Iran: One Year on, What’s Changed?

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MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Sep 19 2023 (IPS) – It’s a year since a photo of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini – bruised and in a coma she would never recover from after being arrested by the morality police for her supposedly improperly worn hijab – went viral, sending people onto the streets.

The protests became the fiercest challenge ever faced by Iran’s theocratic regime. The unprecedented scale of the protests was matched by the unparalleled brutality of the crackdown, which clearly revealed the regime’s fear for its own survival.

Led by women and young people, mobilisations under the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ banner articulated broader demands for social and political change. They spread like wildfire – to streets across Iran, to universities, even to cemeteries where growing numbers of the regime’s victims were being buried. They were echoed and amplified by the Iranian diaspora around the world. The Iranian people made it abundantly clear they wanted the Islamic Republic gone.

A year on, the theocratic regime still stands, but that doesn’t mean nothing has changed. By sheer force, the authorities have regained control – at least for now. But subtle changes in daily life reveal the presence of active undercurrents that could once again spark mass protests. The regime knows this, hence the fear with which it has awaited this date and its redoubled repression as it neared.

A glimpse of change

Last December, as protests raged and the authorities were busy trying to stop them, women could be seen on Iranian streets without their hijabs for the first time in decades. After the protests were quelled, many simply refused to resubmit to the old rules. A tactical shift followed, with mass street mobilisation turning into more elusive civil disobedience.

Women, particularly Gen Z women just like Mahsa, continue to protest on a daily basis, simply by not abiding by hijab rules. Young people express their defiance by dancing or showing affection in public. Cities wake up to acts of civil disobedience emblazoned on their walls. Anti-regime slogans are heard coming from seemingly nowhere. In parts of the country where many people from excluded ethnic minorities live, protest follows Friday prayers. It may take little for the embers of rebellion to reignite.

Preventative repression

Ahead of the anniversary, family members of those killed during the 2022 protests were pressured not to hold memorial services for their loved ones. The lawyer representing Mahsa Amini’s family was charged with ‘propaganda against the state’ due to interviews with foreign media. University professors suspected to be critical of the regime were dismissed, suspended, forced to retire, or didn’t have their contracts renewed. Students were subjected to disciplinary measures in retaliation for their activism.

Artists who expressed support for the protest movement faced reprisals, including arrests and prosecution under ridiculous charges such as ‘releasing an illegal song’. Some were kept in detention on more serious charges and subjected to physical and psychological torture, including solitary confinement and beatings.

Two months ago, the regime put the morality police back on the streets. Initial attempts to arrest women found in violation of hijab regulations, however, were met with resistance, leading to clashes between sympathetic bystanders and police. Women, including celebrities, have been prosecuted for appearing in public without their hijab. Car drivers carrying passengers not wearing hijab have been issued with traffic citations and private businesses have been closed for noncompliance with hijab laws.

The most conservative elements of the regime have doubled down, proposing a new ‘hijab and chastity’ law that seeks to impose harsher penalties, including lashes, heavy fines and prison sentences of up to 10 years for those appearing without the hijab. The bill is now being reviewed by Iran’s Guardian Council, a 12-member, all-male body led by a 97-year-old cleric.

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If not now, then anytime

In the run-up to 16 September, security force street presence consistently increased, with snap checkpoints set up and internet access disrupted. The government clearly feared something big might happen.

As the anniversary passes, the hardline ruling elite remains united and the military and security forces are on its side, while the protest movement has no leadership and has taken a bad hit. Some argue that what made it spread so fast – the role of young people, and young women in particular – also limited its appeal among wider Iranian society, and particularly among low-income people concerned above all with economic strife, rising inflation and increasing poverty.

There are ideological differences among the Iranian diaspora, which formed through successive waves of exiles and includes left and right-wing groups, monarchists and ethnic separatists. While most share the goal of replacing the authoritarian theocracy with a secular democracy, they’re divided over strategy and tactics, and particularly on whether sanctions are the best way to deal with the regime.

Ever since the protests took off last year, thousands of people around the world have shown their support and called on their governments to act. And some have, starting with the USA, which early on imposed sanctions on the morality police and senior police and security officials. New sanctions affecting 29 additional people and entities, including 18 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and security forces, were imposed on the eve of the anniversary of the protests, 15 September, International Day of Democracy. That day, US President Joe Biden made a statement about Mahsa Amini’s inspiration of a ‘historic movement’ for democracy and human dignity.

The continuing outpouring of international solidarity shows that the world still cares and is watching. A new regime isn’t around the corner in Iran, but neither is it game over in the quest for democracy. For those living under a murderous regime, every day of the year is the anniversary of a death, an indignity or a violation of rights. Each day will therefore bring along a new opportunity to resurrect rebellion.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Treated Wastewater Is a Growing Source of Irrigation in Chile’s Arid North

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Water & Sanitation

Alfalfa farmer Dionisio Antiquera stands in front of one of the wastewater treatment ponds at the modernized plant in Cerrillos de Tamaya, a rural community in the Coquimbo region of northern Chile. The thousands of liters captured from the sewers are converted into clear liquid ready for reuse in local small-scale agriculture. CREDIT : Orlando Milesi / IPS

Alfalfa farmer Dionisio Antiquera stands in front of one of the wastewater treatment ponds at the modernized plant in Cerrillos de Tamaya, a rural community in the Coquimbo region of northern Chile. The thousands of liters captured from the sewers are converted into clear liquid ready for reuse in local small-scale agriculture. CREDIT : Orlando Milesi / IPS

COQUIMBO, Chile , Sep 18 2023 (IPS) – The reuse of treated wastewater in vulnerable rural areas of Chile’s arid north is emerging as a new resource for the inhabitants of this long, narrow South American country.

The Coquimbo region, just south of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest in the world, is suffering from a severe drought that has lasted 15 years.

According to data from the Meteorological Directorate, a regional station located in the Andes Mountains measured 30.3 millimeters (mm) of rain per square meter this year as of Sept. 10, compared to 213 mm in all of 2022.

“Rural localities today are already reusing wastewater or gray water. This is going to happen, with or without us, with or without a law. The need for water is so great that the communities are accepting the use of treated wastewater.” — Gerardo Díaz

At another station, in the coastal area, during the same period in 2023, rainfall stood at 10.5 mm compared to the usual level of 83.2 mm.

Faced with this persistent level of drought, vulnerable rural localities in Coquimbo, mostly dedicated to small-scale agriculture, are emerging as a new example of solutions that can be replicated in the country to alleviate water shortages.

The aim is to not waste the water that runs down the drains but to accumulate it in tanks, treat it and then use it to irrigate everything from alfalfa fields to native plants and trees in parks and streets in the localities involved. It is a response to drought and the expansion of the desert.

“We were able to implement five wastewater treatment projects and reuse 9.5 liters per second, which is, according to a comparative value, the consumption of 2,700 people for a year or the water used to irrigate 60 hectares of olive trees,” said Gerardo Díaz, sustainability manager of the non-governmental Fundación Chile.

These five projects, promoted by the Fundación Chile as part of its Water Scenarios 2030 initiative, are financed by the regional government of Coquimbo, which contributed the equivalent of 312,000 dollars. Of this total, 73 percent is dedicated to enabling reuse systems, for which plants in need of upgrading but not reconstruction have been selected.

The common objective of these projects, which together benefit some 6,500 people, is the reuse of wastewater for productive purposes, the replacement of drinking water or the recharge of aquifers.

Díaz told IPS that the amount of reuse obtained is significant because previously this water was discharged into a stream, canal or river where it was perhaps captured downstream.

The Huatulame treatment plant in the rural municipality of Monte Patria in northern Chile is being completely repaired with the support of the local municipality. Waterproof plastic sheeting and boulders have been installed, and in the final stage sawdust and earthworms will be incorporated before receiving wastewater from local households for reuse. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

The Huatulame treatment plant in the rural municipality of Monte Patria in northern Chile is being completely repaired with the support of the local municipality. Waterproof plastic sheeting and rocks have been installed, and in the final stage sawdust and earthworms will be incorporated before receiving wastewater from local households for reuse. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

A successful pilot experience

In Coquimbo, which has a regional population of some 780,000 people, there are 71 water treatment plants, most of which use activated sludge and almost all of which are linked to the Rural Drinking Water Program (APR) of the state Hydraulic Works Directorate.

Activated sludge systems are biological wastewater treatment processes using microorganisms, which are very sensitive in their operation and maintenance and rural sectors do not have the capacity to maintain them.

“Most of these treatment plants are not operating or are operating inefficiently,” Diaz acknowledged.

But one of the plants, once reconditioned, has served as a model for others since 2018. Its creation allowed Dionisio Antiquera, a 52-year-old agricultural technician, to save his alfalfa crop.

“We have had a water deficit for years. This recycled water really helps us grow our crops on our eight hectares of land,” he said in the middle of his alfalfa field in Cerrillos de Tamaya, one of the Coquimbo municipalities that IPS toured for several days to observe five wastewater reuse projects.

Raúl Ángel Flores stands in his nursery, where the plants and trees are irrigated with recycled water from the Punta Azul project in the town of Villa Puclaro, in Chile's Coquimbo region. All profits from the town's wastewater treatment are reinvested in its maintenance. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Raúl Ángel Flores stands in his nursery, where the plants and trees are irrigated with recycled water from the Punta Azul project in the town of Villa Puclaro, in Chile’s Coquimbo region. All profits from the town’s wastewater treatment are reinvested in its maintenance. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

He explained that using just reused water he was able to produce six normal alfalfa harvests per year with a yield per hectare of 100 25-kg bales.

“That’s 4500 to 4800 bales in the annual production season,” he said proudly.

These bales are easily sold in the region because they are cheaper than those of other farmers.

The water he uses comes from an APR plant that has 1065 users, 650 of whom provide water, including Antiquera.

On one side of his alfalfa field is a plant that accumulates the sludge that is dehydrated in pools and drying courts, and on the other side, the water is chlorinated and runs into another pond in its natural state.

“This water works well for alfalfa. It is hard water that has about 1400 parts per million of salt. Then it goes through a reverse osmosis process that removes the salt and the water is suitable for human consumption,” the farmer explained.

In Chile, treated wastewater is not considered fresh water or water that can be used directly by people, and its reuse is only indirect.

Antiquera sold half a hectare to the government to install the plant and in exchange uses the water obtained and contributes 20 percent to the local APR.

He recently extended his alfalfa field to another seven hectares, thanks to his success with treated water.

Deysy Cortés, president of a rural drinking water system in Huatulame, stands in front of the dry riverbed of the town of the same name. Today there is no water in the river, where local residents swam and summer vacationers camped on its banks 15 years ago. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPSDeysy Cortés, president of a rural drinking water system in Huatulame, stands in front of the dry riverbed of the town of the same name. Today there is no water in the river, where local residents swam and summer vacationers camped on its banks 15 years ago. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Deysy Cortés, president of a rural drinking water system in Huatulame, stands in front of the dry riverbed of the town of the same name. Today there is no water in the river, where local residents swam and summer vacationers camped on its banks 15 years ago. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Flowers and trees also benefit

In Villa Puclaro, in the Coquimbo municipality of Vicuña, Raúl Ángel Flores, 55, has an ornamental plant nursery.

“I’ve done really well. My nursery has grown with just reuse water….. I have more than 40,000 ornamental, fruit, native and cactus plants. I deliver to retailers in Vicuña and Coquimbo,” a port city in the region, he told IPS.

The nursery is 850 square meters in size, and has an accumulation pond and pumps to pump the water. He has now rented a 2,500-meter plot of land to expand it.

Flores explained to IPS that he manages the nursery together with his wife, Carolina Cáceres, and despite the fact that they have two daughters and a senior citizen in their care, “we make a living just selling the plants…I even hired an assistant,” he added.

In the southern hemisphere summer he uses between 4,000 and 5,000 liters of water a day for irrigation.

“I have water to spare. Here it could be reused for anything,” he said.

Joining the project made it possible for Flores to make efficient use of water with a business model that in this case incorporates a fee for the water to the plant management, which is equivalent to 62 cents per cubic meter used.

Arnoldo Olivares operates the water treatment and recycling plant in Plan de Hornos, northern Chile. The plant's infrastructure and operation have been upgraded, and it can now deliver water to rural residents to irrigate trees and plants, instead of using potable water. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Arnoldo Olivares operates the water treatment and recycling plant in Plan de Hornos, northern Chile. The plant’s infrastructure and operation have been upgraded, and it can now deliver water to rural residents to irrigate trees and plants, instead of using potable water. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Eliminating odors, and creating new gardens

In the community of Huatulame, in the municipality of Monte Patria, Fundación Chile built an artificial surface wetland to put an end to the bad odors caused by effluents from a deficient waste-eater earthworm vermifilter treatment plant.

“This wetland has brought us peace because the odors have been eliminated. For the past year people have been able to walk along the banks of the old riverbed,” Deysy Cortés, 72, president of the APR, told IPS.

The municipality of Monte Patria is financing the repair of the plant with the equivalent of 100,000 dollars.

“The sprinklers will be changed, the filtering system will be replaced, and sawdust and worms will be added. It will be up and running in a couple of months,” explained agronomist Jorge Núñez, a consultant for Fundación Chile.

As in other renovated plants, safe infiltration of wastewater is ensured while the project simultaneously promotes the protection of nearby wells to provide water to the villagers.

The Huatulame treatment plant in the rural municipality of Monte Patria in northern Chile is being completely repaired with the support of the local municipality. Waterproof plastic sheeting and boulders have been installed, and in the final stage sawdust and earthworms will be incorporated before receiving wastewater from local households for reuse. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

The Huatulame treatment plant in the rural municipality of Monte Patria in northern Chile is being completely repaired with the support of the local municipality. Waterproof plastic sheeting and boulders have been installed, and in the final stage sawdust and earthworms will be incorporated before receiving wastewater from local households for reuse. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Cortés warned of serious difficulties if no more rain falls in the rest of 2023, despite the relief provided by the plant for irrigation.

“I foresee a very difficult future if it doesn’t rain. We will go back to what we experienced in 2019 when in every house there were bottles filled with water and a little jug to bathe once a week,” she said.

During a recent crisis, the local APR paid 2500 dollars to bring in water from four 20,000-liter tanker trucks.

In Plan de Hornos, a town in the municipality of Illapel, irrigation technology was installed using reused water instead of drinking water to create a green space for the community to enjoy.

The project included water taps in people’s homes for residents to water trees and flowers.

Arnoldo Olivares, 59, is in charge of the plant, which has 160 members.

“I run both systems,” he told IPS. “I pour drinking water into the pond. After passing through the houses, the water goes into the drainage system, where there is a procedure to reclaim and treat it.”

“This water was lost before, and now we reuse it to irrigate the saplings. We used to work manually, now it is automated. It’s a tremendous change, we’re really happy,” he said.

Antiquera the alfalfa farmer is happy with his success in Cerrillos de Tamaya, but warns that in his area 150 to 160 mm of rainfall per year is normal and so far only 25 mm have fallen in 2023.

“The water crisis forces us to find alternatives and to be 100 percent efficient. Not a drop of water can be wasted. They have forecast very high temperatures for the upcoming (southern hemisphere) summer, which means that plants will require more water in order to thrive,” he said.

Díaz, the sustainability manager of Fundación Chile, said the Coquimbo projects are fully replicable in other water-stressed areas of Chile if a collaborative model is used.

He noted that “in Chile there is no law for the reuse of treated wastewater. There is only a gray water law that was passed years ago, but there are no regulations to implement it.”

He explained, however, that due to the drought, “rural localities today are already reusing wastewater or gray water. This is going to happen, with or without us, with or without a law. The need for water is so great that the communities are accepting the use of treated wastewater.”

The governor of Coquimbo, Krist Naranjo, argued that “a broader vision is needed to value water resources that are essential for life, especially in the context of global climate change.”

“We’re working on different initiatives with different executors, but the essential thing is to value the reuse of graywater recycling,” she told IPS from La Serena, the regional capital.

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Civil Society Organizations Unite to Urge Public Development Banks to Change the Way Development Is Done

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Opinion

CARTAGENA, Colombia, Sep 4 2023 (IPS) – In the midst of a complex web of crises, spanning climate change, biodiversity depletion, constraints on civic space and mounting debt burdens, civil society organizations and human rights defenders from over 50 countries have united their voices to call for immediate and impactful action from Public Development Banks (PDBs).

The global coalition’s message is clear: when it comes to financing for development, principles of rights, justice, sustainability, transparency, accountability and dignity for all cannot remain mere slogans. They must form the core of all projects undertaken by all Public Development Banks.

The Finance in Common Summit has become a pivotal platform for Public Development Banks from around the world. The fact that this year’s summit is taking place in Cartagena, Colombia, the deadliest country in the world in 2022 for human rights, envrionmental and indigenous activists, development banks must acknowledge and integrate the protection of human rights into their projects.

“Development banks are advocating to play an even bigger role in the global economy. But are they truly fit for this purpose? Unfortunately, the stories of communities around the world show us that development banks are failing to address the root causes of the very problems they claim to solve. We need to hold them accountable for this,” says Ivahanna Larrosa, Regional Coordinator for Latin America at the Coalition for Human Rights in Development.

“When PDB projects cause harm to people and the environment, PDBs must remedy these harms. All PDBs should implement an effective accountability mechanism to address concerns with projects and should commit to preventing and fully remediating any harm to communities,” adds Stephanie Amoako, Senior Policy Associate at Accountability Counsel.

The ongoing crises demand a transformation in the quality of financing and a power shift to include the voices of communities. The existing financial architecture not only impedes governments’ ability to safeguard both their citizens and the environment but also contributes to the escalating issue of chronic indebtedness. Policy-based lending and conditionalities enforced by International Financial Institutions have steered countries toward privatization of essential services, reduced social spending and preferential treatment for the private sector. This burdens the population with higher taxes, inflation, and weakened social safety nets.

“The same multinational companies that have polluted and violated human rights in Latin America are now obtaining financing from development banks for energy transition projects. Another example is the development of the green hydrogen industry in Chile, which carries a very high environmental and social risk,” says Maia Seeger, director of the Chilean civil society organization Sustentarse.

Addressing these issues requires a comprehensive and sustainable transformation of the financial architecture as well as holistic reforms and synergies with civil society and communities. Environmental and neo-colonial debts need to be a thing of the past and equitable reforms the thing of the present.

Global civil society, in response to these challenges, demands bold and decisive actions in a collective declaration signed by over 100 organisations. The demands are the result of a 4-year process in which a coalition of civil society organisations has come together to call on all PDBs at the Finance in Common Summit to embrace tangible actions that genuinely prioritize and protect people.

Just last month we have seen that change is possible when communities are involved, as the people of Ecuador voted to ban oil drilling in one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, the Yasuní National Park in the Amazon rainforest.

“The global financial system needs not just a rethink but a surgical operation, and that requires bold action. Governments and institutions such as the Public Development Banks must cancel the debt of the countries that require it and put in place concrete and immediate measures to put an end to public financing of fossil fuels, to have financing based on subsidies so as not to fall into the debt trap once again. It is time for the rich countries, the biggest polluters and creditors, to offer real solutions to the multiple crises we are currently experiencing,” says Gaïa Febvre, International Policy Coordinator at Réseau Action climat France.

“Public and Multilateral Development Banks must divest from funding false climate solutions and projects that harm forests, biodiversity and communities. Instead, they should redirect finance to support gender just, rights based and ecosystems approaches that contribute to transformative changes leading to real solutions that address climate change, loss of biodiversity and create sustainable livelihoods for Indigenous Peoples, women in all their diversities and local communities. Public funds must support community governed agroecological practices, small scale farming and traditional animal rearing practices instead of large scale agri-business which perpetuates highly polluting and emitting industrial agriculture and unsustainable livestock production, the root cause for deforestation and food insecurity,” adds Souparna Lahiri, Senior Climate and Biodiversity Policy Advisor at the Global Forest Coalition (GFC).

The call to action emphasizes that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), effective climate action aligned with the Paris Agreement and successful implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework require Public Development Banks to pivot from a top-down profit-driven approach to one that prioritizes community-led involvement and human rights-based approaches.

“It is important that civil society participation be strengthened at the Finance in Common Summit (FICS). In previous years, civil society has been sidelined. Clearly, there is still some room for improvement for civil society participation to become truly meaningful. The lack of civil society representative on the opening panel this year is just one example of that. PDBs should promote and support an enabling environment for civil society and systematically incorporate civic space, human rights and gender analysis. This year, we are working towards ensuring that civil society voices, including those from communities are heard at the FICS. In collaboration with the FICS Secretariat, Forus seeks to establish a formal mechanism between civil society and PDBs and to ensure that civil society is recognised as an official engagement group,” says Marianne Buenaventura Goldman, Project Coordinator, Finance for Development at the global civil society network Forus.

IPS UN Bureau

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Biodiversity Credits: Solution or Empty Promise for Latin America?

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Climate Change Finance

In the Bosque de Niebla, located in the department of Antioquia in northwestern Colombia, biodiversity bonds have emerged to push for protection of the ecosystem from threats such as deforestation and rising temperatures. But these instruments are still very green in Latin America. CREDIT: Courtesy of Terraso - Unlike offsets for environmental damage due to infrastructure projects, biodiversity credits are an economic instrument that can be used to finance actions that result in measurable positive outcomes through the issuance and sale of biodiversity units

In the Bosque de Niebla, located in the department of Antioquia in northwestern Colombia, biodiversity bonds have emerged to push for protection of the ecosystem from threats such as deforestation and rising temperatures. But these instruments are still very green in Latin America. CREDIT: Courtesy of Terraso

MEXICO CITY, Aug 28 2023 (IPS) – Located in northwestern Colombia, the Bosque de Niebla is home to 154 species of plants, 120 bird species, 21 species of mammals, 16 water springs and five hectares of wetlands.

Forming part of the Cuchilla Jardín-Támesis Integrated Management District in the department of Antioquia, the ecosystem provides water and climate regulation to the entire northwestern region of the country.

“Not all ecosystem services are the same, it has to be a very judicious system. And there have to be local regulations, from green taxonomies (classification of activities) to regulations. Therein lies the dilemma of where the sector has to go.” — Lía González

For this reason, an innovative financing scheme, biodiversity bonds, seeks to strengthen the protection of this area for 30 years, in the face of threats such as deforestation, drought and rising temperatures due to the climate crisis.

Private Colombian investor Terraso and Spanish carbon offset seller ClimateTrade, a climate solutions company that utilizes blockchain technology to facilitate large-scale decarbonization efforts through innovation, created voluntary biodiversity bonds for the Bosque de Niebla in May 2022.

The aim is to care for 340 hectares registered as a habitat bank by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia, one of the 10 most biologically diverse countries in the world.

Habitat banks are areas where conservation initiatives are aggregated and ecosystem preservation, enhancement or restoration actions are implemented to generate quantifiable biodiversity gains.

Each biodiversity credit represents 10 square meters of threatened, conserved or restored land. Technical, financial and legal guarantees will sustain the project for at least 30 years. Each bond, worth 30 dollars, corresponds to 30 years of conservation and/or restoration.

But the scheme raises concerns about the commercialization of wildlife and the pursuit of profit over ecological benefits.

Patricia Balvanera, an academic at the Institute for Research on Ecosystems and Sustainability of the public National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the financial market approach does not address the full spectrum of environmental, cultural and social issues, which can cloud the vision of the integral importance of nature.

“Other non-integrated values have to do with social, ethical principles that have developed around nature. We have bought ourselves an image as a factory of resources at the service of people and we have discarded the role of nature and society through a relationship of care and reciprocity,” she told IPS from the northern Mexican city of San Luis Potosí.

The expert is co-author of the study “Diverse values of nature for sustainability”, published on Aug. 9, which addresses a more holistic view of care.

Unlike offsets for environmental damage due to infrastructure projects, biodiversity credits are an economic instrument that can be used to finance actions that result in measurable positive outcomes through the issuance and sale of biodiversity units.

The buyers of biodiversity bonds gain in reputational aspects, by promoting the restoration and protection of ecosystems, and obtain funds by reselling the bonds, as it is a voluntary market.

These are different from carbon credits, where companies and individuals can buy the reduced emissions credits in what is known as the voluntary carbon market, to offset their polluting emissions: each one represents the elimination of one metric ton of carbon from the atmosphere.

For the carbon dioxide equivalent trapped and stored in ecosystems such as forests, project owners can issue certificates for sale in national and international markets to national and international corporations and individuals who want to reduce their polluting emissions.

Mangroves, such as these in the municipality of Paraíso in the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco, are candidates for biodiversity bonds because of the services they provide and the need to protect them, like other ecosystems. But these credits still need international standards, verification and monitoring guidelines, as well as tangible results. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS - Unlike offsets for environmental damage due to infrastructure projects, biodiversity credits are an economic instrument that can be used to finance actions that result in measurable positive outcomes through the issuance and sale of biodiversity units

Mangroves, such as these in the municipality of Paraíso in the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco, are candidates for biodiversity bonds because of the services they provide and the need to protect them, like other ecosystems. But these credits still need international standards, verification and monitoring guidelines, as well as tangible results. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

On hold

In Honduras, a project similar to the Colombian one is advancing in Cusuco National Park, in the northwestern department of Cortés.

In the 22,200-hectare forest, decreed in 1987, the international alliance of environmental organizations rePlanet seeks the conservation of 1,883 hectares in 25 years in the face of threats such as deforestation and the risk to 24 species.

The project could issue bonds this year.

Lía González, director for Latin America of the Belgian social impact investment firm Incofin, said the instrument involves several challenges, such as monetization, assigning value to the blocks of land, the creation of standards for measurement, verification, monitoring and issuance, as well as the involvement of the communities.

“Not all ecosystem services are the same, it has to be a very judicious system. And there have to be local regulations, from green taxonomies (classification of activities) to regulations. Therein lies the dilemma of where the sector has to go,” she told IPS from Bogotá.

The executive stressed that the scheme should avoid the carbon credits model and learn from its mistakes, such as inaccurate calculation of carbon sequestration and violations of community rights.

In 2022, Incofin’s portfolio covered 111 clients in 14 Latin American countries for a total of 400 million dollars in segments such as sustainable agriculture and microfinance. In Colombia, it supported eight clients and totaled 44.3 million dollars.

The company focuses on medium-term investments, so that beneficiaries have an additional source of income within the area being protected or restored.

So far, so-called green bonds have fallen short in financing for the conservation of natural wealth and sustainable land use, according to a 2020 report by the Luxembourg Green Exchange and the Global Landscapes Forum, entitled: “How can Green Bonds catalyse investments in biodiversity and sustainable land-use projects?”

Colombia and Honduras are the countries that have moved forward with these instruments, because they have regulations and several financial instruments related to biodiversity, although bonds are still a rarity.

In this regard, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which groups the world’s 38 most developed economies, noted in its 2021 report “Tracking Economic Instruments and Finance for Biodiversity” that, despite the progress made, the substantial potential depends on increasing the use and ambition of biodiversity-relevant economic instruments.

In its Sixth National Biodiversity Report 2020, Honduras recognized the need to improve the monetary and non-monetary valuation of environmental services.

Financing schemes are essential to the development of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2019, which seeks to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of terrestrial and marine ecosystems, to eradicate poverty, combat climate change and prevent the mass extinction of species.

Moving towards a take-off?

In order for it to be successful, the mechanism requires integrity of the projects and the inclusion of all stakeholders, according to the World Economic Forum, dedicated to multinational business lobbying.

The Colombian Bosque de Niebla initiative has already placed 62,063 credits and has 61,773 available.

The investor Terraso has seven other habitat banks in various areas of Colombia that could generate more bonds.

Balvanera warned of perverse incentives that could undermine protection.

“If we think about financial schemes, the link should not only be transactional. There must be involvement of different stakeholders who collectively identify the mechanism that promotes conservation, respects the vision of care and maintains the livelihoods of the inhabitants of these areas,” she said.

The academic argued that “this generates a circular system that connects forest protection, water care, food production and sustainable consumption.”

For her part, González was open to analyzing these investments.

“Water could be a viable focus for climate resilience and its impact on the region’s climate. We are interested in learning about monetization and that additional sources of income can benefit protection processes, so that it is complementary to what we do,” she said.

Last December, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes cumulative biodiversity funding of at least 200 billion dollars by 2030 from public and private sources.

One of its goals is to encourage innovative schemes such as payment for environmental services, green bonds, offsets, biodiversity credits and benefit-sharing mechanisms that include environmental and social safeguards.

To meet these objectives, the 196 States Parties to the CBD created the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, which is managed by the Global Environment Facility and whose governing council was approved in June in Brazil.

In addition, the agreement includes the complete or partial restoration of at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems by 2030, as well as the reduction of the loss of areas of high biological importance to almost zero.

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Debt & Crisis of Survival in Sri Lanka & the World

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Opinion

Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka on April 13, 2022. Credit: Wikipedia

WASHINGTON DC, Aug 25 2023 (IPS) – Sri Lanka has been faced with an unprecedented political and economic crisis since the beginning of 2022.

The dominant narrative attributes the crisis to the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine conflict, China’s ‘debt trap diplomacy’ and – most importantly – the corruption and mismanagement of the ruling Rajapaksa family.

Western mainstream media celebrated the so-called aragalaya (struggle, in Sinhala) protest movement that led to the ouster of the Rajapaksas and upholds the IMF bail-out as the only solution to the dire economic situation.

The aragalaya protests emerged from genuine economic grievances, but failed to develop an analysis beyond the ‘Gota, Go Home’ demand for Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign. Influenced by local and external interests with their own agendas, the protestors exhibited little-to-no awareness or critique of the global political economy and the financial system at the root of the country’s crisis.

In 2022, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reported that 60 percent of low-income countries and 30 percent of emerging market economies are ‘in or near debt distress.’ While the details differ from country to country, the historical patterns of subordination that have given rise to global crises are the same.

The Sri Lankan crisis is an illustrative example of convergent global debt, food, fuel and energy crises facing much of the world. It is corporate media bias and narrative control that deflects from this analysis.

The island’s severe debt and economic crisis must be seen in a broader global context as the culmination of several centuries of colonial and neo-colonial developments, and the disastrous and inevitably self-destructive capitalist paradigm of endless growth and profit. Debt is not “a straightforward number but a social relation embedded in unequal power relations, discourses and moralities…and…institutionalized power.”.

Colonialism and Neocolonialism

The development of export agriculture and the import of food and other essentials under British colonialism turned Sri Lanka into a dependent ‘peripheral’ unit of the global capitalist economy.

Adopting ideologies of modernization and development and theories of comparative advantage, the capitalist imperative integrated self-sustaining indigenous, peasant, and regional economies into the growing global economy, through the appropriation of land, natural resources, and labor for export production.

Monocultural agriculture, mining, and other export-based production disturbed traditional patterns of crop rotation and small-scale subsistence production that were more harmonious with the regional ecosystems and cycles of nature.

Plantation development contributed to deforestation, loss of biodiversity and animal habitats. While a small local elite prospered through their collaboration with colonialism, most people became poor, indebted, and dependent on the vagaries of the global market for their sustenance.

Although colonized countries including Sri Lanka gained political independence following World War II, unequal exchange continued under neo-colonialism. Terms of trade disadvantaged the ‘Third World’ with their labor, resources and exports grossly undervalued and imports overvalued.

The dynamic is better understood as poorer countries being over-exploited rather than under-developed. Rising populations combined with corruption and inefficiency of local governments gave rise to endemic foreign exchange shortages and economic crises in Sri Lanka and many other countries.

The debt relief and aid given by the IMF, the World Bank and bilateral institutions from the Global North have been mere band-aids to keep the ex-colonial countries tethered to the global financial and economic structures. Post-independent Sri Lanka went to the IMF 16 times before the current 2023 bail-out which seeks to further perpetuate the county’s cycle of debt dependence.

The transfer of financial and resource wealth from poor countries in the global South to the rich countries in the North is not a new phenomenon. It has been an enduring feature throughout centuries of both classical and neo-colonialism. Between 1980 and 2017, developing countries paid out over $4.2 trillion solely in interest payments, dwarfing the financial aid they received from the developed countries during that period.

Currently, international financial institutions – notably the IMF and the World Bank – remain outside political and legal control without even ‘elementary accountability’. As critics from the Global South point out, “The overwhelming power of financial institutions makes a mockery of any serious effort for democratization and addressing the deteriorating socioeconomic living conditions of the people in Sri Lanka and elsewhere in the Global South.”

Financialization and Debt

Corporate and financial deregulation which accompanied the rise of neoliberalism starting in the 1970s has given rise to financialization, and the increasing importance of finance capital. As more and more aspects of social and planetary life are commoditized and subjected to digitalization and financial speculation, the real value of nature and human activity are further lost.

As a 2022 United Nations Report points out; food prices are soaring today not due to a problem with supply and demand but due to price speculation in highly financialized commodity markets.

A handful of the largest asset management companies, notably BlackRock (currently worth USD $ 10 trillion) control very large shares in companies operating in practically all the major sectors of the global economy: banking, technology, media, defense, energy, pharmaceuticals, food, agribusiness including seeds, and agrochemicals.

Financial liberalization advanced when interest rates dropped in the richer countries after the global 2008 financial crisis. Developing countries were encouraged to borrow from private international capital markets through International Sovereign Bonds (ISBs) which come with high interest rates and short maturation periods.

Although details are not available to the public, BlackRock is reportedly the biggest ISB creditor of Sri Lanka. Most of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt is ISBs, with over 80% of Sri Lanka’s debt owed to western creditors, and not – as projected in the mainstream narrative – to China.

IMF debt financing requires countries to meet its familiar structural adjustment conditions: privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), cutbacks of social safety nets and labor rights, increased export production, decreased import substitution and alignment of local economic policy with US and other Western interests.

These are the same aims as classical colonialism, they are just better hidden in the more complex modern system and language of global finance, diplomacy and aid.

A vast array of policies exacting these aims are well under way in Sri Lanka, including the sale of state-owned energy, telecommunications and transportation enterprises to foreign owners, with grave implications for Sri Lanka’s economic independence, sovereignty, national security and the wellbeing of her people and the environment.

The IMF approach does not address long-term needs for bioregionalism, sustainable development, local autonomy and welfare. A small vulnerable country such as Sri Lanka cannot change the trajectory of global capitalist development on its own.

Regional and global solidarity and social movements are necessary to challenge the deranged global financial and economic system that is at the root of the current crisis.

Global South Resistance

Since the 1970s, major collaborative projects have been initiated by developing countries and the UNCTAD to develop a multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring. Yet they are futile in the face of the powerful opposition of creditors and the protection given to them by wealthy countries and their multilateral institutions, and the UN has failed to uphold commitment and implement a debt restructuring mechanism.

Sri Lanka was a global leader in efforts to create a New International Economic Order, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace in the 1960s and 70s. In the early years of their political independence, countries throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America sought to forge their own paths of economic and political development, independent of both capitalism and communism and the Cold War.

These included African socialist projects such as Tanzania’s Ujamma, import substitution programs in Latin America and left-wing nationalism and decolonization efforts in Sri Lanka and many other countries.

Almost without exception, these nationalist efforts failed, not only due to internal corruption and mismanagement but also due to persistent external pressure and intervention. Massive efforts have been taken by the Global North to stop the Global South from moving out of the established world order.

A case in point is the nationalization of oil companies owned by western countries in Sri Lanka in 1961 and the backlash against the left-nationalist Sri Lankan government which dared to take such a bold move.

The western response included the 1962 Hickenlooper Amendment passed in the U.S. Senate stopping foreign aid to Sri Lanka and to “any country expropriating American property without compensation.” As a result, Sri Lanka lost its credit worthiness, the domestic economic situation worsened, and the left-nationalist government lost the 1965 elections (with some covert US election support).

Observing those developments, political economist Richard Stuart Olsen wrote: “…the coerciveness of economic sanctions against a dependent, vulnerable country resides in the fact that an economic downturn can be induced and intensified from the outside, with the resulting development of politically explosive ‘relative deprivation’…”

These observations resonate with Sri Lanka’s current repetition of the same vicious cycle: an externally dependent export-import economy; worsening terms of trade; foreign exchange shortage; policy mismanagement; external political pressure; debt crisis; shortages of food, fuel and other essentials; mass suffering; and political turmoil.

Geopolitical Rivalry

Sri Lanka’s present economic crisis – the worst since the country’s political independence from the British – must be seen in the context of the accelerating neocolonial geopolitical conflict between China and the USA in the Indian Ocean. Many other countries across the world are also caught in the neocolonial superpower competition to control their natural resources and strategic locations.

There is much speculation as to whether the debt default on April 12, 2022 and political destabilization in Sri Lanka were ‘staged’ or intentionally precipitated to further the US’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy, the Indo-Pacific Strategy and the Quadrilateral Alliance (USA, India, Australia and Japan) in its competition to confront China’s $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative and counter China’s presence in Sri Lanka.

It is widely recognized in Sri Lanka that ‘The policy of neutrality is the best defence Sri Lanka has to deter global powers from attempting to get control of Sri Lanka because of its strategic location.’ Although President Gotabaya Rajapaksa claimed to pursue a ‘neutral’ foreign policy, the Rajapaksas were seen as closer to China than the west. After Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa were forced to resign, Ranil Wickramasinghe – a politician who was resoundingly rejected in the previous elections by the electorate but is a close ally of the west – was appointed as President in an undemocratic transition of power.

To what extent were Sri Lanka and her people victims of an externally manipulated ‘shock doctrine’ and a regime change operation, sold to the world as internal disintegration caused by local corruption and incapability?

While it is not possible to provide definitive answers to these issues, it is necessary to consider the available credible evidence and the geopolitics of debt and economic crises in Sri Lanka and the world at large.

Paradigm Shift

As the locus of global power shifts from the west and a multipolar world arises, new multilateral partnerships are emerging for development financing, such as the New Development Bank (NDB) – formerly referred to as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Development Bank – as alternatives to the Bretton Woods and other western dominated institutions.

However, given controversial projects, such as China’s Port City and India’s Adani Company investments in Sri Lanka as well as their projects elsewhere, it is necessary to ask if the BRICS represent a genuine alternative to the prevailing political-economic model based on domination, profit and power?

Dominant political power in our era is about propaganda, control of narratives and exploiting ignorance and fear. In the face of worsening environmental and social collapse across the world, there is a practical need for a fundamental questioning of the values, assumptions and misrepresentations of the dominant neoliberal model and its manifestations in Sri Lanka and the world.

At the root of the crisis, we face is a disconnect between the exponential growth of the profit-driven economy and a lack of development in human consciousness, i.e., in morality, empathy, and wisdom.

Ultimately, dualism, domination and the unregulated market paradigm need to be questioned to find a balanced path of human development, based on interdependence, partnership and ecological consciousness. Such a path of development would uphold the ethical principles necessary for long-term survival: rational use of natural resources, appropriate use of technology, balanced consumption, equitable distribution of wealth, and livelihoods for all.

This article is derived from the author’s new book: Asoka Bandarage, CRISIS IN SRI LANKA AND THE WORLD: COLONIAL AND NEOLIBERAL ORIGINS: ECOLOGICAL AND COLLECTIVE ALTERNATIVES (Berlin: De Gruyter,2023) https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783111203454/html?lang=en]

IPS UN Bureau

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UN Must Reclaim Multilateral Governance from Pretenders

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug 24 2023 (IPS) – International governance arrangements are in trouble. Condemned as ‘dysfunctional’ by some, multilateral agreements have been discarded or ignored by the powerful except when useful to protect their interests or provide legitimacy.

Economic multilateralism under siege
Undoubtedly, many multilateral arrangements have become less appropriate. At their heart is the United Nations (UN) system, conceived in the last year of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency and World War Two.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The 1944 UN conference at Bretton Woods sought to build the foundations for the post-war economic order. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) would create conditions for lasting growth and stability, with the World Bank financing post-war reconstruction and post-colonial development.

The Bretton Woods agreement allowed the US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) to issue dollars, as if backed by gold. In 1971, President Richard Nixon repudiated the US’s Bretton Woods obligations. With US military and ‘soft’ power, widespread acceptance of the dollar since has effectively extended the Fed’s ‘exorbitant privilege’.

This unilateral repudiation of US commitments has been a precursor of the fate of some other multilateral arrangements. Most were US-designed, some in consultation with allies. Most key privileges of the global North – especially the US – continue, while duties and obligations are ignored if deemed inconvenient.

The International Trade Organization (ITO) was to be the third leg of the post-war multilateral economic order, later reaffirmed by the 1948 Havana Charter. Despite post-war world hegemony, the ITO was rejected by the protectionist US Congress.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) became the compromise substitute. Recognizing the diversity of national economic capacities and capabilities, GATT did not impose a ‘one-size-fits-all’ requirement on all participants.

But lessons from such successful flexible precedents were ignored in creating the World Trade Organization (WTO) from 1995. The WTO has imposed onerous new obligations such as the all-or-nothing ‘single commitment’ requirement and the Agreement on Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

Overcoming marginalization
In September 2021, the UN Secretary-General (SG) issued Our Common Agenda, with new international governance proposals. Besides its new status quo bias, the proposals fall short of what is needed in terms of both scope and ambition.

Problematically, it legitimizes and seeks to consolidate already diffuse institutional responsibilities, further weakening UN inter-governmental leadership. This would legitimize international governance infiltration by multi-stakeholder partnerships run by private business interests.

The last six decades have seen often glacially slow changes to improve UN-led gradual – mainly due to the recalcitrance of the privileged and powerful. These have changed Member State and civil society participation, with mixed effects.

Fairer institutions and arrangements – agreed to after inclusive inter-governmental negotiations – have been replaced by multi-stakeholder processes. These are typically not accountable to Member States, let alone their publics.

Such biases and other problems of ostensibly multilateral processes and practices have eroded public trust and confidence in multilateralism, especially the UN system.

Multi-stakeholder processes – involving transnational corporate interests – may expedite decision-making, even implementation. But the most authoritative study so far found little evidence of net improvements, especially for the already marginalized.

New multi-stakeholder governance – without meaningful prior approval by relevant inter-governmental bodies – undoubtedly strengthens executive authority and autonomy. But such initiatives have also undermined legitimacy and public trust, with few net gains.

All too often, new multi-stakeholder arrangements with private parties have been made without Member State approval, even if retrospectively due to exigencies.
Unsurprisingly, many in developing countries have become alienated from and suspicious of those acting in the name of multilateral institutions and processes.

Hence, many in the global South have been disinclined to cooperate with the SG’s efforts to resuscitate, reinvent and repurpose undoubtedly defunct inter-governmental institutions and processes.

Way forward?
But the SG report has also made some important proposals deserving careful consideration. It is correct in recognizing the long overdue need to reform existing governance arrangements to adapt the multilateral system to current and future needs and requirements.

This reform opportunity is now at risk due to the lack of Member State support, participation and legitimacy. Inclusive consultative processes – involving state and non-state actors – must strive for broadly acceptable pragmatic solutions. These should be adopted and implemented via inter-governmental processes.

Undoubtedly, multilateralism and the UN system have experienced growing marginalization after the first Cold War ended. The UN has been slowly, but surely superseded by NATO and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), led by the G7 group of the biggest rich economies.

The UN’s second SG, Dag Hammarskjold – who had worked for the OECD’s predecessor – warned the international community, especially developing countries, of the dangers posed by the rich nations’ club. This became evident when the rich blocked and pre-empted the UN from leading on international tax cooperation.

Seeking quick fixes, ‘clever’ advisers or consultants may have persuaded the SG to embrace corporate-dominated multi-stakeholder partnerships contravening UN norms. More recent SG initiatives may suggest his frustration with the failure of that approach.

After the problematic and controversial record of such processes and events in recent years, the SG can still rise to contemporary challenges and strengthen multilateralism by changing course. By restoring the effectiveness and legitimacy of multilateralism, the UN will not only be fit, but also essential for humanity’s future.

IPS UN Bureau

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