To date, 19 countries have already ratified the treaty. However, this number remains far short of the 55 AU member states and excludes some of the region’s power houses such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Senegal. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS
Opinion by Johnpaul Omollo, Taonga Chilalika (nairobi/johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI/JOHANNESBURG, Apr 29 (IPS) – Across Africa, local manufacturing and pharmaceutical companies are responding to the urgent need for locally produced medical products and technologies despite the existing regulatory challenges. We can support manufacturing capacity by expediting the establishment and operationalisation of the African Medicines Agency (AMA).
In November 2021, after 15 countries signed and ratified the AMA treaty, the AMA became a specialised agency of the African Union (AU). To date, 19 countries — Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritius, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe — have ratified the treaty.
However, this number remains far short of the 55 AU member states and excludes some of the region’s power houses such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Senegal.
Over the next five years, Africa’s health care sector, especially local pharmaceutical production, will be a key economic driver for the region—predicted to be about two percent of the global pharmaceutical market in 2022.
Harmonising health product regulations will make Africa a more attractive market for the pharmaceutical sector, for both research and development, as well as introduction of innovations.
These harmonisation efforts will further improve trade in support of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), by deepening African integration and enabling the development of markets for health commodities and technologies? Of most importance, the agency will coordinate joint assessments and inspections for a select group of products, and coordinate capacity building.
The next two years will be critical in setting up the agency, including selecting a host country, appointing the director general, recruiting staff, and setting up offices for AMA. Countries that have not yet ratified will not have an input into these key decisions which will bolster the medicines regulatory environment in the region.
This has been a long journey. The agency is derived from the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation (AMRH) initiative launched in 2012, led by African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) to address challenges faced in medicines regulation in Africa.
These challenges include weak legislative frameworks, duplicative and slow medicine registration processes, and subsequent prolonged approval decisions, limited technical capacity, and weak supply chain control. As COVID-19 has shown, these challenges pose both a public health and economic risk to the continent.
To improve the fragmented regulatory system for medical product registration in Africa, the vision is to gradually move from a country-focused approach, with 55 countries acting independently to a collaborative regional one, with five Regional Economic Communities supporting one Agency.
AMA will review regional policies and identify new sources of funding to enhance national capacity to regulate medicines, as well as try to simplify the complex requirements from regional and global level standards and guidelines.
Member states also need to be cognizant of the extensive operationalization process required to set up the agency’s administrative and technical workstreams. For instance, as part of the administrative workstream, they need to select a host country, appoint a Director General, recruit staff, set up office space, and register the treaty with the UN Secretary General.
We need to move swiftly to ensure the entire continent is on board. By now, every AU member state should have approved and ratified the AMA by signing, ratifying, and depositing its instruments at the AU commission.
With the vision of preparing Africa to facilitate the production of 60 percent of vaccines needed on the continent by 2040, the establishment of AMA is a clarion call to countries and regulators. We must urgently put in place the tools needed to realise the optimal operationalisation of the Agency by the end of 2022.
We applaud the 19 member states that have ratified the AMA. We urge these states to be champions by promoting the benefits of the agency all over the continent to encourage and motivate the rest to come on board and ratify the Africa Medicines Agency.
Johnpaul Omollo is a Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer at PATH in Kenya. Follow him on Twitter @JPmcOmollo
Taonga Chilalika is a Senior Advocacy and Policy Associate at PATH in South Africa. Follow her on Twitter @TaongaChilalika.
Apr 29 (IPS) – The Ministry of Health in Kenya recently reported there were 45,754 cases of adolescent pregnancies between January and February this year – that translates to 700 cases a day. Of the total number, at least 2000 of these cases resulted from sexual and gender based violence (SGBV), a figure which is likely lower than the reality.
What is more is that every week, 98 girls were reported to have contracted HIV in the study period.
Having been a teenage mother myself and now a sexual and reproductive health advocate, the worrisome statistics hit close to home. As Kenyans, we have cultivated and normalized a culture of public outcry on issues of concern and shortly thereafter, swiftly moving on.
This must change. We must pay attention to this crisis and address it. The price to pay if current trends continue is too high, as this directly touches on the lives of the future of our great Republic.
Stephanie Musho
The effects of teenage pregnancy are often deleterious affecting that affect the social and, economic aspects of young mothers. Consider that often, teenage mothers drop out of school due to the stigma, and are inadequately supported postpartum to return to school in their new status of motherhood.
Disruptions in education ultimately perpetuate a vicious economic dependency cycle, often on people who abuse their vulnerability. There are also health risks involved like infections and obstetric fistula among others – as well as mental health challenges including anxiety and depression. Additionally, babies born to adolescents are more likely to have low birth weight and severe neonatal conditions.
The startling figures from earlier this year point to two scenarios. On the one hand is that adolescents are engaging in consensual sex amongst themselves. This could be attributed to curiosity and the raging hormonal changes that come flooding in at puberty.
On the other hand, incidents could point to a sexual and gender based violence crisis that is perpetuating the teenage pregnancy crisis in the country. For both scenarios, Kenya has a robust legal and policy framework to prevent these crises that must be better employed.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, explicitly guarantees the right to reproductive health in Article 43. This is working in tandem with the National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy(2015) that employs a preventive approach to teenage pregnancy through, among others, the access to correct sexual and reproductive health information.
Additionally, is the Return to School Policy that provides guidelines on the reintegration of adolescent mothers to school, postpartum. Additionally, the Children’s Act, the Sexual Offences Act and the Penal Code all prescribe strict punishment for sexual and gender based violence.
These are complemented by the Kenya School Health Policy which ideally safeguards learners from the same.
So, there are laws, but the problem lies in the implementation – or lack thereof, of these solid frameworks.
Implementation is additionally hindered when duty bearers misinterpret or are unaware of their own policies. Just recently, a senior Ministry of Health official publicly stated that giving contraceptives to minors is a criminal offense punishable by a jail term of up to 20 years.
This is however not a true representation of the existing legal and policy framework. In his erroneous statement that pointed to a draft policy that is yet to be passed, the ministry official misled millions of Kenyans.
The crisis at hand shows how critical it is for adolescents to receive correct information on sexual and reproductive health, products and services to make wise decisions. Opponents argue that this would increase promiscuity among adolescents.
However, that perspective remains an inadequate rejoinder because the fact of the matter is that whether we like it or not, teenagers are having sex – a lot of it too. They therefore need to freely make informed decisions that protect their health and their future.
As we move into the month of May which is dedicated to preventing and ending teenage pregnancies worldwide, the Kenyan government must intentionally work on ending the scourge that has persisted over the years.
The Ministry of Health must provide products and services for prevention and mitigation in accordance with the law. The Ministry of Education must work to standardize and deliver comprehensive sexuality education across the country.
To galvanize this, Kenya must reaffirm the regional Ministerial Commitment on Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Sexual and Reproductive Health Services for Adolescents and Young People in Eastern and Southern Africa which it signed in 2013 but shied away from recommitting to in December 2021.
The Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government under which security falls, must work to investigate and provide evidence for the prosecution of perpetrators.
The Ministry of Culture must also fight against harmful traditional practices that feed into the crises. This should all be in collaboration with the relevant ministries that house the youth affairs and gender affairs dockets respectively. Until then, the health, life and future of Kenyan girls hang in the balance.
Stephanie Musho is a human rights lawyer and a Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute
TORONTO, Canada, Apr 29 (IPS) – The UN will be commemorating World Press Freedom Day on May 3. The following article is part of a series of IPS features and opinion pieces focused on media freedom globally.Empowered by a global pandemic and the drum beats of war, the strongest despots are growing more despotic, and criminal cartels even more brazen in their violence. Extremists of various hues are also stepping out of the shadows.
Just when the world most needs press freedom to thrive, the liberties that societies only really treasure when they are emasculated are coming under more pressure from different directions, old and new.
Farhana Haque RahmanThe 2021 World Press Freedom Index measured by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) declined last year, and is 12% down since first issued in 2013. RSF reported “a dramatic deterioration in people’s access to information and an increase in obstacles to news coverage”. The coronavirus pandemic was cited as widely used to block journalists’ access to information.
Lest you think that this deterioration is the preserve of less developed countries under autocratic rule, RSF noted an increase in attacks against journalists and arbitrary arrests in Germany, France, Italy and several other European states.
This year –as we approach World Press Freedom Day on May 3 — is measurably worse already, notably in Russia and China, but also in Mexico with an escalation of targeted killings of journalists by suspected drug traffickers.
Some 200 Russian journalists and several dozen foreign reporters have left Russia since the passing of a draconian media law on March 4 which criminalises “deliberately false” information. It outlaws calling the invasion of Ukraine a “war”. In addition Russia is still applying its “foreign agents” legislation to punish and intimidate critical media outlets, including PASMI dedicated exclusively to fighting corruption.
“The Russian authorities’ crackdown on independent media is escalating at breakneck speed. Evidently unsatisfied with merely blocking critical news sites or forcing reporters into exile, the Kremlin now seeks to incarcerate journalists who report on anti-war protests or Russian soldiers who refuse to fight in Ukraine,” Amnesty International said on April 14 commenting on the arrests of two journalists in the Russian republics of Altay and Khakassia.
“Apart from state propaganda, there is no media landscape in Russia,” Journalist Alexey Kovalyov, now based in Riga, told Al Jazeera. The power of that propaganda must not be underestimated. Accounts are widespread of people living in Ukraine telling relatives in Russia that they are being bombed by the Russian army but their own family members refuse to believe them.
The “world’s biggest jailer of press freedom defenders”, reports RSF, is however China, with 115 men and women currently incarcerated. China ranks 177 out of the 180 countries and territories surveyed. “Media freedom in China is declining at breakneck speed,” the Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC) stated in January. China has labelled the FCC an “illegal organisation” and appears in its rhetoric to be encouraging an exodus of foreign journalists.
Free media in Hong Kong, once among the freest in Asia, has been almost completely dismantled, according to Hong Kong Watch, a UK-based advocacy group. Its recent report followed the HK FCC’s announcement it would suspend its Human Rights Press Awards as it risked violating the city’s national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.
Whereas Russia and China are deploying “lawfare” against independent journalists and big companies in developed countries are stifling the press with “vexatious” lawsuits, it is more a legal wasteland or absence of the state that is killing journalists in Mexico, among others.
A wave of murders has targeted at least eight journalists so far this year, with seven killed in all of 2021, making Mexico under populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador one of the most dangerous countries for the press. Journalists, in the words of Adela Navarro Bello, director of the Tijuana weekly Zeta, are “caught in the crossfire between the threats and bullets of narco-traffickers and organised crime and the threats and verbal attacks and attempts to morally annihilate us from the federal and state governments”.
International human rights organisation Article 19 says the Mexican government’s denial of what is happening “results in no urgent measures being taken to stop this brutal spiral of violence”.
A similar pattern is seen in Bangladesh where suspected narco-traffickers killed Bangladeshi journalist Mohiuddin Sarker Nayeem on April 13.
The Committee to Protect Journalists publishes an annual Global Impunity Index and notes that no one has been held to account in 81% of journalist murders worldwide over the past 10 years. Somalia tops the list, with Mexico ranked 6th and Bangladesh 11th.
State-sponsored or tolerated violence and political persecution aside, world press freedom is also being eroded in an insidious way in places where such freedoms are commonly understood to be vital in sustaining well-functioning democracies. Coupled with the apparently unstoppable rise of social media as a source of information – some surveys suggest 50% of adults in the US and UK get their news from social media – the state of much of the traditional press, digital or not, is far from healthy.
The annual Digital News Report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found the US ranked last in media trust, at 29%, among 92,000 news consumers polled in 46 countries. (Finland came top).
Governments must not be passive while the same powerful corporate lobbies that have spent fortunes over decades spreading climate dis/misinformation in traditional media now feed on the rapacity of Big Tech social media, which are failing to disclose comprehensive policies to combat this. Climate disinformation as a threat to climate action is highlighted in the latest UN Climate Reports.
Press offices of international organisations, particularly the UN and large INGOs, also have a particular responsibility to uphold media freedom by eschewing the corporate dark arts of delay, denial and obfuscation.
A new proposal by the EU executive to protect journalists and campaigners from so-called vexatious lawsuits is highly welcome. The move would target “strategic lawsuits against public participation” known as Slapps, where the rich misuse legal means to silence troublesome investigative reporters and NGOs.
No press freedom, no democracy. Just like freedom of speech, that does not mean a free press can publish whatever it wants. Both need to be defined and, in these very dark times, defended.
Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS North America, including it’s UN Bureau; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
The worldwide degradation, fragmentation, and destruction of ecosystems are accelerating and generating serious consequences for flora, fauna and human well-being. Credit: Guillermo Flores/IPS
Opinion by Joseph Chamie (portland, usa)
Inter Press Service
PORTLAND, USA, Apr 25 (IPS) – Since the first Earth Day observed on 22 April 1970, world conditions have worsened greatly across three critically interrelated global dimensions that portend a disastrous future for life on planet Earth.
First, CLIMATE CHANGE is certainly the most worrisome threat to human security. The scientific evidence clearly demonstrates that climate change is a threat to the well-being of humans and the planet.
Global warming is resulting in unstable life-threatening changes in the planet’s climate and living conditions. Those cataclysmic changes are the consequence of human populations-caused atmospheric carbon pollution primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, the response of world leaders to climate change has largely been the Climate Change Shuffle: deny, delay, and then do little. In brief, the international community of nations is witnessing the abdication of leadership by the major countries of the world.
Some have concluded that the world is in the midst of a human-caused extinction event. Many of the impacts of global warming are undeniable and are now considered as simply irreversible.
The ten warmest years on record have happened since 2005. In addition, 2020 was the second warmest year on record, being just 0.02 degrees Celsius less than the warmest year in 2016.
The 2020 world surface temperature averaged across land and ocean was 0.98 degrees Celsius warmer than the 20th century average of 13.90 Celsius. Also, the 2020 average was 1.19 Celsius warmer the pre-industrial period of 1880-1990 of 13.69 Celsius (Figure 1).
Source: Climate.gov.
The goal to limit global warming to well below the Paris Agreement rise of 2 degrees Celsius, or preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels is considered a losing battle.
In addition to the lack of global leadership, cooperation and enforceable objectives with explicit timetables, world leaders continue to sell out to wealthy interests and corporations that push for promised techno-fixes.
Second, WORLD POPULATION, which grew at record high rates during the 20th century, continues to grow and is greatly impacting all living organisms and natural resources on the planet.
Between 1920 and 2020, the population of the world quadrupled, increasing from 1.9 billion to 7.8 billion people. Moreover, since the first Earth Day fifty-two years ago, the human population on the planet has more than doubled, growing from 3.7 billion to nearly 8 billion today and is expected to add another 2 billion people by 2070 (Figure 2).
Source: United Nations.
Despite planet Earth reaching 8,000,000,000 human beings, countries continue to resist population stabilization and reductions. Many government officials, economic advisors, businesses, mainstream media, and others frequently lament population slowdowns and call for more demographic growth, particularly through increased birth rates.
In addition, human migration is at record levels and greatly impacting nations worldwide. The global number of immigrants has reached a high of around 281 million, with more than 84 million people displaced from their homes and more than 30 million refugees. In addition, millions of men, women, and children continue to attempt illegal migration.
Today’s enormous human mobility has resulted in the Great Migration Clash. The Clash is a worldwide struggle between those who desperately want out of their countries and those who vehemently want to keep others out of their countries.
More than a billion people, largely in poor and violence ridden countries, would like to move permanently to another country. At the same time, no less than a billion people, mainly in wealthy developed countries, say fewer immigrants should be allowed to enter.
Immigration is a top concern of voters in most migrant-receiving countries, with many concerned about the effects of immigration on their society and culture. Most migrant-destination countries are turning to border walls, barriers and patrols, repatriating those unlawfully resident, resisting accepting refugees and denying most asylum claims.
In addition, as the demand for migrants is a small fraction of the supply of people wishing to migrate, illegal immigration continues to be a major global challenge. The increased migration, particularly illegal migration, is contributing to the rise of right-wing populist and nativist parties.
Anti-immigrant sentiment has also spread to include refugees and asylum seekers. Many country policies to stem illegal immigration are undermining the established international rights and protections granted to refugees and asylum seekers.
Third, ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION is also critically altering conditions for all living organisms across the planet. The worldwide degradation, fragmentation, and destruction of ecosystems are accelerating and generating serious consequences for flora, fauna and human well-being.
The worsening conditions across land, sea, and air have been brought about by the unsustainable numbers of humans and their ongoing damaging behavior. The extraction of oil, gas, coal, and water, the logging, mining, fishing hunting, and the ever-increasing needs and demands of 8,000,000,000 humans have ruined large areas of planet Earth.
The degradation of environment includes reduced biodiversity, deforestation, depletion of natural resources, deteriorating ecosystems, and pollution. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the planet has experienced a catastrophic decline in global wildlife populations and the natural environment is continuing to be destroyed by humans at an unprecedented rate.
During the past five decades, for example, the world experienced an average 68 percent drop in monitored vertebrate species, i.e., mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish. In addition, the decline in monitored vertebrate species over the past half century varied considerably by major region from a low of 24 percent in Europe and Central Asia to a high of 94 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean (Figure 3).
Source: World Wildlife Fund, based on 20,811 populations of 4,392 species (mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish).
Biodiversity loss has largely been the result of habitat destruction due to unsustainable agriculture and logging, the continuing ruin of grasslands, forests, and wetlands, and the overexploitation of fish, mammals and natural resources. In the coming years the biggest driver of further biodiversity loss is expected to be human-induced climate change.
In addition, environmental degradation coupled with climate change is increasingly fueling mass human migration. Growing numbers of men, women and children are moving domestically and internationally to escape difficult living conditions. Those changing conditions include prolonged drought, excessive heat, rising sea levels, large-scale flooding, extreme wildfires, dying coral reefs, violent storms, and weather-produced disasters.
What needs to be done today to address climate change, world population, and environmental degradation, are not secrets, unknowns, or recent discoveries.
Over the past decades, scientists, environmental organizations, international agencies, intergovernmental panels, and many others have repeatedly warned world leaders about climate change, world population and environmental degradation. In addition, they have clearly spelled out the immediate steps required to address those critical issues.
Briefly, among those steps are: (1) adoption of energy efficiency and conservation practices and the replacement of fossil fuels with low-carbon renewables; (2) reduction of emissions of short-lived climate pollutants; (3) protection and restoration of the planet’s ecosystems; (4) shift from consumption of animal products to diets of mostly plant-based foods; (5) transition from emphasis on GDP growth toward sustaining ecosystems; and (6) the stabilization of world population, and ideally a gradual reduction, within a framework ensuring social integrity.
Unfortunately, based on the behavior of countries today and their expected actions in the future with respect to climate change, world population, and environmental degradation, objective observers are increasingly arriving at an unavoidable conclusion. Namely, it will be highly unlikely to avoid a disastrous future for life on planet Earth.
Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”
Ambassador Christian Wenaweser has served as the Permanent Representative of Liechtenstein to the United Nations in New York since 2002.
Opinion by Christian Wenaweser
Inter Press Service
Apr 22 (IPS) – The author is Liechtenstein’s UN Ambassador, in an interview on how his country’s veto initiative could help restore the United Nations’ effectiveness.
Q: Liechtenstein has just initiated a resolution at the United Nations that mandates a meeting of the General Assembly whenever a veto is cast in the Security Council. What’s behind this initiative?
A: The veto initiative is a simple idea, but we think it politically very meaningful. It simply says that every time a veto is cast in the Security Council, there is automatically a meeting convened by the General Assembly to discuss the proposed veto in the Security Council. So, it’s an automatic mandate. It’s not subject to any further intervention or decision.
It’s a mandate that is given to whoever is the president of the General Assembly at that time to be convened within the said timeframe. It’s open-ended with regards to the outcome. It’s completely non-prescriptive. The only thing that is mandatory is the meeting and the discussions themselves.
Could you elaborate on the motivation for this initiative? Why is this happening now?
We’re doing it because we believe in strong multilateralism. We have followed with growing concern the inability of the Security Council to take effective action against threats to international peace and security due to the very deep political divisions among the permanent members in the Council.
We are concerned about the negative impact that this has on the effectiveness of the United Nations. So, if you look at our statements in the last five years or so, we have consistently advocated for a strong role of the General Assembly in matters of international peace and security as mandated by the Charter of the United Nations. This initiative is a meaningful step in that direction.
The reason why we’re doing it now is twofold. First of all, we were close to launching this initiative in March of 2020 when we were hit by the lockdown. This is not the type of thing that we can do online. So, we decided that we need support from close sponsors to push this. The lockdown is over while the pandemic is not, so that’s one of the reasons why we’re doing it now.
The other reason is that we sensed that the wider membership of the United Nations is now particularly attuned to this initiative. Now people have a strong sense that the United Nations needs to innovate itself and find different ways of doing business.
Ambassador Christian Wenaweser has served as the Permanent Representative of Liechtenstein to the United Nations in New York since 2002.Is there a reason why you do not mention the ‘R’ word in this context?
Yes and no. If you look at the numbers, it’s clear who has vetoed the biggest number of resolutions in recent years. That is the Russian Federation – mostly with regards to Syria. But our initiative is not aimed at Russia or directed against Russia. It’s simply about the veto and the institutional balance. It’s about the role that we believe the General Assembly should play in this organisation.
What are the chances for this resolution being adopted? There was some speculation that it is going to be discussed this week and there’s going to be a vote in the coming days.
The vote is not going to be this week. This week we will have a formal presentation with the membership. We will then look to get a date in the General Assembly soon thereafter. We are getting a strong positive response to this. So, we are very confident that our text will be adopted.
Are you concerned that the initiative – if adopted – could be used as a political tool to put other countries who have veto powers on the spot? Or that countries that are put on the spot in the General Assembly because of a veto then go on to use the debate in the Assembly to generate even more attention for their view than they would have gotten only on the Council?
This is not about putting anyone on the spot. Our resolution does provide that the delegations that vetoed in the Security Council are offered the first slot in the speakers list because we would like to hear from them why they vetoed, and why they think it’s in the interest of the organisation, why they think it’s compatible with the principles of the Charter. That’s an invitation extended to them and, as is the case with any invitation, you can accept it or not.
It’s not about putting anyone on the spot, but about accountability. It’s about being given a voice in what we think are issues over which we have ownership. The Charter of the United Nations says clearly that the Security Council does its work on behalf of the membership.
Are you surprised that your initiative is receiving support from Washington at this point?
Well, the obvious thing to say is you should ask the US ambassador. But I am happy to share my thoughts. The US have stated their reasons very clearly. We think what they are saying is very important as it is coming from a permanent member of the Security Council that has had a mixed history with the United Nations over the years.
This US administration has supported a big step for the Security Council to invoke the Uniting for Peace procedure in connection with the Russian aggression against Ukraine. I think they have just come to realise that for UN to remain relevant, the General Assembly has to move into the centre. For us, that’s an important and hopeful sign. For us, this is a vote on multilateralism. This is not just to vote on a procedural mechanism that gives the General Assembly more power.
Also, if we understand you correctly, it’s not a vote on Russia.
Not for us. Some observers obviously think we are doing this because of what’s going on in Ukraine. That’s not true. But of course, what is going on in Ukraine and the lack of response by the Security Council makes it abundantly clear that what we are doing is the right thing to do. But in fact we’ve been working on this for the last two-and-a-half years.
Unfortunately, sometimes UN initiatives come in with some momentum but then unfortunately nothing is really coming out of it once they are adopted. The Mexican-French initiative to voluntarily restrain the use of the veto in the Council after the blockage of the Council in 2013, for instance, comes to mind. Are you concerned that this could happen once again?
I am not sure I would agree with that assessment. After all, the French-Mexican initiative was never adopted. It was just something that was put on the table.
This will be a General Assembly resolution. This is going to be an intergovernmental mandate that the General Assembly creates for itself. It is going to be there in perpetuity, and it will be implemented automatically. And it is going to make a difference.
This interview was conducted by Michael Bröning and Volker Lehmann.
Source: International Politics and Society published by the Global and European Policy Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.
Refugees entering Poland from Ukraine at the Medyka border crossing point. March 2022. Credit: UNHCR/Chris Melzer
Opinion by Azza Karam (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Apr 19 (IPS) – “The war in Ukraine is a European …and a Christian… matter… It does not require the involvement of a colourful array of religions or people”. These words were uttered and affirmed by some European Protestant men, working in interfaith circles in Europe. The ‘colourful’ encompassed other than European, mostly Christian – and likely mostly male.
Add this perspective to another one from a seasoned Catholic lay male leader, diplomat and academic, echoing representatives working in various Vatican offices, who maintain that if there is to be any religious engagement around Ukraine or Russia, “it is the Pope who should be doing this …and this is the preference of European governments”.
To these people, the fact that the war in Ukraine (and economic sanctions against Russia), have raised the price of oil, gas, and wheat (and therefore basic staples such as bread) for all other inhabitants of our world, is simply irrelevant.
The important fact appears to that Europe is suffering – and losing face in doing so, one might add. The fact that there are religious minorities in Ukraine also suffering, is not meriting as much attention. The supremacy of the Catholic Pope, who is a leader of but 16 percent of the world’s religious populations, is also apparent in the discourse of many esteemed European male leaders.
Were European governments to see value-added to religious involvement in affairs of state, then it would clearly be the Pope who would merit the role, out of the thousands – if not more – of other faith leaders in (the rest of) the world.
Yet so significant is the war in Ukraine, along with the role of Russia (and perhaps after that China) in geopolitics, and the changing political, financial and economic consequences around a world already damaged by the vagaries of Covid lockdowns and declines in tourism (which was the source of basic income for hundreds of millions of people), that it is a staple of many conversations – outside of Europe.
One such perspective of some seasoned diplomats in the USA, is that “religion and religious institutions have nothing to do with this war nor play much of a role in it. This is one politician’s madness”. Someone must have forgotten to send the memo with the words of a Patriarch of the largest Church in Russia, with over 120 million adherents worldwide, justifying the war – and using a homophobic discourse to do so.
Or maybe we erased the other memo where millions of Russians voted for this one “mad” politician (as millions of others voted for other mad politicians elsewhere in the world).
And yet, as we ponder the rampant ignorance about the intersections of politics and religion worldwide, and the arrogance of some European religious and political actors, and as some of us listen to religious leaders from other corners of the world, it would be wise to ponder a couple of questions: are we sure that all religions would have found the Patriarch of Russia’s language, and its subject, quite so distasteful? And, are we sure that it is one man causing all this carnage and hate (and profit to weapons manufacturers, mercenaries, and all who make money from war)?
There are many forms of this kind of arrogance of ignorance, which have coalesced to bring our world to this point where it would seem that almost every corner of it, is blighted. For some it is the blight of many forms of extremism: from launching war against a sovereign nation and killing its people, to horrific gang violence, to desecrating sacred sites and attacking pilgrims and devotees during their prayers, even during times which are holy to both attacked and attackers.
For others, it is the blight of democracy abused and myriad human rights systematically and deeply violated. For yet others the blight is having to live with various forms of hate speech and hate filled actions, including those with distinct anti-Semitic and Islamophobic blows. Holocaust deniers are reemerging out of many layers of rotten woodwork in all corners of the world.
The semantics of Islamophobia are being argued about in some western government circles, even as veiled women are being openly abused in some streets and denied access to jobs in countries claiming respect for religious freedom, and where even turbaned Sikh men continue to face abuse because they are mistaken as Muslims, and/or because their form of dress is deemed injurious to secular sensibilities.
For others the blight is to have to contend with shootings by lone gunmen of innocents in schools or subways or nightclubs or concerts. All this in the middle of a public health epidemic that has claimed the lives of millions – and we are still counting (where it is possible to have reliable data) – and while climate change is contributing to the largest numbers of refugees and forcibly displaced peoples ever in recorded collective human history.
Yet climate change is still being denied. And as for misogyny, it is the new normal in private and public spaces, everywhere in the world – in Europe too.
But it is not all gloom. The same European country which decried the one million Syrian refugees it allowed in (and subsequently quietly offloaded thousands of them to other countries), has announced no limit to the number of Ukrainians needing to enter it, and sometimes ensuring that some of the newer Ukrainian refugees receive access to homes before other refugees (who had waited longer but now must continue their wait). Another European country which let some refugees die of cold on its borders rather than allow them in, is now providing all manner of support to the Ukrainian ones.
The United States, which a few months ago lost significant credibility as a result of a messy exit after a 20 year struggle against the Taliban in Afghanistan (leaving the country largely back in control of the Taliban), is today resonating with righteous indignation, and crowing that “the West is back”. The European Union too, has seen the error of its ways of being overly dependent on cheap Russian gas, and oil, and is now hastening to rid itself of such a dependency.
The war in Ukraine (albeit apparently not the ongoing horrors in Myanmar, Yemen, Mali, Niger, Cameroon, and Ethiopia – to name but a few) is indeed impacting our world. Like Covid-19, the war will doubtless continue to influence political, financial, and socio-cultural frames for decades. But here is another question: are we sure that the rampant and now fully on display discriminatory arrogance of ethnocentrism, and its appendages, will change?
This April 2022, witnesses another form of coalescing. Bahá’ís celebrate Ri?ván, a festival of joy and unity which commemorates the beginning of their Faith. For Hindus and many others also, this month marks the celebration of the Spring festival of the harvest, and the Hindu new year. For Sikhs as well, this April celebrates the birth of the religion as a collective faith.
Jews celebrate Pesach, or Passover, commemorating the exodus of the Jewish people escaping the slavery of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Christians (Western and Eastern) – celebrate the resurrection of Christ this Easter. All while Muslims observe the thirty days of fast known as Ramadan. There are more faith traditions celebrating and/or commemorating. Definitely the best time, then, to pray for – or for those of tender anti-religious sensibilities let us say ‘to reflect’ on: the twin birth of humility and mercy.
A rainy day in the camps under COVID-19 lock-down, Maina IDP camp, Kachin, Myanmar. Credit: UNICEF/UNI358777/Oo.
Opinion by Navid Hanif (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 (IPS) – As the world is rocked by a confluence of crises, the global economic outlook for 2022 is becoming ever more uncertain and fragile. Prospects for sustainable development for all and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 are bleak, particularly for developing countries.
The war in Ukraine is adding further stresses to a world economy still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and under growing strain from climate change. These cascading crises affect all countries, but the impact is not equal for all.
While some, mostly developed countries, had access to cheap financing to cushion the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic and invest in recovery, many others did not.
Massive recovery packages in rich countries contrast sharply with poor countries, which had to juggle essential expenditures. For many, education and development budgets had to be cut to respond to COVID-19.
Growth prospects are severely constrained in the developing world – even before taking the war in Ukraine and its repercussions into account, 1 in 5 developing countries are not expected to return to pre-COVID income levels by 2023.
This situation is likely to get worse because the fallout from the war is exacerbating the challenges confronted by developing countries. Food and fuel prices are reaching record highs. This strains the external and fiscal balances of import-dependent countries.
Supply chain disruptions add to inflationary pressures, setting up a very challenging environment for Central Banks – rising prices combined with deteriorating growth prospects. Tighter financial conditions and rising global interest rates will make it increasingly difficult, and no doubt impossible for some, to roll over their existing commercial debt.
Many vulnerable countries will not be able to absorb the combined shocks of a disrupted recovery, rising inflation, and sharply rising borrowing costs. Sri Lanka has just defaulted, and more widespread debt distress may well be on the horizon – which is likely to put the Sustainable Development Goals out of reach.
The lack of adequate and affordable financing for developing countries is making timely realization of the 2030 Agenda increasingly difficult. Their governments often have few avenues to raise funds domestically, due to underdeveloped domestic financial markets. But borrowing from abroad is both risky and expensive, with some African countries paying over 8% on their Eurobond issuances in 2021.
As the 2022 Financing for Sustainable Development Report notes, the only way to achieve a more equitable recovery is to bridge this finance divide. It will take determined action, on several fronts.
First, developing countries will need additional concessional public financing. Bilateral providers and the international financial institutions have stepped up in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but additional funding was not enough to prevent this divergent recovery. The fallout from the war in Ukraine is widening financing gaps and countries will need additional support.
Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak
A first key test of international solidarity will be on Official Development Assistance (ODA). Additional support for refugees from the conflict in Ukraine, while important, must not come at the expense of cross-border ODA flows to other countries in need.
Development banks should make available more long-term countercyclical finance at affordable rates, easing financing pressures during crises. Donors should ensure that multilateral development banks see their capital increased and concessional windows replenished generously.
One immediate step development banks and official bilateral creditors could take themselves is to use state-contingent clauses more systematically in their own lending. This would mean automating debt repayment standstills, providing breathing space to countries in crises.
Development banks and development finance institutions at all levels could also work to strengthen the ‘development bank system’. National institutions tend to be smaller and fewer in the poorest countries. They would greatly benefit from capacity and financial support.
Multilateral and regional development banks can in turn benefit from national banks’ detailed knowledge of local markets.
Second, we must improve the costs and other terms of borrowing faced by developing countries in international financial markets. Excess returns for investors hint at market inefficiencies. We must close gaps in the international financial architecture – the lack of a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism adds uncertainty – and improve transparency by both debtors and creditors.
Transparency and better information for investors can help reduce costs. Short-term credit ratings are also an issue. Rating agencies assess a country’s creditworthiness over a very short horizon, often three years. Meanwhile, many public investments in sustainable development – in infrastructure, education, or innovation – only pay off over a much longer period.
Credit assessments are systematically biased against long-term investments. Thus, they poorly serve those investors that have long investment horizons, such as pension funds. Long-term sovereign ratings that take into account such investments, as well as long-term risks such as climate change, should complement existing assessments. Scenario analysis can help overcome the inherent difficulties of such long-term assessments.
Countries can also exploit growing investor interest in sustainable development and climate action. Sovereign green bonds, which can sometimes be issued at reduced cost (“greenium”), are a fast-growing market segment. A commitment to marine conservation recently helped Belize achieve more favorable terms with private creditors in debt restructuring.
Development finance institutions could also help by providing partial guarantees to sovereign borrowers, lowering interest in exchange for commitments to invest in the SDGs and climate action.
Third, many countries will need debt relief to avoid a protracted and costly debt crisis. Once debt has reached unsustainable levels, providing additional credit, even if at concessional rates, will only delay the reckoning.
The current mechanisms to deal with countries in debt distress are clearly inadequate. The Common Framework set up by the G20 in the fall of 2020 was a step in the right direction, but its shortcomings have become all too apparent.
No restructurings have been completed yet; there is no good answer to treating commercial debt; and many highly indebted developing countries are not eligible to approach the Common Framework at all.
The G20 must step up efforts to implement and deliver on the Common Framework more effectively. But as a more widespread debt crisis becomes a frightening possibility, a more fundamental reform of the sovereign debt architecture must be on the table as well.
The United Nations can provide a neutral venue that brings together creditors and debtors on equal footing to advance such discussions.
We at the UN believe that the SDGs can still be met. But without concerted bold action now on all fronts, the road ahead is looking very bumpy. Timely and bold policy choices will get us there.
Navid Hanif is the Director of the Financing for Sustainable Development Office of the United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). He is also the UN sous Sherpa to the G20 finance and main tracks. He joined UNDESA in 2001. He was Senior Policy Adviser in the Division for Sustainable Development and member of the team for the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002. He served as the Chief of Policy Coordination Branch and later Director in the office for Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) support. He was the first head of the DESA Strategic Planning Unit established in 2010.
Opinion by Lysa John, Oli Henman (london / johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
LONDON / JOHANNESBURG, Apr 15 (IPS) – Russia’s war in Ukraine has left many communities facing catastrophe. In a world already wracked by multiple crises such as searing inequality and escalating climate change, this conflict is tearing through communities.
Millions of people are directly affected. They face fragile circumstances, with immeasurable sadness caused by the death of loved ones, loss of livelihoods, displacement, destruction of homes, interruption of education, and more.
The conflict has also placed huge new burdens on the multilateral system, putting a further break on progress towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals that has already been set back by the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Civil society representatives from both Ukraine and Russia have expressed their deep concerns about the needless suffering caused by the war. In Ukraine, they are responding to the situation in vital ways, from documenting war crimes and gathering information about missing persons to urging international institutions to live up to their responsibilities on peace and accountability.
In Russia, civil society has exposed media restrictions that have helped create a disinformation nightmare while protesting against the injustice of war.
The impacts of this conflict are being felt far beyond the war zones. Disruptions in international commerce are feeding inflation and food insecurity around the world disproportionately impacting the impoverished and excluded.
In this scenario, civil society groups across all continents have come together to support a five-point call for action issued by the Action for Sustainable Development coalition.
The message to the international community is simple:
We call for an immediate end to the war in Ukraine, a ceasefire and a withdrawal of Russian forces, and the phased removal of all sanctions according to an agreed timeline. The devastation of many cities and the killing of innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure cannot be justified.
Furthermore, it is unacceptable and insufficient that so far only a handful of men – and visibly no women – appear to have been involved in the peace negotiations.
We call for the peace negotiations to include civil society and representatives of those who are directly affected, especially from Ukraine and Russia, and particularly women.
2. Respect international human rights
We stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. The rights of civilians must be respected. After more than a month of conflict, the humanitarian impacts are leading to massive displacement of people, loss of lives and livelihoods. We are very concerned that this grave violation of international law will have an extremely adverse impact on security and democracy in Europe and the world.
We also call for human rights to be respected in Russia. Many Russian people have stood up to condemn violence and their voices must be heard. Peaceful protest must be recognised as a legitimate form of expression.
We call for human rights to be fully respected in Ukraine and Russia, including international humanitarian rights and civic freedoms.
3. Stop militarism and aggression around the world
The rise in militarism and conflict is not limited to Russia. It is part of a growing catalogue of armed conflict. Violence in all its forms – authoritarianism, corruption and indiscriminate repression – affects the lives of millions of people around the globe and violates the human rights of people young and old in countries including: Afghanistan, Brazil, Central African Republic, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Palestine, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen, to name just a few.
These conflicts often affect communities already living with fragile infrastructure and the devastating impacts of climate change. All conflicts must be treated with the same level of concern. The lives of everyone affected by conflict are of equal value.
We call for the same level of support to end conflicts and ensure financial support for displaced peoples and refugees from all conflicts.
4. Shift military funds to a just and sustainable future
The war in Ukraine has already had a devastating impact on the world economy, especially on global south countries. There are likely to be major disruptions and significant increases in the costs of energy and production, and increased food costs. At the same time budgets are being redirected towards military spending.
The militarism of Russia is fuelled by fossil fuels and it is therefore critical to halt investment in fossil fuels and shift immediately to renewable forms of energy. It is crucially important that we reduce oil and gas consumption and rapidly scale up investments in renewables in order to combat the climate crisis, and that we do so immediately.
We call for a specific commitment at the UN to reduce spending on military conflicts and to reinvest this spending on social protection and clean energy.
5. Establish a global peace fund
We call on member states to remember the founding vision of the UN and its Security Council, to deliver on the main reason it was created: to avoid any kind of war and the suffering of humankind.
The 2030 Agenda sets out a path towards a peaceful, just, sustainable and prosperous world. much more ambitious steps and actions must be undertaken to ensure that its targets and goals are met.
We call on member states to establish a global peace fund to strengthen the role of international mediators and peacekeepers. The UN must act!
The international community cannot be a bystander in Ukraine or any other conflict. We all have a responsibility to defend universal human rights and humanitarian principles by acting against cruelty and injustice wherever it may be.
Oli Henman is the Global Coordinator the Action for Sustainable Development coalition in London. Lysa John is the Secretary General of the global civil society alliance, CIVICUS in Johannesburg.
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