Carbon taxes can incorporate the environmental cost of doing business to a product’s final price. Credit: Bigstock
Opinion by Tatiana Falcao
Inter Press Service
May 29 (IPS) – Reducing carbon emissions is critical for combating climate change. And one effective way to do this is through the use of carbon taxes.
Carbon taxes are among some of the most efficient policies in pricing carbon, particularly if employed at “choke points” – specific points in the production or supply chain where carbon taxes can be applied – at the upstream level. This is because it allows the process to reach the whole of the economy, without the need to focus on certain industries or sectors.
An upstream carbon tax is simple to administer and can impact both the formal and the informal economies, a point which is particularly relevant for Africa where most countries are either middle- and low-income countries.
Carbon taxes can incorporate the environmental cost of doing business to a product’s final price. The environmental cost of doing business ultimately translates into the cost of the emissions released and waste produced because of a manufacturing process. That cost has been largely avoided or undervalued by corporates.
The lack of a robust tax policy framework that accounts for the environmental damage resulting from private investment means that companies have ultimately been free riding on the environment and society has been paying for that price by now being confronted with the adverse effects of climate change.
Failure to account for the environmental cost of doing business through a carbon tax also provides for the indirect subsidization of carbon intensive products. These products are at a competitive advantage because they have been using “standard” technologies and are part of the routine industrial functions.
A shift in the way society consumes and relies on energy products will require also a change in the valuation of energy forms. By internalizing the carbon equivalent externality via a carbon tax, a government is capable of equalizing consumption patterns by using cardon laden fuel sources as the pricing benchmark.
As a result, every additional ton of carbon in a particular fuel source is accounted for in the final price. Green and brown energy sources can hence compete in parity of conditions, in an environment where the least carbon intensive product receives the lowest price.
Consumers sensitive to the price difference, will seek to consume more of the low carbon fuels and products, fostering the green transition process. The mechanics are more pronounced in Africa where the proportion of low-income consumers is highest and therefore even a small price difference can cause a change to a consumption pattern.
The Africa Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) has recently released a carbon tax policy brief to guide African governments on how to best apply a carbon tax policy that is capable of conferring a whole of government approach. By this we mean how governments can act to establish a carbon price that equally burdens all segments of the economy.
The policy brief explores the key features in the design of a carbon tax that can meet the dual objective of raising revenues while conferring a positive effect on the environment. Beyond carbon tax, the brief also discusses the role of supplementary policies in achieving climate goals. For example, there is ample discussion concerning the need for countries to assess and eventually eliminate harmful fossil fuel subsidies, in line with the commitments assumed by African countries under the Glasgow Pact, the role of implicit carbon pricing in complementing explicit pricing approaches, and general remarks on measures to alleviate concerns around potential competitive disadvantages triggered from the implementation of a carbon tax.
African countries are also facing the increasing use of Border Carbon Adjustment (BCA) measures, like the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). These measures add a carbon price to products imported into a country if the carbon price has not been added in the country of origin or production. This means that, if there is no carbon price in the country of origin, the destination country will add a carbon fee at the border upon import.
The EU is still establishing the CBAM but its price is expected to be around EUR 100 t/CO2e, based on the price set by the European Emissions Trading Scheme. African countries that do not have a carbon fee and export these products to the EU may lose money because of the price difference. Other countries, like the United States, Canada, Korea, and Taiwan, are also considering similar fees to account for the environmental cost of doing business.
The world is changing, and we need to consider the environmental costs of producing and transporting goods. This new normal means that the price of products will include the environmental costs. African governments can lead the way by introducing policies that include carbon taxes to promote sustainable development and reduce our impact on the environment.
It’s time to act!
Tatiana Falcão is a Ph.D in environmental taxation and a consultant to African Tax Authorities Forum (ATAF). ATAF’s carbon policy brief can be found here: https://bit.ly/3OH1CyH
The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has now reported on the “Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in the last 20 years.’ Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
by Baher Kamal (rome)
Inter Press Service
ROME, May 29 (IPS) – Please stop repeating all this softened wording, such as climate change, climate-related hazards, climate crisis, or extreme weather events… And just call it what it really is: climate carnage.
Indeed, several scientific findings, released ahead of the 2023 World Environment Day (5 June), staggeringly indicate that the world-spread climate carnage is predicted to hit all-time records.
See: global temperatures are set to break records during the next five years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on 17 May 2023 alerted.
Warmest year ever
“There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period, will be the warmest on record.”
The world-leading meteorological body then informs that such a rise is fuelled by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño weather pattern.
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern associated with the warming of the ocean surface temperatures in the Central and Eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It occurs on average every two to seven years, and episodes usually last nine to 12 months.
El Niño steers weather patterns around the world, WMO further explains, “can aggravate extreme weather events,” and its events are typically associated with increased rainfall in parts of southern South America, the Southern United States, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia.
“This year is already predicted to be hotter than 2022 and the fifth or sixth hottest year on record. 2024 could be even hotter as the impact of the weather phenomenon sets in.”
‘Staggering rise…’
Mind you: This WMO report is just an update that would be logically expected. Indeed, it actually adds to earlier reiterated findings about the worse to come.
For instance, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) has now reported on the “Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in the last 20 years.’
According to its report, there has already been an 80% increase in the number of people affected by disasters since 2015.
Out of control
“However, many of the lessons from past disasters have been ignored.”
The consequences are that now a steadily increasing number of people are being affected by larger, ever more complex and more expensive disasters because decision-makers are failing to put people first and prevent risks from becoming disasters.
“Many of these disasters are climate-related, and in light of the latest warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), countries are likely to face even worse disasters if global temperatures continue to rise.”
“Brutally unequal”
The impacts are “brutally unequal,” with developing countries hit the hardest, as highlighted by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).
Its report multi-country review points to the rapid accumulation of risk that is building up, intersecting with the risks of breaching planetary boundaries, biodiversity and ecosystem limits – which is spiralling out of control.
Not so new, anyway. Indeed the UNDRR chief, Mami Mizutori, reminded already at the end of 2020 that the international community pledged in Paris in 2015 to reduce global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
‘Uninhabitable hell…’
However, she added, “It was “baffling” that nations were continuing knowingly “to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our only home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people”.
One doesn’t have to look hard to find examples of how disasters are becoming worse, said Mami Mizutori. “The sad fact is that many of these disasters are preventable because they are caused by human decisions.”
But this should not be surprising: many fingers have been pointing to the responsibility of the short-sighted politicians, who are too often influenced by the powerful money-making business, that they end up turning a blind eye on such mass destruction.
Drought, heat “100 times more likely”
On 5 May 2023, the World Meteorological Organization reported that climate ‘change’ made both the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa and the record April temperatures in the Western Mediterranean at least 100 times more likely.
Regarding the Horn of Africa, it said that the drought was made much more severe because of the low rainfall and increased evaporation caused by higher temperatures in a world which is now nearly 1.2°C warmer than pre-industrial times.
Mediterranean heatwave
In late April, parts of Southwestern Europe and North Africa experienced a massive heatwave that brought extremely high temperatures never previously recorded in the region at this time of the year, with temperatures reaching 36.9 – 41 °C in the four countries.
“The event broke temperature records by a large margin, against the backdrop of an intense drought.”
“The intense heat wave came on top of a preexisting multi-year drought, exacerbating the lack of water in Western Mediterranean regions and threatening the 2023 crop yield.”
Spreading everywhere
Across the world, climate change has made heat waves more common, longer and hotter, reports WMO based on researchers’ analysis that looked at the average of the maximum temperature for three consecutive days in April across southern Spain and Portugal, most of Morocco and the northwest part of Algeria.
Crops under threat
As other analyses of extreme heat in Europe have found, “extreme temperatures are increasing faster in the region than climate models have predicted,” said the researchers.
Until overall greenhouse gas emissions are halted, global temperatures will continue to increase and events like these will become more frequent and severe.
“The intense heat wave came on top of a preexisting multi-year drought, exacerbating the lack of water in Western Mediterranean regions and threatening the 2023 crop yield.”
And the carnage goes on
In short, the ongoing climate carnage is expected to move from the worst to the worst.
And anyway, the term ‘carnage’ should not sound at all new.
Indeed, it was already spelt out by the United Nations’ top chief, António Guterres, in September 2022, following his field visit to the vast Pakistan’s regions impacted by unprecedented devastating floods.
The people of Pakistan are the victims of “a grim calculus of climate injustice”, said Guterres, reminding that while the country was responsible for less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is paying a “supersized price for man-made climate change”.
The UN chief stated that he saw in those regions “a level of climate carnage beyond imagination.”
By the way, do you expect that the coming COP28 in Dubai (November 30th-December 12th, 2023) will come out with anything different from the usual ‘politically correct,” “radical chic” statements?
Jaggery making on a sugarcane farm in Mandla. Small-scale farmers in India are benefitting from a scheme where they are able to diversify their farms and get support through Farmer Producer Organisations. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS
by Rina Mukherji (mandla, jhargram & ahmednagar, india)
Inter Press Service
MANDLA, JHARGRAM & AHMEDNAGAR, INDIA, May 26 (IPS) – Until a decade ago, marginal farmers Gangotri Chandrol and Sunitabai lacked livelihood options in the post-monsoon season.
With farm holdings of just 2-6 acres in Katangatola village in the tribal-majority Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, they could only grow wheat, paddy, and sugarcane in the wet season for a living.
“Our earnings depended on price fluctuations in the market and the little paddy and wheat procured by the government.”
But now, they can sell their produce at higher than the prevailing market price to their farmers’ collective set up by Ekgaon Technologies, using existing women’s microfinance self-help groups (SHGs).
Furthermore, value-added products like flavoured jaggery obtained from sugarcane ensure a good income. Farmers like Gangotri and Sunitabai, who were organised into clusters, and trained to form collective bargaining as buyers of agricultural inputs and suppliers of produce, are better off as a result.
While agriculture is India’s primary employment source, agricultural productivity has remained low. This is because the average size of an agricultural plot is less than 2 hectares (4.942 acres) (as per 2001 figures), with a quarter of rural holdings as low as 0.4 hectares (0.988 acres).
Furthermore, poverty and illiteracy make it difficult for most farmers to apply modern scientific inputs to enhance yield. Climate change has further added to the problem, with erratic weather, unseasonal rains, and frequent storms taking their toll on standing crops.
Realising this, India’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) developed its Producer Organisation Promoting Institution (POPI) scheme in 2015. This saw several Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) flourish around 2015, and farmers were inducted into registered companies, holding a certain number of shares, each priced at a nominal sum.
Women farmers in West Bengal buying inputs for their Farmer Producer Organisation. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS
Ekgaon and its mission in Mandla
Once a single crop with migration-prone villages, Mandla district has seen a facelift ever since Ekgaon Technologies brought together its rural women and organised them into a Farmer Producers Organisation (FPO). Encouraged to buy seeds and fertilizer to distribute within their organisation, the women emerged as small-time entrepreneurs.
Traditionally, paddy cultivators, the farmers here, were trained to move to multi-cropping using natural organic farming methods. Local farmers now grow a mix of paddy, wheat, lentils (Masur), pigeon pea (arhar/tur), green gram (mung), and sugarcane on their marginal farms, using improved techniques and inexpensive homemade organic fertilizers.
Vidhi Patel, a widow and marginal farmer with a one-acre farm, tells IPS, “We were using 40 kg of seeds on our one-acre farm to grow paddy, besides spending on urea, which cost us upwards of Rs 1000. Under the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method, we now use only 25 kg of seeds, which has halved costs.”
Gangotri Chandrol, Sunitabai Chandrol, and Devki Uikey have not just learned to make optimum use of their marginal 2-6 acre farms to grow a variety of traditional crops such as wheat, paddy, sugarcane pigeon pea, masur (lentils), mung (green legumes), and millets, but have now ventured into cash crops like arrowroot, flaxseed, nigerseed, and marigold, which fetch them good returns.
Similarly, Laxmibai and Devki Uikey of the neighbouring Khari village grow sugarcane on one acre of their 3-acre farm and paddy, wheat, marigold and beetroot on the rest. Besides operating as a small-time entrepreneur, selling agricultural inputs to other members of her FPO, Devki Uikey made organic yellow and maroon colours for the Holi (spring) festival out of beetroot and marigold with some other members of her collective.
“We procured 25 kg of marigold at Rs 40 per 250 g and 10 kg of beetroot at Rs 160 per kg. After making and selling the colours, we earned Rs 2300-Rs 2500 per member,” Devki Uikey told IPS
Besides selling premium varieties of rice such as Chindi Kapur and Jeera Shankar that are native to Mandla but not available elsewhere, Ekgaon has developed value-added products such as millet-ginger-raisin nutribars, millet noodles, amla ( gooseberry) candy, which it markets alongside ( collected) forest products like medicinal herbs, beeswax, and honey, on its e-commerce platform.
Since sugarcane is a major crop in the district and jaggery-making is an important enterprise, Ekgaon has developed ginger and tulsi (basil) flavoured jaggery cubes to brew flavoured tea. Being part of the FPO has other benefits too. Farmers can access government funds for rainwater harvesters and borewells easily.
A tie-up with Rajdhani Besan, which markets gram flour, helped farmers who cultivate gram, while a tie-up with Lays saw the entire produce of white peas bought over in bulk for (Lays) chips and wafers. The FPO is also grading and procuring wheat for the government, earning the women farmers a small sum.
Consequently, marginal farmers who earned around Rs 50,000 (USD 608) per acre in the past are easily making Rs 3,00,000 (USD 3647) per acre now. Migration has stopped in most villages, and the literacy level has improved.
PRADAN’s initiatives in Jhargram and Bankura
Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) has also converted existing women’s microfinance self-help groups (SHGs) into FPOs in the resource-poor, tribal-majority Bankura and Jhargram districts of West Bengal.
Despite good monsoon rains, water scarcity is the norm in these paddy-growing districts, owing to rocky terrain. Of late, erratic rains have made matters worse, spurring out migration. To withstand the vagaries of the weather, the women farmer-shareholders of the Amon Mahila Chashi Producers Company Limited (Amon Women Farmers Producers Company Limited) and other FPOs now grow hardy, traditional paddy varieties using homemade organic fertilizers.
Sumita Mahato, whose family lives off a one-bigha (0.625 acres) farm, and Swarnaprabha Mahato, whose three-bigha (1.875 acres) farm must provide for an eight-member family, told IPS: “Chemical fertilizers cost Rs 5000 per 0.625 acres, while homemade organic fertilizer costs us only Rs 80-90 for the same per bigha.”
It has helped them get organic certification for their produce, comprising traditional rice varieties like Malliphul, Satthiya (red rice), and Kalabhat (black rice), earning them Rs 35 per kg (as against Rs 12 per kg that rice grown with chemical inputs). Rainwater harvesters accessed as members of the FPO, under the state government’s scheme for the region, have helped, too, increasing productivity from 25-30 quintals per acre to 40-45 quintals per acre.
As multi-cropping is impossible here owing to limited moisture in the rocky soil, the farmers grow turmeric as a cash crop on the village commons. In Jhargram, Sonajhuri (Acacia auriculiformis) and Cashew are grown for timber and nuts, while in Bankura, farms along the Kankabati River grow watermelons for collective profit.
Traditionally, women in these regions made plates from sal (Shorea robusta) leaves collected from the jungles. They now process and mould plates for urban markets using moulding machines, selling them with their other products online on IndiaMart, earning ample profits to lead well-settled lives.
Watermelon crop in Bankura. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS
WOTR’s Efforts in Maharashtra
In Parner taluka (sub-division) of Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, the community-led Ankur Farmer Producers Organisation (FPO), facilitated by the Watershed Trust (WOTR), comprises 762 farmer-shareholders from the villages of Hiwrekorda, Bhangadevadi, and Dawalpuri, with farm holdings of 3-15 acres range, who supplement their incomes through dairy farming.
Being a rain-shadow, the drought-prone region with limited water resources, farming was always rainfed here, with large tracts of land lying barren.
Once Ankur was formed, the farmers could avail of Rs 80 lakh from the State Government (of Maharashtra) contributing the rest to lay a 7.5 km pipeline to bring water from the Kalu river and fill up a lined farm pond, and set up a pump-house for collective benefit.
This enabled them to bring 100 acres of farmland under cultivation to grow onions, marigolds, chrysanthemums, and other crops for the market. Their rainfed single-crop lands also grow two crops with the additional moisture available.
The farmers have opted for organic inputs like vermicompost, which they prepare and sell, both within and outside their FPO, although, as farmers Somnath Palwe and Chandrakant Gawde say, “Our members use both organic and improved seeds, as per preference.”
From growing a single crop of bajra (pearl millet), jowar (sorghum), and pulses, the farmers now grow maize, green gram, marigold, chrysanthemum, and onions, besides cauliflower and tomato. Incomes have grown from as low as Rs 50,000 ( USD 61) for an acre of cultivable land to as high as Rs 5 00,000 (USD 731).
Ankur sells its products online to Ninjacart and offline-in wholesale markets. In both cases, the sale is direct and without middlemen. Farmer Ashok Phalke, tells me. “Onions used to fetch us Rs 10 per kg, while the market price was Rs 12 per kg. We would lose Rs 2 per kg. Now that we sell directly in markets as a group, we earn more. The same goes for tomatoes and flowers.”
Besides promoting organic farming, the FPOs stress natural multi-cropping methods to control pests, such as growing horse gram in combination with maize or sorghum. This attracts birds, which, in turn, help control harmful pests naturally. Kitchen gardens are encouraged as they counter nutritional deficiencies in farming families.
Government Encouragement of FPOs
The Indian government intends to set up 10,000 FPOs all over India for Rs 6865 crore. Under this scheme, FPOs are to receive financial assistance of up to Rs 18 lakh for three years, with each farmer-member being eligible for an equity grant and credit guarantee facility. However, not all existing FPOs have been co-opted into the government scheme.
Since millets are hardy and impervious to erratic weather patterns, the government has been pushing for their cultivation in regions where they were traditionally grown. But the government’s dictum of “one District, one Product” has invited criticism, especially from grassroots organisations, who see multi-cropping as the only guarantor against natural disasters such as hailstorms and cyclones.
A picture of photovoltaic panels in the solar park in the small town of Armstrong, in the Pampa region, the heart of Argentina’s agricultural production. The park belongs to an electric cooperative, which until 2017 only bought energy to distribute, but now generates electricity as well. CREDIT: FARN
by Daniel Gutman (buenos aires)
Inter Press Service
BUENOS AIRES, May 26 (IPS) – When the residents of Armstrong, a town of 15,000 in western Argentina, began to meet to discuss a renewable energy project, they agreed that there could be many positive effects and that it was not just a question of doing their bit in the global effort to mitigate climate change.
“The proposal was to use the rooftops and yards of our houses to install solar panels. And I accepted the idea basically because I was excited by the prospect that one day we would become independent in generating our own electricity,” Adrián Marozzi, who today has six solar panels in the back of the house where he lives in Armstrong with his wife and two children, told IPS.
His home is one of about 50 in Armstrong with solar panels generating power for the community, added to the 880-panel solar farm installed in the town’s industrial park. Together they have contributed part of the electricity consumed by the inhabitants of this town in the western province of Santa Fe since 2017.
This is a pioneering project in Argentina, built with public technical organizations and community participation through a cooperative where decisions are made democratically, which has since been replicated in various parts of the country.
With an extensive area of ??almost 2.8 million square kilometers, Argentina is a country where most of the electricity generation has been concentrated geographically, which raises the need for large power transmission infrastructure and poses a hurdle for the development of the system.
In this context, and despite the financing obstacles in a country with a severe long-lasting economic crisis, renewable energies are increasingly seen as an alternative for clean electricity generation in power-consuming areas.
Marozzi is a biologist by profession, but is dedicated to agricultural production in Armstrong, almost 400 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires. The town is located in the pampas grasslands in the productive heart of Argentina, and is surrounded by fields of soybeans, corn and cattle.
How to bring electric power to widely scattered rural residents was the great challenge that the Armstrong Public Works and Services Provision Cooperative, made up of 5,000 members representing the town’s 5,000 households, grappled with for years.
The institution was born in 1958 and in 1966 it marked a milestone, when it created the first rural electrification system in this South American country, with a 70-kilometer medium voltage line that brought the service to numerous farms.
Once again, in 2016, the Armstrong cooperative pointed the way, when it began to discuss in assemblies with community participation the advantages and disadvantages of venturing into renewable energy production by means of solar energy panels.
“Those of us who accepted the installation of panels in our homes today receive no direct benefit, but we are betting on a future in which we can generate all of the electricity we consume. In addition, of course, we care about environmental issues,” Marozzi said in a conversation from his town.
The 880-panel solar park with 200 kW of installed power is currently being expanded to 275 kW thanks to the money that Armstrong saved from energy that was not purchased in recent years from the national grid. The local residents who make up the cooperative decided that the savings from what was generated with solar energy should be invested in the park.
Two workers carry out maintenance tasks at the solar park in Monte Caseros, a town in the Argentine province of Corrientes, in the northeast of the country. The park was inaugurated in 2021 by the local cooperative, which provides electricity to the residents and is also involved in agricultural activity. CREDIT: Monte Caseros Agricultural and Electricity Cooperative
A replicated model
In Argentina there are about 600 electrical cooperatives in small cities and towns in the interior of the country, which were born in the mid-20th century, when the national grid was still quite limited and access to electric power was a problem.
These cooperatives usually buy and distribute energy in towns. But the members of dozens of them realized that they too could generate clean electricity, after visiting Armstrong’s project, and launched their own renewable energy initiatives.
“The cooperative was born in 1977 out of the need to bring energy to rural residents,” engineer Germán Judiche, the association’s technical manager, told IPS. “Today we have a honey packaging plant and a cluster of silos for rice, the main crop in the area. Since 2018 we have also distributed internet service and in 2020 we partnered with the province’s public electricity company to venture into renewable energy.”
The Monte Caseros solar park has 400 kW of installed capacity thanks to 936 solar panels. It was inaugurated in September 2021 and has provided such good results that a second park, with similar characteristics, is about to begin to be built by the 650-member cooperative, because it supplies only rural residents of the municipality.
“We have done everything with the cooperative’s own labor and the design by engineers from the National University of the Northeast (UNNE), from our province,” said Judiche. “It is definitely a model that can be replicated. Renewable energy is our future,” he added from his town, some 700 kilometers north of Buenos Aires.
Solar panels can be seen in the backyard of Adrián Marozzi, a resident of the town of Armstrong. Neither he nor the other residents who agreed to give up part of their yards or rooftops receive direct advantages, since the energy savings are capitalized by the cooperative, which thus has to buy less electricity from the national grid. CREDIT: FARN
A slow and bumpy road
According to official figures, the distributed or decentralized generation of renewable energy for self-consumption, which allows the surplus to be injected into the grid, has 1,167 generators registered in 13 of Argentina’s 23 provinces, with more than 20 megawatts of installed power.
Electricity cooperatives that have their own renewable energy generation projects operate under this system.
In total, in this country of 44 million people, renewable energies covered almost 14 percent of the demand for electricity in 2022 and have more than 5,000 MW of installed capacity, although there are practically no major new projects to expand their proportion of the energy mix.
Most of the electricity demand is covered by thermal generation, which contributes more than 25,000 MW, mainly from oil but also from natural gas. Hydropower is the next largest source, with more than 10,000 MW from large dams greater than 50 MW, which are not considered renewable.
Pablo Bertinat, director of the Energy and Sustainability Observatory of the National Technological University (UTN) based in the city of Rosario, also in Santa Fe, explained that in a country like Argentina it is impossible to follow a model like Germany’s widespread residential generation of renewable energy, because it requires investments that are not viable.
“Community-based projects, which are feasible, have several advantages: they improve local autonomy in the generation of electricity, they allow money to be saved from the energy that is not purchased, which can be reinvested in the city, and they promote the decentralization of decision-making in the energy system,” added Bertinat, speaking from Rosario.
The expert said that the cooperatives’ renewable energy projects are advancing slowly in Argentina, despite the fact that there is no credit nor favorable policies – an indication that they could have a very strong impact on the entire electrical system and even on the generation of employment, if there were tools to promote renewables.
“Our aim is to demonstrate that not only large companies can advance the agenda of promoting renewable energy and the replacement of fossil fuels. In Argentina, cooperatives are also an important actor on this path,” Bertinat said.
The case of Armstrong also sparked interest from the environmental movement, which is helping to drive the growth of renewable energy in the country.
Jazmín Rocco Predassi, head of Climate Policy at the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), told IPS that this is “an illustration that the energy transition does not always come from top-down initiatives, but that communities can organize themselves, together with cooperatives, municipal governments or science and technology institutes, to generate the transformations that the energy system needs.”
GENEVA, May 26 (IPS) – In December last year, I launched our year-long commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have since issued a series of initiatives calling on States and all others to make pledges, and to take clear steps to fulfil the promises of the Universal Declaration.
The Human Rights 75 programme will culminate in a high-level event on 11 and 12 December – convened by my Office here in Geneva, linked up with Bangkok, Nairobi and Panama City.
This year, we also celebrate 30 years since the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna created the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. That is an important milestone for us.
It was in June 1993 at this conference that – after a difficult process fraught with geopolitical divisions – the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action was adopted. The Declaration was a strong and clear endorsement – by consensus of all UN Member States – of all the rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Over the past 30 years, the work of this Office has contributed to greater recognition of the centrality of human rights in making and sustaining peace, in preventing and halting violations, in fostering accountability, in sustainable development, in humanitarian response and, of late, in economic policy and the work of international financial institutions.
We have been at the forefront of addressing issues of global importance as they emerge, including the human rights impacts of climate change, artificial intelligence, and digital technology.
My Office is now present in more places than ever. We have gone from just two field presences when we started to 94 presences around the world today.
And I would like to see this expanded further – there should be a UN Human Rights Office everywhere. For all States can and should do better on human rights. I have been advocating for this in my meetings with all UN Member States and in my missions.
I have also been speaking about how underfunded and under-resourced my Office remains. We need to double our budget. I call on donors – State, corporate and private – to help us make this happen. A strong UN Human Rights Office and a healthy, well-resourced human rights ecosystem are of global interest.
Our work and the human rights mechanisms that we support have helped advance the human rights cause, identify drivers of conflict and crisis and barriers to development, and offer solutions as well as pathways to remedy and accountability.
We work with State institutions, national human rights bodies and civil society on the ground, to help reform laws, to train officials. We also help open the space for civil society organisations and journalists to do their work, and we are often serving as a bridge between civil society and institutions of the State.
We call out violations and set off alarm bells when attacks on, neglect of, or disdain for human rights could set off crises.
Our work on accountability and transitional justice has helped ensure that perpetrators of serious human rights violations end up in prison, and our work on protection of civic space and human rights defenders has secured the release of people who are detained in violation of their rights.
We provide a reality check. We help set the facts straight, we ground our analysis in human rights laws and standards, we dig into the root causes of human suffering, and we offer systemic, sustainable solutions.
Nowhere is the devastating impact of human rights violations more stark than in the midst of armed conflict and in the aftermath of natural disasters. Cyclone Mocha, which cut a swathe of destruction through Rakhine, Chin and Kachin States, as well as Sagaing and Magway, in Myanmar on 14 May is the latest, deeply painful manifestation of a man-made disaster resulting from a climate event.
For decades, the authorities in Myanmar have deprived the Rohingya of their rights and freedoms and relentlessly attacked other ethnic groups, eroding their capacity to survive. Displaced communities have subsisted in temporary bamboo structures, some since 2012, with Myanmar’s military repeatedly denying requests of humanitarian agencies to build more sustainable living conditions in areas less prone to flooding. I saw this myself on my many trips to Myanmar, especially to the east. They have also consistently prevented the Rohingya from moving freely, including in the days before the cyclone.
The damage and loss of life was both foreseeable and avoidable – and is clearly linked with the systematic denial of human rights. It is imperative that the military lift the blockages on travel, allow for needs assessments to happen, and ensure access to and delivery of lifesaving aid and services.
The desperate situation of the people of Sudan – who fought so courageously against repression of their rights – is heartbreaking. In spite of successive ceasefires, civilians continue to be exposed to serious risk of death and injury – overnight we have had reports of fighter jets across Khartoum and clashes in some areas of the city, as well as gunfire heard in Khartoum-North and Omdurman.
My Designated Expert on Sudan, Radhouane Nouicer, has been meeting remotely with civil society still in the country and with those who have fled – and the testimony is terrifying. Many civilians are virtually besieged in areas where fighting has been relentless.
With State institutions not functioning in Khartoum, civil society actors are risking their lives to fill the gaps. Many human rights defenders, particularly women, have reported receiving threats – but they are undeterred; they continue their crucial work.
Several reports are emerging of sexual violence in Khartoum and Darfur – we are aware of at least 25 cases, but such violations are often the most difficult to document, so I fear the real number of cases to be much higher.
General al-Burhan, General Dagalo, you must issue clear instructions – in no uncertain terms – to all those under your command, that there is zero tolerance for sexual violence, and that perpetrators of all violations will be held accountable. Civilians must be spared. And you must stop this senseless violence now.
It is the near-total impunity for gross violations that is at the root of this new, brazen grab for power in Sudan. Efforts to bring this conflict to an end must have human rights and accountability at their core – for any peace to be sustained.
Elsewhere, I am deeply troubled by the growing phenomenon of anti-rights movements that have been active against migrants and refugees, against women, against people belonging to certain faiths, religious and racial groups, as well as against LGBTIQ people, among others.
We need to push back on such anti-rights movements that are fed and stoked by peddlers of lies and disinformation – including by so-called political and religious leaders and “influencers”. These are people who use populism, repression and even vilification of segments of society – to the detriment of society as a whole – as a short-cut to power and influence.
Following such hateful, discredited narratives, we are seeing a further worsening of laws criminalizing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, including in Uganda. These laws violate a host of human rights, they lead to violence, and they drive people against one another.
They leave people behind and undermine development. Many of these laws are actually colonial relics that have imported 200-year-old stigma and discrimination into the 21st Century.
Hate speech and harmful narratives against migrants and refugees also continue to proliferate; they are accompanied, worryingly, by laws and policies that are anti-migrant, and they risk undermining the basic foundations of international human rights law and refugee law.
Developments that are unfolding in various countries, including the UK, the US, Italy, Greece, and Lebanon are particularly concerning as some of them appear designed to hinder people’s ability to seek asylum and other forms of protection, to penalise those who seek to help them – or to return them in unlawful, undignified, unsustainable ways.
Article 14 of the Universal Declaration is clear on everyone’s right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution. We need solidarity – to ensure that all people in vulnerable situations are treated with humanity and respect for their rights.
In a number of situations, we see the consequences when different groups incite and stoke hatred and division between communities. The recent violence in Manipur, Northeast India, revealed the underlying tensions between different ethnic and indigenous groups.
I urge the authorities to respond to the situation quickly, including by investigating and addressing root causes of the violence in line with their international human rights obligations.
It will be three years to the day that George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in the US. The small measure of justice achieved in this case remains exceptional – in the US and globally. I remain deeply concerned by regular reports of deaths and injuries of people of African descent during or after interactions with law enforcement in a number of countries. There needs to be firm and prompt action by authorities to ensure justice in each case.
It is clear that we won’t solve the problem of police brutality against people of African descent until we deal with the broader manifestations of systemic racism that permeate every aspect of their lives.
The racial abuse faced – once again – by Real Madrid football player Vinícius Júnior in Spain just this past Sunday is a stark reminder of the prevalence of racism in sport. I call on those who organise sporting events to have strategies in place to prevent and counter racism.
Much more needs to be done to eradicate racial discrimination – and it needs to start with listening to people of African descent, meaningfully involving them and taking genuine steps to act upon their concerns.
I also continue to be concerned about the shrinking of civic space, including in China, where there has been a spate of sentences against human rights defenders based on laws that are at variance with international human rights law.
Also deeply worrying are crackdowns on women’s rights – a tool for men in power to exercise dominance over and enfeeble entire societies. Misogyny is a disease. In combination with violence, it is cancerous.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban continue, aggressively, to seek to erase half of the population from everyday life. Such a system of gender apartheid ruins the development potential of the country.
I will never understand how anyone can trample so cruelly upon the spirit of girls and women, chipping away at their potential and driving one’s country deeper and deeper into abject poverty and despair. It is crucial – for the sake of the people of Afghanistan, the future of the country and the wider region – that repressive policies against women and girls are immediately overturned.
In Iran, while the street protests have diminished, the harassment of women – including for what they do or don’t wear, appears to have actually intensified. Women and girls face increasingly stringent legal, social, and economic measures in the authorities’ enforcement of discriminatory compulsory veiling laws.
I urge the Government to heed Iranians’ calls for reform, and to begin by repealing regulations that criminalise non-compliance with mandatory dress codes. The onus is on the State to introduce laws and policies to protect the human rights of women and girls, including their right to participate in public life without fear of retribution or discrimination.
I am also appalled by the continued use of the death penalty in significant numbers. I urge them to halt executions immediately.
One more situation that is of deep concern to me is that in Pakistan – where hard-earned gains and the rule of law are at serious risk. I am alarmed by the recent escalation of violence, and by reports of mass arrests carried out under problematic laws – arrests that may amount to arbitrary detention.
Particularly disturbing are reports that Pakistan intends to revive the use of military courts to try civilians – which would contravene its international human rights law obligations.
I call on the authorities to ensure prompt, impartial, transparent investigations into deaths and injuries that occurred during the 9 May protests. The only path to a safe, secure, prosperous Pakistan is one that is paved with respect for human rights, democratic processes, and the rule of law, with the meaningful and free participation of all sectors of society.
Beyond individual country situations, of broader concern for me are recent rapid advances in the development of artificial intelligence – particularly generative AI. The opportunities are immense – but so are the risks. Human rights need to be baked into AI throughout its entire lifecycle and both governments and companies need to do more to ensure that guardrails are in place. My Office is carefully following and studying these issues.
Allow me to end with an appeal to all of you to help push back against the disinformation and manipulation that feeds anti-rights movements, and to help protect the space for people to defend their rights. Human rights are universal. The dignity and worth of every human being should not be – cannot be – a questionable, sensitive concept.
It is my fervent hope that this 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will provide the space and inspiration for all of us to go back to the basics – to find the roots of human rights values in each of our cultures, histories, and faiths, uniting us in pushing back against the instrumentalization and politicization of human rights within and between countries.
This article is based on the opening remarks by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk at his press conference in Geneva on May 24.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, May 25 (IPS) – As a matter of global justice, the climate crisis has rightfully made its way to the world’s highest court.
On 29 March 2023, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously adopted a resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue an advisory opinion on the obligations of states on climate change. The initiative was led by the Pacific Island state of Vanuatu, one of several at risk of disappearing under rising sea levels. It was co-sponsored by 132 states and actively supported by networks of grassroots youth groups from the Pacific and around the world.
Civil society’s campaign
In 2019, a group of law students from the University of the South Pacific formed Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC), a regional organisation with national chapters in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. PISFCC advocated with the Pacific Island Forum – the key regional body – to put the call for an ICJ opinion on its agenda. The government of Vanuatu announced it would seek this in September 2021, and Pacific civil society organisations (CSOs) formed an alliance – the Alliance for a Climate Justice Advisory Opinion – that has since grown to include CSOs and many others from around the world, including UN Special Rapporteurs and global experts.
The campaign made heavy use of social media, with people sharing their stories on the impacts of climate change and emphasising the importance of an ICJ opinion to help support calls for climate action, including climate litigation. It organised globally, sharing a toolkit used by activists around the world, and took to the streets locally. In Vanuatu, where it all started, children demonstrated in September 2022 to call attention to the impacts of climate change as their country’s single greatest development threat and express support for the call for an ICJ opinion.
In the run-up to the UNGA session that adopted the historic resolution, thousands of CSOs from around the world supported a letter calling for governments to back the vote.
The ICJ’s role
The ICJ is made up of 15 judges elected by the UNGA and UN Security Council. It settles legal disputes between states and provides advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by other parts of the UN system.
The questions posed to the ICJ aim to clarify the obligations of states under international law to protect the climate system and environment from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. They also ask about the legal responsibilities of states that have caused significant environmental harm towards other states, particularly small islands, and towards current and future generations.
To provide its advisory opinion, the ICJ will have to interpret states’ obligations as outlined in the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 2015 Paris Agreement as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a variety of international covenants and treaties. It may consider previous UNGA resolutions on climate change, such as the recent one recognising access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a universal human right, and other resolutions by the UN Human Rights Council and reports by the Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights and its independent human rights experts. It may also take into account decisions by UN treaty bodies and its own jurisprudence on climate and environmental matters.
Next steps
According to its statute, the ICJ can seek written statements from states or international organisations likely to have relevant information on the issue at hand. On 20 April, it communicated its decision to treat the UN and all its member states as ‘likely to be able to furnish information on the questions submitted to the Court’ and gave them six months to submit written statements, after which they will have three months to make written comments on statements made by other states or organisations.
Civil society doesn’t have any right to submit formal statements, so climate activists are urging as many people as possible to advocate towards their governments to make strong submissions that will lead to a progressive ICJ opinion. After submissions close, the ICJ is likely to take several months to deliberate, so its opinion may be expected at some point in 2024, likely towards the end of the year.
Advisory opinions aren’t binding. They don’t impose obligations on states. But they shape the global understanding of states’ obligations under international law and can motivate states to show their compliance with rising standards. An ICJ opinion could positively influence climate negotiations, pushing forward long-delayed initiatives on funding for loss and damage. It could encourage states to make more ambitious pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It might also help raise awareness of the particular risks faced by small island states and provide arguments in favour of stronger climate action, helping climate advocates gain ground within governments.
A progressive advisory opinion could also help support domestic climate litigation: research shows that domestic courts are increasingly inclined to cite ICJ opinions and other sources of international law, including when it comes to determining climate issues.
The risk can’t be ruled out of a disappointing ICJ opinion merely reiterating the content of existing climate treaties without making any progress on states’ obligations. But climate activists find reasons to expect much more: many see this as a unique opportunity, brought about by their own persistent efforts, to advance climate justice and push for action that meets the scale of the crisis.
Long wait at the border between Sudan and Egypt. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS
by Hisham Allam (cairo)
Inter Press Service
CAIRO, May 25 (IPS) – The conflict in Sudan is impacting the economy in Egypt, and those who make their living moving goods across the borders have spent weeks hoping the situation will normalize.
Muhammad Saqr, a truck driver, left Cairo with a load of thinners on April 13, heading to Khartoum. By the time he had arrived at the border, the battle had flared up. Saqr remained, like dozens of trucks, waiting for the borders to be reopened.
On April 15, 2023, clashes erupted in Sudan between the army led by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Lieutenant General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hamidti.” According to the UN, the clashes have resulted in hundreds of deaths and displaced more than a million people, with 840,000 internally displaced while another 250,000 have crossed the borders.
Saqr was stuck at the border for 28 days.
“We began to run out of supplies, and we reassured ourselves that the situation would improve tomorrow. Twenty-eight days passed while we slept in the open. The information we received from the bus drivers transporting the displaced from Sudan to Egypt convinced us that there would be no immediate relief. We knew that if we entered Khartoum alive, we would leave in shrouds,” Saqr told IPS.
“The merchant to whom we were transferring the goods asked us to wait and not return (home), particularly because he could not pay the customs duties due to the banks’ closure.”
Muhammad Saqr at the border of Sudan and Egypt.
Eventually, they returned with the goods to Cairo, Saqr said.
Mahmoud Asaad, a driver, was stuck on the Sudanese side of the border. Due to customs papers and permits, the livestock he was transporting had already been stuck in the customs barn in Wadi Halfa, Sudan, for thirty days. Then when the conflict broke out, the cows were trapped for another thirty days.
“We used to transport shipments of animals from Sudan to Egypt regularly,” Asaad explains. The average daily transport of animals to Egypt was roughly 60 trucks laden with cows and camels. This trade has stopped, and many Sudanese importers have fled to Egypt while waiting for the conflict to end.
“Sudan is regarded as a gateway for Egyptian exports to enter the markets of the Nile Basin countries and East Africa, and the continuation of war and insecurity will reduce the volume of trade exchange between the two countries, negatively impacting the Egyptian economy, which is currently experiencing some crises,” Matta Bishai, head of the Internal Trade and Supply Committee of the Importer’s Division of the General Federation of Chambers of Commerce, told IPS.
According to Bishai, commodity prices have risen significantly in recent months as the Egyptian pound has fallen against the US dollar. He also stated that the current situation in Sudan would result in additional price increases in the coming months, particularly for commodities imported from Sudan, such as meat.
Bishai explained that while Egypt had an ample domestic meat supply, it was nevertheless reliant on imports. Importing it from other countries such as Colombia, Brazil, and Chad would take longer and be more expensive than importing it from Sudan, as land transport is more convenient and cheaper than transporting the goods by sea.
According to Bishai, Sudan is a major supplier of livestock and live meat to Egypt, supplying about 10 percent of Egypt’s requirements. Higher meat prices will put additional pressure on Egypt’s inflation rates.
“Rising commodity prices, combined with the current situation in Sudan, are expected to result in higher inflation rates in Egypt in the coming months,” said Bishai.
According to data from the General Authority for Export and Import Control on trade exchange between Egypt and the African continent during the first quarter of this year, Sudan ranked second among the top five markets receiving Egyptian exports, valued at USD 226 million.
According to Ahmed Samir, the Egyptian Minister of Trade and Industry, the volume of trade exchange between Egypt and African markets amounted to about USD 2,12 billion in the first quarter of this year, with the value of Egyptian commodity exports to the continent totaling USD 1,61 billion and Egyptian imports from the continent totaling UD 506 million.
Mohamed Al-Kilani, an economics professor and member of the Egyptian Society of Political Economy, said: “The negative consequences will be felt in the trade exchange, which has recently increased and reached USD2 billion. Egypt has attempted to expedite the import process from Sudan by expanding the road network and building a railway.”
Credit rating agency Moody’s warned that should the conflict in Sudan continue for an extended period, it would have an adverse credit impact on neighboring countries and impact multilateral development banks. Moody’s added that if the clashes in Sudan turn into a long civil war, destroying infrastructure and worsening social conditions, there will be long-term economic consequences and a decline in the quality of Sudan’s multilateral banks’ assets, as well as an increase in non-performing loans and liquidity.
As the conflict entered its sixth week, attempts at a ceasefire have failed – with both sides accusing each other of violating agreements.
Founder of Wagner private mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin (here pictured with fighters), claims that Bakhmut is now in Moscow’s control. However his claims are disputed by Ukraine.
by Fawzia Moodley (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, May 24 (IPS) – The Wagner group, a shadowy mercenary group that has been operating for many years in African countries such as Sudan, Mali, the Central African Republic, and other mainly Francophone countries, has again been thrust into the limelight due to its involvement in the Ukraine war on behalf of Russia.
Wagner’s and other Russian private military companies are believed to have a presence in 18 countries in Africa – and its influence goes far beyond security matters.
Julian Rademeyer of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime told DW.com, “Wagner itself has developed over time as an organization that’s gone from being a purely private military contracting entity into a multiplicity of business alliances and relations and a network of companies. Some of them are front companies across the countries in which they operate on the African continent.”
He sees the Wagner Group as primarily a Kremlin military tool to boost Russia’s economic and military influence in Africa.
Rademeyer’s colleague and lead author of a study titled Russia’s military, mercenary and criminal engagement in Africa, Julia Stanyard, told IPS, “The Wagner Group is unique as an organization in the breadth, scale, and boldness of its activities. However, our study also shows that Wagner did not emerge in a vacuum: The group’s activities and characteristics reflect broader trends in the evolution of Russia’s oligarchs and organized crime groups, their respective relationships with the Russian state, and their activities in Africa.”
“The group comprises a network of political influence operations and economic entities such as mining companies.
“It appears to target unstable governments embroiled in civil wars and forms alliances with the ruling elite and offers them military support and weapons.”
This is exactly what happened in the CAR, where the government has been fighting multiple rebel forces since December 2020. A beleaguered President Faustin-Archange Touadéra reached out to Russia shortly after taking power in 2016.
“He received Russian military instructors and weapons, and Wagner mercenaries soon followed,” says CIVICUS, a global alliance promoting civic action.
In return, Wagner receives economic and mining concessions. According to the New York Times, the group has been involved in mining operations in the CAR, where it has secured contracts to mine gold and diamonds.
Stanyard says: “The group comprises a network of political influence operations and economic entities such as mining companies.”
While the governments and sections of their population have welcomed the group, Wagner’s been accused of gross human rights abuses, with local communities reporting forced labour and sexual violence.
Human Rights Watch says it has collected compelling evidence that Russian fighters have committed grave abuses against civilians in the CAR with complete impunity since 2019. The HRW interviewed 40 people between February 2019 and November 2021 about abuses by men speaking Russian.
Stanyard’s research substantiates the allegations of abuse: “Wagner Group has been accused of using whatever means necessary to achieve its aims, including criminal activity.”
Russia officially does not recognize mercenaries, but Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch, has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Significantly, on Sunday, May 21, Putin reportedly congratulated the Wagner mercenary force for helping in what he called the “liberation” of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Reuters quoted Putin from a statement on the Kremlin’s website, saying: “The Head of State congratulated Wagner’s assault groups, as well as all members of the units of the Russian Armed Forces who provided them with the necessary support and cover on their flanks, on the completion of the operation to liberate Artyomovsk (Bakhmut).”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, said Bakhmut had not been occupied by Moscow.
Wagner’s activities go beyond promoting the military and economic interests of the Kremlin.
Stanyard says the group is also involved in promoting Russian propaganda and interests by “targeting the social media profiles of Kremlin critics — spamming them with pro-Putin and pro-war comments.”
Britain, in particular, has expressed concern that among the targets are “senior UK ministers’ social media accounts, alongside other world leaders.”
“The operation has suspected links to Prigozhin,” she says, quoting a UK report exposing the misinformation campaign by Russia.
The Wagner Group’s involvement in Africa has raised concerns about the role of private military contractors in the continent’s conflicts. While some African governments have welcomed its presence, others are concerned about the lack of oversight and accountability.
In 2019, the African Union adopted the African Standby Force Concept of Operations, which seeks to strengthen the capacity of African states to respond to crises and reduce their reliance on external actors. However, the implementation has been slow, and there are concerns that the Wagner Group and other mercenary groups will continue to operate with impunity.
CIVICUS warns that Wagner’s involvement is “contributing to the closing of civic space. In the CAR, with his position bolstered, Touadéra has further repressed dissenting voices. Humanitarian workers and independent journalists are among those subjected to violence and intimidation by Wagner forces.”
Likewise, in Mali, French media outlets have been banned and “the junta banned the activities of civil society organizations that receive French support, at a stroke hindering civil society’s ability to help people in humanitarian need due to the conflict and monitor human rights abuses.”
The issue of private military contractors in Africa is not limited to the Wagner Group. Other companies, such as Academi (formerly known as Blackwater), a private firm hired by the U.S. that became synonymous with civilian killings in the Iraq war, have been involved in conflicts in the continent, often with little oversight or accountability.
Dyck Advisory Group (DAG) was also involved in Mozambique in areas where the country is trying to deal with the Islamist insurgency. DAG claimed to have worked closely with the government to keep the insurgency at bay before the Southern African Development Community (SADC) sent deployments to Cabo Delgado province. Wagner was reportedly also involved in the conflict but left after experiencing a number of losses.
The use of private military contractors has raised questions about the role of states and the responsibility of corporations in conflicts, as well as the need for greater transparency and accountability.
Manou Gounou, a volunteer trainer for food security, stands with a moringa plant at Gbegourou Epicenter in Benin in 2021. The moringa plant is highly nutritious and The Hunger Project is a strong advocate for its use in communities throughout Africa.
Opinion by Elodie Iko (porto-novo, benin)
Inter Press Service
PORTO-NOVO, Benin, May 24 (IPS) – This upcoming weekend, on May 28, we are commemorating World Hunger Day. The day serves as a reminder that more than 800 million people around the world are living with hunger and malnutrition. That number is staggering, but there is hope.
World Hunger Day also celebrates the fact that hunger can end. We can create sustainable food systems, to ensure that everyone has access to nutritious and affordable food, both now and in the future.
I see it every day in my role as the Country Director of The Hunger Project-Benin.
So, what does it take? In my experience, the single greatest change that a community can make to end hunger and improve nutrition is a shift in mindset around gender equality.
In Benin, in West Africa, the government has put in place many policies to improve access to drinking water and sanitation, improve healthcare and increase access to nutritious food.
Yet high child mortality and morbidity rates reveal the existence of important underlying factors that catalyze malnutrition, but are generally minimized in policymaking. One of these factors is gender inequality.
When looking at the distribution of resources and responsibilities in the household, particularly between men and women, the negative influence of gender inequality on household nutrition becomes quite evident.
In our patriarchal society, men are seen as the heads of households. They have the social responsibility of making resources available to the household to provide meals. It is expected that women then use these resources to ensure household nutrition.
In today’s world, where the price of food and agriculture inputs has skyrocketed, feeding a family is becoming challenging for many. It is often falling to women to find extra sources of income to guarantee their family has food, though many face barriers like a lack of education, lack of resources and little time due to household tasks, like childcare, fetching water, and tending to livestock.
Though she may be the one closing the gap and ensuring the family has food on the table, in the service of the meal, both in quantity and in quality, priority is given to men. Women usually ensure that others have eaten first.
They then eat what is left, which often does not meet their daily nutritional needs, particularly for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding. Undernutrition and hidden hunger have specific consequences for the health and safety of women and girls, as they increase the risk of life-threatening complications during pregnancy and childbirth, weaken their immunity to infections, and reduce their learning potential. This is how malnutrition becomes multi-generational.
These are the challenges we face in our work to end hunger. They are deeply entrenched societal norms but they can change.
At The Hunger Project, we work with women and men, girls and boys to identify these mindsets and shift them. A proven way to overcome many systematic barriers to a woman’s success has been increased participation by women in local, regional and national legislation as empowered change agents.
So, we work with women to take on leadership roles in the community and raise their voices in public settings to demand change and accountability. Over 38,600 women and 28,000 men in 22 communities in Benin have undergone training in Women’s Empowerment.
Over 3,000 community leaders (about 50/50 women to men) have been trained to conduct THP’s Women’s Empowerment workshops in their communities, guaranteeing that the work to shift mindsets can continue even after The Hunger Project leaves a community.
We also facilitate women’s entrepreneurship and literacy courses, so that women have the agency and confidence to start and manage a business. Since 2008, over 32,500 women have gone through THP training on income generation in Benin. Through these trainings, women are able to increase their incomes to purchase nutritious foods for themselves and their families.
We are working with these local leaders to re-envision the local food system to make it work for the millions of women living with chronic hunger and malnutrition, so that they can break the cycle of malnutrition among women and girls.
This includes working with communities to plant diverse household gardens with nutritious staple foods, investments in infrastructure to process these foods adequately to preserve their nutritional value, and strong local distribution channels that ensure availability of nutritious foods throughout the year.
Women are key to ending hunger and breaking the cycle of malnutrition. To do so, they need an enabling environment around them and a belief in themselves that they can create a future for themselves and their families.
Elodie Iko became the Country Manager for The Hunger Project-Benin, in 2022. She has over 15 years of professional experience in the field of development and management of projects and human resources, with a specific focus on gender and women’s empowerment. Elodie joins the team having worked for Plan International Benin as a Gender and Inclusion Advisor. Prior to that, Elodie worked for The Hunger Project-Benin from 2013 to 2020, first as a gender program officer, then adding inclusive finance, the coordination of the ‘’Her Choice’’ program against child marriage and ”leadership and governance in the epicenters of THP-Benin” program to her responsibilities. Her creativity and collaboration on these and other projects have worked to improve the status and position of women/girls, and thereby, strengthen gender inclusion and equality across Benin.
Founded in 1977, The Hunger Project is a global non-profit organization whose mission is to end hunger and poverty by pioneering sustainable, community-led, women-centered strategies and advocating for their widespread adoption in countries throughout the globe. The Hunger Project is active in 23 countries, with global headquarters based in New York City.
A Yemeni man proudly watching over a young baby in a refugee camp in Obock, Djibouti. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS
Opinion by Ezequiel Heffes (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, May 23 (IPS) – In 2021 alone, almost 24,000 grave violations of children’s rights in war were documented by the United Nations – these included killing and maiming, sexual violence, use and recruitment, and abductions. Schools and hospitals were destroyed, and humanitarian relief was denied on arbitrary grounds, depriving children of vital services. More children now live in conflict zones than in the past two decades.
One critical tool created to address violations against children in war is the UN Secretary-General’s Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict, in which he includes States and armed groups responsible for such violations in his “list of shame.” Myanmar government forces, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) in Colombia, and Al-Shabaab in Somalia, to name a few, are currently included in this list.
The list helps protect children and ensures accountability by identifying warring parties and securing commitments to prevent violations through the adoption of UN action plans. It creates tangible, positive changes for children affected by war. Importantly, the listing is based on verified data collected by a global monitoring mechanism.
Despite the fact that the listing mechanism has improved the protection of children in various conflicts, civil society organizations and UN Member States have raised concerns about the process for determining which perpetrators are included by the Secretary-General in his Annual Report.
They have noted that any politicization of the decision-making process to list parties threatens to undermine its credibility, weakening the mechanism’s legitimacy as a tool for ensuring accountability, promoting compliance, and preventing future harm to children. These concerns are due to inconsistencies between the data on violations included in the Report’s narrative section and the parties listed in its annexes.
Specifically, some parties responsible for harming children are not included in the list, while others are listed for only some of the violations they have committed. Some have even been removed from the list before they have fully complied with children’s safeguards. In a 2021 report, an eminent group of international experts on children’s rights identified “dozens of cases where multiple and egregious violations did not lead to listing or where listing decisions reflected unexplained inconsistences.”
Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict emphasizes the salience of evidence-based and consistent listing decisions. Protecting children from being harmed in war should never be subject to political considerations. It is crucial to address the abovementioned concerns and ensure that the listing mechanism remains an effective tool for protecting children.
The UN Secretary-General must publish a complete list of perpetrators that accurately reflects verified data on violations. It is time to uphold existing protection frameworks and promote accountability for violations against children’s rights irrespective of who the perpetrators are.
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