New Era: Unlocking Africa’s Agriculture Potential Through CGIAR TAAT Model

Africa, Biodiversity, Civil Society, Climate Change, COP28, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Food and Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition, Food Sustainability, Headlines, Human Rights, Humanitarian Emergencies, Population, Poverty & SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations, Trade & Investment

Food and Agriculture

Transforming food systems is key to solving food insecurity on the African continent. A powerful and unified effort is needed to ensure food systems are transformed to be robust enough to support the population. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Transforming food systems is key to solving food insecurity on the African continent. A powerful and unified effort is needed to ensure food systems are transformed to be robust enough to support the population. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

NAIROBI, Jan 16 2024 (IPS) – As hunger and food insecurity deepen, Africa is confronting an unprecedented food crisis. Estimates show that nearly 282 million people on the continent, or 20 percent of the population, are undernourished. Numerous challenges across the African continent threaten the race to achieve food security; research and innovative strategies are urgently needed to transform current systems as they are inadequate to address the food crisis.


Transforming food systems is key. A powerful and unified effort is needed to equip food systems to advance human and planetary health to their full potential. This was the message as CGIAR entered a new era under the leadership of Dr Ismahane Elouafi, the Executive Managing Director. Named one of the most influential Africans of 2023, she continues to stress the need to use science and innovation to unlock Africa’s potential to meet its food needs.

Dr Ismahane Elouafi, the CGIAR’s newly appointed Executive Managing Director. Credit: FAO

Dr Ismahane Elouafi, the CGIAR’s newly appointed Executive Managing Director. Credit: FAO

During her inaugural field visit to an IITA center in Ibadan, Nigeria, alongside Dr Simeon Ehui, IITA’s Director General and CGIAR Regional Director for Continental Africa, she oversaw extensive discussions on transforming food systems and leveraging science and technology.

“At COP28 in Dubai, UAE, there was high-level recognition and a wonderful spotlight on science and innovation. CGIAR has an opportunity to represent science and innovation at large, representing the whole community at large. We can cut down poverty and stop malnutrition, and we have the tools—we just need to bring them to the farmers,” she said.

CGIAR continues to create linkages between agricultural and tech stakeholders, emphasizing digital innovation for agricultural development. CGIAR-IITA explores leveraging ICTs to tackle agricultural challenges, boost productivity, ensure sustainability, and enhance food security, featuring presentations, discussions, workshops, and networking across sectors.

There was a significant focus on the CGIAR TAAT model as a tool to use technology to address Africa’s worsening food crisis. TAAT Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) is a key flagship programme of the African Development Bank’s Feed Africa strategy for 2016 to 2025.

“We have the technology, and all hands are on deck to ensure that no one sleeps hungry. There are severe food insecurities on the continent today, deepening rural poverty and malnutrition. We have the capacity to achieve food security,” Ehui emphasized.

IITA’s Dr Kenton Dashiell spoke about TAAT in the context of strategic discussions around policy and government engagement. Emphasizing the need for the government, private sector, and other key stakeholders to create effective and efficient food systems transformation paths. As a major continent-wide initiative designed to boost agricultural productivity across the continent by rapidly delivering proven technologies to millions of farmers, TAAT can deliver a food-secure continent.

Elouafi stressed the need to ensure that technology is in the hands of farmers. in line with TAAT, which aims to double crop, livestock, and fish productivity by expanding access to productivity-increasing technologies to more than 40 million smallholder farmers across Africa by 2025. In addition, TAAT seeks to generate an additional 120 million metric tons.

IITA’s Bernard Vanlauwe spoke about sustainable intensification with the aim of increasing production and improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Farmers are increasingly dealing with higher temperatures and shorter rainy seasons, affecting the production of staple foods such as maize. Further stressing the need for improved crop varieties to meet Africa’s pressing food insecurities.

Elouafi stressed that the needs are great, in particular, eliminating extreme poverty, ending hunger and malnutrition, turning Africa into a net food exporter, and positioning Africa at the top of the agricultural value chains. She emphasized the need to leverage progress made thus far, building on the commitments of Dakar 1, the 1st Summit of the World’s Regions on Food Security held in Dakar in January 2010, where representatives and associations of regional governments from the five continents noted that the commitments made at the World Food Summit in 2002 had had little effect and that the food crisis had only worsened.

Elouafi said the UN Food System Summit in 2021 and the 2023 Dakar 2 Summit, with an emphasis on building sustainable food systems and aligning government resources, development partners, and private sector financing to unleash Africa’s food production potential, were important meetings to build on. The commitments made at these high-level meetings had already created a pathway towards ending hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition and transforming food systems to meet the most pressing food needs today.

It is estimated that Africa’s agricultural output could increase from USD 280 billion per year to USD 1 trillion by 2030. The visit and ensuing discussions highlighted how investing in raising agricultural productivity, supporting infrastructure, and climate-smart agricultural systems, with private sector investments, government support, and resources from multinational financial institutions, all along the food value chain, can help turn Africa into a breadbasket for the world. Private sector actors will be particularly urged to commit to the development of critical value chains.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Rich Nations, IMF Deepen World Stagnation

Civil Society, COVID-19, Economy & Trade, Environment, Financial Crisis, Global, Headlines, Labour, Poverty & SDGs, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 13 2023 (IPS) – With the US Fed raising interest rates, the world economy is slowing as debt distress spreads across the global South, increasing poverty worldwide to pre-pandemic levels, with the poorest countries faring worst.


Extreme poverty continues to be high and is now worse than before the pandemic in low-income countries (LICs) and among those affected by fragility, violence and conflict. The promise of eradicating poverty worldwide by 2030 has become unachievable.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The Bretton Woods institutions’ (BWIs) annual meetings in Marrakech in October were only the second-ever in Africa. But the rich nations-dominated BWIs failed yet again to rise to the challenges of our times, setting Africa and the global South even further back.

Instead of fostering cooperation to address the causes and effects of the contemporary catastrophe, neither the International Monetary Fund nor the World Bank governors could agree on joint communiques due to the greater politicisation of multilateral fora.

Indebtedness immobilises governments
Indebtedness and restrictive creditor rules prevent governments from spending more counter-cyclically to overcome the many contractionary tendencies of recent times, besides preventing them from addressing looming social and environmental crises.

The G20’s largest twenty economies have urged strengthening “multilateral coordination by official bilateral and private creditors … to address the deteriorating debt situation and facilitate coordinated debt treatment for debt-distressed countries”.

But its Common Framework to restructure debt has been roundly criticised by civil society, think tanks and even the World Bank on many grounds, including the paltry concessional credit relief offered to a few of the very poorest countries.

In contrast, the G24 caucus of developing countries at the BWIs has emphasised the need for “durable debt resolution measures while collaborating on resolving the structural issues leading to such vulnerabilities.”

But all those advocating purported solutions are not even trying to ensure fiscal space and public spending capacity for counter-cyclical efforts, let alone achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and national development objectives.

Surcharges
The IMF currently imposes additional charges on countries that do not quickly clear their debts to the Fund. Besides the usual fees and interest, borrowing countries paid over $4 billion in such surcharges in 2020-22, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Surcharges will cost debt-distressed countries about $7.9 billion over six years. The G24 has emphasised that surcharges are pro-cyclical and regressive, especially with monetary tightening.

Governments have undertaken contractionary policies and cut imports for lack of foreign exchange. This deepens the problems of heavily indebted poor countries who cannot but count on the Fund for relief and solutions.

At Marrakech, the governing International Monetary and Financial Committee decided to “consider a review of surcharge policies”. The G24 called for “a suspension of surcharges while the review – which we hope will lead to substantial permanent reduction or complete elimination – is being conducted.”

Rich nations have been divided over surcharges. With Ukraine now among the top surcharge payers, following civil society criticisms, the Biden administration’s refusal to review surcharges in 2022 was heavily criticised by the US Congress.

Deepening austerity
IMF fiscal austerity measures of the 1980s returned with a vengeance after the 2008 global financial crisis, and then again during the Covid-19 pandemic from 2020. Most Fund loans require cutting the public sector wage bill (PSWB), the budget line to pay employees.

Most wage earners in many LICs, including nurses, teachers and other social service workers, work for the state, directly or indirectly. Although much needed, these employees have been more likely to be targeted by such budget cuts.

PSWB cuts may involve hiring or wage freezes, or limiting, or even cutting wages. These inevitably undermine government capacities and services. Fiscal consolidation has also involved raising more indirect, consumption taxes, and tax exemptions, e.g., for essential goods such as food.

In 38 countries with over a billion people, loan conditionalities during 2020-22, the three years of the Covid-19 pandemic, meant regressive tax reforms and public spending cuts. PSWB and fuel or electricity subsidy cuts are also common demands worsening economic contractions.

Austerity bound to fail
But the IMF’s own research suggests such austerity policies are generally ineffective in reducing debt, their ostensible purpose. The April 2023 IMF World Economic Outlook acknowledged austerity programmes and fiscal consolidations “do not reduce debt ratios, on average”. Yet, its Fiscal Monitor still demands “fiscal tightening” of most developing countries.

The new IMF-World Bank debt sustainability framework sets the LICs’ external debt-to-GDP ratio limit at 30% or 40%. It insists debt-distressed economies must have lower ratios than ‘strong’ countries, effectively further penalising the weak and vulnerable.

Instead of enabling consistently counter-cyclical macroeconomic frameworks, the IMF’s current short-termist approach is mainly preoccupied with annual, or worse, quarterly balances, mimicking corporate reporting practices.

Such short-termism further limits fiscal space, effectively preventing or deterring public sector investments requiring longer-term macroeconomic frameworks to realise benefits. This discourages ‘patient’ medium- to long-term investments required for national economic planning and transformation, essential for sustainable development.

Restrictive debt and fiscal targets have meant even less public investment. This is typically required of borrowing countries as a credit conditionality. Annual IMF Article IV consultations cause other countries to also accept similar constraints to avoid Fund disapproval.

While a few better-off economies enjoy full employment, most countries face further economic contraction, not least due to interest rate hikes led by the US Fed and their many effects. Instead of being part of the problem, the IMF should be part of the solution.

IPS UN Bureau

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COP28: Climate Migrants’ Rights, Risk-based Labor Polices Under the Spotlight

Asia-Pacific, Civil Society, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Headlines, Labour, Middle East & North Africa, Poverty & SDGs, TerraViva United Nations

COP28

Workers, some from regions impacted by climate change, joined queues for accreditation outside Expo 2020 in Dubai, where COP28 is being held. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

Workers, some from regions impacted by climate change, joined queues for accreditation outside Expo 2020 in Dubai, where COP28 is being held. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

DUBAI, Dec 7 2023 (IPS) – With COP23 underway, researchers and activists are pointing at the plight of climate migrants.

On November 30, a few hours before the COP23 was officially inaugurated, long, serpentine queues could be seen outside Expo 2020, the venue of the COP23. Standing under the blazing sun, besides delegates and media personnel, were hundreds of migrant workers, a majority of whom were from Nepal and the Philippines.


The workers, who would later be working in different service hubs such as food kiosks and cleaning units throughout the COP, were there to get registered and get a badge that would allow them entry inside the blue zone, the high-security area within the COP. Almost all of these workers are unskilled and employed by various contractors. Despite the long hours of standing in the scorching sun, none of them was complaining—some because they have worked in much worse conditions, while others didn’t want to earn their employers’ wrath by expressing any displeasure.

“The company decides where and when we will work, as well as how long. What is there to complain about? Please understand, it’s risky,” whispered Chandra, a worker from Nepal who requested not to reveal his last name. Chandra also wouldn’t reveal his exact address except that he is “from the upper Mustang,” a district in Nepal that has seen large-scale migration of locals following massive water scarcity caused by the drying of natural springs and groundwater sources.

Chandra’s whispered sentences nearly summarize the environment in which thousands of migrants work: exposure to harsh climate conditions, inadequate pay packages, and oftentimes abuse, say human rights advocates who have documented migrants across the Middle East.

Human Rights Watch, the US-based global human rights defender, recently published a study conducted in three climate-vulnerable countries—Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan—that found that migrant workers faced a strong set of labor abuses that included paying high recruitment fees, low and irregular wages, and high exposure to extreme heat. Although the research did not specifically focus on climate migrants, most of the respondents were from places that have witnessed strong climate change impacts, including extreme weather events.

Ironically, their search for a secure livelihood and a better life also made them vulnerable to working in environments that leave them exposed to similar harsh climatic conditions. For example, during the construction of Expo City, the very venue of COP28, migrant workers were seen working in scorching heat that could lead to a plethora of health challenges, including heat stroke and extreme dehydration leading to chronic kidney failure. In fact, HRW’s study found that several migrants had had kidney failure and were on dialysis, which not only cost them their jobs but also pushed them into a financial crisis as they needed to take out loans for medical treatment.

“Our study interviewed 73 current and former UAE-based workers and 42 families of current migrant workers between May and September 2023 from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Ninety-four of these interviewees live in or are from areas already facing the devastating consequences of the climate crisis, with scientific studies linking extreme weather events like floods, cyclones, and the salinization of agricultural lands to climate change. In addition, former and current outdoor workers interviewed were working in jobs like construction, cleaning, agriculture, animal herding, and security and were often exposed to the UAE’s extreme heat, which is also increasing due to climate change,” says Michael Page, Deputy Director in the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch.

Climate Migration: A global snapshot

According to the International Organization of Migration (IOM), the implications of the climate crisis on migration are profound and are ever-increasing. IOM cites data produced by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center that shows in 2022 a total of 31.8 million internal displacements due to weather-related hazards.

The World Bank Groundwell Report also shows that in South Asia, 12.5 million people were displaced by climate disasters in 2022, while the numbers are 7.5 million in Sub-Saharan Africa and 305,000 in the Middle East and North Africa region. The report projects that without immediate and concerted climate and development action, the number could go up to over 216 million by 2050.

According to the Nepal government’s own assessment, the UAE, along with Qatar, remain the most popular work destinations among young Nepalis. Data collected by the country’s Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE), 37,492 young people arrived in the UAE for work between mid-July and mid-October of the current fiscal year alone. This group includes 7,015 women and 30,477 men.

A moment of global recognition

On Friday, Nepal, one of the biggest source countries of unskilled and climate migrants, found a special mention in the speech of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the inaugural ceremony of COP28. “Just days ago, I was on the melting ice of Antarctica. Not long before, I was among the melting glaciers of Nepal. These two spots are far in distance, but united in crisis. Polar ice and glaciers are vanishing before our eyes, causing havoc the world over, from landslides and floods to rising seas,” Guterres said, addressing the global leaders at the opening ceremony.

Soon after, addressing the media, Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said that his country was preparing to establish Nepal’s rights to receive compensation for loss and damage. According to him, Guterres’s speech had drawn the world’s attention to the climate crisis in Nepal, and his government would now push for the much-deserved compensation under the newly operationalized Loss and Damage mechanism.

Maheshwar Dhakal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Forests and Environment, who is at the COP, says that Nepal has plans to address climate-induced displacement and migrations at their root, but it needs external support and resources.

“Due to climate change and loss of livelihood, our youths are migrating rapidly to other countries. This is also destabilizing the family value system and causing social disorder as youths are separated from their family elders. This is under discussion at the political level. But at the same time, unless and until equal education, opportunities, and a level of salary (available in other countries) are made available, we cannot stop this migration. We have assessed that the total cost to implement our National Action Program (that can address climate displacement) will be USD 50 billion, of which we can only raise USD 2 billion; we need the rest from external sources such as the various funds.”

Nepal senior delegate Maheshwar Dhakal. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

Nepal senior delegate Maheshwar Dhakal. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

Need of the hour: a risk-based labor policy

However, experts believe that host countries, particularly the COP presidency UAE, where migrant workers make up 88% of the labor force, can take immediate steps while negotiators develop their respective arguments and strategies to claim compensation for climate refugees and displaced people under the climate finance mechanisms.

One of these is adopting a risk-based labor protection policy.

Currently, the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) is implementing the ‘Midday Break’ initiative, which broadly means workers should not work outside from 12 to 3 p.m.  Violations of the ban can lead to a fine of Dh5,000 for each worker from non-compliant employers. The maximum fine amount is Dh50,000 when multiple workers are made to work during the banned hours.

However, the policy also allows employers to continue working through midday in areas where it is deemed unfeasible to postpone work until it is completed. These works typically include roofing, manning traffic, containing hazards or repairing damages such as interruptions to water supply or electricity, etc.

These provisions provide escape routes for employers who continue to push migrant workers into unsustainable and risky work conditions. The same ‘loopholes’ also make the labor policies inadequate for protecting migrant workers from harsh weather conditions, says Page of HRW, who thinks adopting a public health risk-based policy would be the right way to ensure migrant workers’ rights.

A risk-based approach would mean that countries, competent authorities, and employers would identify, assess, and understand the public health risks to which the workers are exposed and take the appropriate mitigation measures in accordance with the level of risk. One of these strategies would be to use the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) index, which is already in use in nations like Canada.

The wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) unit considers a number of environmental factors, such as air temperature, humidity, and air movement, which contribute to the perception of hotness by people.

Page thinks that the adoption of the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) would be a great way to assess the risks for migrant workers in a place like the UAE because it can cover more risk factors that are usually ignored by employers but are regularly faced by the workers. For example, in some workplace situations, solar load (heat from radiant sources) is also considered in determining the WBGT as the basis of the risk assessment.

“If the UAE really cares about the protection of its migrant workforce, then they should also care about adopting a risk assessment method that is more reflective of local conditions; that will also ensure climate justice for the workers,” Page says.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Right Here, Right Now: ECW’s USD 150 Million Climate Appeal to Save Children at Risk

Civil Society, Climate Change, Climate Change Justice, COP28, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Education, Environment, Featured, Humanitarian Emergencies, Poverty & SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals

Education Cannot Wait. Future of Education is here

Teacher Maria Alberto in her classroom, 3500 classrooms were destroyed by Cyclone Idai in Mozambique. Credit: Manan Kotak/ECW

Teacher Maria Alberto in her classroom, 3500 classrooms were destroyed by Cyclone Idai in Mozambique. Credit: Manan Kotak/ECW

NAIROBI, Nov 28 2023 (IPS) – A catastrophic surge in the frequency, intensity, and severity of extreme weather events has placed children on the frontlines of climate emergencies. Nearly half of the world’s children, or one billion, live in countries at extremely high risk from the effects of the climate crisis. Most of these children face multiple vulnerabilities.


An estimated 80 percent of countries categorized as extremely high-risk are also categorized as Least Developed Countries (LDCs). More than 62 million children—nearly one-third of the 224 million crisis-affected children worldwide in need of educational support—face the repercussions of climate-related events like floods, storms, droughts, and cyclones, which are further intensified by climate change. 

Against this backdrop and in advance of the Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), issued today an urgent appeal for USD 150 million in new funding to respond to the climate crisis.

“The very future of humanity is at stake. Rising seas, spiking temperatures, and ever-more-severe droughts, floods, and natural hazards are derailing development gains and ripping our world apart. As we’ve seen with the floods in Pakistan and the drought in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, climate change is triggering concerning jumps in forced displacement, violence, food insecurity, and economic uncertainty the world over,” said Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait.

The new appeal underscores the urgent need to connect education action with climate action. New ECW data indicates that 62 million children and adolescents affected by climate shocks have been in desperate need of education support since 2020. This appeal was prepared in November 2023 by the ECW Secretariat based on estimates provided in the organization’s background study, “Futures at Risk: Climate-Induced Shocks and Their Toll on Education for Crisis-Affected Children.

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The study draws on the latest ECW global update’s findings and methodology, as well as the latest research, and endeavors to bridge critical knowledge gaps with regard to the extent to which climate change, environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss impact and displace school-aged children globally and influence access to education.

Study findings show that over the last five years, more than 91 million school-aged children impacted by crises have faced climate shocks amplified by climate change. The effects have been particularly pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa, affecting 42 million children, and in South Asia, impacting 31 million children. Among the various climate hazards assessed, droughts emerge as the most severe and persistent, disproportionately affecting children in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“The climate crisis is robbing millions of vulnerable girls and boys of their right to learn, their right to play, and their right to feel safe and secure. In the eye of the storm, we urge new and existing public and private sector donors to stand with them. We appeal to you to act right here, right now, to address the climate and education crisis,” said Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the ECW High-Level Steering Group.

Additionally, the Futures at Risk study stresses that children affected by climate hazards are at risk of educational disruptions due to forced displacement. In the 27 crisis-affected countries where 62 million children have been exposed to climate shocks since 2020, there were 13 million forced movements of school-aged children due to floods, droughts, and storms.

Young girls and boys after receiving UNICEF bags, books, and copies attending their first-class in a UNICEF-supported temporary learning centre next to the flood water in village Allah Dina Channa, district Lasbela, Baluchistan province, Pakistan. The primary school was badly damaged during a heavy monsoon rain in 2022. Credit: UNICEF

Young girls and boys, after receiving UNICEF bags and books, attended their first class in a UNICEF-supported temporary learning centre in Allah Dina Channa village, district Lasbela, Baluchistan province, Pakistan. The primary school was badly damaged during a heavy monsoon rain in 2022. Credit: UNICEF

The 224 million school-aged children globally effected by crises need diverse forms of educational support. Of these, 31 million children are in countries ill-prepared to handle the impacts of severe climate-related crises. Droughts, closely followed by floods, are the most frequently encountered climate-related shocks, which often intertwine and exacerbate one another.

“Education is an essential component in delivering on the promises and commitments outlined in the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the Sustainable Development Goals. As all eyes turn toward this year’s Climate Talks (COP28) and the Global Refugee Forum, world leaders must connect climate action with education action,” Sherif emphasizes.

The number of disasters driven, in part, by climate change has increased fivefold in the past 50 years. By 2050, climate impacts could cost the world economy USD 7.9 trillion and could force up to 216 million people to move within their own countries, according to the World Bank. This poses a real and present threat to global security, economic prosperity, and efforts to address the life-threatening impacts of the climate crisis.

Unmitigated, the study shows that the future of millions of children is at risk. Children who are already at risk of dropping out face an even higher risk when exposed to crises worsened by climate change and environmental degradation. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where climate-related crises are prevalent, internally displaced children are 1.7 times more likely to be out of primary school compared to their non-displaced peers.

The study emphasizes that climate change impacts are not gender-neutral. Women and girls are disproportionally affected due to preexisting gender norms. Climate change exacerbates the risks of gender-based violence, school dropouts, food insecurity, and child marriage.

The new appeal outlines a strategic value proposition that connects donors, the private sector, governments, and other key stakeholders to create a coordinated approach to scaling up education funding in response to the climate crisis. The new funding aims to ensure learning continuity by providing mental health and psychosocial support, school rehabilitation and resilience, child protection, gender-based violence prevention and risk mitigation, water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), disaster risk reduction, and anticipatory and early action measures.

ECW has championed the right to education for children affected by the global climate crisis. In the aftermath of devasting floods, Libya, Mozambique and Pakistan and spikes in hunger, forced displacement, and violence across the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, the ECW has issued emergency grants to get children and adolescents back to the safety and opportunity that quality education provides.

Within existing programmes in crisis-impacted countries like Bangladesh, Chad, Nigeria, South Sudan and Syria, ECW investments are supporting climate-resilient infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, and school meals, offering hope and opportunity in the most challenging circumstances.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Hurricane Otis and the Indifference Toward the Children of Acapulco

Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Gender, Gender Violence, Headlines, Human Rights, Inequality, Labour, Latin America & the Caribbean, Poverty & SDGs, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

ACAPULCO, Mexico, Nov 2 2023 (IPS) – Acapulco is a paradise. A port of golden sunsets, toasted sand, and deep blue sea. Its dream beaches captivated the hearts of Elvis Presley and Elizabeth Taylor. US President John F. Kennedy chose its shores to spend his honeymoon with Jackie Kennedy. Its luxury hotels and the untamed sea made it the most famous tourist destination in Mexico.


Rosi Orozco

Today, Acapulco is devastated. A Category 5 hurricane—the deadliest possible rating—called “Otis” hit the beach on October 25 with incomparable force. No one anticipated it. Hours before it made landfall, it was just an inconvenient storm. Suddenly it became a deadly cyclone. Most of the hotels are destroyed, the sea swallowed people, houses were blown away, and dozens of people are dead.

In the last century, its beauty attracted the world’s most influential celebrities. Its tranquil mornings and lively nightlife attracted actresses, singers, politicians, aristocratic musicians, and families who wanted to spend their summers by the sea. I myself spent my youth at the family timeshare apartment in Acapulco, and it was there that I met my husband Alejandro, with whom I’ve been married for 40 years. My life is permanently connected to Acapulco.

Luxury businessmen, millionaire athletes, and Michelin-starred chefs arrived. Also drug dealers, money launderers, and men looking for girls and boys to rape in exchange for food or a few dollars for their parents who lived in the city’s poor areas.

Because there are two Acapulcos. They both share an airport and roads, so all roads lead to that pair of versions of the same city. There is a “diamond Acapulco” where the rich vacation with all the amenities at their disposal. And there is a “traditional Acapulco,” where the poor live who work for wealthy tourists.

The people who inhabit “diamond Acapulco” and “traditional Acapulco” do not usually cross paths. They live in the same city, but they are separated by golf courses and exclusive shopping malls. Only rich foreigners and wealthy nationals cross to the poor side when they feel a repugnant urge: to make their plans for child sex tourism a reality with girls and boys as young as 3 years old.

Acapulco is one of the most unequal tourist destinations in the world. In Mexico, it is the most unequal municipality of all: more than 60% of its 900,000 inhabitants live in extreme poverty, which means they do not know what they will eat today or tomorrow. They are the workers who serve plates of fresh seafood, who sweep marble floors, who fill the wine glasses of tourists.

For years, journalists and human rights organizations have told horrific stories that combine poverty, inequality, and sex tourism: a 6-year-old boy rented out to be photographed naked in exchange for milk and eggs; a 9-year-old girl sold to a Canadian tourist to be his wife for a month; homeless teenagers invited to sex parties on lavish yachts in exchange for food; parents and mothers waiting outside hotels for their children to be raped for a price paid in dollars per hour.

Those pedophiles and child molesters turned Acapulco into the country’s primary destination for child sexual tourism. They also led Mexico to the disgraceful second position in the production of child pornography, only surpassed by Thailand, according to data from the Mexican Chamber of Deputies and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Today, Acapulco is a different place. Little remains of the port that enchanted singers Agustín Lara and Luis Miguel. There are thousands of poor families without homes, hundreds of workers who lost their jobs, and dozens of fishermen without boats to go out to sea to find sustenance. The destruction is so extensive that complete economic recovery is estimated to take decades, not years.

Under these conditions, childhood is at very high risk. Many families have lost so much that their bodies are the only currency they have left. And in the dirty business of forced prostitution, child bodies are the most sought after.

Amid this unprecedented crisis in Mexico, the Chamber of Deputies approved amendments to the general law against human trafficking. These changes aim to broaden the scope of the law enacted in 2012 and update it to address new technologies that traffickers and organized crime engaged in sexual exploitation can use. The wording has some issues that we are still analyzing, but it also includes positive aspects.

For example, it introduces new protections for individuals with injuries, intellectual disabilities, and Afro-Mexican towns and communities. The latter represent 6.5% of the total population in Guerrero and 4% of the residents in Acapulco, according to the National Population Council.

Civil society organizations are monitoring these changes and hope that the deputies will honor their commitment to protecting the victims.

Meanwhile, it is the responsibility of all, not just in Mexico, to help Acapulco back on its feet, a place that has given so much to both nationals and foreigners. It won’t be easy or quick, but every day we delay puts the vulnerable children at risk due to the magnitude of sexual tourism in that beautiful port.

After Hurricane Otis, Acapulco will be different. Its reconstruction is an opportunity to build a new city on the ruins of depravity, one with values and respect for human dignity. I long for the day to see it standing and for its coastline, beach, and air to remain a paradise, especially for children like me who grew up happily by the sea.

IPS UN Bureau

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Housing in Cuba, a Problem with no Solution in Sight

Civil Society, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, Population, Poverty & SDGs, Regional Categories, TerraViva United Nations

Development & Aid

A "for sale" sign seen outside a house in Centro Habana. As you walk along the streets of the Cuban capital, you see a variety of "for sale" signs on a number of houses. The same is true in cities and towns in Cuba's 168 municipalities. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

A “for sale” sign seen outside a house in Centro Habana. As you walk along the streets of the Cuban capital, you see a variety of “for sale” signs on a number of houses. The same is true in cities and towns in Cuba’s 168 municipalities. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

HAVANA, Oct 16 2023 (IPS) – To emigrate to the United States and fulfill her hopes for a better life, Ana Iraida sold almost all of her belongings, including the apartment that, until her departure, saved her from the uncertainty of living in rented housing in Cuba, a country with an unresolved housing crisis.


“I inherited the apartment in Havana from my maternal grandmother, who passed away in 2015. It was small, but comfortable. I sold it for 6,000 dollars to pay for my documents, paperwork and airfare,” the philologist, who like the rest of the people interviewed preferred not to give her last name, told IPS.

“It is difficult to sell, because many people want to emigrate, and they are practically ‘giving away’ the houses. But at the same time hard currency is scarce and a person with thousands of dollars prefers to use them to leave the country.” — Elisa

From Houston, Texas in the U.S., where she now lives, the young woman said that, thanks to loans from friends, “I raised another 4,000 dollars. I got to Nicaragua in December 2022 and from there I continued by land to the U.S. border.”

Ana Iraida said she feels “fortunate” to have had a home that was “furnished and in good condition,” with which she covered her expenses. She said that others “have a more difficult time because they do not have a home of their own.”

In the last two years, emigration from Cuba has skyrocketed amidst the deterioration of the domestic economic situation, fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, the tightening of the U.S. embargo, partial dollarization of the economy, the fall in the purchasing power of wages and pensions, shortages of essential products and inflation.

Errors and delays in the implementation of reforms to modernize the country and the ineffective monetary system implemented in January 2021 have also played a role.

In this country of 11 million people, in 2022 the exodus led some 250,000 people to the United States alone, the main receiving nation of migrants from this Caribbean island nation, from which it is separated by just 90 miles of sea.

To stem the wave of immigration, on Jan. 5 the U.S. government extended to nationals of Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti a humanitarian temporary residency permit program, known as “parole”, similar to the one implemented in October 2022 for Venezuelans and previously for other nationalities.

As of the end of August, more than 47,000 Cubans had obtained the humanitarian permit, of whom 45,000 had already immigrated, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

A view of Havana from Cerro, one of its 15 municipalities. This city of 2.2 million inhabitants, the biggest in the country, has the largest housing deficit in Cuba, exceeding 800,000 housing units. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

A view of Havana from Cerro, one of its 15 municipalities. This city of 2.2 million inhabitants, the biggest in the country, has the largest housing deficit in Cuba, exceeding 800,000 housing units. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

One of the requirements for the temporary residency permit is to have sponsors who are U.S. citizens or hold some other legal status, in addition to having the financial resources to support the beneficiary or beneficiaries.

Swapping or selling parole

Owning your own home can also be an opportunity allowing whole families to move abroad.

“People are swapping houses for parole status. A few weeks ago I facilitated the exchange of a house for five parole permits to the United States. And in another case, with a residence in Miramar (a wealthy neighborhood in western Havana), nine people were the beneficiaries,” said Damian, a historian who privately engages in buying and selling, for which he charges a commission.

Damián explained to IPS that “residents in the United States ask for 10,000 to 12,000 dollars to provide a guarantee for parole status. The number of people they give a guarantee for depends on the value of the house. When the process is completed, the property is sold to a relative or friend of that person in Cuba.”

Walking through the streets in the Cuban capital, the most varied signs reading “for sale” can be seen on crumbling or remodeled buildings. The same is true in other cities and towns of the country’s 168 municipalities.

On online sites and Facebook groups for buying and selling activities, there is a proliferation of advertisements with photos and information about the properties, such as the number of rooms, the presence of a landline telephone line or an electrical installation that allows the connection of 110 and 220 volt equipment.

Some negotiate the price with or without furniture, others negotiate with buyers who pay cash in hand, or who pay in dollars, euros or make the deposit abroad.

“It is difficult to sell, because many people want to emigrate, and they are practically ‘giving away’ the houses. But at the same time hard currency is scarce and a person with thousands of dollars prefers to use them to leave the country,” said Elisa, a lawyer who told IPS she is interested in settling with her husband and son in Spain.

She said she has been trying to sell her apartment in La Vibora, another Havana neighborhood, for a year. “I can’t find a buyer, not even now that I dropped the price to 10,000 dollars, half the initial price, and it’s furnished,” she complained.

In Cuba’s informal real estate market, offers range from 2,000 dollars or less to a million dollars. The lowest of these figures is far from the average monthly salary, equivalent to 16.50 dollars on the black market.

A man pulls a cart loaded with building blocks past a house for sale in the municipality of Centro Habana. In view of the government's diminished construction capacity and the decline of funds for housing, since 2010 the government authorized the free sale of various materials for construction, repairs, remodeling and expansion. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

A man pulls a cart loaded with building blocks past a house for sale in the municipality of Centro Habana. In view of the government’s diminished construction capacity and the decline of funds for housing, since 2010 the government authorized the free sale of various materials for construction, repairs, remodeling and expansion. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Hurdles despite the reforms

Now, Cubans can sell their properties even to move away from the country, a situation very different from 15 years ago, when only swaps of houses between two or more owners were possible. Homes could only be sold to the government, and they were confiscated if the people living there emigrated.

Under laws passed in the early years after the 1959 revolution, most citizens became homeowners.

The Urban Reform Law of 1960 turned housing properties over to those who lived in them, prohibited their sale or lease, and abolished private construction and mortgages.

After decades of prohibitions, in October 2011 the 1988 General Housing Law was amended and the doors were opened to free purchase and sale between Cuban citizens and even foreign residents, endorsed before notaries and with the payment of taxes.

The law also eliminated certain formalities and official regulations on swaps.

Prior to the restitution of the right of ownership of residential units, in 2010 the government approved permits allowing people to build, repair or expand their own homes.

In view of the government’s reduced capacity for construction and the decline in housing funds in that same year, the free sale of cement, sand, gravel, cement blocks and corrugated iron bars was also authorized, which until then had been exclusively centrally allocated or sold in convertible pesos (CUC, a now defunct currency equivalent to the dollar).

The authorities promoted the granting of subsidies to vulnerable families, especially those affected by hurricanes, and micro-credits to build, expand or remodel homes.

These measures helped drive a boom in private construction and repairs.

As in other areas marked by the scarcity of materials, red tape and unequal purchasing power, the granting of housing and sale of materials is not exempt from corruption, theft and poor quality work, which has given rise to repeated complaints from the public.

There is still a housing deficit of more than 800,000 homes, while one third of Cuba’s 3.9 million homes are in fair or poor condition.

The largest deficits are concentrated in Havana, a city of 2.2 million inhabitants, as well as in Holguín, Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey, the other three most populated cities.

In 2019, a Housing Policy was launched, aimed at eliminating the housing shortage within a decade, based on the incentive of local production of construction materials and recyclable inputs, in addition to the contribution from the government and the centrally planned economy.

But the policy has run into hurdles as a result of the economic crisis, and multiple factors such as delays in paperwork and procedures, loss of material resources, unfinished subsidies and financial resources tied up in the banks.

The shortage of foreign currency and insufficient investment stand in the way of increasing production and incorporating equipment to boost construction capacity and sustainability.

Official data show that in 2022, more than 195 million dollars were dedicated to business services, real estate and rental activity, including hotel construction, which represented almost 33 percent of investment in the sector.

On the other hand, only 8.5 million dollars were allocated to housing construction, or 1.4 percent of the total, according to the government’s National Statistics and Information Office (ONEI).

Since 2019, 127,345 housing units were completed and 106,332 were remodeled or repaired, said Vivian Rodriguez, general director of Housing of the Ministry of Construction, during the most recent session of the Council of Ministers, on Oct. 1.

The authorities acknowledged that compliance with the year’s plan of 30,000 new units is under threat. Maintaining this pace would mean eliminating the housing deficit in more than 28 years.

A rundown house stands next to a newly remodeled home on a street in the municipality of Playa, Havana. A third of Cuba's 3.9 million homes are considered to be in fair and poor condition. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

A rundown house stands next to a newly remodeled home on a street in the municipality of Playa, Havana. A third of Cuba’s 3.9 million homes are considered to be in fair and poor condition. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

No immediate solution

The lack of housing and the deterioration of existing homes continue without a viable solution in the short or medium term.

On many occasions, people of different generations are forced to live together in small homes, many of which are in a state of disrepair, putting a significant number of families at risk.

Access to housing has also been identified as a factor in the low birth and fertility rates that Cuba has been experiencing for decades.

There is also a problem after tropical cyclones and heavy rains, when centuries-old buildings that have never been remodeled or repaired collapse, or those vulnerable to strong winds are left roofless.

The private practice of professions such as architecture is also not allowed, and although since September 2021 the government has authorized the incorporation of micro, small and medium-sized companies, some of which specialize in the construction and repair of real estate, they still encounter obstacles to their practice.

“There could be many solutions, but in my opinion an essential one is that building materials must be available and at affordable prices; or that houses can be sold to workers so they can pay for them on credit. Otherwise, families will continue to be overcrowded, roofs and walls will collapse on us, or we will grow old without a place of our own,” Orlando, a prep school teacher living in Havana, told IPS.

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