More than 5,000 people have reportedly died, many of them residents of Derna, which was struck by a torrent of water from two dams which burst, sweeping away whole neighbourhoods of the port city.
“Search and rescue operations are actively underway, led by national agencies, military, the Libyan Red Crescent and local volunteers”, said a statement released by the UN Spokesperson’s Office.
Catastrophic flooding breaks dams and sweeps away buildings and homes in Libya.
Supporting role
The Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Libya, Georgette Gagnon, has tasked an emergency response team to support local authorities and partners.
A team from the Geneva-based UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) operation, part of humanitarian coordination office OCHA, has been deployed to support response and relief operations.
Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, announced on Tuesday an initial allocation of $10 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to support those affected by the floods.
Oil-rich Libya has in effect been split since 2014 between an interim, internationally recognized Government operating from the capital, Tripoli, and another one in the east, with many armed groups also operating on its territory. The two sides signed a ceasefire in 2020, but political rivalries continue.
‘Brutally swept away’
The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, issued a statement on Wednesday saying he was profoundly distressed “that thousands of lives have been so brutally swept away in eastern Libya, and so many more people have lost their loved ones, their homes, their communities, and their access to basic needs.”
He called on all Libyan political actors to overcome the deadlock preventing national unity and division, “and to act collectively in ensuring access to relief.”
“This is a time for unity of purpose: all those affected must receive support, without regard for any affiliations. It is important that particular care is taken to ensure protection of groups in vulnerable situations – who are rendered even more at risk in the aftermath of such a disaster.”
Help ‘any way we can’
Speaking to reporters earlier at UN Headquarters in New York, Secretary-General António Guterres said that the UN was ready to “work in any and every way we can with partners to help get emergency assistance to those who so desperately need it.”
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday it had despatched its first shipment of food assistance to Libya in the wake of the floods which have left more than 10,000 injured or missing.
In coming days, WFP aims to reach more than 5,000 families whose lives were turned upside down when the dams burst after being hammered by Hurricane Daniel over the weekend.
‘Out of control’
“Entire neighborhoods in Derna disappeared, along with their residents, swept away by water after the two aging structures collapsed, creating a catastrophic situation that is out of control”, said WFP.
Derna is the worst-affected city while Albayda, Almarj, Benghazi, Bayada, Al Owailia, Taknes (AlJabal Al Akhdar), Talmeitha, Tobruk, Toukra, Shahhat, and Sousa were also hit.
On Tuesday, WFP commenced its response with cooperating partner LibAid, distributing rations – that include sugar, pasta, rice, wheat flour, tomato paste, white beans and cooking oil – to hundreds of families across 16 locations in the capital of the eastern administration, Benghazi.
More than 2,000 storm-affected and displaced people who fled from Derna to Benghazi have already received food and distributions are ongoing.
WFP already assists more than 52,000 people in with in-kind food and cash grants in Libya, including internally displaced people, returnees, and migrants in urban areas.
Opinion by Osamu Kusumoto, Sotaro Kusumoto (tokyo, japan)
Inter Press Service
TOKYO, Japan, Sep 12 (IPS) –
1. SDGs and global governance
Sustainable development is the challenge of how to build a society in which humanity can live with dignity in this global environment. The SDGs set 17 goals and 169 targets to achieve sustainable development. Goals 16 and 17 are aimed precisely at building global governance through the formation of global rules. Goal 16 lists 10 specific targets, while Goal 17 lists 19 targets.
Sotaro KusumotoWhen a society functions with common values, it can be governed by non-verbal rules such as norms, but when the planet Earth, which is made up of diverse values, is regarded as a single society, it becomes necessary to govern it in the form of rules of law by explicit laws as common rules for the management of society. This is the condition for global governance by so-called global rules. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is little research on the nature of these global rules and how they should be constructed.
In order to answer this question, it is necessary to analyse the relationship between the legitimacy that defines the rules of governance in each country and the governance structure in the first place, and based on this analysis, identify issues and make proposals that can overcome these issues.
2. Laws of respective country and legitimacy
In modern societies, national laws are legislated under national constitutions. For example, the pros and cons of the death penalty are debated, but the essential reason why this is controversial is whether the fundamental question of on what grounds a person can deny the life of another person, even if he or she uses the institution of law, exists there. This question becomes clearer in the case of democracy. The epistemological question becomes whether the people, as sovereigns who constitute the sovereignty of the state, can take the lives of sovereigns on the basis of law, even if the law is legislated by parliamentarians elected through the system of elections.
In fact, the institution of the state is the only institution that can legally kill. International law recognises war as the final solution measures to international disputes. It is also regarded as a means of settling disputes over the sovereignty of states, recognised by international law, in the absence of any superior power.
Osamu KusumotoWhat is clear here is that the sovereignty of a state goes beyond the usual logical arguments and forms a value for the people, and the law of each country is founded on the fact that this value is not in question.
And the legitimacy of this rule is, surprisingly, provided for in the preamble of each country’s constitution. Even if there is no such statement in the preamble of the constitution, it is stipulated in the more fundamental texts of the fundamental law of each country, in the case of the UK in the Magna Carta, in the case of the US in the Declaration of Independence, and in the case of France in the Declaration of Human Rights.
The international order to date has made the values of the hegemonic powers, such as Pax Romana and Pax Britannica, the de facto rule. However, in an international community where diverse cultures and values exist, it is not possible to conduct global governance with the values of any one country as the global rules.
3. Possibility of global rules
Even though it is a difficult question how to set values, the legal conditions under which global rules can be established are relatively clear. Fairness, rationality, transparency, stability and predictability are required. A rule of law is established when people understand that the rule has validity.
The question is how to construct transcendental values that correspond to the sovereignty of people’s belief systems as values in the law of each country. The sociology of religion and the sociology of domination shows that the legitimacy of the transcendent rule of law, which forms the basis of the values of each country, is formed from the fact that the survival of the group is possible.
When we consider that humanity is an inhabitant of this fragile planet and that the idea of humanity as a community is at the root of the SDGs, and that our lives and the lives of others have equal value as the very basis of human rights, the legitimacy of global societal domination in the era of the SDGs must be based on sustainability, this means that the legitimacy of global society’s domination in the era of the SDGs must lie in sustainability.
Despite criticisms of idealism, the only logical solution to global governance is to create the conditions for its realisation.
Sotaro Kusumoto, Staff, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan Osamu Kusumoto, Secretary General, Forum on Future Vison
“Human rights in Afghanistan are in a state of collapse,” he told the Human Rights Council, before sounding the alarm over ongoing reports of extrajudicial killings, torture and ill-treatment and arbitrary arrests and detentions, as well as serious violations against former Government officials, as documented in a new human rights office (OHCHR) report.
“Compounding all of this is a deeply troubling lack of accountability for perpetrators of human rights violations,” he said.
Women cancelled out
Highlighting the “devastating precedent” set by Afghanistan as the only country in the world where women and girls are denied access to secondary and higher education. Mr. Türk underscored the “long list of misogynistic restrictions” confining the country’s women “to the four walls of their homes”, before asking: “What can possibly come next?”
The High Commissioner insisted that any prospect of a stable, prosperous Afghanistan rests on the participation of men and women.
“Denying women and girls’ rights to participate in daily and public life not only denies them their human rights, it denies Afghanistan the benefit of the contributions they have to offer,” he said.
Constitution on hold
Mr. Türk said that the suspension of the Afghan constitution and of laws protecting women from violence or guaranteeing media freedom, as well as the dissolution of the country’s Independent Human Rights Commission, were elements of the “systematic erosion of the institutions that once provided some protection for human rights”.
The High Commissioner called on the de facto authorities to “change course” and bring Afghanistan back to the international fold with full respect for its international human rights obligations.
He insisted that the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) will continue to monitor and report on the situation, as well as “raise individual cases and urge compliance with international law by the de facto authorities” to the greatest extent possible.
Mr. Türk paid tribute to the work of his human rights colleagues on the ground, especially Afghan female staff.
He also exhorted the international community not to “turn its back on Afghanistan” at a time when rights were being eroded and two-thirds of the population were in need of aid, while humanitarian operations were hindered by the ban on women working for the UN and NGOs.
‘Feeling betrayed’
Mr. Türk’s comments came a day after the Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, delivered a sombre update to the Council.
Many Afghans living abroad “say they feel ‘betrayed’ by the international community”, the Special Rapporteur explained. They are calling for concrete action and some have even started a hunger strike “calling for recognition of gender apartheid”.
In June, Mr. Bennett had said that since systematic and institutionalised discrimination against women and girls was at the heart of Taliban ideology and rule, Afghanistan’s de facto authorities “may be responsible for gender apartheid” which, although “not yet an explicit international crime”, required “further study”.
Repression of minorities
Mr. Bennett also briefed the Council on Monday on the “collapse of civic space” and “absence of rule of law” since the Taliban takeover, the long-term impacts on children’s development and mental health, and the repression and lack of representation of minorities such as Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and Turkmen.
“I’m concerned about the effect [that the] strong sense of discrimination and exclusion held by large parts of the population may have on the stability of Afghanistan,” he said.
Special Rapporteurs are not UN staff and are independent from any government or organisation. They serve in their individual capacity and receive no salary for their work.
In its latest report, the UN Human Rights Council (OHCHR) body found that attacks on civilians, escalating fighting, economic decline and human rights violations persist, despite the country’s re-admission to the League of Arab States.
The continued war in Syria is a “monument to the failure of diplomacy” said Inquiry Chair, Paulo Pinheiro.
Speaking in Geneva at the launch of the report, Mr Pinheiro called on all parties to the conflict to cease the attacks on civilians following the recent wave of demonstrations.
He urged the government in Damascus to respond positively to Syrians’ legitimate aspirations and rights before the country “plunges deeper into escalating violence and economic decline”.
Aftermath of earthquake
The Commission Chairperson reiterated the need for “unilateral coercive measures” imposed by the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Switzerland from 2011 onwards, to be reviewed, and called for the easing of sanctions since the earthquake on 6 February 2023 to be maintained.
He pointed out that at the time of the earthquake, the Commission received “multiple reports of aid diversion, extortion and corruption,” and documented “obstruction and interference in aid delivery” in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
The “Government and other parties needless hindered life-saving aid” and “no party answered our call for a cease-fire. They continue shelling and they continue the war”, Mr Pinheiro said.
Citing the report, Mr Pinheiro explained that a single airstrike on 25 June killed or injured over 37 civilians at an outdoor vegetable market in Idlib that should have been observable to the offensive forces.
He added that of the 15 attacks documented in the earthquake-affected area, several may constitute war crimes.
Airstrikes
According to the report, humanitarian operations were also affected by suspected Israeli airstrikes that rendered key transport infrastructure inoperable.
“These instances, as well as the failure of the UN Security Council to reach a consensus in July to extend cross-border aid deliveries via the Bab Al-Hawa border crossing, stand as a stark reminder of how hostilities, politicisation and fragmentation in Syria harm civilians and deprive them of much-needed assistance,” Commissioner Lynn Welchman said.
Calling for a thorough review of the failures of the earthquake response,” she urged warring parties and the international community to ensure that cross-border humanitarian assistance can continue at the necessary scale and in a principled, needs-based and sustainable manner”.
Displaced
Meanwhile, the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) found that continued hostilities, including shelling, have displaced some 5,300 families, which is more than 26,500 people, between 1 and 9 September.
Clashes in northeastern Aleppo forced nearly 4,600 families from their homes and there are reports of overcrowding in camps and villages, with some families resorting to sleeping in the open. As of 9 September, at least five people were killed, with 22 others, including 11 children, injured.
While the situation in Deir-ez-Zor Governorate, in Syria’s northeast Syria, is calm, hostilities since 27 August have reportedly resulted in 69 deaths and 96 injuries.
More than 6,700 families have been displaced according to Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
Safe return ‘implausible’
The Commission also documents how recent weeks have seen increased conflict in greater Idlib, displacing thousands, and killing dozens in Deir-Ezzor, as well as an outbreak of large-scale protests calling for economic, social, civil and political rights in Government controlled-areas, notably Suweida.
It warns that beyond the frontlines, the safe return of Syrian refugees is implausible with cases of ill-treatment by Syrian security forces, including some blackmailed for their release.
Several refugees, including children, have since gone missing, it states. Arbitrarily detaining, torturing, forcibly disappearing and executing civilians in areas under their control is a war crime and crime against humanity the Commission points out, while calling for the release of all persons arbitrarily detained in Syria.
In a positive development, Mr Pinheiro noted that families seeking clarity on the fate of detained, disappeared and missing loved ones had received “long-awaited welcome news” following the establishment of the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria by the General Assembly in June.
No peace
Commenting on the impact on ordinary Syrians, Commissioner of the Inquiry, Hanny Megally described the experience of truffle gatherers in central Syria: “We’re seeing an increase, [in] people fighting over economic needs and survival and that results in violence, abductions.” People fighting over the truffle market is “an example of the country descending into that state of insecurity,” he said.
KAMPALA/LUSAKA/HARARE, Sep 12 (IPS) – Almost 30 years ago in 1994, the world witnessed a historic event as 179 nations convened on African soil, in Cairo, for the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).
In an unprecedented moment of collective action, Heads of State adopted a revolutionary Programme of Action and called for women’s reproductive health and rights to take center stage in national and global development efforts.
This summer, in another first, the Women Deliver Conference had its annual meeting in Kigali, Rwanda. As the largest conference on gender equality in the world with 6,000 in-person delegates and a further 200,000 remote participants, the event was a welcome symbol of Africa’s commitment to the rights of women and girls.
Despite this, it was frustrating to witness echoes of the global pushback currently plaguing the reproductive justice movement and how decades of progress on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) continue to face assault.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Hungarian President drew controversy for championing her ‘pro-family’ ideals in sharp contrast to the purpose that had united many of the delegates present.
President Katalin Novák, a key player in the movement opposing women’s and girls’ rights, notably access to safe and legal abortion, has publicly asserted that Hungarian women “should not compete with men” or expect to earn equal pay. She publicly envisioned her teenage daughter being empowered to choose a path of mothering a substantial number of children, “even 10 children if she chooses to”.
As part of a 40-women delegation from the Women in Global Health network, we experienced the clash firsthand. Three decades since Cairo, and the struggle for women’s and girls’ rights continues, but as African health professionals and agents of change in the systems we deliver, so does our determination to sustain progress on the continent.
We have much to be proud of. In November 2021, Benin’s Parliament voted to legalize abortion in most circumstances. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, the first country in Francophone Africa to do so, expanded access to abortion care, and endorsed guidelines to implement the directives of the African Protocol on the Rights of Women (the Maputo Protocol).
In July 2022, Sierra Leone took steps to modernize outdated abortion laws following decades of advocacy by the women’s movement and government officials.
Despite these advances, women and adolescent girls in Africa continue to have some of the world’s highest maternal death and morbidity rates. With low access to modern contraceptive methods and quality, safe and legal abortion, stalling progress means life and death for many women and girls.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the failure of many governments to integrate a gender-responsive approach in national health systems on SRHR. During the emergency response, SRHR services were not always deemed essential and sidelined, resulting in a surge of gender-based violence, unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions.
Access to modern contraception and reproductive health, fundamental to determining whether and how many children to have, when and with whom, remains inaccessible for many adolescent girls and women. Quality, safe abortion care is a right. Restrictions on abortion do not eliminate abortion; they only eliminate safe abortions, resulting in women’s deaths.
According to global estimates up to 10 million more girls will be at risk of becoming child brides in the next decade as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reports also indicate that though all women and girls globally face discrimination in laws, social norms and practices, women and girls in Africa bear the highest share of discrimination in terms of intra-household dynamics and caregiving roles, working environments including harmful practices such as domestic violence and female genital mutilation.
Women health workers are grossly underrepresented in health leadership and this is a key factor in the current push back on SRHR. Women comprise the majority of the health workforce, given they are 70 percent of the overall workforce globally and 90 percent of frontline staff, yet they occupy just 25 percent of leadership roles.
For lower- and middle-income regions such as Africa, the percentage of women in leadership is as low as five percent. As the majority of frontline health professionals, women health workers have a deeper understanding of the health needs of their communities including SRHR needs. This power imbalance at decision-making tables excludes their valuable experiences and expertise to shape policies and programs that adequately address the health needs of women and girls.
Compounding this, 70% of women in Africa are said to be excluded financially, with an estimated gap of $42 billion between men and women. Around six million women work unpaid and underpaid in core health systems roles, effectively subsidizing global health.
Health and care are essential employment sectors for women and have the potential to unlock gender transformative lessons for the rest of the economy by addressing systemic biases that hinder women’s empowerment. Investing in the health workforce, the majority of whom are women, is a sound investment with potential gains for health systems, social change, and economic growth.
The role of women health workers delivering SRHR services in health systems cannot be overestimated. Women health workers typically counsel and support women and girls in accessing a range of modern contraceptives and in dealing with high-risk or unwanted pregnancy.
They brave violence and harassment from anti-rights protestors at quality, safe abortion facilities. They face online abuse and threats when expressing views in favor of SRHR, especially safe abortion.
As a platform, the Women Deliver Conference provided an opportunity for gender advocates and Civil Society Organizations to amplify efforts towards promoting a gender-responsive agenda among policy players and government leaders. While several countries have ratified human rights declarations over the years, not enough has been done to live up to the promise of making gender equality a reality.
Women’s movements and their allies are pivotal for mobilizing the necessary political will needed to drive progress on SRHR. As members of Women in Global Health, a movement challenging power and privilege for gender equity in health, we are calling on political and global health leaders to establish the following:
1. Gender responsive UHC that ensures all people have access to the services they need, when they need them including access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for women and girls.
2. Gender Equal and diverse leadership in Global Health based on Gender Transformative Leadership. This offers equal opportunities for women to lead in health and contribute to shaping health systems and health policies that are gender responsive. This is critical if we are to achieve health for all.
3. Gender equity in emergency preparedness and response. We are calling for continuation of essential health services, including SRHR, and the protection of health workers to be central in these political agreements.
Movements such as ours are pivotal in building allyship between health workers and national leaders in the delivery of SRHR while also safeguarding health outcomes for future generations. Across Africa, reducing health inequities and maternal mortalities is of paramount concern.
African countries have the opportunity to secure the foundation for just societies and health for all, what we need now is to hold firm against the global pushback on reproductive rights and deliver on the promises made to women and girls.
This article was authored by Members of the African Women in Global Health network: Dorothy Akongo, Research and Advocacy Manager, Busoga Health Forum and Coordinator, Uganda Chapter; Flata Mwale, Global Health Professional and Deputy Country Lead, Zambia Chapter; Vivian Mugarisi, Public Health Communications Specialist, Zimbabwe Chapter.
Addressing the opening of the Council’s 54th session, Mr. Türk strongly condemned the “old, blunt, brutal politics of repression” as exemplified by a rise in military coups and the crushing of dissent – “in short, the fist”.
Following military takeovers in Niger and Gabon, he insisted that the “unconstitutional changes in government” such as the ones seen recently in the Sahel are “not the solution”.
“We need instead an urgent reversal to civilian governance, and open spaces where people can participate, influence, accompany and criticise government actions – or lack of action,” he said.
Interlinked rights and development challenges
Mr. Türk said that the challenges faced by countries in the Sahel, which leave their populations “struggling for daily survival”, are interlinked.
The devastating impacts of climate change, lack of investment in essential services and weak governance “are the sources that violent extremism draws from”, he warned.
He also sounded the alarm over mass-produced “lies and disinformation” aided by new technologies and emphasized that “people everywhere want – and have the right to… objective information, not propaganda.”
‘Leave no one behind’
The UN rights chief underscored that over his years of service with the UN it had become clear to him that development issues “underlie almost every challenge we face”.
“Leaving no-one behind is not an empty slogan. It is a human rights action plan that reaches across the whole spectrum of human rights”, he said.
He deplored the fact that the world was “betraying [its] promise” to end hunger and poverty by 2030.
‘Collective human rights failure’
Some 600 million people are projected to be chronically undernourished at the end of the decade according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) despite the massive financial and technological resources at our disposal, Mr. Türk said.
He also stressed that 1.2 billion people, nearly half of them children, now live in “acute multidimensional poverty” and risk being joined by millions more as a result of climate change, as projected by the World Bank.
“This is a terrible collective human rights failure,” he stated.
Fight against inequalities
The High Commissioner detailed steps to address the “abyss between rich and poor” and the inequalities preventing humanity from achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
He spoke about the need for a reform of the international financial architecture offering “fairer deals on debt relief”, urgent funding for developing countries in the form of an SDG Stimulus, a push towards international tax cooperation and a reinvigorated global fight against corruption and illicit financial flows.
Environmental accountability
Mr. Türk also called for “effectively financed human rights-based climate action” to help developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change, to which they contributed so little, and offset the damage done.
He stressed the need for a “rapid, equitable phase-out of fossil fuels” and welcomed the consideration of measures to ensure “accountability for environmental damage”, such as the proposed inclusion of the international crime of “ecocide” in the Rome Statute of the UN-backed International Criminal Court.
‘Politics of indifference’
In his address the UN rights chief highlighted a wide range of human rights crises around the world. He said that he was shocked by the “nonchalance” and the “politics of indifference” in the face of more than 2,300 people reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean this year, “including the loss of more than 600 lives in a single shipwreck off Greece in June”.
He strongly condemned the fact that many more migrants and refugees were dying “unnoticed” in Europe, in the Bay of Bengal, on the border between the United States and Mexico and beyond.
Russia’s warfare in Ukraine ‘horrific’
Mr. Türk also spoke about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the “horrific warfare” which has ravaged the country.
“The Russian Federation’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July, and attacks on grain facilities in Odesa and elsewhere, have again forced prices sky-high in many developing countries – taking the right to food far out of reach for many people,” he said.
He reiterated his “deep concerns” regarding restrictions on fundamental rights in Russia and “particularly severe oppression” of the anti-war movement and human rights activists, as exemplified by the harsh prison sentences handed down to opponents Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Palestine and Iran
The High Commissioner expressed his “profound shock” at the escalating violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as well as concern over the “continuing civic space restrictions” by the Palestinian Authorities and de facto authorities in Gaza.
He also deplored the “inadequate” accountability for the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran one year on and reiterated his concerns over restriction on the rights of women and girls, as well as the renewed deployment of the morality police, a force “almost exclusively aimed” at controlling them.
‘Repugnant’ Quran burnings
The “fabrication of artificial disputes over gender” was part of what Mr. Türk called “the politics of division and distraction”. In this context he brought up the “repugnant” series of some 30 recent incidents of burning the Quran to “create divisions, both within societies, and between countries”.
He announced that he would discuss this topic in detail on 6 October, as mandated by a resolution adopted during an urgent debate at the Council’s previous session.
Minute of silence
Monday’s meeting opened with a minute of silence honouring the victims of the devastating earthquake in Morocco on 8 September, which has so far claimed at least 2,100 lives.
The Vice-President of the Council, Permanent Representative of the Gambia to the UN in Geneva Muhammadou M.O. Kah, urged solidarity with the victims, stressing to delegations present that they were “not just representatives of nations or organisations” but “part of a global community, humanity”. Morocco’s ambassador Omar Zniber thanked delegates for the gesture and the Geneva-based organisations for their support.
Marathon session
The Human Rights Council’s 54th session will run until 13 October at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. During the marathon five-week session, the Council will focus on the human rights situations in Afghanistan, Belarus, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Ukraine among others.
“Education is not only a fundamental human right, but a pathway to a better future for every person, and a more peaceful, understanding world,” he underscored.
He voiced a startling truth: around the globe 224 million children and young people are in urgent need of educational support – including 72 million who are out-of-school altogether – because of crises such as armed conflict.
Attacks double
According to a comprehensive report on children and armed conflicts published by the UN chief earlier this year, from January to December 2022, there was a 112 per cent rise in attacks targeting schools and hospitals, with hotspots identified in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Burkina Faso, Israel, Palestine, Myanmar and Mali.
In Afghanistan, for example, the UN verified a total of 95 attacks on civilian targets, including 72 on schools.
The report attributed 50 per cent of grave violations to non-State armed groups. The other half involved government forces, who were primarily responsible for the gravest offenses, including the killing and maiming of children, relentless assaults on schools and hospitals, and obstructing humanitarian access.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday that by the end of 2022, the total number of school-aged refugees globally jumped nearly 50 per cent from 10 million in 2021 to 14.8 million, driven mostly by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Disrupted learning
As put by Mr. Guterres, “attacks on students, teachers, educational personnel and schools are becoming all too common, cruelly disrupting young learners’ education and inflicting untold psychological and physical damage that can last a lifetime.”
One of the clear signs of the education deficit is the startling statistic that 763 million people around the world – adults and youngsters – lack even basic literacy skills.
‘Havens of safety and learning’
The Secretary-General urged all countries to ensure the protection of schools, children and teachers at all times, through measures such as the Safe Schools Declaration and the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack.
Through joint efforts, Mr. Guterres believes, schools can become “havens of safety and learning for every child, no matter where they live”.
UNITED NATIONS & NAIROBI, Sep 08 (IPS) – In a world set on fire by climate change and brutal conflict, millions of children in emergencies and protracted crises need educational support. Children in 48 out of 49 African countries are at high or extremely high risk of the impacts of climate change, particularly in the Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Guinea, Somalia, and Guinea Bissau.
“We have reached catastrophic proportions of 224 million children today in conflict and other humanitarian crises in need of education support. Financial needs for education in emergencies within humanitarian appeals have nearly tripled over the last three years – from US$1.1 billion in 2019 to almost US$3 billion at the end of 2022. In 2022, only 30 percent of education requirements were funded, indicating a widening gap,” Education Cannot Wait (ECW) Executive Director Yasmine Sherif tells IPS.
Released today ahead of this month’s UN General Assembly and SDG Summit in New York, ECW’s ‘With Hope and Courage: 2022 Annual Results Report’ is a deep dive into the challenges, opportunities, key trends, and vast potential that “education for all” offers as nations across the globe race to deliver on the promises outlined in the SDG’s, Paris Agreement and other international accords.
Sherif stresses that as nations worldwide celebrate International Literacy Day – and the power of education to build sustainable and peaceful societies- ECW calls on world leaders to scale up financial support to reach vulnerable children in need, especially those furthest left behind. As more and more children are plunged into humanitarian crises, there is a widening funding gap as the needs have skyrocketed over recent years.
The report sends an urgent appeal for additional financing – featuring the latest trends in education in emergencies. It also shows the fund’s progress with UN and civil society partners in advancing quality education, particularly Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 for vulnerable girls and boys in humanitarian crises worldwide to access inclusive, quality, safe education.
“While the number of out-of-school children in situations of conflict, climate-induced disasters, and as refugees is skyrocketing – funding is not keeping up with the snowballing crisis. But even in these unfortunate circumstances, the report has a positive message. ECW and its global strategic partners have reached 8.8 million children with quality, holistic education since its 2016 inception and more than 4.2 million in 2022 alone. The only reason we have not reached more children is insufficient funding. We have mobilized over $1.5 billion to date, and we need another $670 million to reach 20 million children by the end of our 2023-2026 strategic plan,” she observes.
Sherif emphasizes that the global community must ensure that girls and boys impacted by armed conflicts, climate-induced disasters, and forced displacement are not left behind but rather placed at the forefront for an inclusive and continued quality education. Education is the foundation for sustainable and peaceful societies.
“Our annual report demonstrates that it is possible to deliver safe, inclusive, quality education with proven positive learning outcomes in countries affected by conflict and to refugees. ECW has done it through strategic partnerships with host governments, government donors, the private sector, philanthropic foundations, UN agencies, civil society, local organizations, and other key stakeholders,” she explains.
“Together, we have delivered quality education to 9 million children and adolescents impacted by crises. The systems are in place, including a coordination structure; with more funding, we can reach more girls and boys in humanitarian crises around the world in places such as the Sahel, South Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and Latin America and enable girls to access community-based secondary education in Afghanistan. We have a proven efficient and effective funding model of delivering the promise of education.”
ECW has thus far financed education programmes across 44 countries and crisis settings. Of the 4.2 million children reached in 2022, 21 percent were refugees, and 14 percent were internally displaced. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools across the globe, ECW repositioned its programming and supported distance learning, life-saving access to water and sanitation facilities, and other integrated supports – reaching an additional 32.2 million children.
ECW’s commitment to gender equality and tackling the gender gap in education is bearing fruit. Towards the fund’s goal of 60 percent girls reached in all its investments, girls represent over 50 percent of all children reached in 2022.
In 2022, ECW’s rapid First Emergency Responses to new or escalating crises included a strong focus on the climate crisis through grants for the drought in Eastern Africa and floods in Pakistan and Sudan. ECW also approved new funding in response to the war in Ukraine and renewed violence in the Lake Chad Region and Ethiopia.
“On scaling up funding for education, the report shows funding for education in emergencies was higher than ever before in 2022, and that total available funding has grown by more than 57 percent over just three years – from US$699 million in 2019 to more than US$1.1 billion in 2022,” Sherif explains.
With support from ECW’s key strategic donor partners – including Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as the top-three contributors among 25 in total, and visionary private sector partners like The LEGO Foundation – US$826 million was announced at the ECW High-Level Financing Conference in early 2023.
In addition, collective resource mobilization efforts from all partners and stakeholders at global, regional, and country levels helped unlock an additional US$842 million of funding for education in emergencies and protracted crises, which contributed to alignment with ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programmes in 22 countries.
To date, some of ECW’s largest and prospective bilateral and multilateral donors have not yet committed funding for the full 2023–2026 period, and there remains a gap in funding from the private sector, foundations, and philanthropic donors. In the first half of 2023, ECW faces a funding gap of approximately US$670 million to fully finance results under the Strategic Plan 2023–2026, which will reach 20 million children over the next three years.
IPS UN Bureau Report
UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Representative in the country, Grant Leaity, issued the alert on Tuesday, revealing that youngsters in eastern DRC face daily atrocities, including rape, abduction and recruitment by armed groups.
“I visited a centre in Beni and North Kivu for children released from armed groups where I met a couple of one-year-old twins. They were found only a few months back and abandoned in their village, they’re orphans. They were severely acutely malnourished and they had explosive devices attached to their bodies.”
Daily carnage
DR Congo has the highest tally of UN-verified grave violations against children in places experiencing armed conflict. According to UNICEF, children are killed and maimed every day in the east of the country.
Speaking at a scheduled press briefing in Geneva, Mr. Leaity said that there were “few worse places, if any, to be a child” than eastern DR Congo.
According to the UNICEF official, the family of the twins who were wired with explosives had been killed in an attack by one of the many armed groups operating in the eastern DRC.
The expanding use of improvised explosive devices is just one of several recent, depraved trends, he said.
“When they were found, there were only a few months old. This was indeed a booby trap. We got in touch with the anti-mine personnel colleagues who came and were able to take these devices off safely.”
Ruthless hunt for resources
This upsurge in violence and conflict in the country’s east has its roots in ethnic conflict and ruthless competition for resources dating back decades. It has resulted in the worst displacement crisis in Africa, and one of the worst globally this year.
Of six grave violations against children in armed conflicts reported on by the UN in eastern DRC, two have increased sharply in the last 12 months: the recruitment of children by armed groups and killing and maiming of children.
“More than 2.8 million children are bearing the brunt of the humanitarian crisis in the east. I am here today to, I hope, sound the alarm,” Mr. Leaity continued. “On a daily basis, children are being raped and killed. They are being abducted, recruited and used by armed groups.”
In the first three months of 2023 in North Kivu alone, more than 38,000 cases of sexual and gender-based violence were reported. This is a 37 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2021.
Class war
In addition to the devastating violence, around 1.2 million children under five in the east, face the risk of severe acute malnutrition, according to UNICEF. The country is also experiencing its worst cholera outbreak in more than five years, with measles on the rise in particular in and around 12 provinces with over 780,000 cases reported by August this year.
In addition to the immediate physical and mental trauma affecting children, around 2,000 schools have closed in the eastern DRC in the year, as result of the latest uptick in violence.
“There are schools which are directly attacked…they can be shot at or burned down and sometimes they are literally looted and destroyed,” UNCEF’s Mr. Leaity said.
“But there are far greater numbers where schools are being used by internally displaced people who have no other available options for shelter.”
In many other cases, schools that have not been looted or otherwise damaged have had to remain closed because the teachers are themselves amongst the displaced.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2020). International Migrant Stock 2020.
Opinion by Vanessa Steinmayer, Simon Graham (bangkok, thailand)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Thailand, Sep 08 (IPS) – In Asia and the Pacific, migration is again on the rise. In 2020, almost 109 million people lived in a country other than that of their birth. They represented 2.3 per cent of the region’s population in 2020 and almost 38 per cent of the world’s international migrants.
If managed properly, migration can benefit migrants, their families, as well as both the countries they come from and go to.
Growth in the international migrant stock in Asia and the Pacific and by subregion, 1990—2020
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2020). International Migrant Stock 2020.
Migration is largely a result of disparities
Development disparities are a key driver of international migration. Poverty, limited job opportunities, recently exacerbated by rising food and energy prices, and the prospect for higher wages abroad are main contributors to the decision to migrate.
Migrants work in jobs of all skill levels: construction and domestic workers, nurses, accountants, computer scientists, teachers and many others. Women are particularly engaged in domestic and care work.
Migration primarily occurs within the region. People often prefer to migrate to countries with geographic and cultural proximity. The region features distinct migration corridors, such as from Central Asia to the Russian Federation, from Pacific islands to Australia or within South East Asia.
Temporary labour migration from Asia and the Pacific to the Middle East is significant too, with Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines as the main countries of origin. Overall, Asia and the Pacific is a hub for international migration; many countries are simultaneously countries of origin, destination and transit.
Millions of young people from the Asia-Pacific region also migrate to study abroad. After completing their degrees many of them gain work visas and employment in their country of destination, such as Australia or New Zealand.
Migration without choice
Other people have no choice but to migrate. They flee their countries due to war and conflict. In 2022, there were 31.6 million refugees from Asia and the Pacific under the mandate of UNHCR and 27.5 million of them were living in the region.
A total of 53 per cent of refugees from Asia-Pacific countries are female and 43 per cent are under 18 years old. Countries such as Bangladesh, Islamic Republic of Iran, Pakistan, and Türkiye are among the largest host countries of refugees in the world for refugees from neighbouring countries in conflict. An increasing number of people migrate for environmental reasons and climate change because they see their livelihoods being destroyed.
Migration comes with a high cost for migrants
Despite the gains, migration comes at a high cost for migrants. Recruitment costs to private recruiters remain high. Some pay with their lives: Since 2014, every year, an estimated 4,000 deaths have been recorded worldwide on migration routes.
Each year, thousands of men and women fall prey to traffickers and smugglers, often for forced labour and sexual exploitation. Access to social services and protection, as well as rights, in destination countries often remain limited, particularly for workers classified as low skilled, including domestic workers. Women migrants are at higher risk of being abused and find limited access to sexual and reproductive health services.
Migrants are agents of development
Migrants typically send back cash or goods to support their families in their country of origin, known as remittances. In 2022, a total of $311 billion was sent to Asia and the Pacific as remittances, which support better housing, nutrition and better education for children. In countries of destination, migrants perform jobs that often could not be filled otherwise. Migrant workers are essential to many sectors in the economy, particularly in ageing societies.
Migration is an irreversible trend in the Asia-Pacific region. To harness the benefits, safe and low-cost pathways for regular migration are needed. There is also a need to address development disparities, conflict and environmental degradation to ensure that migration is people’s individual choice. Regional dialogue and cooperation on international migration is crucial to this end.
The Seventh Asian and Pacific Population Conference, organized by ESCAP and UNFPA, in Bangkok from 15 to 17 November 2023, will provide opportunities for policymakers, civil society organizations and other stakeholders to discuss key population and development issues.
The meeting’s outcome will provide the regional input to the global review of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) at the 57th session of the Commission on Population and Development, in 2024.
Vanessa Steinmayer is Population Affairs Officer, Social Development Division, ESCAP and Simon Graham is UNFPA Fellow on Population and Development.
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