Antonio Guterres was addressing via videolink, the fourth meeting of the Major Economies Forum, convened by the United States President Joe Biden, which is designed to galvanize efforts to keep the global temperature rise of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, within reach – in line with the Paris Agreement.
Biggest coffers, biggest emitters
“You are the major economies – but also the major emitters. And our world has a major climate challenge before us”, said the Secretary-General in his remarks to world leaders.
“Today’s policies would make our world 2.8 degrees hotter by the end of the century. And this is a death sentence.”
He said the possibility remains, of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C: “But only if the world takes a quantum leap in climate action. And that depends on you. We need global acceleration through cooperation. And that means rising above disagreements, differences and tensions.”
UNDP/Karin Schermbrucker for Slingshot
Solar panels help to power the a rural hospital in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
Solidarity Pact
He insisted that geopolitical division must not be allowed to torpedo the world’s climate fight, highlighting once again his proposal for a G20 industrialized nations’ Climate Solidarity Pact, where big emitters “make extra efforts to cut emissions; and wealthier countries support emerging economies to achieve this.”
He reiterated the need for accelerated action in three areas. First, “net zero deadlines”, calling on developed countries to reach net zero emissions as close as possible, to 2040, while leaders of emerging economies, aim for 2050.
“Second, I urge you to accelerate your move away from fossil fuels and towards a fair and just decarbonization of every sector. Renewables can deliver – on access, affordability, and energy security.”
‘Climate justice’
Thirdly, he called for accelerated climate justice, through reforming the international financial system, especially the Multilateral Development Banks, so that climate action and sustainable development can be “turbocharged”.
“You have the power to ensure that they leverage their funds to mobilize much more private finance at reasonable cost to developing countries, and that they end all support for fossil fuels”, he told leaders of major economies.
“You can pressure them to urgently transition and scale-up their funding to renewables, adaptation, and loss and damage.”
He said all developed countries had to deliver on their promises made at previous UN climate change summits, with adaptation funding reaching 50 per cent of all financing,
Success or failure ‘on your watch’
“And the loss and damage fund must be operationalized; and the Green Climate Fund must be replenished”, said Mr. Guterres.
He welcomed the proactive approach of countries which have already got involved in the Acceleration Agenda to the Climate Ambition Summit, which will take place in New York in September:
“Excellencies…I hope to see you there. Because this final fight for 1.5 degrees will be won or lost on your watch”, the UN chief concluded.
“The focus of the mission was to enhance the capacity of the early warning alert and response network (EWARN) and ensure rapid detection, verification and response to communicable diseases alerts and outbreaks”, the WHO office for the Eastern Mediterranean said in a statement issued on Thursday.
They identified areas in preparedness and response that needed strengthening, said WHO, and carried out several field visits, including to Maaret Tamsrin, one of the areas impacted by the earthquake, to assess the local hospital and the integration of reception centres as part of the wider early warning system review.
Two reception centres were also visited for water quality monitoring, and the drinking water tested in coordination with a Syrian NGO, resulting in a recommendation to chlorinate water supply at the centres.
WHO
Rapid response
Mission members also boosted capacity in the rapid response teams (RRTs) which have been set up for cholera and other epidemic-prone diseases. This included a two-day online RRT training course on how to establish teams at reception centres.
“RRTs are vital, as the members can rapidly investigate and respond to outbreaks and communicable diseases”, said Dr Sherein Elnossery of the Infectious Hazard Prevention unit at the WHO Regional Office, who was part of the mission and delivered the training.
More than 150 participants attended the training from surveillance, community health care, WASH and medical teams. It included sessions on outbreak response, community engagement, water and hygiene services.
In addition, the psychological impact of community crises was addressed, and participants instructed on providing psychological first aid.
Strengthening cholera response
During the mission, the WHO team worked to strengthen the coordination and leadership of the response to cholera and other epidemic-prone diseases. They also supervised the implementation of an oral cholera vaccination campaign targeting 1.7 million people in Dana and Harim subdistricts.
Additionally, team members assessed the risk of the existing cholera outbreak expanding and, accordingly, 10 subdistricts in north-west Syria with a target population of 1.12 million people have been identified for oral cholera vaccine campaigns.
Dr Elnossery insisted that WHO “will continue to support the affected areas in northwest Syria to recover from the earthquake”.
Over 200 international participants working with the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme had their first face-to-face meeting, in a bid to make one of the most revolutionary medical technologies which led the field in vaccine development against COVID-19, more widely and fairly available, in the places where it is most needed.
‘Lifesaving’ breakthrough: Tedros
“I am delighted to be here in Cape Town with our partners to support a sustainable model for mRNA technology transfer to give low and middle-income countries (LMICs) equitable access to vaccines and other lifesaving health products,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“I am immensely proud of the achievement of all those involved in this project; in less than two years we have shown that when we work collaboratively, we succeed collectively.”
Tedros was joined for the launch by South African ministers Dr. Joe Phaahla and Ebrahim Patel, together with high-level officials from funding countries, to review the progress of the programme, launched by WHO and the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), in June 2021.
The meeting participants include partners from 15 countries in the programme, leading experts, industry, civil society representatives, and funders.
During the five-day meeting, participants will share progress and discuss critical enablers for the sustainability of the programme such as intellectual property issues and regulatory aspects, as well as the science of mRNA technologies and key applications relevant to other disease areas such as HIV and tuberculosis.
Vaccine equity
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored that inequity exists in access to many health products, especially vaccines. As of March this year, more than three years after WHO declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), 69.7 per cent of the global population had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
However, this proportion remains below 30 per cent in low-income countries (LICs).
This programme aims to contribute to equitable access to mRNA vaccines by increasing the distribution of sustainable manufacturing capacity across LMICs, enhancing regional and inter-regional collaboration, and developing and empowering a local workforce through tailored and inclusive training and expert support.
Dr. Phaahla, Minister of Health South Africa, said: “What we see here today, is a moment in history, a programme that is aimed at empowering LMICs through a global collaborative network.
‘Thrilling’ progress
“I am thrilled to see the progress made in such a relatively short time and welcome the support from so many different countries – countries like South Africa that have a strong vibrant biomanufacturing capacity and that are willing to work together, learn from and share with each other.”
Afrigen in Cape Town and local vaccine maker Biovac were chosen last year by WHO for the pilot project to give LMICs the technological know-how and licences to manufacture COVID vaccines, and Afrigen has used mRNA sequencing to produce its own version of the inoculation, known as AfriVac 2121, and is currently scaling up that process to a level suitable for manufacturing vaccine batches to be used in Phase I/ II clinical trials to GMP standards.
In a parallel process, Afrigen will continue to carry out training and technology transfer to network partners.
According to news reports, the vaccine candidate will move to the human testing phase, in early 2024.
In its State of the World’s Children 2023 report, UNICEF says that vaccination coverage levels decreased in 112 countries during the pandemic, “the largest sustained backslide in childhood immunization in 30 years”. According to the agency, a rise in misleading information on vaccines is one of the factors at play.
UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russell said that while at the height of the pandemic, scientists rapidly developed life-saving vaccines, “despite this historic achievement, fear and disinformation about all types of vaccines circulated as widely as the virus itself”.
Warning signal
UNICEF says the pandemic interrupted childhood vaccination “almost everywhere”, due to stretched health systems and stay-at-home measures. But new data also shows a trend of declining confidence in childhood vaccines of up to 44 percentage points in a number of countries.
“This data is a worrying warning signal,” Ms. Russell insisted. “We cannot allow confidence in routine immunizations to become another victim of the pandemic. Otherwise, the next wave of deaths could be of more children with measles, diphtheria or other preventable diseases.”
Vaccine hesitancy on the rise
In its report, UNICEF warns that the public perception of the importance of vaccines for children declined during the COVID-19 pandemic in 52 out of 55 countries studied.
China, India and Mexico were the only countries examined where the perception of the importance of vaccines remained stable or even improved. In most countries, people under 35 and women were more likely to report less confidence about vaccines for children after the start of the pandemic.
A longer-term trend?
The report says that “vaccine confidence is volatile and time-specific”, and that more sustained data gathering and analysis, will be necessary to determine if declining vaccine confidence is indeed here to stay.
UNICEF also emphasizes that overall support for vaccines remains strong, and that in almost half of the 55 countries studied, a vast majority of respondents – over 80 per cent – continue to perceive vaccines as “important” for children.
Misinformation at fault
However, the report warns that “the confluence of several factors suggests the threat of vaccine hesitancy may be growing”.
Among these factors, the report’s authors cite growing access to misleading information, declining trust in expertise, and political polarization.
‘Child survival crisis’
UNICEF says that children born just before or during the pandemic are now moving past the age when they would normally be vaccinated. This lag puts children at the risk of deadly outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, in what UNICEF calls a “child survival crisis”.
The report recalls that in 2022, measles cases worldwide doubled compared to 2021, and the number of children paralyzed by polio was up 16 per cent year-on-year. In the three-year period between 2019 and 2021, polio paralyzed eight times more children than during the previous three years.
Deepening inequalities
The UN Children’s Fund stresses that the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities related to vaccination. The report says that “for far too many children, especially in the most marginalized communities, vaccination is still not available, accessible or affordable”.
Almost half of the 67 million children who missed out on routine vaccination between 2019 and 2021 live on the African continent. As of the end of 2021, India and Nigeria, which are described in the report as “countries with very large birth cohorts”, had the highest numbers of children who hadn’t received a single routine vaccination.
Overall, in low and middle-income countries, one in 10 children in urban areas and one in six in rural areas had not received a single routine vaccination.
Poverty, lack of empowerment
UNICEF says the children who are missing out live in the “poorest and most remote” communities, located in rural areas or urban slums, and at times impacted by conflict.
The report underscores the role of women’s empowerment in a family’s decision to vaccinate their children, pointing out that the children deprived of routine vaccinations “often have mothers who have not been able to go to school and who are given little say in family decisions”.
Underpaid health workers
UNICEF says its findings highlight the need to ensure vaccination efforts are sustained, by strengthening primary healthcare and investing in the health workers at the front line of immunization.
These workers tend to be predominantly women, and according to the report, they face significant challenges including low pay, informal employment, lack of formal training and career opportunities, as well as threats to their security.
Call to action for governments
UNICEF is calling on countries to urgently unlock resources so that they can accelerate catch-up vaccination efforts, rebuild lost confidence in vaccines, and strengthen the resilience of health systems by supporting female health workers and local vaccine manufacturing.
“Routine immunizations and strong health systems are our best shot at preventing future pandemics, unnecessary deaths and suffering. With resources still available from the COVID-19 vaccination drive, now is the time to redirect those funds to strengthen immunization services and invest in sustainable systems for every child”, UNICEF’s Catherine Russell said.
The Maipo River on its way from the Andes mountain range to the valley of the same name is surrounded by numerous small towns that depend on tourism, receiving thousands of visitors every weekend. There are restaurants, campgrounds and high-altitude sports facilities. The water comes down from the top of the mountain range and is used by the company Aguas Andinas to supply the Chilean capital. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS
by Orlando Milesi (santiago)
Inter Press Service
SANTIAGO, Apr 19 (IPS) – Good management of the 101 hydrographic basins which run from the Andes mountain range to the Pacific Ocean is key to solving the severe water crisis that threatens the people of Chile and their main productive activities.
This vulnerability extends to the economy. Since 1990 Chile has gradually become wealthier, but along with the growth in GDP, water consumption has also expanded.
Roberto Pizarro, a professor of hydrology at the universities of Chile and Talca, told IPS that this “is an unsustainable equation from the point of view of hydrological engineering because water is a finite resource.”
According to Pizarro, “there are threats hanging over this process. From a production point of view, Chile’s GDP depends to a large extent on water. According to figures from the presidential delegation of water resources of the second administration of Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018), at least 60 percent of our GDP depends on water.”
This South American country, the longest and narrowest in the world, with a population of 19.6 million people, depends on the production and export of copper, wood, agricultural and sea products, as well as a growing tourism industry. All of which require large quantities of water.
And water is increasingly scarce due to overuse, excessive granting of water rights by the government, and climate change that has led to a decline in rainfall and snow.
To make matters worse, since 1981, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), water use rights have been privatized in perpetuity, separated from land tenure, and can even be traded or sold. This makes it difficult for the branches of government to control water and is a key point in the current debate on constitutional reform in Chile.
Ecologist Sara Larraín maintains that the water crisis “has its origin in the historical overexploitation of surface and groundwater by the productive sectors and in the generalized degradation of the basins by mining, agro-industry and hydroelectric generation. And the wood pulp industry further compounded the problem.”
Larraín, executive director of the Sustainable Chile organization, adds that the crisis was aggravated by a drought that has lasted for more than a decade.
“There is a drastic decline in rainfall (of 25 percent) as a result of climate change, reduction of the snow surface and increase in temperatures that leads to greater evaporation,” she told IPS.
The small town of El Volcán has just over a hundred inhabitants, 80 kilometers from Santiago and 1,400 meters above sea level, in the Andes foothills. Local residents are witnessing a sharp decrease in snowfall that now rarely exceeds 30 centimeters in the area, a drastic reduction compared to a few years ago. CREDIT: Arturo Allende Peñaloza/IPS
First-hand witnesses
The main hydrographic basin of the 101 that hold the surface and underground water in Chile’s 756,102 square kilometers of territory is the Maipo River basin, since it supplies the Greater Santiago region, home to 7.1 million people.
In this basin, in the town of El Volcán, part of the San José de Maipo municipality on the outskirts of Santiago, on the eastern border with Argentina, lives Francisco Rojo, 62, a wrangler of pack animals at heart, who farms and also works in a small mine.
“The (inactive) San José volcano has no snow on it anymore, no more glaciers. In the 1990s I worked near the sluices of the Volcán water intake and there was a surplus of over 40 meters of water. In 2003 the snow was 12 to 14 meters high. Today it’s barely two meters high,” Rojo told IPS.
“The climate has been changing. It does not rain or snow, but the temperatures drop. The mornings and evenings are freezing and in the daytime it’s hot,” he added.
Rojo gets his water supply from a nearby spring. And using hoses, he is responsible for distributing water to 22 families, only for consumption, not for irrigation.
“We cut off the water at night so there is enough in the tanks the next day. Eight years ago we had a surplus of water. Now we have had to reduce the size of the hoses from two inches to one inch,” he explained.
“We were used to a meter of snow. Now I’m glad when 40 centimeters fall. It rarely rains and the rains are always late,” he said, describing another clear effect of climate change.
Agronomist Rodrigo Riveros, manager of one of the water monitoring boards for the Aconcagua River in the Valparaíso region in central Chile, told IPS that the historical average at the Chacabuquito rainfall station, at the headwaters of the river, is 40 or 50 cubic meters, a level that has never been surpassed in 12 years.
“This decade we have half the water we had in the previous decade,” he said.
“Farmers are seeing their production decline and are losing arable land. Small farmers are hit harder because they have a more difficult time surviving the disaster. Large farmers can dig wells or apply for loans, but small farmers put everything on the line during the growing season,” he said.
Large, medium and small users participate in the Aconcagua water board, 80 percent of whom are small farmers with less than 10 hectares. But they coexist with large water users such as the Anglo American mining company, the state-owned copper company Codelco and Esval, the region’s sanitation and drinking water distribution company.
“The decrease in rainfall is the main problem,” said Riveros..”The level of snow dropped a lot because the snow line rose – the altitude where it starts to snow. And the heavy rains increased flooding. Warm rain also falls in October or November (in the southern hemisphere springtime), melting the snow, and the water flows violently, carrying a lot of sediment and damaging infrastructure.
“It used to snow a lot more. Now three meters fall and we celebrate. In that same place, 10 meters used to fall, and the snow would pile up as a kind of reserve, even until the following year,” he said.
In Chile, the water boards were created by the Water Code and bring together natural and legal persons together with user associations. Their purpose is the administration, distribution, use and conservation of riverbeds and the surrounding water basins.
Many residents of El Volcán, in the foothills of the Andes mountains, lack drinking water and have built tanks to collect water from a nearby spring. They have also reduced the diameter of their hoses to a minimum because the flow of water is steadily shrinking, only providing a supply for domestic use and not enough to irrigate their crops and trees. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS
Enormous economic impact
Larraín cited figures from the National Emergency Office of the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security and from regional governments that reveal that State spending on renting tanker trucks in the last decade (2010-2020) was equivalent to 277.5 million dollars in 196 of the total of 346 municipalities that depend on this method of providing drinking water.
“The population served in its essential needs is approximately half a million people, almost all of them from the rural sector and shantytowns and slums,” said Larraín.
According to the environmentalist, Chile has not taken actions to mitigate the drought.
“Although the challenge is structural and requires a substantial change in water management and the protection of sources, the official discourse insists on the construction of dams, canals and aqueducts, even though the reservoirs are not filled due to lack of rainfall and there is no availability in the regions from which water is to be extracted and diverted,” she said.
She added that the mining industry is advancing in desalination to reduce its dependence on the water basins, “although there is still no specific regulation for the industry, which would prevent the impacts of seawater suction and brine deposits.”
Larraín acknowledged that the last two governments established sectoral and inter-ministerial water boards, but said that coordination between users and State entities did not improve, nor did it improve among government agencies themselves.
“Each sector faces the shortage on its own terms and we lack a national plan for water security, even though this is the biggest problem Chile faces in the context of the impacts of climate change,” the environmental expert asserted.
Chile’s Colina hot springs, in the open air in the middle of the Andes mountains and just 17 kilometers from the border with Argentina, in the east of the country, can now be visited almost year-round. In the past, it was impossible to go up in the southern hemisphere winter because the route was cut off by constant rain and snow storms. CREDIT: Arturo Allende Peñaloza/IPS
Government action
The Ministry of the Environment admits that “there is still an important debt in terms of access to drinking water and sanitation for the rural population.”
“There is also a lack of governance that would make it possible to integrate the different stakeholders in each area for them to take part in water decisions and planning,” the ministry responded to questions from IPS.
In addition, it recognized that it is necessary to “continue to advance in integrated planning instruments that coordinate public and private initiatives.
“We coordinated the Inter-Ministerial Committee for a Just Water Transition which has the mandate to outline a short, medium and long-term roadmap in this matter, which is such a major priority for the country,” the ministry stated.
The committee, it explained, “assumed the challenge of the water crisis and worked on the coordination of immediate actions, which make it possible to face the risk of water and energy rationing, the need for rural drinking water, water for small-scale agriculture and productive activities, as well as ecosystem preservation.”
The ministry also reported that it is drafting regulatory frameworks to authorize and promote the efficiency of water use and reuse.
Furthermore, it stressed that the Framework Law on Climate Change, passed in June 2022, created Strategic Plans for Water Resources in Basins to “identify problems related to water resources and propose actions to address the effects of climate change.”
The government of Gabriel Boric, in office since March 2022, is also promoting a law on the use of gray water for agricultural irrigation, with a focus on small-scale agriculture and the installation of 16 Pilot Basin Councils to achieve, with the participation and coordination of the different stakeholders, “an integrated management of water resources.”
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 19 (IPS) – Matiullah Wesa’s crime was to try to ensure young people got an education in Afghanistan. His recent forceful abduction by the Taliban offers the latest stark reminder that global solidarity and coherent action from the international community are needed to prevent the complete loss of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.
Matiullah has been at the forefront of advocating for access to education as a co-founder and leader of Pen Path. For more than a decade, Pen Path has worked with community and tribal leaders in remote areas in Afghanistan to advocate for education and bring learning closer to communities. It works to enlighten communities about the importance of education, particularly girl’s and women’s education, organises book donations, runs mobile libraries in remote areas and reopens schools closed by years of conflict and insecurity. Pen Path has reopened over 100 schools, distributed more than 1.5 million items of stationery and provided education facilities for 110,000 children – 66,000 of them girls. This is what Matiullah is being punished for.
The abduction of Matiullah and many others advocating for the rights of education point to a concerted effort by the Taliban to try to restrict women’s and girls’ access to education and silence those advocating for education and an inclusive society.
There are sadly many other instances. In November 2022 around 60 Taliban members stormed a press conference organised to announce the formation of Afghan Women Movement for Equality. They arrested conference participants and deleted all images from their phones.
Immediately after taking power in August 2021, the Taliban instructed women to stay at home and avoid travelling. In December 2022, the Ministry of Higher Education announced it had suspended university education for women until further notice. Taliban officials argued that female students did not wear proper clothing on campus and announced it was enforcing gender segregation in schools. These decisions have been accompanied by others that force thousands of female workers to stay at home and prevent women and girls entering public spaces such as parks.
In December 2022 the Taliban banned women from working for international and national civil society organisations. This was a move that could only be counter-productive, since women play a vital role in providing essential services that people need. Banning women from working for civil society organisations affects millions in dire need of humanitarian assistance and services to women and children, as well as further increasing unemployment. The Taliban urged organisations to suspend female staff under the pretence that workers did not adhere to the regime’s strict dress code.
Most recently, women have been banned from working for United Nations agencies that are operating in Afghanistan. The United Nations may have to pull out.
It has taken just months for the Taliban to reverse the gains made over the years before their return that saw Afghan women claim visibility in public life and work such roles as broadcasters, doctors and judges.
Women in Afghanistan are fighting but can’t succeed alone
These restrictions on women’s rights should be seen in the context of the closing of civic space and attacks on other fundamental rights. As a result, Afghanistan’s civic space rating was recently downgraded to closed, the worst category, by the CIVICUS Monitor, a research partnership that tracks civic space conditions in 197 countries.
Despite the ongoing restrictions against women, the brave women of Afghanistan refuse to back down. They continue to organise what protests they can against restrictions and women human rights defenders continue to advocate for the rights of all women and girls to access education and participate in decision-making processes.
When women protest against restrictions, they risk harassment, physical and psychological torture and detentions. Some have been forcefully abducted from their homes. In January 2022, Taliban gunmen raided the homes of women human rights defenders Parwana Ibrahimkhel and Tamana Zaryab and abducted them.
No society can reach its real potential without the participation of women. The international community must double its efforts to support women and girls in Afghanistan. States should respond proactively to the United Nations 2023 appeal for Afghanistan. Aid should however be made conditional on guarantees to uphold the fundamental rights of women and girls. The international community should accompany aid with a strategy to build a more inclusive and open society.
Not to do so would be to abandon the likes of Matiullah Wesa, the many others like him penalised for standing up for education and rights, and the women of girls of Afghanistan being forced into silence.
David Kode is the Advocacy and Campaigns Lead at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance.
The IMF has made some encouraging improvements in paying attention to social protection, health, and education, but it needs to do much more to avoid, in its own words, “repeating past mistakes”, says new report. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS
by Baher Kamal (madrid)
Inter Press Service
MADRID, Apr 19 (IPS) – As many as 45 African countries –out of the Continent’s 54 nations–, all of them grouped in what is known as Sub-Saharan Africa, have now been further squeezed to their bones, as funding shrinks to lowest ever levels, and as a portion of the so-called aid goes back to the pockets of rich donor countries.
It says that the road to global economic recovery is “getting rocky.’ And that while inflation is slowly falling, economic growth remains ‘historically low,’ and that the financial risks have risen.
Squeezed
Well. In its April Outlook, the IMF devotes a chapter to Sub-Saharan Africa, titled “The Big Funding Squeeze”.
It says that growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to slow to 3.6 percent as a “big funding squeeze”, tied to “the drying up of aid and access to private finance,” hits the region in this second consecutive year of an aggregate decline.
If no measures are taken, “this shortage of funding may force countries to reduce fiscal resources for critical development like health, education, and infrastructure, holding the region back from developing its true potential.”
Some arguments
According to the IMF:
Public debt and inflation are at levels not seen in decades, with double-digit inflation present in half of countries—eroding household purchasing power and striking at the most vulnerable.
The rapid tightening of global monetary policy has raised borrowing costs for Sub-Saharan countries both on domestic and international markets.
All Sub-Saharan African frontier markets have been cut off from market access since spring 2022.
The US dollar effective exchange rate reached a 20-year high last year, increasing the burden of dollar-denominated debt service payments. Interest payments as a share of revenue have doubled for the average SSA country over the past decade.
With shrinking aid budgets and reduced inflows from partners, this is leading to a big funding squeeze for the region.
The giant monetary body says that the lack of financing affects a region that is already struggling with elevated macroeconomic imbalances.
Unprecedented debts and inflation
In a previous article: The Poor, Squeezed by 10 Trillion Dollars in External Debts, IPS reported on the external debt of the world’s low and middle-income countries, which at the end of 2021 totalled 9 trillion US dollars, more than double the amount a decade ago.
Such debts are expected to increase by an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars in 2023, thus totalling 10.1 trillion US dollars.
Now, the IMF reports that “public debt and inflation are at levels not seen in decades, with double-digit inflation present in about half of the countries—eroding household purchasing power and striking at the most vulnerable.”
In short, “Sub-Saharan Africa stands to lose the most in a severely fragmented world and stresses the need for building resilience.”
Like many other major international bodies, the IMF indirectly blames African Governments for non adopting the “right” policies and encourages further investments in the region, while some insist that the way out is digitalisation, robotisation, etcetera.
The big contradiction
Here, a question arises: are all IMF and other monetary-oriented bodies’ recommendations and ‘altruistic’ advice the solution to the deepening collapse of a whole continent, home to around 1,4 billion human beings?
Not really, or at least not necessarily. A global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice, grounded in the commitment to the universality of human rights: Oxfam, on 13 April 2023 said that multilateral lender’s role in helping to insulate people in low- and middle-income countries from economic crises is “incoherent and inadequate.”
For example, “for every $1 the IMF encourages a set of poor countries to spend on public goods, it has told them to cut four times more through austerity measures.”
Countries forced to cut public funding
Then the global civil society movement explains that an important IMF initiative to shore up poor people in the Global South from the worst effects of its own austerity measures and the global economic crisis “is in tatters.”
New analysis by Oxfam finds that the IMF’s “Social Spending Floors” targets designed to help borrowing governments protect minimum levels of social spending— are proving largely powerless against its own austerity policies that instead force countries to cut public funding.
“The IMF’s ‘Social Spending Floors’ encouraged raising inflation-adjusted social spending by about $1 billion over the second year of its loan programs compared to the first year, across the 13 countries that participated where data is available.”
IMF’s austerity policiesBy comparison, the IMF’s austerity drive has required most of those same governments to rip away over $5 billion worth of state spending over the same period, warns Oxfam.
“This suggests the IMF was four times more effective in getting governments to cut their budgets than it is in guaranteeing minimum social investments,” said incoming Oxfam International interim Executive Director, Amitabh Behar.
“This is deeply worrying and disappointing, given that the IMF had itself urged countries to build back better after the pandemic by investing in social protection, health and education,” Behar said.
“Among the 2 billion people who are suffering most from the effects of austerity cuts and social spending squeezes, we know it is women who always bear the brunt.”
Oxfam’s report: “The Assault of Austerity” found inconsistencies between countries. There is no standard or transparent way of tracking progress and many of the minimum targets were inadequate.
The IMF has made some encouraging improvements in paying attention to social protection, health, and education, the report goes on, but it needs to do much more to avoid, in its own words, “repeating past mistakes”.
According to the OECD report, in 2022, official development assistance (ODA) by member countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) amounted to USD 204.0 billion.
This total included USD 201.4 billion in the form of grants, loans to sovereign entities, debt relief and contributions to multilateral institutions (calculated on a grant-equivalent basis); USD 0.8 billion to development-oriented private sector instrument (PSI) vehicles and USD 1.7 billion in the form of net loans and equities to private companies operating in ODA-eligible countries (calculated on a cash flow basis), it adds.
Total ODA in 2022 rose by 13.6% in real terms compared to 2021, says the OECD.
“This was the fourth consecutive year ODA surpassed its record levels, and one of the highest growth rates recorded in the history of ODA…”
The rich pocketing ‘obscene’ percentage of aid
In response, Marc Cohen, Oxfam’s aid expert, said: “In 2022, rich countries pocketed an obscene 14.4 percent of aid. They robbed the world’s poorest people of a much-needed lifeline in a time of multiple crises.
“Donors have turned their aid pledges into a farce. Not only have they undelivered more than 193 billion dollars, but they also funnelled nearly 30 billion dollars into their own pockets by mislabeling what counts as aid”.
Rich countries inflating their aid budgets
“They continue to inflate their aid budgets by including vaccine donations, the costs of hosting refugees, and by profiting off development aid loans. It is time for a system with teeth to hold them to account and make sure aid goes to the poorest people in the poorest countries.”
The report calls for expanding and strengthening youth participation in public policy making and decision-making at all levels, to realize the promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
A ‘driving force’ for change
The UN chief emphasized that youth are key to identifying new solutions for the breakthroughs that the world urgently needs.
“Young people have become a driving force for societal change through social mobilization – pushing for climate action, seeking racial justice, promoting gender equality and demanding dignity for all,” he said.
“By advocating for their active inclusion in policy spaces, young people provide diverse perspectives that improve and inform critical decisions.”
Struggling to be seen
Despite their numbers, young people remain almost invisible when it comes to participating in public policy making and decision-making, according to the report.
“This is evident at the national level, where mechanisms such as youth parliaments or youth councils struggle to make an impact on decisions being taken at the cabinet table, votes on domestic budgets, compromises in a peace process or agreements on a just transition,” the report said.
“The same is true in the multilateral sphere, where, despite the emergence of a patchwork of youth engagement opportunities, youth continue to exert little influence over decision-making around sustainable development, the maintenance of peace and security and human rights.”
Filling the gaps
The report highlights existing gaps and shortcomings and recommends action to fill the gaps.
Unless they are addressed, “youth engagement in decision-making at all levels will remain of mixed quality and the capacity of governments, public institutions and multilateral institutions – including the United Nations – to understand and respond to youth concerns will remain severely hampered,” the report warned.
The Secretary-General stressed that the UN system has a critical role to play in supporting young people to be adequately prepared to participate in decision-making at all levels.
“If the multilateral system is to be fit to deliver a present and future that works for all, then meaningful youth engagement must become the norm rather than the exception,” he said.
Setting the standard
In addition to expanding and strengthening youth participation, the report calls for endorsing a global standard for meaningful youth engagement in decision-making.
Over the years, Governments, youth organizations and UN entities have developed a series of core principles to ensure meaningful youth engagement, including that it should be rights-based, adequately resourced, transparent, and accessible, particularly for young people with disabilities.
Other recommendations call for establishing a national youth consultative body in every country and making meaningful youth engagement a requirement in all UN decision-making processes.
The report also advocates for ensuring the “systematic integration of meaningful youth participation into all UN intergovernmental mechanisms” and adopting clear arrangements for youth engagement across the work of the General Assembly.
It outlines more steps the UN should take, including reviewing the working methods of the Security Council and its relevant subsidiary bodies in relation to youth engagement, and creating a first-ever UN Youth Townhall to ensure more representative youth participation.
UNFCCC/Kiara Worth
Secretary-General António Guterres with young climate activists at the Climate Implementation Summit at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
A ‘game changer’ at the UN
The policy brief is the latest input by the Secretary-General ahead of next year’s Summit of the Future, where countries will examine common solutions for a better world, strengthening global governance for current and future generations.
It is the third report in a series building on proposals contained in his Our Common Agenda report, published in 2021.
In a post on her official Twitter account, the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, Jayathma Wickramanayake, described the policy brief as a “game changer” for ensuring meaningful youth participation at the UN.
The proposals contained in the brief draw on consultations with UN Member States and relevant stakeholders, including through two “MY World” surveys in which more than 10 million young people from 194 countries voted on issues that matter most to them.
“More than ever before, we see massive momentum on the youth front here at the UN and elsewhere – and this policy brief presents another big opportunity for us to take historic strides forward in opening up more spaces for youth participation at all levels,” Ms. Wickramanayake said in a video message.
The UN chief spoke earlier in the day to President William Ruto of Kenya and with the Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki.
Mr. Guterres will attend a virtual meeting on Sudan on Thursday, bringing together the AU Chairperson, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, the Executive Secretary of the East African bloc, IGAD, and other relevant organizations, to discuss ways the international community can help end the violence and restore order inside Sudan.
UN fully engaged
“Obviously, today he will continue to be fully engaged, making phone calls, trying to secure a 24-hour ceasefire, which will enable a much-needed reprieve to all affected civilians in Khartoum,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists attending his daily noon briefing in New York.
The UN Special Representative in Sudan, Volker Perthes, also continues engagement with parties on the ground, key Sudanese leaders and Member States, in trying to secure an immediate de-escalation in the fighting.
The crisis between the Sudanese armed forces and formerly allied Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries emerged as the country appeared to be returning to the path towards democratic transition. The sides are at odds over the process of restoring civilian rule.
New 24-hour ceasefire
The deadly clashes erupted on Saturday. An initial 24-hour ceasefire, announced for 6 pm, local time, on Tuesday, collapsed within minutes of the deadline.
The parties committed to a new 24-hour truce on Wednesday, also beginning at 6 pm, local time, but some international media reported that the shelling has continued.
The UN, AU and IGAD – known as the Trilateral Mechanism – issued a statement appealing to the sides “to create necessary conditions during this period for the civilians to seek safe shelter, food and medical care.”
Devastating impact on civilians
Mr. Dujarric said the continued heavy fighting is having devastating consequences for civilians, as well as UN staff and other members of the international community.
“We reiterate to the parties to the conflict that they must respect international law,” he said.
“They are obliged to protect civilians and ensure the safety and security of all United Nations and associated personnel as well as their premises, our assets, and trapped civilians must be able to receive assistance, access essential supplies and evacuate to safer zones as needed.”
Vital supplies dwindling
As the crisis deepens, humanitarians warn that people are running out of food, fuel and other vital supplies, and many urgently need medical care.
“We desperately need a humanitarian pause so that wounded and sick civilians can reach hospitals,” Mr. Dujarric said, adding “people in Khartoum have been unable to safely leave their homes to buy food and other essential items for days.”
He reported that the humanitarian response remains severely hampered, calling for an end to attacks against aid workers and looting of humanitarian facilities.
“Humanitarians must be able to safely carry out their work. Aid agencies must be able to safely move staff and replenish critical supplies,” he stressed.
Health system concerns
The UN is also worried that Sudan’s healthcare system could completely collapse as hospitals need additional staff and supplies, including blood.
The violence and attacks have forced 16 hospitals across the country to close, nine in Khartoum alone, Mr. Dujarric said, citing the World Health Organization (WHO). Another 16 hospitals, including in Darfur states, could close soon due to staff fatigue and lack of supplies.
“It goes without saying that we condemn all attacks on health personnel, on facilities and ambulances – which is putting more lives at risk,” he said. “These are flagrant violations of international law, and they must stop.”
Sudanese refugees seek safety in neighboring Chad following an outbreak of violence in Darfur.
Sudanese refugees arrive in Chad
As fighting rages on in Sudan, humanitarian agencies are also monitoring the arrivals of new Sudanese refugees in neighbouring Chad, a representative of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said early on Wednesday.
UNHCR’s Laura Lo Castro tweeted about a joint mission conducted with the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Chad’s national commission in charge of refugees, to observe the influx of new Sudanese refugees in the east, “assess urgent needs and agree on [a] response plan”.
She said there were an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 new refugees in the first three sites visited.
Any new arrivals will be entering a situation marked by soaring humanitarian needs and chronic underfunding.
Just last week, before the military power struggle erupted in Sudan, WFP warned that hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people in Chad could face hunger because there was no funding for food assistance beyond this coming May.
Stéphane Dujarric described the direct transfer of money, mostly to those who have been displaced and lost their jobs due to the fighting, as “a continuation of crucial assistance that we, along with our partners, have provided in most regions of Ukraine”.
He said last year, some six million people across different parts of Ukraine had been provided with cash, and this year more than $200 million had been transferred to help Ukrainians meet their basic needs.
“This was made possible through the coordinated efforts of [more than] 20 partners, including UN agencies, national non-governmental organizations and international non-governmental organizations as well”, said Mr. Dujarric.
One billion target
He added that the target overall, was to provide cash assistance to around 4.4 million people, transferring close to $1 billion in total.
And overall, humanitarians are hoping to provide some kind of relief to more than 11 million people of the nearly 18 million who need assistance in Ukraine.
“To this end, we and our partners requested $3.9 billion for the response”, the UN Spokesperson continued. “So far, we received a total of $900 million so we count on the international community to sustain its support to the humanitarian response in the country, as the war continues to drive a grave humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, particularly in the east and the south.
Over the weekend, the UN managed to provide shelter materials and other vital items to more than 1,500 people in a community along the Dnipro River in Kherson region.
It’s the first time that aid workers have managed to reach the area just a few hundred metres from the frontline, “where the level of destruction is appalling”, according to the UN humanitarian affairs coordination office (OCHA) in Ukraine.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the country, Denise Brown, said on Monday that in getting two convoys into the Donetsk and Kherson regions last Friday, UN teams were “inching our way towards the frontline, to relieve the suffering of these communities who are under constant shelling”.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
