Opinion by Armand Houanye (ouagadougou, burkina faso)
Inter Press Service
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso, Mar 14 (IPS) – The writer is Regional Executive Secretary of the Global Water Partnership in West Africa (GWP-WA)Burkina Faso’s interim President Captain Ibrahim Traoré spoke late last year of the conflicts that are now blighting his country and much of his region. He described the situation in Burkina Faso as predictable given the endemic weaknesses in governance that he believes have led to the economic abandonment of many young people, particularly outside of urban areas.
He delivered these remarks on November 13th to political parties, civil society organizations, and traditional and customary leaders in Ouagadougou to raise awareness of Burkina Faso’s rapidly degrading security situation. Of particular note was his focus on water, as he described seeing people throughout the Southwest, Northwest and Sahel regions including Gorom-Gorom, Tinasane and Markoye carrying jerry cans to fetch water.
This led him to question why there were no development projects in these impoverished regions. The people walk, he lamented, for miles to get water for the cattle that die on the way.
There are no roads for trucks to even transport livestock feed to sustain livestock, he reflected, before referring to the Kongoussi-Djibo road bridge built in the 1950s that has fallen into such dilapidation that it can no longer support the trucks that would otherwise take the now rotting local produce to market.
All he says, because of a lack of investment in the construction and the maintenance of essential infrastructure.
His speech depicts a reality across the Sahel region where terrorist attacks have been rampant since 2012, following Mouammar Kadhafi’s assassination and the subsequent looting of Libya’s weapons deposits. Many villages have since been abandoned in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, with thousands of people having been displaced with no proper government intervention to curb the violence.
As clean drinking water is a basic need, lack of access to it triggers many problems at every level of society. Traditionally, villages are located close to waterways to allow for the smooth provisioning of water, as well as the practice of gardening to produce basic ingredients for food which can be consumed and sold for cash for the community.
With the rise of terrorist attacks mostly in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso but reaching coastal countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Togo and Benin, many villages have been abandoned or are under the control of armed terrorist groups who impose their own rules and dictates on the local people.
Displaced populations are deprived of their traditional water sources, be they natural water courses, standpipes or boreholes, cutting off their water supply and therefore the access to their means of physical and economic sustenance.
“They lay down the law for the management and use of water and other natural resources by delimiting areas to be exploited,” said a local elected authority to me in a terrorist dominated zone in the Central-Southern part of Mali, adding that, “the cultivable areas are reduced and they occupy the wooded areas suitable for agriculture and which contain the local water reserves.”
The chiefs of villages occupied under duress are obliged to cooperate with these groups. They are therefore the preferred interlocutors of all those who “seek permission to operate” in these controlled areas.
The opinion of the village chief is conditional to the prior agreement of the group to which the village belongs. There are real negotiations with these terrorist groups before any projects or partners are allowed to enter the territory.
The reality in Sahelian countries in general is that successive governments since independence have concentrated their “administration” on urban areas. But once you leave the urban areas the populations are left to their own devices with an administration that is more oppressive and not in the least concerned with providing sustainable responses to the development needs of these localities.
The agents of the land registry (customs), law enforcement (police, gendarmes), and nature protection (water and forests) are quicker to find ways to engage in racketeering than to offer the poor the services they require.
“We have lost a lot of funding which has been transferred to other localities deemed more accessible,” explained a local government official to me recently in one of the areas under control. “Given the fact that the groups themselves need to have privileged access to drinking water, they facilitate the arrival of certain partners to install water supply systems,” he added.
Water management and development is but one of many sectors affected by terrorist activities in the region, but water, unlike some other sectors, is a matter of survival.
There is therefore a critical need to enhance and improve the governance of water resources and land while ensuring that required investments are put in place to sustainably respond to the water related development needs of people living in urban and rural areas at all levels in Sahelian countries.
Delegates at the Arab and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments: Addressing Youth Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence, held in Jakarta, Indonesia held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Credit: APDA
by Cecilia Russell (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 13 (IPS) – Child marriage, gender-based violence (GBV), sexuality education, religion, and tradition came under the spotlight during a conference, Arab and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments: Addressing Youth Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence, held in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Professor Keizo Takemi, MP Japan, Chair of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), reminded delegates that GBV is on the rise in conflict situations, during disasters, and during the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.
“Furthermore, children in some countries are at higher risk of child marriage due to economic pressures and school closures caused by the pandemic. Globally, about one in five (21 percent) girls are married before the age of 18. Child marriage not only deprives girls of educational opportunities, but early pregnancy and childbearing also come with a higher risk of complications and death.
Pierre Bou Assi, MP Lebanon, President of the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAPPD), told the delegates it was necessary to acknowledge and confront the issues of GBV in the region. It was clear from a series of case studies from the Arab and Asia Pacific region that while there has been some success, there was plenty of work to do.
Dr Dede Yusuf Macan Effendi, MP for Indonesia and Chair of the Indonesian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (IFPPD), said the country had had some successes – for example, the incidence of GBV dropped from 33 percent in 2016 to 26 percent in 2021. However, many incidents were unreported, and this was considered “the tip of the iceberg.”
Effendi noted the region’s issues – like the high proportion of child marriage and exposure to HIV/Aids.
Dr Hasto Wardoyo, the chairperson of BKKBN, said parliamentarians played a critical role, with various “studies suggesting that the government should take steps such as increasing care capacity and access to services such as health services, social services, developing children’s abilities, opening and equalizing access, strengthening family and social bonds.”
A professor from UIN Jakarta, Dr Nur Rofiah, gave a perspective from Islam and said the religion had a concept of maslahah or goodness. This recognizes women’s bodily experiences are different from men’s, and it would be important to consider actions that “cause painful experiences for women’s bodies, including gender-based injustice.”
Rofiah emphasized the adverse effects of child marriage for women saying that child brides lost out on their childhood, dropped out of school, experienced domestic violence, often were adversely impacted by divorce, were stigmatized by being widowed, lacked competitiveness in the work environment, very often experienced single parenthood and were susceptible to child marriage.
COVID-19 had impacted the ICPD25 programme of action, especially on health care, with Malaria and tuberculosis neglected, as was gender equality, said Nadimul Haque, an MP in India. The Regional Sexual and Reproductive Health Adviser, UNFPA ASRO Professor Hala Youssef, developed this theme, saying policymakers need to change strategy during this decade of action to 2030 – without which it would be difficult to achieve the goals. She called on delegates to move from the idea of “funding” ICPD goals to “financing” them. Funding was reliant on the government, but financing involved the wider society.
Delegates took a deep look at the pressing issues of child marriage, sexuality education, religion and gender-based violence during the Arab and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments: Addressing Youth Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence meeting held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Credit: APDA
Youssef called on parliamentarians to concentrate on the needs of young people, people with disabilities, universal health coverage, budgetary and financial allocations, social determinants of health, maternal deaths among adolescent girls, strengthening health workforce numbers, and capacity building.
The case study presented by Professor Ashraf Hatem, an MP from Egypt, showed that his country’s Universal Health Insurance (UHI) would soon remove the issue of what he called “catastrophic health expenditure” of the poor. The scheme rolled out in phases, would decrease out-of-pocket expenditure from 62 percent to 32 percent in 2032.
The government was subsidizing about 35 percent of the population. He gave an example of open heart surgery done in a UHI facility that would cost a patient 300 Egyptian pounds or about USD 10.
A grim picture of the social, psychological, economic, and medical burdens resulting from unintended pregnancies in her country was painted by Soukaina Lahmouch, an MP from Morocco. While there had been an improvement in the legal arsenal regarding abortion, marriage, and access to quality health services, much was still to be done. She explained that in Morocco, about 153 newborns are born out of wedlock each day, of which 24 children are abandoned at birth.
About 11,4 percent of pregnant women still received no prenatal care; however, in rural areas, about one-fifth of mothers received no prenatal care, and 13.4 percent gave birth without the assistance of qualified personnel.
“More than half of the women affected by poverty do not seek follow-up during pregnancies,” Lahmouch said, adding that education was a determinant, with almost all women with secondary school education giving birth in a health facility, but those without education more likely to give birth at home.
About 12 percent of women were married under 18, and a recent survey showed that 62.8 percent of women aged between 18 and 64 experienced violence during the year before the survey.
Dr Suhail Alouini, a former MP of Tunisia, quoted a World Bank study, saying 18 percent of women were married before 18 in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region. While in many countries, the legal minimum age for marriage is set at 18, there were exceptions for the marriage of underage individuals due to court decisions.
Alouini said conflict and displacement increased the risk of GBV, including sexual violence and forced marriages.
“In some conflict-affected areas in the Arab region, the rates of child marriage have increased, and the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in reports of GBV in the Arab region and around the world. The pandemic also disrupted efforts to prevent child marriage as school closures and economic hardships made girls more vulnerable to early marriage.”
He noted that GBV and child marriage requires a comprehensive and multi-sectorial approach focusing on prevention response and political leadership, and ICPD25 recommendations provide a road map for action emphasizing the importance of investing in data and research and engaging a wide range of stakeholders and political leadership. The role of parliamentarians is critical in addressing GBV and child marriage.
Laissa Alamia, MP of Bangsamoro Transition Authority, Philippines, spoke about the situation in the self-governing region and the Philippines.
“One in four Filipino women aged 15 to 49 experienced physical, emotional, and sexual violence by their partner or husband. One in six Filipino girls finds herself married before hitting the age of 18.”
This is the case even though the Philippines is known for its “most vibrant woman’s rights movement and the most comprehensive anti-GBV legal frameworks and mechanisms in the world.”
Bangsamoro region is disproportionately poor, and 62 percent of the women belonged to poor communities; the approximate number of child brides was 88,600 out of a population of 2.46 million women.
He said ethnic minority Muslim women continue to face different forms of discrimination, and the code of Muslim personal laws in the country gives a prescribed age for marriage of 15 for men and 15 or at puberty for females.
Alamia said the Philippines law, which prohibits child marriages, is not universally accepted by all communities and brings up religious freedom debates.
Dr Jetn Sirathranont, MP Thailand, noted in his closing remarks that there was still a long way to go to achieve the ICPD25 programme of action, but he hoped this conference would give an impetus to finding solutions.
Tomoko Fukuda, Regional Director of IPPF ESEAOR, encouraged parliamentarians to continue their work on the ICPD programme of action, despite conflicting priorities.
“So we as the older generation have to be committed to ensuring that the world is a better place for the young people and the children born into this world,” she said.
Anjali Sen, UNFPA Representative in Indonesia, shared a study by Schneider and Hirsch in 2020 that showed that “comprehensive sexuality education meets the characteristics of an effective GBV prevention … comprehensive sexuality education is based on human rights and gender equality.”
She called for it to be implemented, stating that it needed support and involvement from teachers, parents, healthcare providers, young people, and the government. Parliamentarians had a role in ensuring that policy and financial support were available.
Note:. This conference was organized by APDA and FAPPD, hosted by IFPPD and supported by UNFPA and Japan Trust Fund (JTF).
The WHO working group met to consider 307 amendments proposed by governments to update current regulations. February 2023. Credit: World Health Organization (WHO)
Opinion by Nicoletta Dentico, Ashka Naik (geneva)
Inter Press Service
GENEVA, Mar 13 (IPS) – As countries recently gathered in Geneva for the fourth round of negotiations on the WHO proposed pandemic treaty or accord, close examination of the current text by civil society experts has revealed significant gaps.
Critical concerns about the underlying vision of the draft text have been highlighted in a public statement led and endorsed by civil society organizations globally. The statement has been shared with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB4) that is mandated with the pandemic treaty negotiation.
These concerns still stand true. And it is urgent that the INB begins to tackle them before the next round of negotiations are upon us.
First and foremost, our analysis focuses on the fact that several parts of the text rely on voluntary arrangements, and that the binding regime of the text appears discouragingly vague and weak. One such instance relates to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities in pandemic prevention, preparedness and response,” which the draft borrows from the climate instruments.
This notion is extremely important to avoid pandemics, and it cannot be made voluntary, if the world is serious about the goal of reaching systemic capacity to respond to future health crises.
The draft text’s failure to provide safeguards or an accountability framework regarding the role of the corporate sector is another major source of concern. The WHO negotiation places the new UN’s ‘whole of society’ approach – which has been pushed in other negotiating fora – at its core through multistakeholderism, against the backdrop of striking and unfettered geopolitical power asymmetries. The involvement of the private sector in the COVID-19 response has been extremely problematic.
Countries desperately needing a concerted effort to tackle the pandemic were held ransom to the whims of power and profits of both the philanthropic and pharmaceutical industry.
The proposed treaty or accord mustn’t make the same mistakes, and all attempts to bring the corporate sector into the negotiation of any pandemic prevention, preparedness, or response must be strictly regulated at best, and prevented whenever there is a risk of public interest health policies being hijacked for profit.
It is clear that the financing approach outlined in the draft text blatantly ignores that the global financial system has historically prevented low- and middle-income countries from investing in public health.
Tax dodging by corporations, lack of fiscal and policy space for domestic resource mobilization, and crippling national debts are major barriers that prevent many countries from strengthening their public health services and institutions.
While the current draft misses taking into account the challenges of the global financial architecture, there is a blind spot with no substantive acknowledgement that public health crises are often engendered or exacerbated by a systematic destruction of the planet, at the intersection of the climate and environmental crises, food insecurity, and the mounting inequality crisis enshrined in gender and racial discrimination.
So far, the draft text hardly does justice to the urgency of preventing pathogen spillover at the animal-human interface. A narrow focus on the biomedical approach to dealing with future pandemics, without considering these intrinsic systemic factors, is bound to remain largely insufficient in dealing with any future pandemics.
Way Forward
Governments and various relevant socio-political actors engaged in the WHO diplomatic initiative on the pandemic treaty or accord have different and diverging interests and the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), which has done impressive work to keep pace with the agreed negotiations’ roadmap, has to reckon with these diverse political demands and conflicting pressures.
However, it is clear that to carry out the original intent of the new pandemic treaty or accord, unambiguous wording is needed that conveys a binding character of the agreement. This also means that the multistakeholder model under which the entire process of the treaty is being managed has to be re-examined and re-imagined instead of its current ‘whole of society’ form.
In future, none of the promises made by member states in the WHO pandemic treaty or accord will result in the desired change needed if the robust and reliable compliance mechanisms that enable governments to be held accountable are absent.
These demands are not unique to this treaty, but have similarly been made by civil society in ongoing negotiations in the UN on climate change and in the UN treaty on business and human rights. These were also incorporated into the tobacco control binding policy that the WHO established nearly 20 years ago.
At the same time, public health, public governance, public systems, and public funding must be at the center of the pandemic planning, prevention, and response. It is important to finally recognise that the global financial architecture must be overhauled, especially for low income and developing countries to have sovereign control over their fiscal and policy space, and to resource their public health needs through progressive taxation policies.
It is imperative to understand that the private sector cannot fulfill the current funding gaps and needs no leveraging by international development and financial institutions. Healthcare privatization is not the way to go to face the health challenges of the present and the future.
Lastly, all efforts must be made to make sure that the text creates a deliberate interconnection between the right to health and the right to a healthy environment, now explicitly adopted as a human right by the United Nations, as well as the rights of nature to exist and thrive.
It is about time that this global public health discourse reckons with the reality of populations and the environments from the ground, rather than from the ivory towers of corporate investors and vested policy-making.
Ashka Naik is the Director of Research and Policy at Corporate Accountability, and directs its food program, which focuses on structural determinants of food systems, nutrition, and public health
Nicoletta Dentico leads the Global Health Justice program at Society for International Development and co-chairs the Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2)
The 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (6-17 March) gets underway at UN headquarters in New York . Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías
Opinion by Dana Abed (beirut)
Inter Press Service
The writer is Global Campaigns Strategist for Gender Rights and Justice at Oxfam International.
BEIRUT, Mar 10 (IPS) – This month, government and civil society organization representatives gathered in New York for the United Nations’ 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to discuss technology as a tool to facilitate access to education for women and girls.
But what should have been discussed were the basic issues of gender equality in education. As more than 85% of the world is living under austerity, and with 70% of countries cutting funding to education services, access to education for women and girls is being devastated by the lack of public funding.
The gap between boys and girls when it comes to school enrolment continues to be major, and quite concerning. Data consistently shows – particularly in low- and middle- income countries – that girls from poor families are the children most likely to be, and remain, out of school.
And the cost of education is one of the main barriers for access – which raises the question of affordability when it comes to technological integration.
While technological innovation has the potential to support instruction and education governance, we cannot turn a blind eye to the reality of digital inequality, the possibility of increased fees, and the privatization of education.
That is on top of the existing risks that are associated with the use of technology, including online violence and abuse and the lack of digital protection for girls, further locking girls out of their rights to education.
Austerity measures, public funding cuts, and privatization severely limit the goal of universal education. In a report published last November, Oxfam found that austerity is a form of gender-based violence.
And during CSW67, we emphasized that access to public and quality education is fundamental to gender equality and the realization of the rights of women and girls.
Oxfam does not claim that austerity measures are designed to hurt women and girls, but as policy makers design those policies, they tend to ignore the specific needs of women and girls and turn a blind eye to the disproportionate impact that those policies have on our communities.
We’ve reached this conclusion by gathering evidence from around the world, which showed that governments do not prioritize the needs to women and girls. For instance, more than 54% of the countries planning to cut their social protection budget in 2023 have minimal or no maternity and child support.
In their misguided attempts to balance their books against a looming global economic crisis, governments are treating women and girls as expendable. Women, particularly those from marginalized racial, ethnic, caste, and age groups, are inherently discriminated against when it comes to economic and social opportunities and accessing available public resources. Additional cuts to inequality-combatting public services mean these groups are the hardest hit.
Cuts to both the public wage bill and public health and social protection services – measures that women and their families rely on for survival – mean that women and girls bear the brunt of this austerity because health, education, feeding the family, paying the bills, caring for children and elderly all fall most heavily onto them.
For example, cutting wages in the public work force – especially in sectors like health where women represent 90% of the workforce or education where they represent 64% of the workforce – will directly impact job security.
We must resist austerity and should instead be taxing the wealthiest corporations and people properly. A progressive tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.1 trillion more than the savings that governments are currently planning to make through their austerity cuts.
With such funding, governments could adopt feminist budgeting across all sectors that put women and girls in all their diversity at the heart of policy making, including ensuring access to quality, and public education.
Feminist movements have for years pushed for bold alternatives to our neo-liberal, capital-oriented economies, and Oxfam raises its voice with them. The integration of technology in education must be looked at from an intersectional lens, taking into consideration barriers to access for girls and low- and middle-income countries, and should not come with an additional cost to the education bill.
We need to stand in solidarity with the women’s rights and feminist movements in demanding that our leaders stop peddling the gender-based violence of austerity as the solution and support more feminist progressive representation beyond identity politics.
We must resist creating societies that prioritize the needs of the most privileged at the expense of everyone else – and instead work to create communities and policies that reflect our diverse backgrounds and identities.
Opinion by Sudip Ranjan Basu, Sanjay Srivastava (bangkok, thailand)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 10 (IPS) – Two destructive Category 4 tropical cyclones, Judy and Kevin, and an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude impacted over 80 per cent of the Vanuatu population from 1 to 3 March 2023. To address this emergency situation, the UN, along with Pacific member States have deployed personnel on the ground to coordinate humanitarian assistance and prepare post-disaster damage assessment.
Sitting in the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” Vanuatu experiences frequent volcanic and seismic activity. And along with the other Pacific small island developing States (SIDS), Vanuatu faces existential threats due to rising sea level, ocean acidification and the increased frequency and severity of natural disasters and is on the front line of climate crisis.
The twin cyclones and an earthquake in just 48 hours remind the world that seismic and climate risks are converging and intensifying – no community feels this stronger than those of the Blue Pacific Continent.
On macro-economic impact, in fact, Pacific SIDS face Average Annual Losses from multiple hazards totaling to US$ 1.1 billion in the current scenario. This figure is set to increase to US$ 1.3 billion under moderate and US$1.4 billion under worst-case climate warming scenarios. As a percentage of GDP, Vanuatu, Tonga and Palau are projected to face highest losses – Vanuatu is projected to lose a staggering 20 per cent GDP annually due to disasters.
Figure 1: Tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin track with wind speed zones (UNITAR-UNOSAT)
Intensifying and expanding climate crisis
In ESCAP’s recent report, the analysis shows that at 1.5 to 2.0 °C warming, there are likely intensifying annual wind speeds of tropical cyclones and that the risk of tropical cyclones is expected to expand and include newer areas beyond the historical tracks (Figure 2). Vanuatu in particular, will experience higher risk of tropical cyclone both in terms of the intensification as well as geographic expansion of the riskscape.
As cyclone hazards are intensifying and deviating from their traditional tracks, their greater complexity results in deeper uncertainties in the ability to predict. Our Blue Pacific Continent is not sufficiently prepared.
Figure 2: Intensifying and expanding cyclone risks under new climate change scenarios
Formulating transformative actions
As the climate changes, the riskscape is transforming. These disaster risks compound and cascade to amplify the great hardship experienced by the Pacific SIDS in terms of population and critical infrastructure exposure. The argument for transformative action to mitigate and adapt to intensifying and expanding disaster risks in the Blue Pacific Continent has never been more compelling.
First, early warning for all is an imperative, needs to capture compounding risks.
Relative to other countries in the subregion, Vanuatu’s Target G scores are high, reporting substantial to comprehensive coverage of multi-hazard early warning systems across all indicators. WMO’s Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre in Nadi, Fiji was providing early warnings in the face of power outages and surmounting uncertainties – as a result, there have been no reported fatalities.
Figure 3: Sendai Framework for DRR Target G scores for countries in the Pacific region
Second, transformative adaptation solutions are needed.
To minimize and prevent systemic and cascading risk, we need to make new infrastructure and water resource management more resilient. Improving dryland crop production and using nature-based solutions such as increasing mangroves protection are also priority adaptation solutions.
1.5 per cent of GDP for adaptation investment is estimated to be needed in Pacific SIDS – three times less than the average losses projected. These adaptation investments must be risk-informed and strategically directed towards policy actions that yield high cost-benefits. Where there are multi-hazard risk hotspots across the region, risk-informed policy and transformative actions should capitalize on inter-sectoral synergies and co-benefits.
Third, the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent provides a clear pathway
With the adoption of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent in July 2022, Pacific SIDS have developed a clear pathway to synergize regional priorities with accelerated implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the SAMOA Pathway.
Next generation risk analytics, advances in climate science, geo-spatial modeling, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning must be at the heart of people-centered and evidence-based decision-making. And, the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific is an ideal platform to take forward some of the policy decisions.
Strengthening subregional and regional cooperation platform
Tropical cyclones, often transboundary in nature, require an architecture of regional co-operation mechanisms to effectively manage the shared risks. In this instance, local capacities and regional support mechanisms should be commended. To further strengthen this work, the lesson from Vanuatu’s back-to-back cyclones and earthquake is to have effective, impact-based and risk informed early warning systems that can capture the complexity and dynamisms of a compounding risk.
The Asia-Pacific Risk and Resilience Portal was developed by ESCAP with the goal of creating a user-friendly one stop platform for policymakers to access a vast array of scientific information and decision support tools to promote risk informed policy decisions.
Furthermore, the Vanuatu incidents underscores the need for conducting a rapid post-disaster needs assessment that can support formulation of a long-term recovery strategy and plan for its reconstruction by applying a standardized approach with innovative methodology and framework.
The overlapping and transboundary nature of risks experienced by countries of the Blue Pacific Continent cannot be addressed without solidarity and collective action towards strengthening regional cooperation platform.
Sanjay Srivastava is Chief, Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP);
Sudip Ranjan Basu is Deputy Head, ESCAP Subregional Office for the Pacific
BRIGHTON, UK, Mar 09 (IPS) – This year marks the halfway point— eight years in and eight years out— of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty and reduce inequalities.
Yet we are a long way off from these commitments, and multiple crises – now known as ‘polycrisis’ – such as conflict, disaster and extreme poverty are converging on low income and lower-middle income countries, necessitating systemic change in our poverty eradication efforts.
The scale of the challenge before us is undeniable. Poverty has long been concentrated in certain low- and lower middle-income countries that continue to experience conflict and a high number of conflict related fatalities, and high numbers of people affected by disasters from earthquakes, to floods, fires or drought.
These are just two causes of impoverishment and chronic poverty, which often combine with other crises and shocks including ill health.
This isn’t just a concern, however, at the country level. The challenge we are increasingly facing because of polycrisis in many parts of the world is that inequalities within countries are also worsening. The complex and often multi-layered nature of today’s crises means that policymakers need to develop longer term solutions, instead of firefighting crises as they emerge.
Our work at the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) in Afghanistan saw that the pandemic, layered with the transition in power, drought, and heightened economic crises, all combined to drive poverty and a dramatic increase in hunger.
Its consequences were especially worrying for certain groups, not least women and girls, and with intergenerational consequences.
In Nigeria, research points to a confluence of hardships over the years experienced by the poorest populations due to sequenced, interdependent crises. The poorest households pre-pandemic were more likely to experience hunger and sell agricultural and non-agricultural assets to cope during COVID-19 in 2020.
As time went on they were also more likely to pay more than the official price for petrol in 2022 during rampant economic crisis, and to expect drought and delayed rains to negatively affect them financially into 2023.
Yet despite interconnected crises, most governments and international agencies respond to each disaster individually as it arises. This could limit the effectiveness of poverty eradication interventions or create additional sources of risk and vulnerability amidst polycrisis.
For example, the singular focus of many countries responding to COVID-19 often diverted resources from other interventions including peacebuilding operations, thereby allowing new conflict risks to arise.
Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ polycrisis: centring equity and risk
To reach the goal of poverty eradication and reducing extreme inequities, it is critical to respond in a way is sensitive to working in places experiencing polycrisis. This requires at a minimum upholding principles of ‘do no harm’ and being sensitive to local conditions and contexts.
At the same time, we need to find ways of proactively working on polycrisis, by responding to multiple crises simultaneously rather than one at a time. In other words, building on learning from conflict contexts, we need to be working in and on polycrisis in the road to zero poverty.
Many countries worked ‘in’ polycrisis when responding to climate-related disasters during COVID-19. For example, the Bangladesh government adapted its Cyclone Preparedness Plan through various actions including modifying dissemination of messaging through public announcements and digital modalities, and combining early warning messaging with COVID-19 prevention and protection messaging.
Afghanistan disaggregates needs by sector, severity, location, and population groups in its humanitarian needs overview, which when considered holistically can help ensure responses that prioritise benefiting people in poverty.
There are equally important lessons from working ‘on’ polycrisis. The World Food Programme’s operational plan in response to COVID-19 was regularly updated to consider evolving layered crises and support pre-emptive action, scale-up direct food assistance, and reinforce safety nets.
There are also examples we can draw on for reducing poverty from around localised decision making, relying on the knowledge that local communities, women’s rights organisations, and local disaster risk management agencies have about populations in the areas in which they operate.
Flexibility in funding is important in this process to be able to respond to rapidly changing contexts and needs.
Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ polycrisis together necessitates matrix thinking, rebooting and recasting what we know of complexity of intersectionality. While we previously recognised intersecting inequalities primarily by identity markers, such as gender, caste, and socio-economic status, we need to increasingly be aware of how inequalities of people and place converge over time, and how we might centre equity in risk-informed responses.
This requires a fundamental shift from single-issue technocratic approaches to crisis management. For example, though social protection – direct financial assistance for people – was heralded as a key mitigation measure during COVID-19 and in response to recent food and energy price inflation, most cash transfer programmes averaged just four to five months during the pandemic.
Social protection could be adjusted to increasingly target the vulnerable as well as people in poverty, and within those categories the people who have arguably been most disadvantaged by these crises. Recovery programmes by governments and international agencies also need to go on for longer than they typically do to build people’s resilience in times of uncertainty.
Disaster-risk management agencies within government could also consistently integrate conflict considerations in their activities. There are examples of anticipatory action such as early warning systems that draw on local, customary knowledge that could be built on in this process.
Investments in coordination between disaster risk, social protection, and peacebuilding agencies, as well as multilateralism between governments, civil society, and international organisations more broadly are needed to anticipate and adapt to systemic risk.
But this risk-informed development will only get us so far, if equity is not centred alongside risk management. Just as crises are increasingly layered and interdependent, we need to similarly integrate our responses to break the link between polycrisis and poverty.
The successful transformation of the agri-food systems in the region will require ownership, political commitment, and action plans, writes the author. Credit: Wadner Pierre/IPS
Opinion by Mario Lubetkin (santiago)
Inter Press Service
SANTIAGO, Mar 09 (IPS) – This is an op-ed by Mario Lubetkin, FAO Assistant Director-General and FAO Regional Representative for Latin America and the CaribbeanThe global food security crisis reveals an increase in the undernourishment prevalence, reaching higher than in 2015, when countries first agreed to eradicate hunger by 2030 as one of the SDG targets. In the Caribbean, between 2014 and 2021, hunger increased by 2.3 percentage points, affecting 16.4 percent of its population by 2021. Moreover, the Caribbean is a net importer of almost all the main food groups such as cereals, dairy products, fruits and vegetables (except the Dominican Republic), meat and vegetable oils.
This region is highly vulnerable to extreme events, climate variability and climate change. Increasingly extreme weather events, shifting rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, recurrent drought, and floods, among others, pose an unprecedented threat that can cause substantial socio-economic and environmental loss and damage.
The recent Forty-Fourth Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), chaired by the Bahamas, highlighted some of the main challenges affecting food production in the region. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has strengthened a special focus to implement joint strategies to support the Caribbean countries’ priorities and discuss new ways for the Caribbean to transform agri-food systems.
For the first time, FAO was invited to address this important discussion during the 17th Special Session of the CARICOM Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR). FAO recognized CARICOM’s great efforts to implement the agri-food systems strategy in member states to help achieve the reduction of the Caribbean’s large food imports bill by 25 percent by 2025.
The Organization is supporting the development of priority value chains to contribute to reducing the region’s food import bill. It is doing so by working with governments and key stakeholders in designing and upgrading strategies, as well as good practices and opportunities for attracting investment to help boost intra-regional trade.
In this frame, the Heads of Government of CARICOM have also supported the project proposal “Building Food Security through Innovation, Resilience, Sustainability and Empowerment” presented by Guyana; and FAO is working closely with the Member States to promote a climate finance mobilization strategy to fund innovative initiatives such as novel animal feed, optimizing greenhouses, soil, and land mapping. FAO supports governments and communities in building capacities to comprehensively manage multi-hazard risks to enhance the resilience of livelihoods and value chains.
It is crucial to increase and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of investments across the agri-food system. In this regard, FAO, together with the CARICOM Private Sector Organization, agreed to pursue collaboration to enhance intra-regional trade and private sector investment in the Caribbean to trigger agriculture sector growth.
On the other hand, the last Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), whose current pro-tempore presidency is held by St. Vincent and Grenadines, concluded with a declaration from 33 member states, which emphasizes a regional commitment to guarantee food security, supporting agricultural and rural development.
This high commitment of the main government structures of the region will contribute to an effective preparation for the next FAO Regional Conference in Georgetown, Guyana, which will take place in March 2024, disclosing the importance of an effective engagement of the Caribbean in the decision-making process to transform the agri-food systems.
The successful transformation of the agri-food systems in the region will require ownership, political commitment, and action plans. It is necessary to coordinate a joint effort to reinforce technical assistance in the field and more investment and partnerships to support food security, climate change fight, sustainable production, and international fair commerce to protect livelihoods and small-scale producers and guarantee our food security.
The writer is Global Executive Director at Equality Now. The following opinion piece is part of a series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.
NEW YORK, Mar 08 (IPS) – The internet has a pivotal role to play in empowering women and girls across Africa, but preexisting forms of gender discrimination and marginalization are underpinning a widening digital gender divide.
The root causes preventing millions from getting online need to be urgently addressed, because until we close the technology gap, longstanding gender inequalities will be exacerbated, and new expressions of discrimination will manifest.
More women are coming online, but progress is slow
In a speech to the UN General Assembly for International Women’s Day 2023, UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke about how “centuries of patriarchy, discrimination, and harmful stereotypes have created a huge gender gap in science and technology.”
Warning that “gender equality is growing more distant” and will take 300 years to achieve on the current trajectory, the Secretary General called on governments, civil society, and the private sector to work collectively to bridge the digital gender divide.
ITU estimates that in 2022, 66% of the world’s population used the internet. This is a 24% increase since 2019, with 1.1 billion more people coming online. Despite this substantial uptake, 2.7 billion people remain offline – the majority of whom are female.
According to GSMA’s Mobile Gender Gap Report 2022, mobile phones are the primary way people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) access the internet, accounting for 85% of broadband connections in 2021.
But over 1.7 billion women do not own a mobile phone, and women globally are 14% less likely to have one than men, with the largest disparities in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Worryingly, GSMA found that globally the gender gap in mobile internet use has worsened from 15% in 2020 to 16% in 2021. And although women’s uptake of mobile internet in LMICs continues to grow, adoption has slowed, with just 59 million women coming online in 2021 compared to 110 million the previous year.
This significant shortfall means many women and girls are missing out on the benefits of digital, social, and financial inclusion, and this is especially acute amongst those burdened with intersectional discrimination linked to characteristics like race, caste, religion, poverty, and disability.
Smartphones are key to connectivity
Smartphone ownership offers life-changing connectivity by opening portals to crucial resources, markets, and services for education, healthcare, business, and finance. Providing important and timely information that might otherwise be hard to obtain, handsets are a vehicle for formal and informal learning and enable social and civic networking and participation.
According to the UN, over 90% of jobs worldwide now have a digital component. Digital literacy expands a person’s employment and economic prospects and facilitates greater earning potential. Without digital adoption and use, women have fewer employment opportunities and face additional barriers to workforce participation.
Unequal access to the digital realm is undermining women’s economic independence, financial prospects, and decision-making power. It limits their life chances, increases their risk of gender-based violence and exploitation, and makes it harder to escape abusive situations or obtain justice when rights have been violated.
Barriers to internet access faced by women and girls
For many women and girls in the Global South, low literacy and digital skills are major barriers to phone ownership and use. They are more likely to live in poverty and have less schooling, and this translates into underconfidence in utilizing technology. A Web Foundation study found that women are 1.6 times more likely than men to report a lack of skills as a block to internet use.
Language exclusion is also a challenge. Nine in ten users in Africa have to switch to a second, often European colonial language, to use apps and websites, while over half of the world’s 7,151 languages have no digital footprint – effectively shutting out those who only speak local dialects.
To overcome this, more local language internet services and operating systems are required, alongside video content tailored to women’s contexts and needs.
Another hurdle is money. Global Digital Inclusion Partnership estimates that for 2.5 billion people, buying the cheapest available smartphones would cost over 30% of their monthly income. For many women, this is unaffordable, particularly as they are more likely to have lower earnings.
Mobile data is a burdensome cost, partly because of exorbitant pricing. African countries have some of the world’s most expensive data due to issues such as high taxation in the telecom industry, and unavailability of infrastructure. Coming top on the continent is Equatorial Guinea, where one gigabyte can be a whopping $49.67.
Only half of the 1.1 billion people in the Least Developed Countries have access to electricity – 13% of the global population – and many more face regular disruptions to energy supplies, making it harder to keep devices charged.
Especially in rural and remote locations, reliable and affordable electricity is limited or absent. With over half of Africa’s women living in rural areas, energy scarcity too has a gender dimension.
Strengthening online safety
Harmful social norms in the offline world impede women’s and girls’ access to and experiences of the digital domain. Gender stereotypes and power hierarchies within households can result in males having priority over using digital tools.
Some communities view the internet as posing a risk to the traditional social order, with male family members acting as gatekeepers that control and monitor female access to devices and the internet.
Safety concerns also discourage online engagement, and not without cause. A report by Equality Now found that governments are failing to effectively address an alarming increase in online sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls because national and international laws are not keeping up with advances in technology and cybercrime, leaving perpetrators unpunished.
Governments need to urgently review and update legislation and policies, and implement comprehensive laws that clearly specify the legal responsibilities that digital service providers have to people using their platforms, and for the content posted on their sites.
Equality Now and Women Leading in AI have launched the Alliance on Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi), a global campaign calling for “the adoption of a universal digital rights framework, rooted in human rights law and underpinned by an intersectional feminist, anti-discrimination analysis.”
AUDRi has produced a set of Digital Principles that articulate how human rights should be applied to the digital sphere, with binding agreements buttressing these rights so that governments and the private sector can be held more accountable.
Strengthening digital inclusion for women and girls in Africa is crucial to upending harmful gender norms and stereotypes, and preventing backsliding on women’s rights. Across the continent, digital technologies must be better harnessed to accelerate progress towards closing the gender equality gap.
To achieve this, state institutions, policy-makers, industry, and civil society have to collaborate to understand and eliminate the root causes hindering women’s and girls’ digital participation, and enact universal legal protections that foster a safe, inclusive, accessible online world for all.
For media inquiries please contact: Tara Carey, Equality Now Global Head of Media, E: [email protected]; M: +447971556340 (WhatsApp)
The following opinion piece is part of a series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 08 (IPS) – Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tremendous power of technology and innovation has become clear to the world. However, it has also increased exclusion, discrimination, and inequalities — especially for women and girls.
On International Women’s Day, we must re-imagine a world whereby innovation and technologies are more intentionally leveraged towards transforming our societies and economies so that resources and power are more equitably distributed.
Women and girls across the globe are anxious for this radical change, and it’s easy to understand why.
Yet just one-quarter of people in lower-income countries use the internet, with 21 per cent of women in those countries online compared to 32 per cent of men. In tandem, many women and girls — especially women politicians, voters, human rights, and environmental defenders, LGBTIQ+ people, activists, feminist groups, and young women — face widespread forms of violence online, threatening their participation as well as their mental health and wellbeing.
Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator
We witness the call for social transformation from women who are at the forefront of movements for social change — online and in the streets — in their countries and around the world.
Digital technology can nurture democracy and human rights by boosting civic engagement and political participation. That includes using behavioural science to help ensure that women can access their property rights in Syria, an effort supported by the UNDP Accelerator Lab there.
Or consider the eMonitor+ platform developed in Tunisia that uses Artificial Intelligence to identify mis/disinformation, hate speech, and violence against women around elections.
At a time when women and girls are denied access to education in countries such as Afghanistan, the STEM4ALL platform coordinated by UNDP and UNICEF aims to increase the representation of women and girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
This network of ‘STEMinists’ plans to expand from 34 countries to a global reach — part of much-need efforts to help ensure that women can lead our new digital societies that will drive forward everything from climate action to the restoration of our natural world.
All of us have a role to play in amplifying women’s voices; women’s participation in public life and access to justice, including through e-governance initiatives.
More efforts are also needed to tackle discrimination and violence against girls with disabilities. And digital finance will be a key means to allow women to gain full control over their finances — perhaps the most powerful means to reduce poverty and advance the Global Goals. In short, women and girls must be an intrinsic part of answering people and planet’s most pressing challenges.
Achim Steiner is Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
The following opinion piece is part of a series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.
NEW YORK, Mar 08 (IPS) – On International Women’s Day, let us remind ourselves of the power of education. We have all benefited from an education that less than a century ago was not a given for a girl and which still remains a distant utopia for millions of young girls.
I know from my own life and that of my daughter that a quality education empowers us. This is a universal truth for every girl in the world. Education empowers girls to realize their dreams and achieve their goals, and most of all to empower other girls. A quality education expands the mind, nurtures the soul, and equips us with a tool to realize our full potential during our life’s journey.
With over 120 million girls enduring armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate disasters unable to benefit from a quality education, we cannot and must not turn a blind eye to their humanity, their rights, their potential and their dreams.
We must stand up ¬– united as a global community of the 21st Century – and say no to gender-based violence, say no to child marriage, say no to workplace inequities, and say no to the deprivation of a quality education for women and girls everywhere.
We must apply a laser focus on the millions of girls left furthest behind in emergencies and protracted crises. Because of their suffering and dispossession, because of the depth of despair in which they live, I am firmly convinced these girls have a unique capacity and potential to achieve unknown and extraordinary heights in any profession of their choice. Their resilience, combined with a quality education, has the magical strength of contributing greatly to their society, their country and the world at large. We cannot afford to lose out on this treasure for the sake of all of us.
To make good on our commitments, we must ensure every girl is ensured 12 years of quality education. For girls caught in conflicts in places like Ukraine and the Sahel, for the millions of girls denied their human right to an education in Afghanistan, and for the girls displaced from their homes in South America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and even Europe and North America, education is the key that will unlock a better life for them and a better world for all.
What we can and must do is empower them to break the chains of thousands of years of inequity to once and for all break through that glass ceiling and declare this generation of girls as “Generation Equality!”, and with that also, “The generation that unleashed humanity’s potential.”
The challenges are daunting. ECW partner UNESCO estimates that around the world, 129 million girls are out of school, including 32 million in primary school and 97 million in secondary. For girls caught in conflict and crises, the situation is even worse. Two out of every three girls in humanitarian crises won’t start secondary school. And if current trends continue, by 2025, climate change will be a contributing factor in preventing at least 12.5 million girls from completing their education each year, according to the Malala Fund.
Our investment in girls’ education is our investment in the future for all of humanity, our civilization, our evolution, and above all for human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals. As the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, ECW has achieved gender parity between girls and boys in its First Emergency Response and Multi-Year Resilience Programme investments. The Fund has also committed to support gender-equitable investments in the new Strategic Plan period 2023-2026. And through smart investments like our new Acceleration Facility Grants for gender equality, we are building the public goods and global movement we need to create transformational change in the sector.
Imagine the economic and social impact if every girl on planet earth was actually able to go to 12 years of school? A World Bank study estimates that the “limited educational opportunities for girls, and barriers to completing 12 years of education, cost countries between US$15 trillion and $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings.” Imagine the transformation of a world that badly needs to move from extreme poverty to equity, and a world that establishes peace and security, and human rights for all. We made that promise in 1945 in the UN Charter. It is not an utopia. It is a real possibility. We know what needs to be done: Empower her through a quality education.
Indeed, education is the answer.
Yasmine Sherif is Director of Education Cannot Wait.
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