Industrially produced trans fat is responsible for up to 500,000 premature deaths from coronary heart disease each year, according to WHO. Credit: Shutterstock.
by Baher Kamal (madrid)
Inter Press Service
MADRID, Feb 10 (IPS) – The food industry continues to intensively use toxic chemicals in their products, some of them provoking heart diseases and death. Trans fat is just one of them, adding to contaminating fertilisers, pesticides, microplastics and a long etcetera.
“Trans fat is a toxic chemical that kills, and should have no place in food,” warns Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), informing that trans fat has no known benefits, and substantial health risks that incur enormous costs for health systems.
“Put simply, trans fat is a toxic chemical that kills, and should have no place in food.”
What is trans fat?
Trans fat, or trans-unsaturated fatty acids, is a type of unsaturated fat that occurs in food. Of all the fats, trans fat is the worst for health. Used intensively it increases the risks of heart disease and death.
Trans fat can be found in commercial baked goods, such as cakes, cookies, fried foods, margarine, packaged foods, cooking oils and spreads among many other products.
Industrially produced trans fat is responsible for up to 500,000 premature deaths from coronary heart disease each year, WHO said.
Currently, nine of the 16 countries with the?highest estimated proportion of coronary heart disease deaths caused by trans fat intake do not have a best-practice policy.
They are Australia, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan and the Republic of Korea.
The annual status report has been published by WHO in collaboration with Resolve to Save Lives, a not-for-profit organisation that supports action towards eliminating industrially produced trans fat from national food supplies.
Food industry doubles its profits in just one year
Alongside oil and gas corporations, food companies more than doubled their profits in 2022 at a time when more than 800 million people were going hungry and 1.7 billion workers live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, reports Oxfam International.
Industrial food systems destroy
On this, Navdanya International warns that in a few decades, industrial food systems have destroyed the Earth’s systems, human health and livelihoods as it has directly violated ecological laws and laws of justice.
Now we are seeing a global agenda to erase land-based cultures, to destroy real farms, real farmers, real food to create a dystopia of “farming without farmers” and “food without farms” as false totalitarian solutions to climate change, it adds in its Call to Action “Our Bread, Our Freedom” 2022.
“It is time to abandon our resource-intensive and profit-based economic systems that have created havoc in the world, disrupting the planet’s ecosystems and undermining society’s systems of health, justice, and democracy.”
Navdanya and the Navdanya movement was created by Dr. Vandana Shiva 30 years ago in India to defend Seed and Food sovereignty and small farmers around the world.
For its part, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that more than 600 million people fall ill and 420.000 die every year as a result of eating food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins and chemicals.
More damage, more profits
These huge damages caused by the food business add to many others. One of them is the infant formula corporations’ exploitative marketing tactics, which the world-leading health organisation on 8 February 2023 called for “a swift crackdown” on such business tactics.
WHO’s report found that companies are paying social media platforms and influencers to “gain direct access to pregnant women and mothers at some of the most vulnerable moments in their lives,” through personalised content that is “often not recognisable as advertising.”
Big Business pays to social media influencers
“Through tools like apps, virtual support groups or ‘baby-clubs’, paid social media influencers, promotions and competitions and advice forums or services, formula milk companies can buy or collect personal information and send personalised promotions to new pregnant women and mothers.”
The report summarises findings of a new research that sampled and analysed 4 million social media posts about infant feeding, published between January and June 2021 using a commercial social listening platform.
These posts reached 2.47 billion people and generated more than 12 million likes, shares or comments.
“This new research highlights the vast economic and political power of the big formula milk companies, as well as serious public policy failures that prevent millions of women from breastfeeding their children,” said Nigel Rollins, one of the authors of a series on the $55 billion-a-year industry and their marketing “playbooks”, published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet.
“Actions are needed across different areas of society to better support mothers to breastfeed for as long as they want, alongside efforts to tackle exploitative formula milk marketing once and for all,” he added.
650 million women lack ‘maternity protection’
Currently, around 650 million women lack adequate maternity protections, the research noted.
Elaborated by a group of doctors and scientists, it examines how formula marketing tactics undermine breastfeeding and target parents, health professionals and politicians, and how feeding practices, women’s rights and health outcomes, are determined by power imbalances and political and economic structures.
Dairy lobbyists’ misleading claims
WHO recommends exclusively breastfeeding infants for at least six months. The practice provides immense benefits to babies and young children, from reducing infection risks to lowering rates of obesity and chronic diseases later in life.
However, globally, only around half of newborns are put to the breast within the first hour of life, warns WHO.
LONDON, Feb 10 (IPS) – Thulani Maseko knew speaking out in Eswatini was a risky business. An activist and well-known human rights lawyer, he’d previously spent 14 months in jail for criticising the country’s lack of judicial independence. Now he’s dead, shot in his home by unknown assailants.
Among those Maseko litigated against was the country’s tyrannical ruler, King Mswati III. Mswati, in power since 1986, is Africa’s last remaining absolute monarch. In 2018, in one indication of his unchecked power, he changed the country’s name to Eswatini from Swaziland, unilaterally and without warning. Maseko was planning to take Mswati to court to challenge the renaming on constitutional grounds.
Maseko was chair of the Multi-Party Forum, a network bringing together civil society groups, political parties, businesses and others to urge a peaceful transition to multiparty democracy. He was also the lawyer of two members of parliament – Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube – arrested and detained in 2021 on terrorism charges for calling for constitutional democracy.
It isn’t yet clear why Maseko was killed or whether those who did the deed were acting on their own initiative or following someone else’s orders. But for many in the country’s democracy movement, it’s more than a little suspicious that just before the killing Mswati is reported to have said the state would ‘deal with’ people calling for democratic reforms. Maseko had reportedly received death threats.
Civil society is calling for Maseko’s killing to be properly investigated. Those carrying out the investigation should be independent and ensure whoever is behind it is held to account, however high the trail goes. But there seems little hope of that.
Blood on the king’s hands
If Maseko’s killing was a reaction to his human rights work, it’s an extreme form of reprisal, but it’s not the only recent mysterious death. In May 2021, law student Thabani Nkomonye disappeared. When his body was discovered a few days later, it bore signs of torture. The police did little to investigate; many believed they were responsible for the killing.
When news of Nkomonye’s killing broke, students protested to demand justice – and multiparty democracy, because only under democracy can state institutions be held accountable. This was the trigger for months of protests that swept Eswatini in 2021.
As protests went on some people started to target businesses owned by the monarchy. When protesters started fires, the state’s response was lethal. Dozens were killed and around a thousand injured as security forces fired indiscriminately at protesters, in a shoot-to-kill policy evidently ordered by Mswati. Even if Mswati doesn’t turn out to have Maseko’s blood on his hands, there are plenty of other killings he’s likely responsible for.
Part of a pattern?
Amid continued repression, people have little hope that the killing of Maseko will be the last, and if anything the fear is that it could mark an escalation. If the state is behind the attack, it suggests an increased boldness to its repression: it may be targeting high-profile figures in confident expectation of impunity.
There are other indications this may be the case: Penuel and Xolile Malinga of the People’s United Democratic Movement, the major political party, have twice had their home fired upon in the last few months. In December 2022, human rights lawyer Maxwell Nkambule survived an apparent assassination attempt when his car was fired on.
The state signalled it had more interest in repression than investigating Maseko’s killing when two protesters were shot in a march demanding justice. The danger is of growing lawlessness and further waves of state lethality in response to any protest violence.
Genuine dialogue needed
What the democracy movement is asking for is commonplace elsewhere: the right for people to have a say in the decisions that affect their lives. People want to pick the prime minister themselves, instead of the king doing it. They want to be able to vote for political parties, which are banned from elections. They want the king to be subject to the law, which requires a constitutional rather than absolute monarchy. And they want an economy that works for everyone: currently Mswati lives a life of rockstar luxury, funded through his family’s direct control of key state assets, while most people live in dire poverty.
An agreement to hold a national dialogue – struck with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) following the 2021 protests – hasn’t been honoured. Even if it happened, many doubt such dialogue would be genuine.
South Africa has a special responsibility to urge democracy, as the country that’s home to Eswatini’s many civil society and political exiles. It’s time for South Africa and SADC to stand up to Mswati, demand genuine accountability over the killing of Maseko and push harder for real dialogue, constitutional reform and a path towards democracy.
War damage at a children’s facility in Ivanivka, Kherson. Investigators want changes in the way war crimes are investigated and prosecuted. Credit: Nychka Lishchynska
by Ed Holt (bratislava)
Inter Press Service
BRATISLAVA, Feb 10 (IPS) – As plans are announced to set up an international centre in The Hague to prosecute war crimes committed in Ukraine, groups involved in documenting them say there must be a fundamental change in how the world reacts to war atrocities.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost one year ago, there have been allegations of tens of thousands of war crimes committed by invading forces.
But while there has been unprecedented support internationally for efforts to bring those behind these alleged crimes to justice, the scores of civil society organisations working to document them say this war, more than any other, has underlined the need to overhaul global bodies and individual states’ approach to war crimes.
“The entire world and all its nations realise that there needs to be a rapid global response to atrocities, that all nations have to establish ways of documenting war crimes and bringing them and those who committed them to light,” said Roman Avramenko, CEO of Ukrainian NGO Truth Hounds which is documenting war crimes in Ukraine.
“What we are now seeing is the result of inactivity. We have been talking about war crimes here for eight years, this started long ago. When there is no investigation of crimes, and no accountability for them, this leads to even greater atrocities and violence,” he told IPS.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine there has been a relentless stream of allegations of war crimes committed by Russian troops – earlier this month Ukrainian officials said more than 65,000 Russian war crimes had been registered since the beginning of the invasion.
Among the alleged crimes are rape, mass murder, torture, abduction, forced deportations, as well as indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, among others.
Ukrainian officials say 65,000 war crimes have been registered since the war began nearly a year ago on February 24, 2022. This picture shows some of the damage in the Novopetrivka, Kherson region. Credit: Nychka Lishchynska
Condemnation of these crimes has been widespread, as has the support for their investigation.
In March and April last year, more than 40 states referred Russia to the International Criminal Court (ICC), while a few months later, many of these declared their support for Ukraine in its proceedings against Russia at the International Court of Justice.
“There has been an absolutely unprecedented mobilisation among countries demanding justice for Ukraine,” Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch, told IPS.
However, while this support has been welcomed in Ukraine, groups like Truth Hounds and others want to see it turned into effective prosecutions which will act as a deterrent to future aggression from Russia, or any other state.
“Russia was not punished for previous human rights violations and war crimes, and this has driven them to continue an aggressive foreign policy all over the world,” said Roman Nekoliak, International Relations Coordinator at the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Ukrainian NGO Centre for Civil Liberties (CCL).
“The UN and participating states must solve the problem of a ‘responsibility gap’ and provide a chance for justice for hundreds of thousands of victims of war crimes. Without this, sustainable peace in our region is impossible. An international tribunal must be set up and Putin, Lukashenko, and other war criminals brought to justice,” he told IPS.
International leaders and war crimes experts have highlighted the specific need to prosecute senior Russian officials for the crime of aggression. This crime is often referred to as the “mother of all crimes” because all other war crimes follow from it.
But it is difficult to bring the people behind such a crime to justice – the Rome Statute on which the ICC is established defines the crime as the “planning, preparation, initiation or execution” by a military or political leader of an act of aggression, such as an invasion of another country.
Ukrainian and European prosecutors are working together to investigate war crimes, but they cannot move against senior foreign figures, such as heads of government and state, because of international laws giving them immunity.
Meanwhile, the ICC cannot prosecute Russian leaders because neither Russia nor Ukraine has ratified the Rome Statute, and although a case could be brought if referred by the UN Security Council, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council with a veto over any such resolutions, Russia would simply block such a referral.
Indeed, in 2014, Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have referred the situation in Syria – where Russian troops were later alleged to have committed war crimes – to the ICC.
“It would be wrong to say that the West did not react to , but what they are seeing now is that what happened there is happening again in Ukraine, and that it will continue elsewhere if Russian aggression is not stopped now, said Olga Ajvazovska of the Ukrainian civil society network Opora which is documenting war crimes.
“International societies also now understand that we need to develop stable international bodies which will have a way of stopping systematic Russian aggression,” she added.
Various solutions to the problem of bringing senior Russian figures to justice have been mooted.
Ukraine wants a special tribunal similar to courts established for war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia set up, and in early February, Ukrainian prosecutors said they believed they were close to winning US support to establish a special tribunal to prosecute Russia’s crimes of aggression.
Separately, the European Commission announced this month that an international centre for the prosecution of the crime of aggression in Ukraine would be set up in The Hague.
But ICC officials are against the creation of a special tribunal, fearing it could fragment efforts to investigate war crimes in Ukraine, and have urged governments to support their continuing efforts.
In the meantime, the documenting and investigation of war crimes is continuing, and those involved are convinced that their work will help see justice served eventually.
They point out that they are working very closely with local and international prosecutors, as well as the ICC, and that experience gained in documenting war crimes in Ukraine prior to last year’s invasion – Truth Hounds was created just after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the start of the conflict in the country’s Donbas region – and learning from investigations into war crimes in other countries, has proved invaluable in ensuring the effectiveness of their work.
“In the 2008 Georgia war, both sides reported violations of humanitarian law and war crimes. Nevertheless, research into them was conducted with limited support from international partners, and it was only in 2016 that the ICC got involved. Over eight years, significant information can get lost, and this is exactly why war crimes in Ukraine need to be documented constantly, as we, and several other organisations and international partners, are doing,” said Nekoliak.
So far, the ICC has issued only three arrest warrants charging men with war crimes related to the Georgia conflict.
The nature of the war itself is also helping them gather compelling evidence in a way that has perhaps not been possible in any conflict before.
“We are in a digital age and cyberspace is much more developed than 20 years ago. You can see in real-time, every day, the crimes being committed, the bombings, the people dying under the destroyed buildings, you can hear their screams.
“Today, it is much easier to find someone through technology, for instance, satellite pictures or other data can help identify which soldiers were at a certain location at a certain time when a war crime allegedly took place,” said Ajvazovska.
They believe these, along with a continued international focus on the conflict, and a strong desire among Ukrainians themselves to see accountability for the crimes committed against them, will help bring even those at the highest levels of Russian leadership to court at some point.
“The trials the former Yugoslavia wars, the 2012 war crime conviction of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, Félicien Kabuga last year being put on trial over the 1994 Rwandan genocide, show that no matter how much time has passed the inevitability of punishment remains,” said Nekoliak.
“And Russian war criminals will face the same fate.”
Opinion by Purnaka de Silva, Geetika Chandwani (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Feb 10 (IPS) – The opioid addiction crisis in the United States is an acute public health emergency and a profound threat to national security – which is caused by the over-prescription, misuse, illegal production, and criminal trafficking and sale of opioid pharmaceutical drugs to Americans. It is estimated that over 130 people die every day from opioid overdoses in the U.S.
The crisis has been linked to the dramatic increase in the prescription of opioid pain relievers since the late 1990s, as well as the rise of the use of heroin and powerful, highly-addictive synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl.
The opioid addiction crisis has had a horrific impact at the individual, family, and community levels across the country, as well as on the U.S. healthcare system at the federal, state, and local level.
Opioid addiction in the U.S. has become a prolonged epidemic, threatening public health, economic output, and national security. Hundreds of people die every week from opioid-related overdoses, a toll that spiked across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As communities, healthcare providers, and government agencies join forces in combating the epidemic of opioid overdose deaths and solving the opioid addiction crisis, it is not enough to focus all available resources on treating people already addicted to opioids.
The million-dollar question is how to prevent people that do not have opioid addiction disorders, from becoming addicted. In this equation, it is crucial to examine pain and its relationship with deficiencies for example as in the case of Vitamin D deficiency and its relationship to musculoskeletal health, and thereby address specific factors that may trigger the need for long-term opioid use.
Opioids are recognized as a legitimate medical therapy for selected patients with severe, chronic pain that does not respond to other treatments. However, there can be unintended consequences. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports, nearly 500,000 people died from an overdose involving any type of opioid, including prescription and illicit opioids, from 1999-2019.
These overdose deaths are a direct cause of significant damage to the U.S. economy from lost spending, wages, and productivity, and indirectly from lower employment and other trickle-down effects.
Once seen as mainly affecting white people of Caucasian descent, the opioid crisis disproportionately harms people of color now. Unequally distributed insurance coverage, limited access to medical services, and serious racial disparities exist in the U.S. healthcare system.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, African American and Hispanic and Latino American people receive worse pain care. And alarmingly, the number and proportion of Americans 65-years and older with Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) are increasing.
Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) are the leading source of pain and disability globally but are especially prevalent in industrialized nations, including the United States. Pain associated with MSDs is prevalent among construction workers, which is followed by increased prescription opioid use.
Musculoskeletal injuries are also a severe problem in sports medicine. Chronic pain is more common among combat veterans than non-veterans and their injuries are often more catastrophic. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, military veterans suffer long years of musculoskeletal injury-related limitations.
MSDs, such as degenerative spine, arthritic conditions, and osteoporosis, are the most common causes of chronic pain among the elderly. Approximately 10 million Americans have osteoporosis, and another 44 million have low bone density, placing them at increased risk. By 2050, the incidence of hip fracture is expected to increase by 240% and 310% in women and men, respectively.
Vitamin D affects muscle strength, muscle size and neuromuscular performance. Since Vitamin D is a crucial nutrient for bone health, it is critical to question whether Vitamin D deficiency contributes to chronic pain-related opioid addiction. Vitamin D deficiency is commonly seen in patients with chronic pain, and an even higher percentage of patients with musculoskeletal pain are found to be Vitamin D deficient.
The latest study by Massachusetts General Hospital proves that Vitamin D deficiency enormously exaggerates the craving for opioids, potentially increasing the risk of dependence and addiction. Vitamin D deficiency occurs when the body does not get enough Vitamin D from sunlight or diet.
About 42% of the U.S. population is Vitamin D deficient, with some people even having higher deficiency levels. This includes premenopausal women, those with poor nutritional habits, people over 65, and individuals who avoid even minimal sun exposure.
There are also concerns related to Vitamin D deficiency due to regular sunscreen usage. And many youngsters spend more time on computers, mobile phones and video games, and lack a regular exercise regime. National data shows that most American children over the age of eight do not get enough calcium, a deficiency that increases their risk of developing osteoporosis in adulthood.
Vitamin D is naturally present in some foods and available as a dietary supplement. Regardless of fortification, the amount of Vitamin D a person gets from food depends on the person’s choice of food or drinks. The skin’s ability to produce Vitamin D decreases with age. At over 65 years of age, a person generates only one-fourth as much Vitamin D compared to when they were in their 20s.
And people with darker skin typically have lower Vitamin D levels than lighter-skinned individuals. On average, African Americans have about half as much Vitamin D in their blood compared to white Americans of Caucasian descent. While vitamin supplements have surged in popularity, some people are overdoing it, which can be toxic.
The American case study can present a learning model on a global scale, since the opioid crisis in the U.S. displays an extraordinary heterogeneity in society, with large pockets of poverty, and the absence of comprehensive health care for every citizen.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 40 million people need palliative care each year and 78% live in middle and low-income countries. Regularized pain treatment is limited or non-existent in most parts of the world. Such suffering can be alleviated with access to pain relief treatment. Poorly managed pain and inadequate palliative therapy can lead people to turn to illicitly obtained prescriptions or street drugs.
Consumer appetite is what drives demand. MSDs are the most common cause of disability worldwide, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 1.71 billion people have musculoskeletal conditions globally.
Changes in worldwide populations, global migration patterns, increase in communicable and non-communicable diseases, and environments where people tend to live and work indoors, impact upon nutrition and Vitamin D levels, with adverse knock-on effects on musculoskeletal health.
As populations age, chronic pain and diseases tend to increase, along with the need for pain relief medications. Vitamin D is crucial for bone health, a fact that probably half the world’s population may understand but does not consider such information to be crucial. A relatively simple step, such as paying attention to Vitamin D deficiency screening and treatment can lead to improved health, which in turn may decrease the need for and abuse of opioids.
For that reason alone, there should be a compulsory policy implemented nationwide in the U.S. for everyone to be screened for Vitamin D deficiency, starting from 10-years-old (middle school) to 60-years to identify and treat at-risk populations.
The opioid addiction crisis in the U.S. is undoubtedly a national security emergency. It has resulted in a manifold increase in opioid-related deaths, decline in national public safety, and given rise to transcontinental organized criminal enterprises that are involved in the production and trafficking of illegal prescription drugs, such as fentanyl.
The current opioid addiction epidemic has also had a profound economic impact, costing the U.S. economy an estimated $78.5 billion in 2015. The precise total financial burden of the opioid addiction crisis to the U.S. economy is not easy to quantify.
Some estimates indicate that the total economic costs of the opioid addiction crisis in the U.S. could be as high as $504 billion per annum – i.e., including costs associated with healthcare provision, lost productivity, addiction treatment, criminal justice funding, and other associated expenditures.
The opioid addiction crisis has created the perfect storm – i.e., public health emergency and a significant national security threat – where transnational drug cartels and associated national criminal organizations are profiteering from the situation, boosting their profits, and expanding and deepening their illegal operations and networks.
The U.S. government’s measures to rise to this challenge and combat the opioid addiction crisis, include increased resources and powers for law enforcement investigation and interdiction, as well as access to treatment, funding for research, public health awareness initiatives, education etc., all part and parcel of a national security strategy aimed at protecting the American public.
The U.S. government has also taken steps to strengthen border security, and combat the trafficking of opioids, including from China where the most amount of fentanyl is manufactured and smuggled into America. However, these measures alone are not enough to address the opioid addiction crisis in the U.S.
The opioid crisis is a complex dilemma that requires wide-ranging, concerted national health and security policies, strategies, and tactics – i.e., that must focus on prevention, treatment, public awareness, and education, together with more effective and robust law enforcement with teeth.
It requires a coordinated multistakeholder effort involving federal, state, and local governments working together with law enforcement, public health providers, the private sector, and not-for profit organizations, faith-based nongovernmental organizations and religious orders that are engaged in generating public health awareness.
The U.S. government and lawmakers on Capitol Hill must continue to take bipartisan steps to address the opioid addiction crisis in America and fully ensure that the national security of the United States is sacrosanct and not compromised in any way, shape, or form.
It is imperative to identify symptoms when they are present and provide timely care. Asking routine questions at primary care visits is an effective way to achieve this. Credit: Unsplash /Melanie Wasser.
Opinion by Ifeanyi Nsofor (abuja)
Inter Press Service
ABUJA, Feb 09 (IPS) – Patients who visit public clinics in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, are asked mental health questions to detect signs of stress and depression early. The process starts with a basic checklist, with patients referred to a nurse, doctor, or specialist. Asking these questions at primary care not only can identify issues early on, but it also helps decrease the stigma often associated with mental health while maintaining anonymity.
This initiative is praiseworthy and should be replicated in all health facilities – both public and private. To ensure continuum of care, mental health services should also be provided in communities.
Globally, there are millions of unmet needs for mental health care. Globally, more than 970 million people are living with a mental disorder, with anxiety and depressive disorders the most common. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, more than 50% of Americans will be diagnosed with a mental disorder at some point in their lifetime.
Without a doubt mental health is important. However, just like physical health, it fluctuates. In an episode of my public health advocacy project, ‘Public Health for Everyone’, Victor Ugo – global mental health advocate and founder of Nigeria’s leading mental health not-for-profit, Mentally Aware Initiative said, “mental health is a continuum – sometimes we experience good mental health and other times, bad mental health”.
Therefore, it is imperative to identify symptoms when they are present and provide timely care. Asking routine questions at primary care visits is an effective way to achieve this.
Sadly, poor perception and stigma associated with mental health vary. For instance, the 2018 mental health in Nigeria survey, which I co-led, revealed shocking results. More than 5,300 respondents were interviewed in all 774 local councils across the country.
Seventy percent of Nigerians believe mental health disease is, “When someone starts running around naked”; and 54% said “possession by evil spirits as a cause of mental health disease”.
Furthermore, 18% said they will take someone with mental health disease to a prayer house for deliverance; traditional medicine healer (8%); locking up the person (4%) and beating the disease out of the person (2%). These shocking results underpin how difficult it can be to change behaviors to improve mental health.
As mental health is a continuum, so should mental health care. It is important to provide care not just at medical facilities but at community levels too. Community members may not be aware that primary care facilities provide mental health care but people they know in the community reach out to them.
Other reasons that community efforts are important include the reality that in many regions, health facilities may be far away from where people live or there may be unattainable costs associated with accessing care at health facilities. These are two examples of successful community-based mental health care services.
First is the Fellowship Bench, which began in Zimbabwe and was founded by Psychiatrist and Aspen Institute Senior New Voices Fellow Dixon Chibanda. Dixon lost a 26 year old patient to suicide because her family could not afford the $15 bus fare from her village to his clinic in Harare, Zimbabwe, for a follow-up visit.
It was a turning point for him, and this sad experience birthed The Friendship Bench. The Fellowship Bench deploys grandmothers, an ever-present human resource in communities, to provide mental healthcare. Grandmothers are trained on evidence-based talk therapy delivered on a park bench. In 2006, the first group of grandmothers went to work.
Chibanda believes that depression is treatable and suicide preventable. However, in low- and middle-income countries, there are not enough psychiatrists. Consequently, 90% of those needing mental health care do not get it, he said in his TED Talk. Therefore, innovative solutions such as The Friendship Bench are necessary to bridge the mental health care gap by providing care right in communities where people live.
Another effort is Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI). It provides virtual mental health care to a large community by disseminating mental health information to its more than 180,000 followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.
MANI reaches more than 3 million people (mostly young people) monthly through these social media platforms. MANI’s services are needed in a country of more than 200 million people with less than 250 psychiatrists. This translates to one psychiatrist servicing one million Nigerians. MANI provided mental health care during Nigeria’s 2020 EndSARS campaign against police brutality. Young people protested police brutality but were still brutalized and killed during the protest. Many people needed mental health care and MANI was there to provide it by offering calls.
One of the major challenges to providing mental health is the cost. More funding is required to support and scale more community-based mental health interventions. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced nearly $35 million in funding opportunities to strengthen and expand community mental health services and suicide prevention programs for America’s children and young adults.
In Europe, there is a €3,355,000 grant for large-scale implementation of community-based mental health care for people with severe and enduring mental ill health. In Nigeria, the TY Danjuma Foundation recently awarded a grant to Jela’s Development Initiatives to train 200 teachers about basic mental healthcare and create awareness for effective curriculum delivery.
Jela’s Development Initiatives also hosts ‘unburden’ – a group therapy session supervised by a mental health expert, which enables participants to speak about issues affecting their mental health within a safe and confidential space. These kinds of funds are important and need to continue regularly.
Providing mental health services at primary care and community levels can help millions of people. Supporting these efforts is the equitable thing to do.
Dr. Ifeanyi M. Nsofor, MBBS, MCommH (Liverpool) is Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute, Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University, 2006 Ford Foundation International Fellow
As Zimbabweans head to the polls once again, civil and religious organisations have called for tolerance in the run-up to the elections. Credit: Commonwealth
by Ignatius Banda (bulawayo)
Inter Press Service
BULAWAYO, Feb 09 (IPS) – With political violence escalating in Zimbabwe, national elections slated for later this year face questions about whether the polls will meet free and fair international benchmarks.
Zimbabwe’s elections have routinely met scrutiny largely because of what critics say is state-sponsored violence and the intimidation of opposition political parties.
Recent weeks have seen violent attacks on opposition political supporters by suspected members of the ruling.
Zimbabwe African People’s Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) despite regular calls by President Emmerson Mnangagwa for peaceful political engagement among rival party supporters.
The main opposition, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), says its supporters have been brutalized by ruling party activists, with analysts noting that political violence is compromising the country’s stated commitment to holding free and fair elections.
In the aftermath of political violence recorded on a widely shared video last month where opposition party supporters were attacked, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference (ZCBC) issued a statement raising concerns about the implications of such attacks on the credibility of the polls.
“As the nation heads towards the harmonized elections, we urge all political players to desist from the use of violence. The people’s fundamental rights should be respected at all times. There is no citizen who should be intimidated or coerced, and worse still, be beaten to make a choice,” the Catholic bishops said in a statement last month.
“As a nation, we have in the past seen a lot of violence around elections; let this election be different. The people of this country dream and yearn for a free, credible and fair election,” the bishops added.
Last year, another video circulated showing women wearing opposition party regalia being stripped of their T-shirts, with the recent incident adding to concerns about the country’s willingness to shun politically motivated violence.
“It’s not the casting of ballots that ascertains free and fair elections; it’s the environment we create before, during and after elections. It is, therefore, incumbent on the government, political parties, and all institutions that we create a level playing field,” the bishops said.
These concerns come when the country’s elections are being closely watched both locally and internationally as the country’s human rights and press freedom record are already under scrutiny as the two are seen having a bearing on democratic processes.
“We call for zero tolerance to violence. The culture of violence speaks against the moral fabric of our society. To curb nurturing such a culture, we call upon the government through its various institutions to bring the perpetrators of violence to justice and may the victims of that violence be protected,” the Catholic bishops said.
Local rights groups have also added their concerns about peaceful polls, with the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) saying it is engaging the country’s political parties to ensure zero tolerance for violence.
But the recent violence recorded on video could mean little traction towards addressing those concerns.
“We have been meeting with political actors, all the major political parties, to try and promote peace towards these watershed elections,” said Reverend Wilfred Dimingu, Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches.
“Our efforts are to rebuild our electoral processes so that we do not have an election that has contested results because of political violence,” Dimingu told IPS.
Civil society groups say the coming elections are already facing a credibility crisis because of the political violence, which appears to have escalated since last year as political campaigns for the 2023 elections went into full swing.
“The recent incidents of political violence, which have escalated since 2022 when the CCC was formed, can only point to a disputed election that will fail the credibility test and ultimately lead to yet another legitimacy crisis,” said Blessing Vava, national director of Crisis Coalition of Zimbabwe, a local rights group.
However, the role of the country’s security arms, such as the police, has also been brought into question as identified perpetrators of political violence are yet to be brought before the courts of law.
“There is an increasing collusion between the ruling Zanu PF and the state security forces, who have been on hand to clamp down on civil society and opposition activities, while Zanu PF has continued to abuse its incumbency by continuing with its activities unabated and with full support and cooperation of state security agencies,” Vava told IPS.
Local human rights researchers note that there is little to boost the confidence of a free election amid what they see as “organised violence,” said Tony Reeler, senior researcher at the Research Advocacy Unit in the capital city Harare.
“In none of our policy dialogues, including the prospect of serious violence, do any of the discussants believe that a bona fide election is possible,” Reeler told IPS, referring to public discussions organised by his organisation and held regularly ahead of the elections.
To ensure credibility, Vava says international observers must be allowed into the country ahead of the much-anticipated elections.
“Regional and international organisations should be involved in monitoring the elections to ensure that they are free and fair, and that the rights of all citizens are respected,” Vava told IPS.
For now, it remains to be seen if political violence will ease amid calls by the country’s president, religious leaders and civic organisations for peaceful political campaigns to ensure undisputed election results.
Opinion by David Ferrari – Sudip Ranjan Basu – Kimberly Roseberry (bangkok, thailand)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Thailand, Feb 09 (IPS) – The last three years have seen the Pacific impacted negatively due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tourism industry, a key source of national revenue and jobs creation, received a severe blow due to closure of borders and reduced travel.
In April 2020, a major cyclone caused widespread destruction in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga. In early 2022, a volcanic eruption in Tonga further caused significant damage to domestic physical infrastructure.
Adding to these existing pressures, the food, fuel and finance crises have had a crippling impact on national economies throughout the Pacific. The vulnerabilities to both manmade and natural disasters are all but obvious. There is a need for an acceleration of transformative energy policy actions and ambitions.
Growing costs of fuel imports
A glance at the data shows that most Pacific countries – particularly the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) – remain highly dependent on imported petroleum fuels and are expected to do so for many years.
Outside of Australia and New Zealand, oil makes up about 80 per cent of the Pacific’s total energy supply, of which 52 per cent is used for transport, 37 per cent for electricity generation and 12 per cent for other applications such as process heating. Renewable energy accounts for only 17 per cent of the total energy supply.
Fuel imports cost the region US$6 billion annually, or around 5 to 15 per cent of GDP for each economy. This is an enormous economic burden. With its vast natural resources, a history and culture of independence and subsistence together with its low energy intensity, the Pacific subregion offers great advantages for energy transition leadership. So, there are solutions to alleviate this cost.
ESCAP’s new report – Pacific Perspectives 2022: Accelerating Climate Action – makes the case for a rapid transition of the Pacific’s energy sector away from fossil fuel imports and to increase access to modern energy services to deliver Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) in harmony with global climate goals.
This strengthens the case for alleviating reliance on imported fossil fuels. A move to locally generated renewable energy sources is supported by both the economic gains and the energy security benefits.
Advancing the implementation of SDG 7
It is widely recognized that the Pacific is not on track to deliver universal access to clean cooking fuels and technology by 2030. In fact, this target may present one of the largest hurdles to achieving SDG 7.
However, experts have recognized that energy access is best achieved through utilization of solar energy, and for many of those who remain without electricity across the Pacific, the best access solution will be the installation of stand-alone solar home systems.
Experts now suggest moving beyond minimum levels of electricity access and employing metrics such as multi-tier frameworks or the “modern energy minimum” of consumption of at least 1,000 kWh per year as a better indicator of access.
On the other hand, the rates of access to clean cooking fuels and technologies are amongst the lowest in the world as depicted in the chart below. In 2020, almost 10 million people across the Pacific lacked access to clean cooking, the bulk of whom (8.1 million people) were in Papua New Guinea. Furthermore, the rate of access to clean cooking in many countries is stagnating and, in some cases, even declining.
Figure 1: Proportion of population with access to clean cooking fuels and technologies (Data source: World Health Organization, via the Asia Pacific Energy Portal. Data was unavailable for New Caledonia, Northern Mariana Is., American Samoa, French Polynesia and Guam.)
Focusing on solution-oriented energy transition policies
A wide range of policy interventions and intergovernmental mechanisms are available to support policymakers to address the issues of over-reliance on fossil fuels and the lack of access to modern energy.
Firstly, renewable energy offers some very low hanging fruit. As imported petroleum accounts for about 72 per cent of the electricity supply and almost 100 per cent of transport energy; renewable sources can in many situations deliver clean energy at a lower cost. Developing infrastructure to support the shift to electric vehicles offers an opportunity to channel renewable energy into the transport sector.
Secondly, the business case for energy efficiency is strong and brings with it the potential to reduce energy demand across multiple sectors. However, a large proportion of these opportunities remain unfulfilled.
Finally, policymakers should collaborate through existing Pacific regional initiatives to support the scaling-up of local capability and capacity through coordinated training and knowledge transfer in the area of energy transition.
By putting people at the center of policymaking, the ESCAP Commission remains the most agile and vibrant anchor to accelerate energy transition and promote regional solidarity.
While it raises some complex questions, researchers have analysed the relationship between energy efficiency and demand response in various situations and determined that a high degree of complementarity is possible.
David Ferrari is ESCAP Consultant, Sudip Ranjan Basu is Deputy Head and Senior Economic Affairs Officer and Kimberly Roseberry is Economic Affairs Officer
Hydrogen (H2) is an essential component of today’s energy and industrial systems. Credit: Shutterstock.
Opinion by Adalberto Castaneda Vidal (new york)
Inter Press Service
The region is definitely taking this opportunity seriously. Over the past years, 11 countries in the region have published national hydrogen strategies. While this is an excellent policy signal, it might not be enough to win the race against other regions.
For the region to realize its hydrogen exporting potential, I would argue that governments should move from broad national roadmaps to a more tailored and assertive hub development strategy.
This is because the first movers are going to be the ones securing the offtake contracts and attracting investments. Following are some considerations and proposals to promote low-hydrogen hubs across the region to turn Latin America into a hydrogen success story.
Hydrogen’s potential in Latin America
Hydrogen (H2) is an essential component of today’s energy and industrial systems. Around 90 million tons (Mt) of H2 are produced and used yearly from natural gas and coal, emitting 9-23 kg CO2/kg H2.
Chemicals, refineries, and steel production dominate today’s demand. Recent technological developments that allow the production of low-carbon hydrogen, position it as an alternative to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors. In optimistic scenarios, hydrogen’s global demand can reach 115 Mt by 2030 and 528 Mt by 2050.
The two most prominent low-carbon hydrogen types are:
Green hydrogen, produced through water electrolysis paired with 100% renewable electricity, emits (0 CO2/kg H2).
Blue hydrogen, produced from fossil fuels combined with carbon capture and sequestration technologies (CCS), emits 1-3 kg CO2/ kg H2.
The global hydrogen generation market was valued at USD 129.85 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 6.4% from 2022 to 2030. New value chains will be needed to support this upscaling, including installing electrolyzer manufacturing plants in the region, which could create thousands of high-quality jobs.
Latin America has a competitive advantage in the global hydrogen race as it has one of the most abundant endowments of solar and wind resources which are key for the production of green hydrogen.
Reasons for a hydrogen-hub strategy for Latin America
Some examples of planned hydrogen hubs already exist in Chile and Brazil. However, most hydrogen strategies in the region present broad national targets that lack demarcation and definition of particular incentives directed at the most strategic locations.
A hub is a specific geographic location with resources that provide a competitive advantage for developing the hydrogen supply chain. This pathway could facilitate cooperation between public and private stakeholders and community engagement. It also may provide increased visibility to attract first movers.
In this regard, hydrogen hubs are industrial areas with a competitive advantage in developing multiple projects for hydrogen production, distribution, utilization, and export. These hubs also have the presence of potential off-takers and existing infrastructure, which could be repurposed as the base for the hydrogen supply chain.
Hydrogen hubs can also be defined in opposition to its alternative, which is developing stand-alone individual projects. The lack of success of CCS projects over the past decade provide a good example of how stand-alone models face significant technical and commercial risks that can lead to inconsistent policy support and investments.
According to a study by the University of California, 80 percent of CCS projects ended in failure in the US. The projects failed due to a lack of off-takers, poor plant siting, and little support from local coalitions. These conditions impacted the project’s credibility of revenues and continued incentives support, which weakened their financial footing.
It is crucial to learn from these examples to mitigate such risks, considering particular vulnerabilities in Latin America that are hard to control, such as higher capital costs and exchange rate risks.
A hydrogen hub approach as a way to mitigate investments risks
While hydrogen’s potential is huge in the energy transition, as of the end of 2021, investments were still $863 billion short. This is when competition with other regions comes into play. Latin American economies must show more ambitious strategies to generate new opportunities and attract that capital. The key to facilitating the allocation of capital is to mitigate risks with strong market signals and the development of key infrastructure.
The benefits of a more focused hydrogen hubs promotion strategy can be divided into three parts: risk reductions, optimization of resource allocation, and securing policy and social support.
First, hubs can help mitigate market risks by building redundancy of supply and demand. This prevents risks associated with allocating production and demand to individual projects. Furthermore, it can help distribute technical risks among more players for the construction of key infrastructure projects, such as transmission lines, pipelines, and geological storage.
Second, according to experiences obtained from other clean energy projects, hubs are more efficient for optimizing planning and operation. Sole point-to-point projects run the risk of tailoring the technical decisions to the specific needs of one producer and one off-taker. However, with a hub approach, big market players cooperate and can involve smaller players, hence providing more opportunities to take advantage of economies of scale.
Lastly, stakeholders need to generate community acceptance and ensure the support of local authorities. Research from the Inter-American Development Bank found that of 200 conflict-affected infrastructure projects, 36 were canceled, 162 faced delays, and 116 faced cost overruns.
Therefore, community engagement cannot be regarded as a secondary requirement. A transparent hub proposal regarding its benefits, costs, and transition plans for communities and workers could help garner local support and, therefore, ensure consistent policy and social backing.
While clean hydrogen hubs can help reduce risks, optimize resource allocation, and garner local support, key decisions must be made by several actors with different goals. This creates a risk of delaying the projects or failing to reach agreements to get to final investment decisions. In this regard, it is important to consider lessons learned from failures and successes in other regions.
For instance, Europe is at the forefront of clean hydrogen development with a top-down and stakeholder-based approach. Lessons on the role of both national and local authorities in the pioneer hubs in Teesside and Rotterdam need to be taken into consideration.
In Latin America, Chile provides an excellent example of how to map and market hydrogen hubs at a global scale. In 2020, the Ministry of Energy published its National Green Hydrogen Strategy, outlining national priorities and targets. While the national strategy provided insights for three regions, in 2022, the government published a new report that identified two potential hydrogen hubs in Antofagasta (Atacama desert) and Magallanes. Both regions have well-defined projects and are working to attract investments and secure long-term offtake contracts with international partners.
To reproduce this strategy, the first hypothesis governments need to prove is the availability of natural resources, renewable resources for the development of green hydrogen or suitable geological storage, for blue hydrogen. The regions must ideally have the presence of relevant industries with experience in similar sectors, such as natural gas producers or renewable developers, as well as potential off-takers.
Then the government needs to devise a plan for incentives, such as tax deductions, accelerated depreciation, and customs exemptions, among others. On top of that, policy accelerators need to be implemented to allow faster deployment of technology, such as specialized land tenders and fast-track licensing and permitting.
Companies with international experience can work closely with local governments and federal agencies to ensure regulations do not hinder projects’ development.
Parallelly, hub participants need to engage with local communities. Plans must be outlined diligently to conduct consultations and provide attractive compensation when needed. A poor implementation of this requirement can create a bad reputation for key stakeholders and the industry as a whole.
While some international and regional examples show the benefits of following a hub-centered strategy, Latin American countries must face crucial challenges to make it work. First, the recent leftist turn in the region may pose some uncertainties about market-aligned policies.
With so much risk and lower margins, governments must prove they can attract and lay appropriate foundations for private investments.
On the other hand, with the broader land requirements for hydrogen projects, companies must show their commitment to building local support and respecting communities and regulations. A clean energy business cannot be developed with old dirty tactics. The potential for the region is evident. Will Latin America be able to work in teams and win this race?
Adalberto Castañeda Vidal is a second-year student of the Master of Public Administration at Columbia University – School of International and Public Affairs concentrating in Energy. He worked as a research assistant for the Center on Global and Energy Policy, where he participated in research projects about hydrogen and natural gas. He is originally from Tabasco, Mexico, and holds a bachelor’s in International Relations from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Energy-efficient solar systems in the UN Compound in Timor-Leste are helping cut down costs and reduce CO2 emissions. Credit: UN
Opinion by Ahmed Saleem (dili, timor-leste)
Inter Press Service
DILI, Timor-Leste, Feb 08 (IPS) – Access to energy remains a concerning challenge for many in Timor-Leste. The centralised nature of the local electricity supply chain has traditionally kept consumers reliant on the national grid to overcome chronic energy shortages.
While more than 200,000 households have access to electricity, the distribution network is in poor condition, with excessive voltage drops and persistent service outages. The cost of electricity is also higher than in neighbouring countries, and Timor-Leste has been slow to transition from expensive diesel generation to renewables.
With the new UN reforms, the United Nations in Timor-Leste, under the leadership of the Resident Coordinator (RCO) has now started lighting the way with its solar-powered grid which has begun to give maximum dividends.
A powerful 300 kWp photovoltaic system is producing 400,000 kWh of clean electricity annually, filling critical gaps in energy supply. “It covers 75 per cent of the daytime electricity consumption of the entire UN House, which hosts 14 UN agencies in Dili and has reduced reliance on fossil fuels and generators, leading to 286.000 kg of CO2 emission saved every year,” said Project Coordinator Ulderico Ze Machado.
It took almost a year – from feasibility to completion – to see the solar panel installed at the UN Timor-Leste compound. Credit: RCO Timor-Leste
This move comes with the UN’s revised Business Operations Strategy (BOS) that guides strategic planning, management, monitoring, and reporting of the UN Country Team’s joint support.
The Operations Management Team started weighing the feasibility and working on a cost-efficient alternative energy solution in 2016-2017 when Timor-Leste was facing high electricity costs and increased CO2 emissions.
“In Timor-Leste, our road to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development starts at home. Our solar energy system can be a model for other UN Country Offices to show how we can jointly, sustainably and effectively tackle greenhouse emissions while reducing operational costs, and scale up support across the United Nations System”.
“Greening our business operations can help maximise efficiency, improve productivity, and in turn support the transition of the country to a more sustainable energy future,” noted UN Timor-Leste Resident Coordinator Funmi Balogun.
The project has already substantially reduced electricity costs, which were 40% of the entire Common Premises budget. “We now save USD 90,000 annually on electricity bills and diesel costs with the hope that a 100 per cent return on the investment will be materialised within six to seven years,” added Ulderico Ze Machado.
In line with the UN’s commitment to the ‘Smart UN Facilities and the Sustainable Development Goals’, this solar project shows how a UN Common premises can work in action, and how the the United Nations Sustainable Development Coordination Framework can be coherently implemented in countries.
The infographic outlines the impact of the solar panel operations in the UN Timor-Leste compound. Credit: RCO Timor-Leste
“A project like this goes beyond providing energy. It showcases a value addition to the Government, partners, and stakeholders as to how such initiatives can help create other socio-economic benefits, including employment, greener environment, cheaper energy, and sustainable lifestyles.
So, the more we implement such projects, the more we empower our communities and bring impact.
The project also evidences the skillset and expertise to support the country to transition to a more sustainable energy future and supporting the deployment of renewable energy technologies,” said UNDP Resident Representative Munkhtuya Altangerel, who is also chair of the UN Operations Management Team.
Based on this successful experience, the UN Operations Management Team is now working on upscaling the project and making the UN House, a 100 per cent solar-energy-run compound.
Ahmed Saleem is Communications Officer, Resident Coordinator’s Office, Timor-Leste. Editorial support by UNDCO.
For more information on the UN’s work in Timor-Leste, please visit? Timorleste.un.org
Pope Francis with a child on his shoulders – graffiti in Rome
Opinion by Jan Lundius (stockholm, sweden)
Inter Press Service
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Feb 08 (IPS) – When the Pope Emeritus Benedict XIV/Ratzinger died on the last day of 2022 it did not cause much of a stir in the global newsfeed. Maybe a sign that religion has ceased to play a decisive role in modern society Nevertheless, religious hierarchies are still highly influential, not least for the world’s 1, 4 billion baptized Catholics, and a pope’s policies have a bearing not only on morals, but also on political and economic issues. By contrast, there are more Muslims in the world, 1.9 billion, though adherents are not so centrally controlled and supervised as Catholics and hierarchies do not have a comparable influence on global affairs.
The Roman curia suffers from spiritual Alzheimer [and] existential schizophrenia; this is the disease of those who live a double life, the fruit of that hypocrisy typical of the mediocre and of a progressive spiritual emptiness which no doctorates or academic titles can fill. […] When appearances, the colour of our clothes and our titles of honour become the primary object in life, [it] leads us to be men and woman of deceit. […] Be careful around those who are rigid. Be careful around Christians – be they laity, priests, bishops – who present themselves as so ‘perfect’. Be careful. There’s no Spirit of God there. They lack the spirit of liberty [..] We are all sinners. But may the Lord not let us be hypocrites. Hypocrites don’t know the meaning of forgiveness, joy and the love of God. — Pope Francis I
When Benedict abdicated in 2013 he retained his papal name, continued to wear the white, papal cassock, adopted the title Pope Emeritus and moved into a monastery in the Vatican Gardens. It must have been a somewhat cumbersome presence for a new, more radical pope, particularly since Benedict became a symbol of traditional values and served as an inspiration for critics of the current papacy.
By the end of his reign, John Paul II was suffering from Parkinson’s disease and Cardinal Ratzinger was in effect running the Vatican and when he was elected Pope in 2005, his closest runner-up was Cardinal Bergoglio from Buenos Aires. What would have happened if Borgoglio, who eventually became Francis I, had been elected? Would he have been able to more effectively deal with clerical sexual abuse and Vatican corruption?
When Joseph Ratzinger became pope, he had for 27 years served John Paul II by heading the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), investigating and condemning birth control, acceptance of homosexuals, “gender theory” and Liberation Theology, a theological approach with a specific concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed people.
Under Cardinal Ratzinger the CDF generally overlooked an often shady economic cooperation financing Pope John Paul II’s successful battle against Communism, while covering up clerical sexual abuse and marginalizing “progressive” priests. Several Latin American liberation theologians agreed that John Paul II in several ways was an asset to the Church, though he mistreated clerics who actually believed in Jesus’s declaration that he was chosen to “bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” John Paul II and his “watchdog” Joseph Ratzinger were considered to have “armoured fists hidden in silk gloves.”
Ratzinger censured and silenced a number of leading “liberal” priests, like the Latin American Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff and the American Charles Curran, who supported same sex marriages. Both were defrocked. Under Ratzinger’s CDF rule, several clerics were excommunicated for allowing abortions, like the American nun Margaret McBride, and the ordination of women priests, among them the Argentinian priest Rómulo Braschi and the French priest Roy Bourgeois.
Ratzinger/Benedict wrote 66 books, in which a common theme was Truth, which according to him was “self-sacrificing love”, guided by principles promulgated by the Pope and implemented by the Curia, the administrative body of the Vatican:
“Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labelled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting one be tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”
A strict adherence to Catholic Doctrine meant bringing the Church back to what Benedict XVI considered as its proper roots. If this alienated some believers, so be it. Numerous times he stated that the Church might well be healthier if it was smaller. A point of view opposed to the one expressed by Francis I:
“Changes need to be made Law cannot be kept in a refrigerator. Law accompanies life, and life goes on. Like morals, it is being perfected. Both the Church and society have made important changes over time on issues as slavery and the possession of atomic weapons, moral life is also progressing along the same line. Human thought and development grows and consolidates with the passage of time. Human understanding changes over time, and human consciousness deepens.”
Benedict XVI allowed the issue of human sexuality to overshadow support to environmentalism and human rights. He wanted to “purify the Church” in accordance with rules laid down in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1992 and written under direction of the then Cardinal Ratzinger. The Catechism might be considered as a counterweight to “relativistic theories seeking to justify religious pluralism, while supporting decline in general moral standards.”
Pope Benedict endeavoured to reintegrate hard-core traditionalists back into the fold, maintaining and strengthening traditional qualms related to sexual conduct and abortion. He declared that modern society had diminished “the morality of sexual love to a matter of personal sentiments, feelings, customs. , isolating it from its procreative purposes.” Accordingly, “homosexual acts” were in the Catechism described as “violating natural law” and could “under no circumstances be approved.”
Papal condemnation of homosexuality may seem somewhat strange considering that it is generally estimated that the percentage of gay Catholic priests might be 30 – 60, suggesting more homosexual men (active and non-active) within the Catholic priesthood than within society at large.
In 2019, Frédéric Martel’s In the Closet of the Vatican sent shock waves through the Catholic world. Based on years of interviews and collaboration with a vast array of researchers, priests and prostitutes, Martel described the double life of priests and the hypocrisy of homophobic cardinals and bishops living with their young “assistants”. He pinpointed members of the Catholic hierarchy as “closet gays”, revealed how “de-anonymised” data from homosexual dating apps (like Grindl) listed clergy users, described exclusive homosexual coteries within the Vatican, networks of prostitutes serving priests, as well as the anguish of homosexual priests trying to come to terms with their homosexual inclinations.
According to Martel, celibacy is a main reason for homosexuality among Catholic priesthood. For a homosexual youngster a respected male community might serve as a safe haven within a homophobic society.
By burdening homosexuality with guilt, covering up sexual abuse and opaque finances the Vatican has not supported what Benedict proclaimed, namely protect and preach the Truth. Behind the majority of cases of sexual abuse there are priests and bishops who protected aggressors because of their own homosexuality and out of fear that it might be revealed in the event of a scandal. The culture of secrecy needed to maintain silence about the prevalence of homosexuality in the Church, which allowed sexual abuse to be hidden and predators to act without punishment.
Cardinal Robert Sarah stated that “Western homosexual and abortion ideologies” are of “demonic origin” and compared them to “Nazism and Islamic terrorism.” Such opinions did in 2020 not hinder Pope Emeritus Benedict from writing a book together with Sarah – From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church. Among injunctions against abortion, safe sex, and women clergy, celibacy was fervently defended as not only “a mere precept of ecclesiastical law, but as a sharing in Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross and his identity as Bridegroom of the Church.” This in contrast to Francis I, who declared:
“It is time that the Church moves away from questions that divide believers and concentrate on the real issues: the poor, migrants, poverty. We can’t only insist on questions bound up with abortion, homosexual marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. It is not possible … It isn’t necessary to go on talking about it all the time.”
The current pope is not condoning abortion, though does not elevate it above the fight against poverty, climate change and the rights of migrants, which he proclaims to be “pro-life” issues in their own right. In 2021, Francis I stated that “same-sex civil unions are good and helpful to many.” He is of the opinion that Catholic priests ought to be celibate, but adds that this rule is not an unchangeable dogma and “the door is always open” to change. Francis propagates that women ought to be ordained as deacons; allowed to do priestly tasks, except giving absolution, anointing the sick, and celebrate mass and he has recruited women to several crucial administrative positions within the Vatican. Furthermore, he ordered all dioceses to report sexual abuse of minors to the Vatican, while notifying governmental law enforcement to allow for comprehensive investigations and perpetrators being judged by common – and not by canon law.
Just hours after Benedict’s funeral on 5 January Georg Gänswein’s memoir Nothing but the Truth — My Life Beside Benedict XVI, was distributed to the press. Gänswein, who was Benedict’s faithful companion and personal secretary, writes that for the Pope Emeritus the Doctrine of the Faith was the fundament of the Church, while Francis is more inclined to highlight “pastoral care”, i.e. guidance and support focusing on a person’s welfare, social and emotional needs, rather than purely educational ones.
In 2013, Gänswein entered in the service of Benedict XIV. He was professor in Canon Law, fluent in four languages, an able tennis player, excellent downhill skier and had a pilot’s licence. He was also an outspoken conservative and often critical of Francis I.
Shortly before his abdication, Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Gänswein archbishop and made him Prefect of the Papal Household, deciding who could have an audience with Pope Francis I, while he at the same time was responsible for Benedict’s daily schedule, communications, and private and personal audiences. The Italian edition of the magazine Vanity Fair presented Gänswein on its cover, declaring “being handsome is not a sin” and calling him “the Georg Clooney of the Vatican”. Six years before Donatella Versace used Gänswein as inspiration for her fashion show Priest Chic.
There was an air of vanity and conservatism surrounding the acolytes of Benedict. Gänswein writes that working with both popes, the active one and the ”Emeritus” was a great challenge, not only in terms of work but in terms of style. Benedict XIV was a pope of aesthetics recognising that in a debased world there remain things of beauty, embodied in a Mozart sonata, a Latin mass, an altarpiece, an embroidered cape, or the cut of a cassock. The male-oriented lifestyle magazine Esquire included Pope Benedict in a “best-dressed men list”. Gänswein states that when Pope Francis in 2022 restricted the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass “I believe it broke Pope Benedict’s heart”.
Pope Francis is now 86, not much time remains for him as sovereign of the Catholic Church. Hopefully he will be able to change the Curia by staffing it with people who share his ambition to reform the Church by navigating away from doctrinal rigidity, vanity and seclusion towards inclusion, tolerance, human rights, poverty eradication and environmentalism.
Main sources: Gänswein, Georg (2023) Nient’altro che la verità. La mia vita al fianco di Benedetto XVI. Segrate: Piemme. Martel, Frédéric (2019) In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy. London: Bloomsbury.
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