choose whether to accept the industry’s two-tiered system of dentistry that off-loads mercury into Africa, into Asia, and into Latin America – or embrace a mercury-free future for dentistry. It’s time to make dental mercury history!
Charlie Brown is president, World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry
Photo of several cable cars of the Cablebus, which runs on electricity and has been carrying passengers through the south and southeast of Mexico City since 2021. Mexican public transportation is still based on fossil fuels, and a transition to cleaner alternatives is necessary. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
by Emilio Godoy (mexico city)
Inter Press Service
MEXICO CITY, Oct 12 (IPS) – Maribel Ochoa takes less time and spends less money commuting from her home to her work in eastern Mexico City thanks to the use of the electric Cablebus, a cable car that has improved her quality of life since the service began operating two years ago.
“It used to take me an hour. Now I make the trip in 15 minutes and the Cablebus drops me off three blocks from my house. And I don’t have to wait long for the cable car to come,” the 52-year-old married mother of seven, who is a cleaning lady for several families, told IPS.
In the past, she had to take a minibus to the Metro public transportation system to get to work.
The six-person turquoise-colored cable cars carry passengers dozens of meters at six meters per second through four hills on the east side of Mexico City. Below, passengers can watch the road traffic, the bustle of street vendors and children filing in and out of schools. Greater Mexico City is home to more than 20 million people.
The cable cars fly over the east side of the city, above the chaotic urban expansion below.
The route is part of one of the two lines of the Cablebus electric public transportation system, which is almost 11 kilometers long and connects the southeast with the eastern part of the city.
Since 2021, the cable car system, which cost some 300 million dollars to build, has transported around 36 million people on its two lines, at a rate of 120,000 passengers per day, in 682 cable cars for a distance over 20 kilometers. Line 1 connects the north and east of the capital.
In addition, since 2016, the Mexicable has been operating, with two 14-kilometer routes, in the municipality of Ecatepec, in the neighboring state of Mexico, north of the Mexican capital.
Together with a Metrobus line, a dedicated lane bus rapid transit (BRT) model and trolleybuses, these systems offer an alternative to the conventional fossil fuel-powered transportation networks that are predominant in this Latin American country of some 129 million people.
Mexico has a long tradition of using trolleybuses and cable cars, which were left in the past due to the prioritization of fossil-fueled ground transportation.
With 623 units, mostly trolleybuses, Mexico is the country with the third largest number of electromobility units, after Chile (2043) and Colombia (1589), according to the international E-BUS Radar platform. In total, the region has almost 5,000 electric buses, concentrated in the capital cities.
The replacement of fossil fuel vehicles with electric ones reduces gasoline consumption, air pollution and noise generation.
In Mexico, transportation accounted for 139.15 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent, a gas generated by human activities and responsible for global warming, out of a total of 690.62 million, according to 2021 data from the National Inventory of Greenhouse Gas and Compound Emissions of the governmental National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC).
A station of the Cablebus, the electric cable car that since 2021 connects the south and southeast of Mexico City, greatly shortening the commute for residents in those areas. Mexican public transport is still mostly powered by fossil fuels, and the country is making a very slow transition to cleaner alternatives. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
Few electric vehicles
Bernardo Baranda, director for Latin America of the non-governmental Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) said there was “insufficient progress” in the decarbonization of the sector, which, moreover, is taking place mainly in large cities.
“As a country, we are lagging behind. We need to make some adjustments and to be more ambitious. More support is needed from the federal government; it would be very good if it strengthened the mass transit program, to provide incentives for concessionaires and operators to acquire more electric fleets,” he told IPS in Mexico City, where the Institute’s regional headquarters is located.
In Mexico there are more than 53 million vehicles, and the number has been rising steadily since 2000, according to figures from the National Institute of Geography and Statistics, which adds that most of them run on fossil fuels. The institution reported 229.36 million public transportation users in July in the country’s eight main metropolitan areas and cities.
Victor Alvarado, head of the Mobility and Climate Agenda area of the non-governmental organization The Power of the Consumer, identified challenges such as profitability, sufficient demand, adequate facilities, and awareness of the issue among concessionaires and transport operators.
“What we envision today arises from local needs and a commitment to offer public transport services that can mitigate the effects of climate change. The useful life of conventional buses ranges from 10 to 15 years, and this becomes an opportunity to renew the fleet,” he told IPS.
At the national level, experts point out, Mexico lacks an electromobility strategy, with a plan yet to be finalized, despite its importance in the reduction of polluting emissions and the path to move towards a low carbon economy, which is an additional restriction for the adoption of policies.
However, the government of the capital has set goals for the deployment of alternative transportation and pollution reduction.
In addition, one of the lines of action of the capital city’s Electromobility Strategy 2018-2030 projects that 30 percent of the Metrobus fleet will be electric by 2030, equivalent to 300 buses.
Little by little, more initiatives are joining the move towards electromobility. The government of the capital is building a third Cablebus line, five kilometers long and with 11 stations, on the west side of Mexico City.
And the northern industrial city of Monterrey, with more than 1.5 million inhabitants, is preparing to introduce some 110 electric buses with an investment of 56 million dollars in public funds.
It is doing so through the Tumi E-Bus Mission project, aimed at supporting 500 cities (including Mexico City and Guadalajara, as well as Monterrey) in their transition to the deployment of 100,000 electric buses in total by 2025.
With technical advice from the German Agency for International Cooperation and six international organizations, the plan is part of the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative.
One of the elevated trolleybuses that run along the east side of Mexico City, at one of the stops. Mexico has 623 electric units that reduce polluting emissions, even though the power supply depends on oil by-products. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
ECLAC outlines three scenarios for Mexico, to 2025 and 2030. The intensive adoption perspective requires an addition of 18.99 million electric units, so that the proportion would rise to 21 percent and 42 percent of the total, respectively.
Ochoa hopes that alternative transportation will expand, so that her commute will become even shorter and cheaper.
But she knows that this depends on the decisions made by the national and local authorities.
Baranda, the regional expert, is confident that the next government will prioritize electric transport. “The sector is one of the main producers of pollutants. This has to be reflected in budgets. In small cities we should move towards the transition; smaller units can be used, these areas should not be left behind,” he said.
Alvarado the activist said actions are needed in financing, reallocation of budgets, professionalization of local authorities and creation of incentives for the acquisition of more environmentally friendly fleets.
“But part of the problem is that the energy source is still fossil fuels. That is where a focus on renewable energy generation comes in. In the states we have to see who dares to explore renewable energy for transportation; that is a great opportunity,” he said.
But until that future arrives, the urban population has to put up with mostly inefficient, unreliable and polluting public transport.
Opinion by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana (bangkok, thailand)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 12 (IPS) – This year we pass the halfway mark both on our journey towards implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Asian and Pacific countries have seen mixed progress on both. One of the most pressing challenges is the transition to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all, as encapsulated by SDG 7.
Without a significant acceleration of effort, reaching SDG 7 and its targets for energy access, renewable energy and energy efficiency will elude our region. Given the significance of Asia and the Pacific in terms of global energy supply and consumption, actions taken here will set the tone for the global trajectory of progress on SDG 7 and the fight against climate change.
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) will place these issues at center stage during next week’s (19-20 October) Asian and Pacific Energy Forum. This meeting will provide a platform for the region’s energy ministers to plan a regional agenda for a sustainable energy transition.
Looming large among these issues is the lack of access to electricity and clean cooking fuels for hundreds of millions of people. This deprivation has far-reaching consequences, and is a harsh reminder that, while the region has made significant strides in economic development, not everyone has enjoyed the fruits of progress.
Lack of access to electricity hinders healthcare, education and economic opportunities. Moreover, the reliance on traditional cooking fuels such as fuelwood contributes to respiratory diseases that disproportionately affect women and children. Energy poverty exacerbates existing inequalities, trapping communities in a cycle of deprivation.
To bridge the energy gap and promote climate-friendly sustainable development, increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency is an imperative. The transition to renewables opens avenues for economic growth and job creation.
Energy efficiency lowers the need for new supplies, relieves pressures on our energy systems, increases productivity and reduces waste, simultaneously saving money for households and businesses. Together, renewable energy and energy efficiency foster energy security.
Realizing the SDG 7 targets requires increased financial flows. According to the Secretary-General’s Global Roadmap for Accelerated SDG Action, annual investments in access to electricity must increase by $35 billion and by $25 billion for clean cooking by 2025.
A tripling of renewable energy and energy efficiency investment is needed by 2030. Scaling up finance at this rate requires a large infusion of private finance to bolster insufficient public sources, alongside a shifting of national budgets away from fossil fuels. Carbon pricing mechanisms can incentivize businesses to transition towards cleaner energy solutions. Innovative business models and financial instruments can attract international finance. But for these to be successful, governments must provide predictable and enabling policy environments.
To ensure the stability of the energy transition over the long term, governments must keep an eye on over-the-horizon risks. Key among these is the ensuring and adequate, stable and predictable supplies of critical raw materials needed to construct the millions of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries of the future.
Our region holds immense potential for critical raw materials production, making it a key player in the global energy transition. However, regional collaboration is needed alongside responsible mining and extraction practices that minimize environmental damage and social disruptions. Moreover, investing in recycling of critical raw materials can reduce our consumption of finite resources.
While transitioning towards clean energy is a moral and environmental imperative, a just transition ensures that no one is left behind as countries move away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable resources and technologies. This includes reskilling and reemployment opportunities for workers in declining industries, as well as community support to mitigate the socio-economic impacts of the energy
transition.
Achieving SDG 7 requires a multifaceted approach. This is not a challenge that any one country or sector can solve in isolation; it demands collaboration, innovation and shared responsibility. As we reflect on our progress at this halfway point, it is timely for countries across Asia and the Pacific to recommit to a regional vision where all citizens have access to clean and modern energy and the full potential of renewables and energy efficiency are realized.
The momentum behind these changes is growing and the opportunity to close these gaps must be seized.
Armida Salsiah Alisjahban is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 11 (IPS) – Finance has increased, not reduced, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Meanwhile, funding for mitigation, and especially adaptation, is grossly inadequate, with little for climate losses and damages.
Global warming accelerating
Rich countries are mainly responsible for the fast-worsening global warming as developing nations suffer more of its adverse effects. Worse, they are much more financially constrained, e.g., due to the higher costs of and poorer access to credit.
Jomo Kwame SundaramBefore the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (CoP) in Copenhagen, rich countries promised to provide $100 billion yearly to developing nations until 2020 for climate finance, after which such assistance would increase.
But the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found their promise well short of needs. It also estimated total climate finance – from both public and private sources – at only $640 billion, i.e., averaging about $60 billion yearly.
Adaptation costs until 2030 have been assessed at up to $411 billion annually, with most yearly estimates exceeding $100 billion! But even this does not cover financial losses and damages due to climate change, which have barely been funded.
Climate finance pathetic
Official estimates claim about $80 billion was mobilized in 2020, the most ever, but still well short of rich nations’ commitments. A significant share came from private finance plus a third via multilateral financial institutions. But these estimates – especially for private finance – are widely seen as grossly exaggerated.
Commitments by rich countries to the IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust Fund – to provide climate finance to a few poor countries under very restrictive conditions – have been modest despite much fanfare and rhetoric.
Bilateral official transfers during 2013-19 were under $18 billion annually, averaging between a quarter to a third of all climate finance delivered. Rich country governments have since spent several trillions on the pandemic and the Ukraine war!
Rich nations’ climate finance proposals are mainly about more loans, not grants. But more government borrowings have already worsened the climate and debt crises. Clearly, more developing country debt cannot be both problem and solution.
More concessional climate finance would not cost much as rich nations have about $400 billion of special drawing rights (SDRs) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – virtually ‘free’ foreign exchange reserve assets – which they hardly use.
Fossil fuels still subsidized
Very limited non-concessional climate finance contrasts sharply with rich nations’ fossil fuel subsidies. Their governments have long enabled such energy generation while insisting poor countries cut GHG emissions.
The actual extent of such subsidies has been obscured by prevailing discourses, especially over statistics. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and International Energy Agency (IEA) measure of government support for fossil fuels only considers direct budget transfers and subsidies other than tax breaks.
The duo found 52 developed and ‘emerging’ country governments accounted for 90% of world fossil fuel energy supply. Their total subsidies averaged $555 billion annually during 2017-19, i.e., before the pandemic.
But this greatly understates actual government fossil fuel subsidies. IMF research recognizing implicit subsidies – including environmental costs and lost consumption taxes – finds much higher subsidies than thus acknowledged.
The IMF study estimated world fossil fuel subsidies in 2020 at $5.9 trillion – more than ten times the OECD-IEA estimate, with implicit subsidies accounting for 92% of the total!
China provided the most, followed by the US, Russia, India and the European Union. Total US fossil fuel subsidies in 2020 – mostly implicit – came to $662 billion, while the Biden administration’s climate finance commitment came to only $5.7 billion!
More recent government interventions continue to skew market incentives to favour – rather than limit – fossil fuels. Hence, private finance has mainly gone to fossil fuel energy investments, despite much rhetoric about greening finance.
Private finance problem, not solution
Better data on fuel finance – by source, destination and power generation capacity – are essential. But lack of reliable, comprehensive and transparent data – on cross-border, particularly private financial flows for fossil fuels – prevents better analysis and policy.
The UK hosts of CoP26 in Glasgow in late 2021 pledged to end coal burning for energy generation. But less than half a year later, European and other countries sanctioning Russian gas exports were pursuing the opposite.
Most foreign financing for coal comes from rich nations’ commercial banks and institutional investors. Fourteen of the top 15 lenders to new coal investments worldwide were from wealthy economies.
The main institutional investors in fossil fuel company stocks and bonds are also from such nations, with the top three – BlackRock, Vanguard, and Capital Group – all US-based.
GHG emissions by major transnational corporations – including supposedly green companies – are considerable because of such fossil fuel energy. Emissions generated by these investments exceeded all others.
Address policy reversals
The Ukraine war has been used by many governments to abandon their already modest and inadequate climate promises. And instead of using the oil price spike to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, many governments have been subsidizing domestic energy prices.
Hence, the Global Green New Deal (GGND) – proposed by the UN during the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) – is even more relevant now. The GGND urged a strong, green, equitable and inclusive economic recovery after the GFC.
Taking account of what has happened in the interim is also essential to achieve the needed ‘big push’ for renewable energy to create the conditions for sustainable development for all.
Farmer Gustavo Panameño stands in the middle of what is left of his cornfield, hit hard by drought and windstorms, near Santa María Ostuma, in central El Salvador. Many Salvadoran small farmers are feeling the impact of El Niño, as are many others in Central America and the rest of the world. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
by Edgardo Ayala (santa marÃa ostuma, el salvador)
Inter Press Service
SANTA MARÃA OSTUMA, El Salvador, Oct 10 (IPS) – The effects of El Niño on agriculture in Central America are once again putting pressure on thousands of small farmer families who are feeling more vulnerable economically and in terms of food, as they lose their crops, due to climate change.
But that is not all. In addition to the obvious fact that poor harvests lead to higher food prices and food insecurity, they also generate a lack of employment in the countryside, further driving migration flows, said several experts interviewed by IPS.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather phenomenon had not been felt in the area since 2016. But now it has reappeared with stronger impacts. Meteorologists define ENSO as having three phases, and the one whose consequences are currently being felt on the ground is the third, the strongest.
Impact on the families
“The lack of water made us plant later, in June, when a drought hit us and ruined our corn and beans,” Gustavo Panameño, 46, told IPS as he looked disconsolately at the few plants still standing in his cornfield.
The plot Gustavo leases to farm, less than one hectare in size, is located in Lomas de Apancinte, a hill in the vicinity of Santa María Ostuma, in the central Salvadoran department of La Paz.
“The beans were completely lost, I expected to harvest about 300 pounds,” he said.
The corn and bean harvest “was for the consumption of the family, close relatives, and from time to time to sell,” said Gustavo.
A large part of Héctor Panameño’s corn crop in central El Salvador was destroyed by strong winds during a period when rain was scarce as a result of the El Niño phenomenon. The small farmer also lost his bean crop, making it a challenge to feed his family of nine. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Nearby is the plot leased by Héctor Panameño, who almost completely lost his corn crop and the few beans he had planted.
Corn and beans form the basis of the diet of the Salvadoran population of 6.7 million people and of the rest of the Central American countries, which have a total combined population of just over 48 million.
This subtropical region has two seasons: the wet season, from November to April, and the dry season the rest of the year. Agriculture contributes seven percent of GDP and accounts for 20 percent of employment, according to data from the Central American Integration System (SICA).
“I lost practically all the corn, and the beans too, they couldn’t be used, they started to grow but were stunted,” said Héctor, 66, a distant relative of Gustavo.
At this stage, the stalks of the corn plants have already been “bent”, a small-farming practice that helps dry the cobs, the final stage of the process before harvesting.
And what should be a cornfield full of dried plants, lined up in furrows, now holds barely a handful here and there, sadly for Héctor.
Both farmers said that in addition to the droughts, the crops were also hit by several storms that brought with them violent gusts of wind, which ended up knocking down the corn plants.
“The plants were already big, 45 days old, about to flower, but a windstorm came and knocked them down,” recalled Héctor, sadly.
“After that, there were a few plants left standing, and when the cobs were beginning to fill up with kernels another strong wind came and finished knocking down the entire crop.”
A few weeks ago both Gustavo and Héctor replanted corn and beans, trying to recover some of their losses. Now their hopes are on the “postrera”, as the second planting cycle is called in Central America, which starts in late August and ends with the harvest in November.
The windstorms mentioned by both farmers are apparently part of the extreme climate variability brought by climate change and El Niño.
The photo shows a parched ear of corn in a small cornfield that was destroyed in central El Salvador. It is estimated that losses of the staple crops corn and beans in the country, as a result of the impacts of extreme weather events, such as El Niño and the historical shortage of rainfall, on local production, will lead to a grain deficit of about 6.8 million quintals (100-kg). CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Guatemala is also experiencing what experts have noted in the rest of the region: because El Niño has arrived in the “strong phase”, in which climate variability is even more pronounced, there are periods of longer droughts as well as more intense rains.
That puts the “postrera” harvest in danger, said the experts interviewed.
This means that whereas El Niño would bring drought in the first few months of the agricultural cycle, now it is hitting harder during the second period, in August, when the postrera planting is in full swing.
“For the farmers it was clear since April that it was raining less, compared to other years,” Sigüenza told IPS from Guatemala City.
“Then, in August, we had the first warnings from the highlands and the southern coast that the plants were not growing well, that they were suffering from water stress,” he said.
The most affected region, he said, is the Dry Corridor, which in Guatemala includes the departments of Jalapa, Chiquimula, Zacapa, El Progreso, part of Chimaltenango and Alta Verapaz, in the central part of the country.
The Dry Corridor is a 1,600 kilometer-long strip of land that runs north-south through portions of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
It is an area highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, where long periods of drought are followed by heavy rains that have a major effect on the livelihoods and food security of local populations, as described by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Sigüenza said that food security due to lack of basic grains is expected to affect some 4.6 million people in Guatemala, a country of 17.4 million.
Even the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “predicted that August, September and October would be the months with the greatest presence of El Niño,” said Luis Treminio, president of the Salvadoran Chamber of Small and Medium Agricultural Producers.
Treminio said that 75 percent of bean production is currently planted, and because it is less resistant to drought and rain than corn and sorghum, there is a greater possibility of losses.
“So the risk now is to the postrera, because if this scenario is fulfilled, we will have a very low postrera production,” he said.
Treminio’s estimate is that El Salvador will have a basic grains deficit of 6.8 million quintals, which the country will have to cover, as always, with imports.
This bean plant growing on a Salvadoran farm may or may not make it to harvest. The El Niño phenomenon has begun to hit hard the “postrera” or second harvest in Central America, in which farmers hope to recover some of the losses suffered in the first harvest, in May and June. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
As in other countries in the region, Nicaraguan farmers suffered losses in the first planting, in May, and again in the second, the postrera, “and all of this leads to a strong imbalance in the small farmer economy,” the FAO official said from Panama City.
Sanches said that El Niño will be felt in 93 percent of the region until March 2024 and, in addition, 71 percent is in the “strong phase”.
He added that in the Dry Corridor 64 percent of the farms are less than two hectares in size. In other words, there are many families involved in subsistence agriculture, and with fewer harvests, they would face unemployment and would look for escape valves, such as migration.
“All this would then trigger an explosion of migration,” said Sanches.
With regard to the impacts in Nicaragua, researcher Abdel Garcia, an expert in climate, environment and disasters, said that, in effect, the country is receiving “the negative backlash” of El Niño, that is, less rain in the months that should have more copious rainfall, such as September.
García said that the effects of the climate are not only being felt in agriculture, and therefore in the economy, but also in the environment.
“The ecosystem is already suffering: we see dried up rivers and surface water sources, and also the reservoirs, which are at their lowest levels right now,” García told IPS from Managua.
García said that some farmers in the department of Estelí, in northwestern Nicaragua, are already talking about a plan B, that is, to engage in other economic activities outside of agriculture, given the harsh situation in farming.
In late August, FAO announced the launch of a humanitarian aid plan aimed at mobilizing some 37 million dollars to assist vulnerable communities in Latin America in the face of the impact of the El Niño phenomenon.
Specifically, the objective was to support 1.1 million people in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
Even more ambitious is an initiative in which FAO will participate as a liaison between the governments of 30 countries around the world and investors, multilateral development banks, the private sector and international donors, so that these nations can access and allocate resources to agriculture.
At the meeting, which will take place Oct. 7-20 in Rome, FAO’s world headquarters, governments will present projects totaling 268 million dollars to investors.
Among the nations submitting proposals are 10 from Latin America and the Caribbean, including Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Meanwhile, despite the gloomy forecasts for farming families, who are taking a direct hit from El Niño, both Gustavo and Héctor remain hopeful that it is worth a second try now that the postrera harvest is underway.
“We have no choice but to keep working, we can’t just sit back and do nothing,” said Héctor, with a smile that was more encouraging than resigned.
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