NEW YORK, Sep 14 (IPS) – Cross-continent vacations seem to be the norm once again with the lessening of COVID-19 while new cities are being built with skyscraping $4M condos shooting up in a matter of months, and just-out-of-University millennials launching into their careers with minimum start-off salaries of $75K.
Sounds pretty good.
Those scenarios present a shocking oxymoron to newly-released facts that shockingly, 90 percent of the world’s nations are currently undergoing gravely altered lives due to a downward spiral of human development over the past two years.
According to the UN Development Programme (UNDP)’s annual Human Development Report (HDR) and Index (HDI), released Sept. 8, the percentage greatly exceeds any other reversals during the global financial crisis – setting the globe roughly six years backward. Therefore, the organization makes a solid global call for collective action.
Results of the survey show that for the first time in 32 years of calculating the world’s well-being, nine out of every 10 countries have fallen backwards in health, education, and standard of living. The organization says that although there are many reasons for the degradation, continuous effect of back-to-back crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, are the most to be blamed.
Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, pinpointed areas showing that human development has fallen back to its 2016 levels and that world leaders find themselves collectively paralyzed in making changes. Steiner added that the current state of regress thwarts the U.N.’s 2030 deadline at achieving the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Other draining factors include the exorbitant increase in cost of living; unemployment; artificial intelligence chosen over human activity rather than using it to maximize existing tasks.
There is also digitalization – “a double-edged sword for mental wellbeing;” mental distress, which constrains freedom to achieve plus the climate and energy crises. But those get easily sutured up by subsidizing fossil fuels; lack of access to adequate resources, as well as persistent and growing inequalities.
These all negatively affect and delay long-term goals as well as necessary systemic changes, and causes insecurity in both the leaders as well as the population.
Speaking during the launch of the HDR, António Guterres U.N. Secretary General said the current crises creates an uneven economic recovery from the pandemic and is further exacerbating inequalities, leaving entire regions behind.
“This is triggering spikes in food and energy prices, driving up inflation and drowning vulnerable countries in debt,” he said.
The most under-developed nations in South America, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia, are hardest hit. For example, Pakistan – which already had a very low rating on the index, has fallen 7 places lower. It now ranks 161, on the HDI, out of 192 countries, while Afghanistan rings in at the 180th position.
The Report, titled “Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World” was released just a day prior to the UNDP’s high-level assembly of global leaders, the SDG Media Summit, highlighting those who are driving social change to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.
Isis Jaraud-Darnault, Political Coordinator of The Permanent Mission of France to the U.N., spoke on France’s participation with the European Union to alleviate woes in the entire Horn of Africa region.
France is especially aiding the food crisis in Somalia by dispatching a Special Envoy to the country, as well as keeping its promise to provide continuous financial aid (which has amounted to €61 million in 2022), and also launching a humanitarian airlift to provide emergency food and medicine, especially to areas hard to reach by road. “The international community must mobilize”, Jaraud-Darnault said. “France is taking its full part in this aid.”
“Today, with one-third of people worldwide feeling stressed and less than a third of people worldwide trusting others, we face major roadblocks to adopting policies that work for people and planet,” says Steiner. “There is a skyrocketing perception of insecurity in most countries, even some high-ranking HDI ones.”
Despite the dark clouds, despair, doubts that grip many countries, along with the fact that recovery is uneven and partial, some seem to be dusting off their heels and getting back on their feet.
The UNDP holds onto the hope of positivity and promise by expressing the sentiments that if futures are reimagined, refreshed and renewed; pathways carved and molded; plans, goals and values are developed then there has to be an uptick – as nothing lasts forever – not even the bad.
Guterres’ reiterated the Report’s clearly-stated steps forward to quench this conundrum, which was to “Double down on human development and advance policies around ‘The Three I-s’ – investment, insurance, and innovation.” He added, “We must invest in global public goods; expand insurance through social safety nets; and innovate, fostering new pathways and technologies.”
The UNDP report depicts a totally overwhelmed global society staggering from crisis to crisis. Steiner adds. “This risks heading towards increasing deprivation and injustice and in a world defined by uncertainty, we need a renewed sense of global solidarity to tackle our inter connected interconnected, common challenges.”
Lorraine Farquharson is a writer / essayist and an investigative freelance journalist seeking to raise awareness and lessen the woes of humanitarian issues. She has travelled to more than 30 countries and written articles for several international news organizations based at the United Nations.
A father and son remove their belongings from their flood-damaged home in Taluka, Pakistan. Credit: Research and Development Foundation (RDF)
Opinion by Felix Dodds, Chris Spence (new york)
Inter Press Service
With less than two months remaining before the next climate summit—COP27—begins in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Felix Dodds and Chris Spence assess what needs to happen for it to be judged a success.
NEW YORK, Sep 13 (IPS) – Preparations for COP27 in November are proceeding apace and we are now well past the halfway mark between the preparatory meetings in June in Bonn and the start of the summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The agenda for Sharm El-Sheikh is complex and challenging. Furthermore, the meeting is taking place during a time of international turmoil. So, what are the factors influencing whether Sharm El-Sheikh can be a success? And what, exactly, does COP27 need to deliver?
Reasons for Optimism
Those looking for positive signs can name several. For a start, the recent passing of the Inflation Reduction Act in the US dedicated some $369 billion for climate and energy action—the largest investment in US history for tackling climate change.
This will give the market more confidence to invest in green technology, whether it is solar, wind, microgrids, carbon capture and hydrogen, to name a few. It also shows commitment from the world’s largest economy and second largest polluter.
Second, the major weather events of recent months—from heatwaves across Africa, Asia and Europe to the catastrophic floods in Pakistan of the past few days—are a tragic reminder, if any were still needed, of the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for COP27 to deliver some strong, tangible outcomes.
A third, quite different factor may be the caliber of the incoming Egyptian presidency. While there has been some criticism of the host country’s human rights record and treatment of local NGOs in the lead up to COP27, some climate insiders have been impressed by the incoming presidency’s team led by Sameh Shoukry, Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs and COP27 president-designate, and Egyptian Minister for the Environment Dr. Yasmine Fouad, the COP Ministerial Coordinator and Envoy. Their quality has spurred hopes the Egyptian hosts could build on what is widely viewed as a fairly successful COP26 in Glasgow last November.
Dark Clouds Loom
Those are certainly reasons for hope. Yet the skeptics arguably have a stronger case. First, while the world’s climate crisis may have affirmed the need for urgency, the geopolitical and economic situation may be pushing in the opposite direction. The war in Ukraine has badly damaged relations between the West and Russia, while tensions over Taiwan have had a similar (if not so extreme) effect with China. These are hardly good conditions for building mutual trust and understanding—usually a prerequisite for a strong outcome in international negotiations.
One major side effect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the West’s response, has been the energy crisis now engulfing Europe. There is also a predicted food crisis, not just from the war but also the impacts of climate change on harvests. Will this reinvigorate efforts at COP27 to find solutions or distract Western nations beset by inflation and a looming recession?
Closer to home, the latest round of UN climate talks, the Subsidiary Bodies meetings held in Bonn in June, were not wildly productive. A few procedural outcomes could not mask the ongoing disagreements in key areas like loss and damage compensation (including calls for a new fund), as well as slow progress in talks on adaptation and financing.
More recently, a G20 gathering of energy and climate ministers held in late August in Indonesia failed to approve a draft outcome document amid reports of disagreements and a “breakdown” in negotiations. This is a worrying outcome so close to the COP.
Another uncertainty, which may yet prove either negative or positive, is the change in leadership at the UN’s climate secretariat. With Patricia Espinosa stepping down in July, Simon Stiell was named as her successor in August. Mr. Stiell boasts an impressive CV, having held ministerial appointments in his home country of Grenada, as well as executive corporate jobs overseas. An engineer by training, he has been involved in the climate negotiations and knows the characters and issues well. His experience in government at a high level should help him engage with dignitaries and senior officials at COP27 and he will undoubtedly bring energy and vigor to the job at a critical time. Furthermore, coming from a small island developing state should give him greater legitimacy given their vulnerability to sea-level rise, thus ensuring his voice is heard loud and clear.
On the other hand, there is little time for him to get to grips with his new job if he is to have an impact on a COP that starts in early November. The runway for him to achieve liftoff at Sharm El-Sheikh is alarmingly short.
Key Topics for COP27 to Tackle
So what does COP27 need to deliver? The main criterion should be whether it produces concrete climate action. COP27 has been pitched as the “implementation” COP, where the goals of the Paris Agreement, helped by the rulebook adopted in Glasgow, begin to be delivered. What should this implementation look like?
Nationally Determined Contributions: Keeping 1.5 Alive: Revisiting countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs)—essentially their pledges and plans—at COP27 is important. Many feel it is imperative to maintain the pressure to improve the many NDCs delivered in time for COP26. However, only a dozen or so countries have submitted new or revised NDCs since Glasgow.
Of these, the new targets by Australia (43% by 2030 from 2005 levels) and India (45% by 2030 on 2005 levels) are noteworthy. But the pre-Glasgow “flood” of ambitious, headline-grabbing NDCs has now reduced to a trickle.
Depending on whether you just take the commitments by governments into account or include those of other stakeholders, we are currently still looking at a temperature rise of 1.8-2.7oC. Of course, this is much lower than estimates prior to Paris (2015), when some predicted a rise of 4-6oC by the end of the century. Nevertheless, those lower numbers still rely on all stakeholders delivering their promises. And they still take us well beyond 1.5oC.
For these reasons, more ambitious NDCs in the lead-up to, or during, COP27, would help deliver a major boost.
Climate Finance: The commitment made in Copenhagen in 2009 for US$100 billion a year for climate finance by 2020 was not achieved. This is particularly disappointing since the $100 billion was intended as a floor not a ceiling. Furthermore, most of the funding that was delivered came in the form of loans, not grants, which recipients would usually prefer.
It is evident, therefore, that we are locked in the basement when it comes to climate funding, and that major progress is needed for us to climb out of the hole.
The reality is that we need trillions, not billions, to address climate change and that government aid will not be enough. Still, progress by government negotiators on a new collective quantified goal on climate finance is needed. While this goal is not supposed to be agreed until 2024, COP27 will need to show significant progress and demonstrate we are heading firmly in the right direction.
Outside the government negotiations, observers will also be looking for progress by other stakeholders. For instance, the launch in 2021 of the Glasgow Finance Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) as a coalition of the willing will need to play a critical role.
GFANZ represents two-fifths of the world’s financial assets, $130 trillion, under the management of banks, insurers and pension funds that have signed up to 2050 net-zero goals including limiting global warming to 1.5oC. This includes targets for asset managers (halve emissions by 2030), asset owners (by 2030 net zero aligned portfolios covering emissions reductions), banks (net zero emissions from all activities and portfolios by 2050) and insurers (by 2030 net zero aligned investment, insurance and reinsurance underwriting portfolios).
The realignment of the market is critical to achieving our 1.5oC goal. The state of play with GFANZ and what transparency systems have been set up should be critically reviewed by NGOs and other stakeholders at COP27, with clear signs that these goals are real and not just empty promises.
Article 6–the Carbon Market: Another outcome from Glasgow was adoption of the rulebook covering Voluntary Carbon Markets under the Paris Agreement. This should open the door to billions of dollars of investments (in 2021 it was $2 billion). Furthermore, the rules agreed in Glasgow were generally seen as fairly stringent.
This is important because demand is set to grow for carbon offsets (removing/reducing emissions in one place to compensate for emissions elsewhere). Yet if these offsets are of poor quality—as some currently are—then we will not have a chance of staying within our 1.5oC goal.
To be successful, this market will need to improve its approach. For instance, certification should ensure that tree planting and other similar efforts address both climate change and biodiversity as an integrated set of challenges. More broadly, COP27 will provide an opportunity to assess early progress as we move towards implementing Article 6.
Loss and Damage: Given the number of extreme climate events recently, a long-term issue for negotiators—compensation for loss and damage caused by climate change—has developed into a major, pressing challenge for COP27. While developing countries in particular are looking for rapid progress, the Glasgow Loss and Damage Dialogues in Bonn in June did not set a well-defined narrative.
Clear disagreement could be discerned around the use of existing funding arrangements to address the issue versus the creation of a new loss and damage financial facility, which many developing countries favor. Progress on this issue will be important at COP27.
Global Goal on Adaptation: The development of the objectives and modalities for this goal to support the implementation of the Paris Agreement was discussed in Bonn in June. While it is still early days in this discussion, COP27 should recognize the different levels of development countries are in and the challenges they face and how this might inform the Global Stocktaking process in future.
There was also a commitment in Glasgow to double adaptation funding by 2025. This should raise the amount to US$40 billion annually. Again, COP27 provides an opportunity to give some early signals this goal will be achieved.
A Voice for Africa: With Egypt hosting this meeting, COP27 provides an opportunity to amplify regional voices from Africa in the conversation and to highlight issues of global justice and equity. A successful COP would, in our view, show a growing solidarity between the Global North and South on issues such as financing and loss and damage.
Navigating Complexity
Clearly, COP27 faces some significant headwinds given the current geopolitical situation. Nevertheless, we believe the Egyptian presidency has an opportunity to build on a solid COP26 and that its efforts to focus on implementation and secure some tangible outcomes is the right choice.
With the United Arab Emirates set to hold the Presidency for COP28, it will be fascinating to see whether this triad of presidencies—the UK, Egypt, and UAE—can help guide this complex and critical period in the negotiations to some positive conclusions.
Felix Dodds and Chris Spence are co-editors of the new book, Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge Press, 2022). It includes chapters on the climate negotiations held in Kyoto (1997), Copenhagen (2009) and Paris (2015).
The rate of female entrepreneurship is higher in Africa than in any other region of the world. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS
Opinion by Jemimah Njuki (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Sep 13 (IPS) – Agnes Opus sells cereals in Busia, the border town between Kenya and Uganda. This is her lifeline through which she caters for her immediate family’s needs from school fees to housing and medical care and support to her extended family. While she dedicates all her energy and time to this work which she loves, she struggles to meet all her needs. She faces many non-tariff barriers including harassment by officials and unclear and ever-changing information on trade requirements.
Agnes’ challenges are not unique to her. They represent the plight of millions of women across the continent engaged in cross-border trade. They have expectations that the Women and Youth in Trade Conference and the adoption of a Women and Youth protocol by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), will make it easy for women to trade.
The AfCFTA holds great potential by creating the largest free trade area in the world by number of countries -55 – it connects, bringing together 1.3 billion people and a combined gross domestic product (GDP) valued at US$3.4 trillion. The Women and Youth in Trade conference, hosted by H.E Samia Suluhu, the President of Tanzania, and the AfCTA secretariat aims at helping the AfCFTA work better for women and youth.
Despite this potential, women earn on average 34% lower profits than men. Structural barriers like the ones faced by Agnes hamper the growth of women-led or owned businesses. These barriers include discriminatory legal and customary frameworks and practices, gendered stereotypes, norms and biases, and an unequal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work. Together, they prevent the full and equal realization of women’s rights and their full, equal and meaningful participation and leadership in the economy.
To see real progress, the protocal should focus on ending these barriers through four strategies.
First, move beyond the mere signing of a protocol to implementable frameworks in each country. As an example, governments should pass legislations on preferential procurement that mandates the selection of services, goods or public works from women-led or owned enterprises and businesses that have gender-just policies and practices for employees and supply chains.
Second, governments need to facilitate trade not only in sectors where women are the majority, but to also support women to enter sectors where they are underrepresented. Sectors such as manufacturing, construction, and IT technology are some of the fastest growing sub sectors in the continent, yet women remain underrepresented.
In Kenya, where the construction sector is fast-growing, only 15.4% of registered contractors are women. Removing the barriers that face women in these sectors, including social acceptance, sexual discrimination, sexual harassment, and labor conditions including unequal pay would be a game changer.
Third, governments need to address the Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs). NTBs are considered neutral measures with gendered impacts. Women face specific constraints that undermine their economic activities, access to technical information and finances, and are often subject to harassment and extortion at borders.
They have less access to key trader networks and information about relevant procedures. Additionally, time-consuming trade measures and documentary requirements impinge more heavily on women. Addressing these should be part of a broader process for gender responsive trade policies.
And finally, there needs to be evidence-driven accountability mechanisms to track progress of the implementation of the new Women in Trade Protocols. Sex disaggregated data of trade volumes, gender indicators that track women’s engagement in Africa as well as a score card that shows how countries are doing is needed.
The CCADP indicator framework and score card that tracks country implementation of the Malabo Commitments is an example of how data can be used to bring accountability to continental commitments while integrating key gender indicators.
The conference is going to be a test of how committed governments are in making trade work for women like Agnes.
Jemimah Njuki is an Aspen New Voices Fellow and writes on issues of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Sep 13 (IPS) – If we truly want to re-imagine the role education can play in the decades to come, it is going to be indispensable to take drastic measures to elevate the role of teachers in developing countries.
The upcoming Transforming Education Summit in New York — September 16-19 — has the ambitious task to re-draw the traditional boundaries of learning, helping imagine how children of today can truly become equipped with the best tools to overcome the increasing challenges faced by the world.
It is clear that teachers in developing nations are the key agents for enabling such personal journey of growth and transformation and yet teachers are too often neglected and overlooked.
The issues the planet is facing– from income inequalities to climate change to geopolitical tensions– are all interlinked to each other.
An enhanced learning experience alone especially in the public schools around the developing world is a must, but it is something that has been pursued at best with very mixed results for decades.
Yet, the gap between private education and public school system in many emerging countries is not closing but rather getting bigger and bigger. At the same time, achieving better educational outcomes must be accompanied by a strong drive to embed a sense of civic engagement among the students.
Civic engagement is a sensitive issue that can be misinterpreted and used for the wrong purposes, including in the cases when politics enter in the fold by inculcating the mind of students with elements of hyper nationalism and chauvinism.
Instead of being a tool to allow students to step up for their communities, a tool that acts as civic glue, we can get the opposite results, with the formation of indoctrinated cadres with a closed mindset rather than an open one.
Teachers should be the ones who are able to bring in the tools that allow a student to grow with a positive desire to do better at a personal level but also for the enhancement of the society, creating the conditions for a quality learning that is not self-centered but rather aimed at the public good.
Therefore, all stakeholders involved in the educational sector have to reckon on how it will be possible to raise the profile of local teachers, creating the conditions for them to act as true agents of change.
Let’s not forget that we are talking about individuals who often have no other options in life than starting a teaching career and often do not have neither the qualifications nor enthusiasm nor passion for the job.
It is an enormous challenge for any developing nation, a challenge that it is not extremely costly but also difficult to design especially in terms of career development of the teachers.
If it is simply unrealistic to raise the bar in terms of mandating higher education specialization for all teachers in public schools while at the same time ensuring the inclusion of more strident accountability measures for them.
It is certainly positive that an exponential increase of funding for public education is going to be of the major topics to be discussed at Transforming Education Summit but funding alone won’t suffice.
We need to focus at micro level and imagine new pathways for those public teachers who are really passionate about their jobs, to obtain the indispensable tools they need to step up in their jobs, and help their students to “holistically” and unselfishly succeed at life.
For the many who are hanging around without love nor a commitment for their job, it is inevitable that governments must muster the courage and the resources for them to slowly transition out of their profession, a proposition, that, considering the already high level of unemployment plaguing most of the developing countries, is neither easy nor “politically” convenient.
Yet, if we truly want to rethink the way education work for the most vulnerable children, we really need to sketch out new paths for making teaching one of the most attractive professions in the developing world.
Programs like Teach for America and its affiliates around the world are, with no doubt, doing a great deal of good job by trying to include young graduated recruits in the profession for two years but though admirable, it is not enough.
We need to truly create an enabling framework for young graduates to embrace teaching for the long term, allowing them to make a precise choice in picking a career as a teacher.
That’s why the upcoming Summit should dedicate enough energies to think big about the teaching profession from a perspective of the South where teaching is not held in high esteem.
Why not then provide the resources, especially technical, to create national and local academies for building the teaching profession of tomorrow?
Sooner rather than later, it is going to be indispensable to set higher qualifications in order to teach at school but at the same time, governments could start changing the landscape of the teaching profession by setting up Leadership Academies for the Teaching Profession.
Imagine centers for learning, where the best teachers and the best principals from all public schools, can enhance their skills and knowledge throughout a holistic pathway of professional and personal growth.
Such academies could offer both full time intensive but also executive mode type of courses with the best experts working as faculties.
In the USA, the late billionaire Eli Broad committed a tremendous amount of resources in equipping schools’ executives, including principles through cutting edge capacity building trainings.
His philanthropic work also made it possible the creation of The Broad Center at Yale School of Management, a center Transformative leadership for public education.
This is the vision required to transform the education in the still developing and emerging world. It is not just about the commitment of the international community to fund public schools through multiyear plans.
What is required is tailored made plans to transform the teaching profession locally.
It is paramount we focus on leadership rather than just simply career development of the teachers. Leadership, after all, is what is required, to bring the quality of education to another level while promoting the virtues of civic engagement.
The upcoming Summit should devote tangible time for a conversation on how we can transform the teaching profession.
An inclusive quality education capable of building the skills for the 21st century can be realized only if the international community and developing nations work together to innovate in the field of educational leadership.
They need to find new ways to award the best local teachers and while helping those in the profession but disengaged and disinterested to find their own vocation.
Let’s not forget that truly transforming education in the developing world requires big and bold national plans but also a unique focus at micro level, working alongside those teachers who believe in their professions.
Finding novel ways to support their work can be the best legacy of the Transforming Education Summit.
Simone Galimberti is Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not-for-profit NGO in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.
Opinion by Siddharth Chatterjee, Deepali Khanna (bangkok / beijing)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK / BEIJING, Sep 12 (IPS) – The world today faces a future that is in peril. Our challenges have become more complex and interconnected, as we see the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, an uneven economic recovery, a climate emergency, growing inequalities, and an increase in conflicts globally. This year also marks a grim milestone, with over 100 million people forcibly displaced.
These events accompany increasing division in the community of nations which threatens to push the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) further out of reach for the Global South.
Adding to these crises, rising food and energy prices driven by the conflict in Ukraine, could push 71 million people into poverty, according to UNDP. The Global South, typically comprised of countries in South America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, was already grappling with economic issues now exacerbated by the triple planetary crisis.
With limited resources, high vulnerability, and low resilience, people in the Global South will bear the brunt of our inaction, on climate and elsewhere. Solely depending on external aid from the Global North or G7 countries cannot be the panacea. Here, countries of the Global South can empower themselves and combine efforts to achieve sustainable development.
Cooperating to catalyse change
In the face of global threats, international cooperation remains vital, as highlighted by the International Day for South-South Cooperation. South-South cooperation seeks to complement traditional development models by throwing light on the transformations needed to deliver on priorities, including the SDGs. It offers possible solutions from Global South to Global South.
Countries of the Global South have contributed to more than half of global economic growth in recent times. Intra-South trade is higher than ever, accounting for over a quarter of world trade. It is time to further leverage these partnerships in the development space.
We already saw this while many countries were trying to obtain COVID-19 vaccines. Citizens of low and middle-income countries faced systemic discrimination in the global COVID-19 response, leaving millions without access to vaccines, tests, and treatments. India sent over 254.4 million vaccine supplies to nations across the world, under Vaccine Maitri – a vaccine export initiative.
Likewise, China has supplied over 200 million doses of vaccines to the COVAX Facility, in addition to providing millions of dollars in medical supplies to countries in the Global South, including in Africa, throughout the pandemic.
Informing partnership models with Africa & China
To advance development priorities, partnerships need to be rooted in shared interests that can lead to shared gains, as seen in traditional development models and assistance from the Global North. This dynamic needs to be at the core of the China-Africa relationship as well.
China, an economic powerhouse, has the potential to advance development in the Global South, especially in Africa, by bringing its experience, expertise, and resources to bear, and its assistance must advance both its interests and those of the countries where it operates.
Investments in shared goals are reflected in efforts by China to improve public health in Africa, including in the construction of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Ethiopia, and in clean energy, through projects such as the Kafue Lower Gorge Power Station in Zambia.
China promises to invest US$60 billion cumulatively in Africa by 2035, directed at agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure, environmental protection, and the digital economy. This is most welcome, and those planned investments must answer the needs of the local economies and societies.
What works in one country may not work elsewhere, but true collaboration allows for learning from mistakes and sharing successes. This is where the UN’s expertise can ensure cooperation is demand-driven, in line with local expectations and needs, national development priorities, and relevant international norms and standards.
Platforms like the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) can work to improve that essential partnership. This mechanism has identified shared priorities like climate change, agriculture/food systems, global health, and energy security, among others, between China and Africa.
For the first time in FOCAC’s history and with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, the UN in China is engaged as a strategic partner in this bilateral mechanism between China and Africa. The UN in China is continuing similar efforts in close consultation with relevant counterparts, including the China International Development Cooperation Agency.
For The Rockefeller Foundation, it is a nod to its legacy in China dating back to 1914, rooted in redesigning medical education to improve healthcare and its current priorities to advance Global South collaboration, especially in public health, food, and clean energy access—all global public goods.
Beyond the Global South: Action Together
With less than eight years to achieve the SDGs, truly international cooperation is our only hope. Emerging trends in technology and innovation can get us there, along with enhanced South-South cooperation efforts. But doing so requires us to “flip the orthodoxy”, as UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed advised.
The Ebola crisis is an example of where global cooperation, including South-South cooperation, enabled Sierra Leone to defeat the disease’s spread, notably through a brigade of 461 health workers sent to Sierra Leone to support their overburdened system. Later, other countries made similar efforts to support Sierra Leone and nearby countries, such as Guinea and Liberia. This example shows the potential of South-South cooperation, but also triangular cooperation and North-South partnerships. Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are another mechanism for financing and capacity building.
This can be seen in Kenya, where the Government and the UN System convened an SDG Partnership Platform with companies such as Philips, Huawei, Safaricom, GSK, and Merck. The outcomes include a downward trend of maternal and child mortality in some of the country’s most remote regions. Similar PPPs can hold promise in unlocking global progress on the SDGs.
Today, while we face a more volatile world, the spirit of South-South cooperation shows a core value that we need: solidarity. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “The last two years have demonstrated a simple but brutal truth – if we leave anyone behind, we leave everyone behind”.
Deepali Khanna is Vice-President of the Asia Region Office at The Rockefeller Foundation. Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator in China.
Delegates from the Zambia All Party Parliamentary Group on Population and Development (ZAPPD) met in Lusaka to develop a strategic plan to tackle population and development issues. Credit: APDA
by Cecilia Russell (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
Johannesburg, Sep 08 (IPS) – Parliamentarians play a decisive role in addressing population issues, as was demonstrated when the majority voted against a private member motion to end the teaching of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in Zambia in 2020.
However, a Zambia All Party Parliamentary Group on Population and Development (ZAPPD) workshop held in Lusaka also heard that many challenges need addressing. The Zambia All Party Parliamentary Group on Population and Development (ZAPPD) was founded in 1997 to provide capacity on population and development and to strengthen parliamentarians’ commitments. It is one of the first National Committees on population and development, established in the East and Southern African region.
The seminar, supported by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), was attended by several expert researchers who unpacked the outlook for the developing nation.
Lester Phiri from the Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia (PPAZ) noted that much work was needed for the country to achieve its Vision 2030 goal of becoming a prosperous middle-income country.
Delegates at a ZAPPD workshop heard that significantly high poverty levels, particularly in Zambian rural areas where 76.6 percent of people are considered poor, should be addressed. The workshop delegates contributed to a strategic plan to address population issues. Credit: APDA
Phiri noted that while the economy had grown, with more mothers surviving childbirth and children being healthier and more educated – this did not “automatically lead to overall national development and improved quality of life.”
To achieve Vision 2030, the significantly high poverty levels, particularly in the rural areas where 76.6 percent of people are considered poor, should be addressed.
Unemployment was high, Phiri said, and there was limited access to empowerment programs.
Another issue was the high fertility rates and maternal mortality rate of 252 for every 100 000 births.
Research indicated that at least one-fifth of married women had an unmet need for family planning.
Zambia’s development would benefit from an explained the benefit of a healthy and educated population by addressing family planning.
“Couples with smaller families are better able to provide for their children, save money, and escape poverty,” Phiri said. “In fact, studies show that shifting the age structure of the population can lead to a 47 percent increase in per capita income.”
Of concern was that gender-based violence was high, with nearly half (47 percent) of ever-married women reporting having experienced physical, sexual, or emotional violence.
Answering why, if the economy was growing, there was still widespread poverty, Phiri noted that Zamia had one of the fastest-growing populations in the world. By 2030 the population, estimated at 19 million, will have swelled to 24 million and 41 million by 2050.
This meant that at a “community and household level, there are a large number of dependents, which impacts the working population’s ability to save money and escape poverty”.
Phiri advised parliamentarians to work toward improved child survival and reducing fertility by promoting voluntary family planning.
Another issue needing fixing was the high school dropout rate. The benefits to society would be significant if the country increased secondary school completion rates among youth, especially girls. Other programmes should include investment in comprehensive sexuality education and create an enabling policy environment for pre- and post-secondary, and tertiary education economic activity to counter unemployment and promote entrepreneurship.
“If we invest in the health and education of the population, especially women and girls, we may see a different Zambia in the years to come,” Phiri told the workshop.
Ifoma Mulewa, a sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) researcher at the National Assembly of Zambia, said these objectives could be achieved through energetic and committed parliamentarians.
She said MPs should take the initiative to bring motions on population matters; they should participate in population debates in the House and parliamentary committees and through oversight visits.
They could also undertake public hearings to get wider community and stakeholders’ views on population matters.
She called on them to keep the pressure on the Executive to adhere to international protocols on population and growth.
Phiri agreed and said there was inadequate commitment towards population and development in the allocation, disbursement, and utilization of national budgets. It was also crucial to balance legislation – for example, on child marriage, where the statutory versus customary laws were not harmonized.
He said Zambia had a legislative framework to ensure Zambia remains on the path to achieving its Vision 2030 goal, including the Population Policy Implementation Plan (2019-2030), the 8th National Development Plan (2022-2026), the Family Planning Costed Implementation Plan (2021-2026) and a National Strategy on Ending Child Marriage.
It also had polity for youth, including Education Act 2011, the Comprehensive Sexuality Education Framework, and National Youth Policy (2015).
The Gender Equity and Equality Act (2015) ends discrimination against women.
However, MPs should engage more with the community on population and development issues.
The workshop, attended by about 35 participants and 22 parliamentarians, made crucial inputs to a strategic plan on population by ZAPPD. The new members of ZAPPD, under the leadership of Hon Princess Kasune, MP, are aiming to address the Committee’s contribution to implementing ICPD25 commitments.
There are 244 million children out of school. Credit: Shafiqul Alam Kiron/IPS
by Baher Kamal (madrid)
Inter Press Service
MADRID, Sep 07 (IPS) – More than two-thirds of 10-year-olds are unable to read and understand a simple text. This shocking finding should be enough to be alarmed about the horrifying fate of an entire generation. But there is much more.
In fact, there are 244 million children still out of school, while educational centres are victims of armed attacks.
And millions more are falling prey to recruitment, enslavement, vital organs extraction, obliged displacements, drowning in the sea in migration journeys, homelessness, sexual violence, maiming, and a too long etcetera.
Half of them -or 80 million– are just 5 to 11 years old, and their number has been rising due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Without mitigation measures, their number could rise to nearly 170 million by the year 2022.
The world’s children are also exposed to grave health problems as a consequence of the “shocking, insidious, exploitative, aggressive, misleading and pervasive” marketing tricks used by the baby formula milk business with the sole aim of increasing, even more, their already high profits, as revealed by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Schools closed
Moreover, school closures and disruptions caused by the pandemic have likely driven learning losses and drop-outs. In the aftermath of the pandemic, nearly 24 million learners might never return to formal education, out of which, 11 million are projected to be girls and young women.
Grave violations affect boys and girls differently. Whereas 85% of children recruited and used were boys, 83% of sexual violence was perpetrated against girls, adds the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to all the above.
The bell is ringing for the start of a new school year in many countries, but inequalities in access to education are keeping some 244 million children out of the classroom, according to data published on 1 September 2022 by UNESCO.
Where most?
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the most children out of school, 98 million, and it is also the only region where this number is increasing.
The Central and Southern Asia region has the second highest out-of-school population, with 85 million.
The data has been provided by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, which also focuses on the staggering gender-based violations.
According to ECW’s recent Annual Results Report, conflict, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters and the compounding effect of the COVID-19 pandemic fueled increased education in emergencies’ needs with funding appeals reaching US$2.9 billion in 2021, compared with US$1.4 billion in 2020.
“While 2021 saw a record-high US$645 million in education appeal funding – the overall funding gap spiked by 17%, from 60% in 2020 to 77% in 2021.”
Education is under attack around the world, warns the study. From Afghanistan to Colombia, Mali to Thailand, “students and teachers are killed, raped, and abducted, while schools and universities are bombed, burned down, and used for military purposes.”
In 2020 and 2021, there were more than 5,000 reported attacks on education and incidents of military use of schools and universities, harming more than 9,000 students and educators in at least 85 countries. On average, six attacks on education or incidents of military use occurred each day.
Six attacks on education or incidents of military use occurred each day.
Explosive weapons were used in around one-fifth of all reported attacks on education during the reporting period.
The highest incidences of attacks on education schools were in Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Myanmar, and Palestine.
Despite all the above, the world’s richest countries continue to be devoted to spending more than two trillion US dollars on weapons that kill tens of thousands of innocent children.
A student teacher at the National Teacher’s College Kabale follows a lecture through his smartphone. Credit: Michael Wambi/IPS.
by Wambi Michael (kampala/kabale)
Inter Press Service
KAMPALA/KABALE, Sep 07 (IPS) – Before the outbreak of COVID-19, an education officer in the district neighbouring Uganda’s capital Kampala decreed that teachers could not take computers, mobile phones, or tablets into classrooms.
Frederick Kiyingi said phones and information and communications technology (ICT) tools distract learners and would compromise their learning and focus.
But William Musaazi, a teacher who had realised the importance of using ICTs in teaching, tried to reason otherwise. “With this smartphone, I’m able to get the whole world around me just at the click of a button… And at the same time, it makes my lessons interesting, like a very interesting movie,” he told IPS recently.
In the end, Musaazi decided to keep the vital tools out of class for fear of contradicting the guidelines.
Then in March 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Uganda President Yoweri Museveni announced a total lockdown, sending learning to a halt. Schools and universities remained closed for two years, leaving 15 million students with no education.
Uganda’s Ministry of Education and Sports (MoE) suggested delivering lessons through radio and television but that was not effective. The ministry turned to Enabel, the development agency of Belgium. It developed and implemented a distance learning strategy known as the TTE Sandbox to ensure that learning continued by training educators at the five national teachers colleges (NTCs).
Teaching using a sandbox
Teachers in training had to undertake a crash programme on how to use technology for teaching instead of the traditional methods. They were taught how to use digital tools such as screen-casting, podcasting, video conferencing and e-books or padlets.
Ironically, Enabel had suggested using technology in teaching at NTCs in 2019 but veteran lecturers were reluctant, remembers Virginie Hallet, a portfolio manager at the organisation.
“They said ‘we were born before computers, we don’t know anything about computers. Why do you want us to use ICTS in delivering lectures’?” she told IPS.
Andrew Tabura, a principal education officer in charge of post-secondary and secondary teacher education at the MoE, told IPS that while the colleges had already been supplied with ICT tools, the lecturers had technology phobia. After training, they can now use ICTs. “When the COVID-19 situation came, it forced them to think ‘OK we have these facilities but how can we use them to reach out to our learners,” he said.
According to Hallet, 62% of learners who were at home in different parts of Uganda were able to follow classes via the TTE Sandbox. “It meant that education was able to continue… So really to us, the sandbox was like a mind shift from resistance to total buy-in,” she said. “To us, this is a major success.”
At Kabale National Teacher’s College 400 km south of Kampala, IPS found lecturers still using the TTE Sandbox and other online tools to teach pre-service teachers close to a year after colleges were reopened.
Teaching teachers to use ICTs
It’s early morning. IPS has been granted access to one of the lectures at NTC Kabale. The punishing cold from the Rwenzori Mountains finds its way into the room but warm-hearted learners seem unbothered as Molly Nakimera delivers her lecture. The room has an overhead projector and a set of loudspeakers. A number of cables linked to a laptop computer are visible. Nakimera projects a role-play video about education management, then the class is invited to comment.
Afterwards, Nakimera tells IPS that previously it would take more than three weeks to complete such a course unit, but using ICTs like videos and podcasts means less time is consumed and outcomes are better.
“I teach a very big class. Yet I had failed to figure out a method that would help me to work with big numbers. I used to shout a lot as a teacher. Sometimes I could feel like I’m stretching myself. And sometimes I could not complete the syllabus the way I’m doing it with the sandbox,” she says.
Nakimera adds that while before she knew how to type Word documents, she didn’t know anything about podcasting and producing videos for teaching. To her, the smartphone was for placing calls and checking emails but she has realised that it is actually a small computer, and a key teaching and learning tool too. “These are new things that made me feel more interested, that made my work easy, made me feel that I should become more serious,” added the teacher.
Physics and mathematics lecturer Mujungu Herbert told IPS that before the pandemic every lecturer was using what he described as traditional methods of teaching, which included ‘chalk and talk’ lectures and, sometimes, laboratory equipment or materials from the environment. “With the TTE Sandbox, I have noticed that the learners are more active during the lessons. The teaching is more learner-centred than teacher-centred,” he explained.
Asked why he had not previously embraced ICTs, Herbert said he and other lecturers did not see the reasons for using them and that the pedagogy in place did not include how to teach using ICTs or how to apply for online learning or teaching.
The only option during lockdown
“I would only get to a computer at the time of preparing or setting an exam. I had not heard of Zoom before the pandemic. But while we were in lockdown, we realised that the learners were away from us. The only way to access them was to use ICT tools,” added Herbert.
With such tools, lecturers were able to enrol learners to attend virtually, run quizzes and assign tasks like assignments. Classes were interactive. Herbert did note that some students who lacked access to the Internet would miss classes, while those who had not invested in smartphones or tablets would find it hard to access online resources.
France Ruhuma, a student majoring in biology and chemistry at NTC Kabale, is one of the cohort of students who were introduced to the TTE Sandbox and have continued to use it after schools reopened.
“Now, most of my lifestyle has been shifted online. I don’t have to carry a lot of books. I just get to the sandbox, click on the links and get access to interactive videos,” Ruhuma told IPS. He added that videos packed with illustrations and diagrams are far better to learn from than the old chalkboard and teacher illustration methods.
When he spoke to IPS, Ruhuma had just returned from a teaching practice at a school near Kabale. He said that he realised that veteran teachers were yet to adopt ICT, while not all learners had access to mobile phones. “So as an upcoming teacher, I’m leaving the college when I’m equipped with ICT skills. But the challenge is that in most of these schools, teachers are computer illiterate and the school environment is not prepared for ICTs in teaching,” he said.
MoE Officer Tabura told IPS that the ministry is developing a policy and guidelines to integrate ICTs into education. “It will give guidance to schools on how ICT facilities can be used because there is a fear that teachers or learners will misuse the ICT gadgets,” he said.
According to Tabura, the TTE Sandbox was a small innovation that was developed to reach learners during the lockdown, but it has opened many doors for lecturers. “ I know it requires Internet for example. And that can be a challenge. But if you have Internet, this is something that can be replicated all over the world,” he said.
BRIGHTON, UK, Sep 06 (IPS) – The UK’s new Prime Minister (and former Foreign Secretary), Liz Truss, enters Downing Street with a full and urgent in-tray, dominated by the highest inflation rate for 40 years and concerns across the country about the cost-of-living crisis.
Whilst urgent domestic policy is required, these national issues are symptomatic of a broader set of global crises, including the ongoing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Therefore, the Prime Minister also has an urgent foreign policy agenda to address, within which international development has a vital role to play.
The FCDO’s long-awaited International Development Strategy was published in May, but the vision it set out broadly failed to meet the scale of the global challenges we face. These are the eight international development priorities we believe the new PM should be addressing:
1. Climate justice
Climate and environmental change are creating pervasive threats to the UK and all other countries, highlighted most recently by the UK’s record-breaking summer temperatures and the devastating floods in Pakistan. Ahead of the COP27 climate summit, where the UK hands over the COP Presidency to Egypt, the new PM should take the opportunity to show global leadership in the pursuit of climate and environmental justice.
This means prioritising support for those most disadvantaged and already experiencing the worst impacts and ensuring that their voices and knowledge count in decision making. It also means investing in effective mitigation and adaptation initiatives, which are purposefully connected to interconnected issues, such as access to water, food, healthcare, gender justice, education and land rights.
2. Health security
The UK’s expertise and investment in tackling epidemics has been world leading. The production and roll-out of technologies such as Covid-19 vaccines, and in health systems strengthening and universal health coverage (UHC), are valued by low-income countries and have been a critical part of the UK’s soft power.
As the Covid-19 pandemic proved how globally interconnected our health is, investment in future pandemic preparedness, that embraces institutional, knowledge and system questions (not just pharmaceutical interventions), and is guided by inclusive, localised and context-specific evidence, is critical for the UK, as well as globally.
3. Multilateral Cooperation and the SDGs
Universal challenges such as climate change and global health require co-ordinated international responses, which link local and national action with global level commitments and solidarities. Multilateral agencies such as the UN are best placed to lead these. Whilst there is room for reform, it’s short-sighted for the FCDO to have cut support for multilateral agencies without a clear assessment of the impact this will have.
IDS research shows that today’s crises – conflict in Ukraine and Ethiopia, climate change induced floods and heatwaves, pandemics, and rising inequalities – are all interconnected and require a rounded response, not a strategy that handpicks a few priorities in isolation. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide the framework for addressing development challenges as a whole and should be at the core of the Government’s strategic planning.
4. Food equity
Whilst exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine, rising global food insecurity is the result of a vastly unequal global food system, where power is held by vested interests and low crop yields are aggravated by drought or flood, conflict, and economic instability.
In the short-term, the UK needs to help stabilise global food supplies, but longer-term reforms are also needed, such as supporting more regenerative methods of food production and agro-ecological approaches that enhance agricultural biodiversity and resilience.
By investing in ‘bottom up’ research working with smallholder farmers and pastoralists in low-income countries, the FCDO can help identify what works best where, preventing the ‘one-size-fits-all’ technological solutions that often cause more problems than they solve.
5. China
Development has a great role to play in support of UK diplomacy. For the UK-China relationship where official channels of communications and diplomacy may deteriorate, strong relationships fostered by development and knowledge exchanges provide alternative channels for constructive dialogue.
At a minimum the FCDO must be transparent about forward-looking budgeting and provide public data on planned ODA spending. To ‘stand up for freedom around the world’ as set out in the International Development Strategy, the FCDO must lead by example and have a clear framework for transparency, monitoring and evaluation, by which it can be held accountable.
7. Restoring 0.7
Reducing the UK’s ODA budget from 0.7% of GNI to 0.5% in 2021 resulted in a real terms reduction of £4.6bn. This dramatically reduced the UK’s ability to deliver the high-quality aid and interdisciplinary research essential to improving the lives of people around the world. It also dismantled international science partnerships and damaged the UK’s global reputation.
Other countries such as the US, Japan, Canada and Australia increased international aid budgets in light of Covid-19 and other global crises, yet the UK Government downgraded its contribution.
Re-instating the Conservative manifesto commitment to 0.7, along with appointing an International Development Minister at FCDO would demonstrate to the rest of the world the UK’s commitment to international development, and tackling the challenges that affect us all – poverty and inequalities, disease and climate change.
8. Investing in international research
There is a vital role that the knowledge generated from UK-led international development research can play, with a threefold benefit to the UK as well as to global communities – contributing to the Government’s goal for the UK to be a science superpower, benefiting the UK directly through lessons learnt and new discoveries that can apply to challenges at home, and finding effective and value for money support for lower and middle-income countries.
Whilst we welcomed the commitment to evidence and expertise in the International Development Strategy, this should go further. It is important to ensure that social science contributions are valued as much as technical science ‘solutions’. It is important to champion the importance of working with and from the perspectives of people living in poverty and marginalisation, and not overlooking the capabilities of low-income countries in generating knowledge for vital transformations.
The commitments to UK science must be complemented by investing in the equitable, interdisciplinary and international research partnerships needed to find contextual solutions that will benefit marginalised people around the world, and in many cases, here in the UK as well.
In conclusion, through UK-led international development, the new Prime Minister has the opportunity to help tackle the significant crises we all face. As new disasters around the world unfold with increasing frequency and severity, we are constantly reminded that the cost of delay or denial is far too high.
Melissa Leach is Director, Institute of Development Studies, UK.
Sizable differences in the levels of children dying persist especially between more developed and less developed regions. Credit: Franz Chávez/IPS
Opinion by Joseph Chamie (portland, usa)
Inter Press Service
PORTLAND, USA, Sep 05 (IPS) – The chances of a child dying before reaching age five years have dropped substantially worldwide during the recent past. However, a significant divide remains among countries as well as within regions in the chances of children dying.
Over the past fifty years, the death rates of infants and children under age five have declined markedly. Since 1971 the world’s infant mortality rate declined from nearly 100 deaths per 1,000 live births to 28. Similarly, the world’s under-five mortality rate declined from nearly 150 deaths per 1,000 live births to 37 (Figure 1).
Source: United Nations.
Despite those impressive declines, sizable differences in the levels of children dying persist especially between more developed and less developed regions. In 2021, for example, the infant mortality rate and under-five mortality rate of the less developed regions were about eight times the levels of the more developed regions.
High rates of children dying are even more striking for many developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. While sub-Saharan Africa represented 14 percent of the world’s population in 2021, it accounted for more than 56 percent of the deaths of children under age five. In contrast, more developed regions represented 16 percent of the world’s population but accounted for 1 percent of deaths of children under age five.
In addition, the infant mortality rates of the fifteen highest countries are all located in sub-Saharan Africa. Their rates are no less than thirteen times higher than those of the more developed regions. Moreover, four of those countries, i.e., Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, and Somalia, have rates that are eighteen times higher than those of the more developed regions (Figure 2).
Source: United Nations.
A similar pattern is clear for death rates of children under-five. The fifteen highest countries are again all in sub-Saharan Africa. They have under-five mortality rates that are at least fifteen times higher than those of the more developed regions. In addition, the rates of Somalia, Nigeria, Chad, and the Central African Republic are about twenty times higher than the levels of the more developed regions.
Important factors contributing to high levels of children dying include neonatal causes, including preterm and low birth weight, asphyxia, infection, pneumonia, malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, measles, and tuberculosis.
The death of mothers is also a major factor associated with high levels of children dying. High rates of maternal mortality are often the result of excessive blood loss, infection, high blood pressure, unsafe abortion, obstructed labor, anemia, malaria, and heart disease. In addition to high rates of maternal mortality, countries with high death rates of children also have high rates of women dying during their childbearing years.
For the fifteen countries with the highest rates of child mortality, for example, female mortality between age 15 and 50 is at least four times higher than the level of the more developed regions. Moreover, in the Central African Republic, Chad, Lesotho, and Nigeria, female mortality between age 15 and 50 is more than seven times the level of more developed regions (Figure 3).
Source: United Nations.
One of key targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3) is by 2030 to end preventable deaths of newborns and children under five. More specifically, the goals are to reduce neonatal mortality to at least 12 deaths per 1,000 live births and under-five mortality to at least 25 deaths per 1,000 live births.
For most of the sub-Saharan countries achieving those desired goals by 2030 appears unlikely. For example, the under-five mortality rate of sub-Saharan Africa in 2021 is 72 deaths per 1,000 live births, or nearly triple the desired goal by 2030. Also, the projected 2030 under-five mortality rate for sub-Saharan Africa is 62, again more than double the desired goal of 25 deaths per 1,000 births.
The situation for the fifteen countries with the highest levels of children dying are even more striking. The under-five mortality rates of those countries are expected to remain far greater than the desired goal by 2030. For example, the 2021 under-five mortality rates for Nigeria and Somalia of about 111 deaths per 1,000 births are projected to decline to approximately 100 by 2030, or four times the goal of SDG 3.
On a variety of developmental dimensions, the countries with high rates of children dying are doing comparatively poorly. Those countries have high levels of poverty, illiteracy, and malnourishment.
Furthermore, on various global indexes, such as the Fragile State Index, the Human Development Index, the Economic Freedom Index, and the Human Freedom Index, those sub-Saharan African countries are doing comparatively poorly, typically falling in the bottom tier. For example, on the Fragile State Index, the rankings of the fifteen high child mortality countries reflect low levels of economic and social development with high levels of political instability.
Moreover, high child mortality countries are facing increasing risks of climate change. Those countries are among the least able to adapt to its consequences, such as high temperatures, droughts, flooding, and extreme weather events. Also, the same countries generally lack the financial and institutional capacities to carry out adaptation programs.
It is certainly the case that child mortality levels worldwide have declined substantially over the past half century. However, despite those impressive declines, a significant divide in the level of children dying remains between the more developed regions and most sub-Saharan African countries and other countries with high child mortality rates.
The major measures needed to address the high levels of children dying are widely recognized, with most of those deaths being due to preventable or treatable causes. According to the World Health Organization, six solutions to the most preventable causes of under-five deaths are: skilled attendants for antenatal, birth, and postnatal care; immediate and exclusive breastfeeding; access to nutrition and micronutrients; improved access to water, sanitation, and hygiene; family knowledge of danger signs in a child’s health; and immunizations.
It is also widely recognized that the financial resources, political will, social stability, and health programs that are necessary to reduce the numbers of children dying are typically lacking or seriously inadequate.
Addressing the significant divide in the rates of children dying represents a major challenge for many developing countries as well as the international community of nations that can offer aid and assistance to those countries. While the challenge is formidable, it is essential to reduce the unacceptably high levels of children dying.
Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations, and his latest book is: “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”
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