MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Oct 10 2023 (IPS) – Mexico’s Supreme Court recently declared abortion bans unconstitutional, effectively decriminalising abortion throughout the vast federal country, so far characterised by a legislative patchwork.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by a civil society organisation, Information Group on Reproductive Choice. It forces the Federal Congress to repeal the Federal Penal Code articles that criminalise abortion. Effective immediately, those seeking abortions and those providing them can no longer be punished for doing so. The ruling also enshrines the right to access abortion procedures in all institutions of the federal health system network, even in states where the crime of abortion remains on the books.
Global trends
Mexico is part of a global, long-term trend of progress in sexual and reproductive rights. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, the vast majority of countries that have changed their national abortion laws over the past couple of decades have made them less restrictive. Only four countries have gone the other way: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Poland and the USA.
Several Latin American countries have been swept by the ‘green tide’ that originated in Argentina, increasingly liberalising abortion laws. Before the 2010s, abortion was legal in only one Latin American country, Cuba. It was legalised in Uruguay in 2012, and eight years later in Argentina. Colombia decriminalised abortion in February 2022, and other countries, such as Chile and Ecuador, have since made it legal on limited grounds, notably when pregnancy is a result of rape – which women’s rights organisations see as a milestone on the road to full legalisation.
Globally, abortion is currently legal on request in 75 countries, often until 12 weeks into pregnancy. Around a dozen more allow it for broad socio-economic reasons. Many more permit it for specific reasons such as health grounds or to save a pregnant person’s life.
But abortion remains banned under any circumstances in 24 countries, and overall 40 per cent of women of reproductive age live under restrictive abortion laws. These restrictions have a significant impact on women: it’s estimated that unsafe abortions costs the lives of 39,000 women and girls every year.
A legislative patchwork
The trend towards decriminalisation in Mexico kicked off in 2007 in Mexico City, and it took 12 years for another state, Oaxaca, to follow its lead. Change accelerated in recent years, with Hidalgo and Veracruz legalising abortion in 2021.
In September 2021, the federal Supreme Court issued its first-ever decision on abortion rights, unanimously recognising a constitutional right to safe, legal and free abortion services within a ‘short period’ early in pregnancy, and on specific grounds later. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit against the state of Coahuila, which imposed prison terms of up to three years for voluntary abortion.
Although this ruling only applied to Coahuila, it had a wider impact: judges in other states were no longer able to sentence anyone for the crime of voluntary abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.
Two days after this judgment, the Supreme Court addressed another lawsuit concerning the state of Sinaloa, issuing a ruling that declared it unconstitutional for state laws to redefine the legal concept of personhood by protecting ‘human life from conception’. And soon after, it declared invalid the principle of conscientious objection for medical practitioners in the General Health Law. A couple of months earlier it had ruled unconstitutional the time limits set by some states for abortions in cases of rape.
By the time of the Coahuila ruling, only four federal entities allowed abortion on demand up to 12 weeks. But several have changed their laws since, and by the time of the latest Supreme Court ruling, abortion on demand was already legal in 12 of Mexico’s 32 states. All states also allowed abortions for pregnancies resulting from rape, most allowed abortion when necessary to save a pregnant person’s life, and several allowed it in cases of risks to a pregnant person’s health or severe congenital foetal abnormalities.
Regional experience however suggests that making abortion conditional on exceptional grounds that must be proven tends to result in denial of access. Additionally, in Mexico, access by particularly vulnerable women has often been restricted through resistance in bureaucracies and medical institutions, even in states where abortion is legal.
Now Congress has until the end of its current session, which runs until 15 December, to amend the Penal Code clauses that criminalise abortion. But even after this, abortion will continue to be a state-level crime in 20 states. This means that abortion complaints will continue to be filed in those states. In most cases judges will ultimately have to dismiss the charges – but women will continue to be subjected to unnecessary barriers and uncertainty. For this reason, the women’s rights movement is pushing locally for decriminalisation in every Mexican state.
Effective access the next struggle
Mexican women’s rights groups are getting ready for what promises to be a long battle for effective access. They feel confident, for now, that thanks to decades of hard work public opinion is on their side. But they know that, while there may be less up-front resistance than before, there are still powerful forces against change. Resistance manifests in the imposition of barriers to prevent effective access to what is now recognised as a right, particularly for people from the most excluded groups in society.
Denial of access can take many forms: long waiting times, the need for multiple doctors’ appointments and parental or marital consent, disinformation and the extension of conscientious objection from individual health personnel to entire institutions.
Sexual and reproductive health, including abortion procedures, is basic healthcare and should be easily accessible to all. Mexican feminists know this, and will continue fighting to change both policy and minds so nobody is denied access to their rights.
In the third in our series by Youth Thought Leaders, the students write about the impact of human activity, including food waste, on the environment. They are positive that with incremental changes a sustainable and humane world is possible.
Atashi Kitchen in Karuizawa operates a children’s cafeteria (Kodomo-Shokudo), providing free or low-cost meals and distributing food to those in need.
TOKYO, Oct 10 2023 (IPS) – Have you ever seen a dried frog? We have, and it’s making us rethink our impact on the environment. Frogs are incredibly sensitive to dry conditions, and they are facing the threat of extinction due to global warming. Amphibians, like frogs, make up a significant portion of endangered species, with 41 percent vulnerable compared to only 25 percent for mammals like polar bears.
Frogs, as amphibians, require both land and water habitats, and their thin, specialized skin makes them highly susceptible to changes in humidity and temperature. Climate shifts can disrupt their breeding patterns, leading to population declines.
This sensitivity to heat and drought means that frogs can easily die on scorching days. What’s more, a decrease in the frog population can trigger a chain reaction in the ecosystem, affecting animals that rely on them for food, like owls, snakes, and raccoons.
Recognizing this, we’re reevaluating our lifestyles to reduce carbon emissions, a major contributor to global warming.
IUCN Red List
Frogs are sensitive, but with the right conditions, they can survive, as this X post shows.
These are pet frogs. One is colloquially known as a ‘crown horn frog,’ and the others ‘house mega frogs.’ Once, our crown horn frog faced a health issue. At first, we had it on a white electric mat, but we later discovered that an earthen floor was a better choice. Unfortunately, it turned out that the soil was contaminated and made the frog sick. This experience taught us that frogs are incredibly sensitive to changes in their environment.
Food Loss and Global Warming
Are you familiar with the term’ food loss?’ Discarding food that is still edible is not just about wasting food; it also contributes to the environmental issue of global warming. It is estimated that Japan discards approximately 5.22 million tons of food annually. To dispose of such a significant amount of food waste, incineration is necessary, which generates greenhouse gases and contributes to global warming. Another concern arises from the necessity of developing new final disposal sites for the ash produced from incineration, which often entails the destruction of sea and forest areas. This, in turn, exacerbates environmental issues.
Volunteer students at the Atashi Kitchen in Karuizawa. The kitchen operates a children’s cafeteria offering free or low-cost meals to those in need.
Student volunteers at the Atashi Kitchen in Karuizawa. Food loss contributes to global warming.
Students help prepare meals at the Atashi Kitchen in Karuizawa.
Driven by this realization, we decided to combat global warming by efficiently using surplus food, essentially functioning as food banks. Our search led us to Atashi Kitchen in Karuizawa, Japan, which operates a food bank as part of a children’s cafeteria (Kodomo-Shokudo), providing free or low-cost meals and distributing food to those in need.
On July 22, 2023, our group of eight Grade 8 students from Dalton Tokyo Gakuen Junior School volunteered at the children’s cafeteria. Witnessing the diverse array of food, from fresh vegetables donated by local farmers to meat from contributions and observing strangers sharing joyful conversations while enjoying their meals, we realized this place was about more than food; it was about sharing happiness.
The Ministry of the Environment reported that in 2020, Japan generated about 5.22 million tons of food loss, with businesses contributing 2.75 million tons and households 2.47 million tons. This data prompted us to search for environmentally conscious companies in Japan.
Group photo at the Suntory Odaiba Office
Hikari Kujime (Corporate Sustainability Department), Yusuke Sasaki (PR Department), Tomoyuki Ichida, and Tamon Koshino (General Manager, Corporate Sustainability Department) at Suntory Holdings are with the students learning about sustainability in business.
Suntory actively harnesses artificial intelligence (AI) to accurately predict sales, a practice that significantly reduces food waste. Additionally, at Meissen, their restaurant, Suntory, ingeniously repurposes leftover bread crusts as feed for pigs. What struck us most during our visit was Suntory’s wholehearted dedication to ecological sustainability, which aligned perfectly with our mission as teenage writers.
Japan’s strong emphasis on safety and security, while commendable, inadvertently results in food loss. This has not only environmental implications but also economic repercussions for manufacturers. To address this issue, let’s consider the “one-third rule.” It dictates that the delivery deadline extends until one-third of the best-before date remains, and the sell-by date covers two-thirds of the best-before date. This rule aims to accommodate consumers who tend to be overly cautious about expiration dates. To combat food waste effectively, it’s essential to ensure consumers understand these dates, promote awareness of waste reduction, and shift the mindset away from avoiding products nearing their expiration date.
Maybe we can put it more straightforwardly: In Japan, food is often deemed expired much earlier compared to the United States or Europe. Here’s a comparison of delivery deadlines in these developed regions: In Japan, it’s one-third of the best-before date, while in the United States, it extends to one-half. European countries, like Belgium, allow up to two-thirds, and in the United Kingdom, it’s three-quarters. This clearly reflects Japan’s inclination to exercise greater caution concerning expiration dates.
Food expiry dates lead to food losses, too.
So, what does food loss mean to teenagers like us? For us, it signifies a mission to heighten awareness about the intricate interplay between food loss, global warming, the safeguarding of frogs and various other creatures, our deepened appreciation for the environment, and the responsible utilization of food resources.
In conclusion, our journey has taught us that small actions can lead to significant change. As teenagers, we often hear that we are the future, but we believe that we can make an impact in the present as well. The frogs drying up symbolize a larger issue – the delicate balance of our planet’s ecosystems. It’s a call to action, a reminder that our actions matter.
We, as young individuals, have a crucial role to play. By raising awareness about the interconnectedness of issues like food loss, global warming, and the protection of our fellow creatures, we can inspire change in our communities. We can choose to reduce waste, conserve resources, and make sustainable choices. We can advocate for policies that protect our environment. By embracing knowledge and taking action, we can be the driving force behind a healthier planet.
So, let’s continue this journey together, with the frogs as our inspiration. Let’s be the generation that not only stops the drying of our amphibian friends but also works towards a world where nature thrives and all creatures, including us, live harmoniously.
Remember, it all starts with awareness, and it’s our responsibility to pass on this knowledge to others. Together, we can create a more sustainable and compassionate world for all.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Note:Karuta Yamamoto and Seiji Takano were the team leaders
Edited by Hanna Yoon
IPS UN Bureau Report
IPS – UN Bureau, IPS UN Bureau Report, Youth Thought Leaders
A view of Caracas from the south side of the narrow valley where it sits, dotted with houses and residential buildings where full occupancy was the norm until a few years ago. As a result of the massive migration of young people and adults, more and more homes are left unoccupied or inhabited only by the elderly and young children. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS
CARACAS, Oct 4 2023 (IPS) – Gladys swore she would not cry in front of her small children, but she still had to wipe away a couple of tears when she turned her head and looked, perhaps for the last time, at her dream house on Margarita Island in Venezuela, from where she migrated, driven by a lack of income and by fear.
“It hurts to leave your own home, the most precious material asset for a family like ours (she works in administration, her husband is a mechanic, and they have two boys), but we lost our jobs and were robbed in broad daylight in the middle of the city. That led us to decide to emigrate,” she told IPS from Miami, Florida in the U.S.
Due to the economic, social and political crisis, which gave rise to a complex humanitarian emergency, 7.7 million Venezuelans, according to United Nations agencies, have migrated from this country, the vast majority in the last decade, and the flow is not slowing down, especially to other countries in the region.
“It hurts to leave your own home, the most precious material asset for a family like ours, but we lost our jobs and were robbed in broad daylight in the middle of the city. That led us to decide to emigrate.” — Gladys
The family of Gladys, who like other people who talked to IPS preferred not to give her last name, tried their luck in Colombia, Panama and Spain, before finally settling in the United States, “and the worry about the house followed us like a shadow, but fortunately we made a deal with an enterprising young man who takes care of it, improves it and pays a modest rent.”
There are thousands like her. Migrants try not to leave their homes empty and abandoned, because they could lose them. For this reason, since most migrants are adults in their most productive age and young people, relatives of other ages remain in the homes, giving Venezuela the appearance of being a country of elderly people and children.
“I have to close up my home,” said Juan Manuel Flores, from San Antonio de Los Altos, a satellite city of Caracas with many middle class houses. “The neighbors will take care of it. It took us more than five years to build it and it cost between 150,000 and 200,000 dollars. Now I can’t get more than 60,000 dollars for it. We are not just going to give it away for that price.”
Flores, a teacher at a school where he earns less than 200 dollars a month, is preparing to travel to Spain, where his wife and adult daughters have gone ahead of him. “I will return to Venezuela when the country and its economy improve, and housing prices will rise again,” he told IPS, although without much conviction.
Solitude eats away at houses and buildings even in sought-after areas of the residential and commercial municipality of Chacao, in eastern Caracas. The real estate and construction market is suffering in Venezuela from the general economic crisis and in particular from the oversupply of housing created by those leaving the country. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS
Why not rent out their house? “Because the laws and the authorities always favor the tenant, and if they have children it is impossible to get them out when the lease is up, whether they pay the rent or not, and they end up staying in the house for years,” said Nancy, a pastry chef, also from San Antonio, who left a niece in charge of her apartment when she moved to Brazil last year.
Selling is also not an option in most cases, because the magnitude of the exodus over the last decade has so depressed demand that the most that can be obtained for a property is 15 or 20 percent of the value it had 15 years ago, if you are lucky. So selling a home even if you want to is a long, difficult process that provides meager results.
Those who have no other choice say that they are not selling their home but “giving it away” for whatever they can get, with great regret, mostly to internal migrants from other parts of the country, who “take refuge” in Caracas because outside the capital there are recurrent power outages, and scarcity of water and fuel, in addition to other shortages.
“Real estate deteriorates, ceases to serve those who need it and remains an important asset that produces nothing for the owner, for example a migrant who needs to pay rent as soon as they arrive in another country,” Roberto Orta, president of the Venezuelan Real Estate Chamber, told IPS.
The businessman said “this is an issue that, we have proposed, should be addressed with political will in order to reform the laws that constrain the real estate market, to benefit both landlords and tenants. Up to 250,000 homes could be freed up in five years.”
A view of the working-class neighborhood of 23 de Enero on the west side of Caracas. In low-income barrios, closed, empty houses are almost non-existent, as those who decide to emigrate look for relatives to move in, to avoid the risk of the homes being invaded or robbed. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS
A trade is born
In the residential buildings located in Caracas and other cities, closing up an apartment and moving outside the country is not the same as leaving a house abandoned to solitude and neglect, because the neighbors, for their own safety and in order to pay the common expenses, keep watch and take care to prevent strangers from occupying the empty apartments.
But houses, especially middle-class homes, are an attractive and easy target for crime and even for people who want to occupy them by de facto means. That is why a new profession has appeared: the home caretaker.
“I have taken care of three houses in housing developments in the southeast (of Caracas), it’s the way I make ends meet,” said Daniel, who also works as a self-employed gardener. “I would go to one house twice a week, three times a week to another, and every day to another.”
He explains that in the last house “the owners were Portuguese business owners who went away and left three dogs. I would go to a pet food store to pick up the food, feed the dogs, check around the house and that was it.”
Family friends of the owners have now taken charge of the dogs and Daniel no longer receives payment for taking care of them. “I don’t have an account in dollars, I was paid through a restaurant friend of the owners, who does have an offshore account,” he said.
To pay for caretakers from abroad, intermediaries are indispensable, since in Venezuela, whose currency has been made nearly worthless by the economic crisis, there is a de facto dollarization, without agreement from the U.S. authorities, who also use sanctions to block the transactions of government bodies.
Daniel is saving up to join one of the groups forming in Antímano, the working-class neighborhood where he lives in the southwest of the capital, to migrate as well. He said that “I didn’t leave a few weeks ago because I hadn’t sold my motorcycle yet, otherwise right now I would be in the Darien,” the dangerous jungle between Colombia and Panama that thousands of migrants cross every day.
A more successful caretaker is Arturo, who is in charge of two houses with large living rooms, corridors, yards, a swimming pool and parking area. He is paid a modest fee to care for and maintain the homes, but is authorized to rent them out for social gatherings and parties.
“In both cases the owners are people with good incomes, they left with their children to study abroad and plan to return in a few years if conditions in the country change. They would like to find their homes as they left them,” he said.
When he rents out the property for a day or a night, guests can use the yards, swimming pool and even awnings, tables and chairs. But Arturo closes off access to the more private parts of the house and hires assistants to watch out for damages or disturbances. “I live well, I keep up the houses and each one brings me about 3,000 dollars in profits per month,” Arturo said.
President Nicolás Maduro delivers a batch of houses in the northwestern state of Falcón, which form part of the 4.6 million homes that the government claims to have built and provided to Venezuelan families since 2013. The figure is questioned by organizations dedicated to monitoring economic and social rights. CREDIT: Minhvi
No empty houses in the shantytowns
In the shantytowns of the cities and towns of this country – which has a population of 33.7 million according to government figures and 28 million according to university studies – the situation is different and there are hardly any empty or unoccupied houses.
“In the shantytowns, no house is left empty. The very next day someone can invade it, occupy it, or take what is left inside by those who left, furniture or household goods. Someone stays in charge, the grandfather or in-laws, a trusted neighbor, or a relative is brought from the interior of the country,” explained Alejandra, from the Gramoven area.
She lives in a shantytown of informally constructed dwellings in the northwest of Caracas, similar to the ones that cover most of the many hills and hollows occupied by the capital’s most disadvantaged inhabitants.
“Many people leave, the young people emigrate, my children want to leave through the Darien jungle. But nobody leaves their house empty. If you do, you lose it,” Alejandra said.
In Santa Bárbara del Zulia, on the hot plains south of western Lake Maracaibo, “the situation is the same,” Julio, a bricklayer who migrated to Colombia for four years and has returned to care for his elderly parents, told IPS.
“You can’t leave your house alone in these towns,” said Julio. “When my parents went to Maracaibo and Caracas for medical treatment, they went and came back quickly, because the Community Council warned them not to leave their house empty for too long, because they would not be able to ward off people who wanted to occupy it.”
The Community Councils are committees set up by the government to represent and manage community affairs – such as the distribution of bags of subsidized food to poor families – and they channel decisions by the government.
“But people are leaving anyway. It’s something that won’t stop as long as people here earn only a pittance and can’t even eat properly (the minimum wage and official pensions in Venezuela are equivalent to four dollars a month). People care about their houses, but food has to come first,” said Julio.
View of a row of houses practically abandoned by most of their inhabitants in a town in eastern Venezuela. Migration from the countryside and small towns to large cities and oil producing areas marked the 20th century in Venezuela. And today, migration from this country mainly to other Latin American nations has become a regional crisis. CREDIT: VV
A matter for the government and the business community
While the plight of people leaving their homes continues to drag on, the government of President Nicolás Maduro announces more or less twice a year the construction of hundreds of thousands of new homes, in a program initiated by his late predecessor Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), called “Venezuela’s Great Housing Mission”.
According to official figures, since 2011, 4.6 million homes have been built and delivered by the Mission, mostly residential complexes to which the president goes to personally hand over the keys of one or more houses to their new inhabitants.
In accordance with the Mission, the occupants are tenants, not owners, so they cannot sell the homes. If they leave, the home can be reassigned to new tenants. To avoid this, those who choose to move to another city or country first look for relatives who can move into the house, and thus keep it.
However, the official figures on the number of homes built is not borne out by anecdotal evidence, to judge by the myriad of informal self-built houses still occupied in the slums, and by reports from business and civil society organizations.
The Chamber of Construction reports that the sector has decreased 96 percent in the last 10 years, and that its members employ 20,000 workers, down from 1.2 million in better times, while cement companies are working at 10 percent of their capacity and the steel industry at seven percent.
The civil society organization Provea, which specializes in the study of economic, social and cultural rights, has compared and contrasted the figures of the Housing Mission – which have not been audited, according to Provea – with independent studies, and reached the conclusion that the government has built and delivered only 130,856 housing units in 10 years.
In 1955 the Venezuelan writer Miguel Otero Silva (1908-1985) published his famous novel “Casas Muertas” (Dead Houses), describing the decline of Ortiz, a town in the central plains, caused by the loss of its population due to malaria and emigration to the big cities and oil production centers.
The flow of Venezuelan emigration in this century has not been enough to turn this into a country of dead houses. But its many closed doors bear witness to a collapse that has pushed millions of its inhabitants abroad, as do the small number of lights that are lit at night in the buildings of Caracas and other cities.
LIMA, Sep 28 2023 (IPS) – Nearly 700,000 people have migrated internally in Peru due to the effects of climate change. This mass displacement is a clear problem in this South American country, one of the most vulnerable to the global climate crisis due to its biodiversity, geography and 28 different types of climates.
“We recognize migration due to climate change as a very tangible issue that needs to be addressed,” Pablo Peña, a geographer who is coordinator of the Emergency and Humanitarian Assistance Unit of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Peru, told IPS.
In an interview with IPS at the UN agency’s headquarters in Lima, Peña reported that according to the international Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, the number of people displaced within Peru’s borders by disasters between 2008 and 2022 is estimated at 659,000, most of them floods related to climate disturbances.
“We recognize migration due to climate change as a very tangible issue that needs to be addressed.” — Pablo Peña
In this Andean country of 33 million inhabitants, there is a lack of specific and centralized data to determine the characteristics of migration caused by environmental and climate change factors.
Peña said that through a specific project, the IOM has collaborated with the Peruvian government in drafting an action plan aimed at preventing and addressing climate-related forced migration, on the basis of which a pilot project will begin in October to systematize information from different sources on displacement in order to incorporate the environmental and climate component.
“We aim to be able to define climate migrants and incorporate them into all regulations,” said the expert. The project, which includes gender, rights and intergenerational approaches, is being worked on with the Ministries of the Environment and of Women and Vulnerable Populations.
He added that this type of migration is multidimensional. “People can say that they left their homes in the Andes highlands because they had nothing to eat due to the loss of their crops, and that could be interpreted, superficially, as forming part of economic migration because they have no means of livelihood. But that cause can be associated with climatic variables,” Peña said.
Pablo Peña, coordinator of the Emergency and Humanitarian Assistance Unit of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Peru, stands in front of the headquarters of this United Nations agency in Lima. He highlights the need to address the situation of internal migration driven by the impacts of climate change. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
The Central Reserve Bank, in charge of preserving monetary stability and managing international reserves, lowered in its September monthly report Peru’s economic growth projection to 0.9 percent for this year, partly due to the varied impacts of climate change on agriculture and fishing.
This would affect efforts to reduce the poverty rate, which stands at around 30 percent in the country, where seven out of every 10 workers work in the informal sector, and would drive up migration of the population in search of food and livelihoods.
“The World Bank estimates that by 2050 there will be more than 10 million climate migrants in Latin America,” said Peña.
The same multilateral institution, in its June publication Peru Strategic Actions Toward Water Security, points out that people without economic problems are 10 times more resistant than those living in poverty to climatic impacts such as floods and droughts, which are increasing at the national level.
The country is currently experiencing the Coastal El Niño climate phenomenon, which in March caused floods in northern cities and droughts in the south. The official National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology warned that in January 2024 it could converge with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) global phenomenon, accentuating its impacts.
El Niño usually occurs in December, causing the sea temperature to rise and altering the rainfall pattern, which increases in the north of the country and decreases in the south.
The manager of Natural Resources of the Piura regional government, Juan Aguilar, described the vulnerability to climate change of this northern coastal region of Peru at a September meeting organized by the IOM in Lima. The official explained that the El Niño climate phenomenon has become more intense and frequent due to the effects of climate change, which aggravates its impacts on the population, such as severe flooding this year. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
Reluctance to migrate to safer areas
Piura, a northern coastal department with an estimated population of just over two million inhabitants, has been hit by every El Niño episode, including this year’s, which left more than 46,000 homes damaged, even in areas that had been rebuilt.
Juan Aguilar, manager of Natural Resources of the Piura regional government, maintains that the high vulnerability to ENSO is worsening with climate change and is affecting the population, communication routes and staple crops.
At an IOM workshop on Sept. 5 in Lima, the official stressed that Piura is caught up in both floods and droughts, in a complex context for the implementation of spending on prevention, adaptation and mitigation.
Aguilar spoke to IPS about the situation of people who, despite having lost their homes for climatic reasons, choose not to migrate, in what he considers to be a majority trend.
“People are not willing overall to move to safer areas, even during El Niño 2017 when there were initiatives to relocate them to other places; they prefer to wait for the phenomenon to pass and return to their homes,” he added.
View of the Rimac River as it passes through the municipality of Lurigancho-Chosica, in the Peruvian province of Lima. In this town, many families are still living in housing in areas at high risk, which is exacerbated during the rainy season that begins in December and has intensified due to climate change and the increased recurrence of the El Niño climate phenomenon. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
He explained that this attitude is due to the fact that they see the climatic events as recurrent. “They say, I already experienced this in such and such a year, and there is a resignation in the sense of saying that we are in a highly vulnerable area, it is what we have to live with, God and nature have put us in these conditions,” Aguilar said.
He acknowledged that with regard to this question, public policies have not made much progress. “For example after 2017 a law was passed to identify non-mitigable risk zones, and that has not been enforced despite the fact that it would help us to implement plans to relocate local residents to safer areas,” he added.
The regional official pointed out that “we do not have an experience in which the State says ‘I have already identified this area, there is so much housing available here for those who want to relocate’ , because the social cost would be so high.”
“We have not seen this, and the populace has the feeling that if they are going to start somewhere else, the place they abandon will be taken by someone else, and they say: ‘what is the point of me moving, if the others will be left here’,” Aguilar said.
Paulina Vílchez, 72, has always lived in the Peruvian municipality of Lurigancho-Chosica. Despite the fear every year that the Rimac River might flood and that mudslides could occur in one of the 21 ravines in the area, she has never thought of moving away. “I’m not going to go to an empty plot to start all over again, that’s why I’ve stayed. I leave everything in the hands of God,” she said. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
The fear of starting over
Some 40 km from the Peruvian capital, in Lurigancho-Chosica, one of the 43 municipalities of the province of Lima, the local population is getting nervous about the start of the rainy season in December, which threatens mudslides in some of its 21 ravines. The most notorious due to their catastrophic impact occurred in 1987, 2017, 2018 and March of this year.
Landslides, known in Peru by the Quechua indigenous term “huaycos”, have been part of the country’s history, due to the combination of the special characteristics of the rugged geography of the Andes highlands and the ENSO phenomenon.
In an IPS tour of the Chosica area of Pedregal, one of the areas vulnerable to landslides and mudslides due to the rains, there was concern in the municipality about the risks they face, but also a distrust of moving to a safer place to start over.
“I came here to Pedregal as a child when this was all fields where cotton and sugar cane were planted. I have been here for more than sixty years and we have progressed, we no longer live in shacks,” said 72-year-old Paulina Vílchez, who lives in a nicely painted two-story house built of cement and brick.
On the first floor she set up a bodega, which she manages herself, where she sells food and other products. She did not marry or have children, but she helped raise two nieces, with whom she still lives in a house that is the fruit of her parents’ and then her own efforts and which represents decades of hard work.
Vílchez admits that she would like to move to a place where she could be free of the fear that builds up every year. But she said it would have to be a house with the same conditions as the one she has managed to build with so much effort. “I’m not going to go to an empty plot to start all over again, that’s why I’ve stayed. I leave everything in the hands of God,” she told IPS.
Maribel Zavaleta’s home in the Peruvian municipality of Chosica is built of wood, near the Rimac River and just a meter from the train tracks. She arrived there in 1989, relocated after a mud, water and rock slide two years earlier in another part of the town. She constantly worries that another catastrophe will happen again, and says she would relocate if she were guaranteed safer land and materials to build a new house. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
Very close to the Rimac River and next to the railway tracks that shake her little wooden house each time the train passes by lives Maribel Zavaleta, 50, born in Chosica, and her family of two daughters, a son, and three granddaughters.
“I came here in 1989 with my mom, she was a survivor of the 1987 huayco, and we lived in tents until we were relocated here. But it’s not safe; in 2017 the river overflowed and the house was completely flooded,” she told IPS.
Zavaleta started her own family at the age of 21, but is now separated from her husband. Her eldest son lives with his girlfriend on the same property, and her older daughter, who works and helps support the household, has given her three granddaughters. The youngest of her daughters is 13 and attends a local municipal school.
“I work as a cleaner and what I earn is only enough to cover our basic needs,” she said. She added that if she were relocated again it would have to be to a plot of land with a title deed and materials to build her house, which is now made of wood and has a tin roof, while her plot of land is fenced off with metal sheets.
“I can’t afford to improve my little house or leave here. I would like the authorities to at least work to prevent the river from overflowing while we are here,” she said, pointing to the rocks left by the 2017 landslide that have not been removed.
Bukes Saliu, a forklift driver, is a Nigerian woman who challenging stereotypes. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS
LAGOS, Sep 28 2023 (IPS) – Bukes Saliu wakes up very early every workday to beat the gruesome Lagos traffic to head to a job quite unusual for a woman to engage in Nigeria. She is a forklift operator in one of the busy depots in the coastal city, a task traditionally meant for men in the West African country.
In a country where women are seen as second-class citizens and whose roles are expected to be confined to the kitchen, Saliu is not letting patriarchal norms put her in a box.
“People are always thrilled when I tell them what I do. Sometimes I get snide remarks from some men I work with, but I don’t allow that to get to me,” Saliu says.
In August 2022, her curiosity was piqued when she came across a post on WhatsApp from her friend featuring a woman confidently posed beside a forklift machine. That ignited her interest in the job. Soon after, she enrolled in training to become a skilled forklift operator.
“It was a change of career path for me. I used to be a project manager with a non-profit, but I left the job to be a forklift operator. The first day I started work, I was a bit afraid, but now I operate the machine like any other man would do. I believe that women should be allowed at the table because it brings different perspectives, ideas, and experiences,” she adds.
Patriarchy Lives in Nigeria
Discrimination against women has been a serious problem in Nigeria. Women still grapple with an array of challenges and are marginalized despite the Nigerian constitution providing for gender equality and nondiscrimination
Although the government has attempted to tackle these deep-rooted issues, the pace of progress remains sluggish. Women’s representation within politics and decision-making spheres remains poor. For example, out of a total of 15,307 candidates in the 2023 general elections, only 1,550 were women. Only three women were elected as senators as against nine in the last election, and only one woman emerged as a presidential candidate.
Women are often excluded from economic prospects. Within Nigeria’s populace exceeding 200 million, a mere 60.5 million people contribute to its labor force. Among this workforce, around 27.1 million women participate, a significant portion of whom find themselves involved in low-skilled employment. Nigeria’s position on the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index is a lowly 123rd out of 156 nations.
Swimming Against the Tide
A limited number of women are challenging conventional gender norms for the purpose of livelihood, stepping into roles that are male dominated in Nigeria. However, this transition is often met with resistance and negative reactions.
In 2021, Iyeyemi Adediran gained widespread attention for her exceptional mastery of driving long-haul trucks for oil companies. However, despite her remarkable skill, the then 26-year-old shared that she faced derogatory remarks for daring to break gender norms associated with truck driving—an occupation traditionally considered male-dominated.
In 2015, Sandra Aguebor, Nigeria’s first female mechanic, gained widespread attention for her all-female garages across the country. However, she revealed that her mother initially did not support her ambitions, believing that fixing cars should only be done by men.
Faith Oyita, a shoemaker in Benue State, Nigeria, is not letting patriarchal norms stop her. Despite Aba, a growing men-led market in southeast Nigeria, dominating the shoemaking industry, Oyita has been determined to make a name for herself since 2015, even though she resides kilometers away. She says she has trained over 300 other people on how to make shoes.
“When I first started, I didn’t care about the challenges that came with shoemaking. I had a deep passion for it, and I wanted to beautify people’s legs. Even though it was a skill dominated by men, I was determined to do things differently. I knew that greatness doesn’t come from convenience. In the beginning, many people questioned why I chose shoemaking. Even the man who taught me was hesitant and doubted my potential. I was the only female among all his apprentices, and many assumed that I came because I wanted to date him. Despite all the negative remarks, I never gave up,” she tells IPS.
Patriarchy Came Through Colonialism
“A lot of what is happening today is not how we originally lived our lives as Nigerian women. Patriarchy actually entered our society during the colonial era. Before colonization, both men and women were able to do things without being restricted by gender. Historically, women were involved in trading goods and services, and they could even marry multiple wives for themselves.
“However, when the colonialists arrived, they distorted our culture and, using religion, promoted the idea that men held more power. We should strive to correct this narrative. It’s unfortunate that we have been socialized to believe that men should always be in leadership positions and that women should only be in a man’s home,” says Añuli Aniebo Ola-Olaniyi, Executive Director, HEIR Women Hub.
Speaking further, Ola-Olaniyi argues that women who want to break gender norms must have a change of mindset and be ready to face challenges.
“The country that colonized us has their women driving buses and flying planes. They have progressed from where they colonized us. But Nigeria has failed to empower its women. When a Nigerian woman does something that is traditionally seen as only for men, it is seen as a big accomplishment. However, she has always been capable of doing those things. It’s just that the opportunities were not available. I don’t even think it’s a switch in gender roles. I believe that women are simply starting to realize their potential,” she tells IPS.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 27 2023 (IPS) – In recent years, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have spread rapidly. While usually profitable for the private partners, PPPs have generally not served the longer-term public interest.
PPPs as miracle all-purpose solution As Eurodad has shown, PPP financing has grown in recent years, particularly in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) funding discourses. Adopted by the UN in September 2015, the SDGs endorsed PPP financing.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Earlier, the mid-2015 Third UN Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa had failed to ensure adequate financing. This was mainly due to rich nations opposing a UN-led international tax cooperation initiative.
Instead, PPPs were strongly endorsed in the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda. Weeks later, SDG17 referred to PPPs as ‘means of implementation’. This all sought to “encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships”.
PPPs have been promoted as a means to finance and deliver infrastructure, social services and, increasingly, climate-related projects. Advocates claimed PPPs would also help overcome other problems besides funding. PPPs, they claimed, would help improve project selection, planning, implementation and maintenance.
PPP promotion Some advocates even claim only the private sector can deliver high-quality investment and efficiency in infrastructure and social service delivery. Private financing reduces budget-constrained governments’ need to raise funds upfront to finance, develop and manage projects.
Increased private financing supposedly also overcomes public sector incapacity to deliver high-quality infrastructure and public services. Undoubtedly, many government capacities have been diminished by decades of structural adjustment, austerity and less public finance.
This has been worsened by rich countries’ unmet commitments to contribute 0.7% of national income as official development assistance (ODA) on concessional terms. The global North has also been unwilling to effectively stem illicit financial outflows, e.g., due to tax dodging.
PPP promotion has involved many means, media and institutions, including ‘donor’ agencies, multilateral development banks (MDBs), UN agencies, international consultants, transnational accounting firms, and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The World Bank has long promoted private financial investments in development, as well as ‘blended finance’ and PPPs more recently. In 2022, the influential WEF even proclaimed PPPs as essential for pandemic recovery.
Promoting private finance Such promotion of private finance has implications far beyond the actually modest amount of funds raised through ‘blended finance’ and PPPs. Almost every project so funded is touted as proof that private finance should be privileged, including by guaranteeing returns using public finance.
The World Bank and other MDBs are devoting considerable effort to advise governments on the use of PPPs. By contrast, they have not put comparable efforts into improving the quality and effectiveness of publicly financed infrastructure and social services.
Over the years, the World Bank Group has produced different tools – including model language for PPP contracts, which favour private sector interests – often to the detriment of the public partner, ultimately governments in need of financing.
Regional development banks – such as the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank – have strategic frameworks, networks and dedicated offices to support countries implementing PPPs.
National PPP promotion PPP advocacy has led to changes in laws, regulatory frameworks and policy environments at international, national and local levels. Developing countries have also started including PPPs – to scale up infrastructure and public service provision – in national development plans.
Many developing countries have enacted laws enabling PPPs and set up ‘PPP Units’ to implement PPP projects. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and regional development banks work closely with private partners to provide policy guidance advising governments on how to best enable PPPs.
All this has transformed policy formulation for public service provision to attract private investors – an agenda Daniela Gabor dubs the ‘Wall Street Consensus’. This implies “an elaborate effort to reorganize development interventions around partnerships with global finance”.
PPPs have not delivered But actual experiences have not confirmed this favourable impression promoted by PPP advocates. Instead, PPPs have become a major cause for concern. Reliable data on international PPP trends are hard to find. Also, different PPP definitions and terminology have confused reporting.
The World Bank’s Private Participation in Infrastructure Projects Database reports on economic infrastructure – such as for energy, transport, water and sewerage – in 137 low- and middle-income countries.
The Covid-19 pandemic undoubtedly disrupted PPP planning, preparation and procurement. But even the World Bank admits that delays and cancellations were not only due to Covid-19 as the pandemic exposed projects already in trouble for other reasons.
Nonetheless, PPPs’ financial impacts to date have been small, as the public sector continues to dominate. But little private investment – including PPPs – goes to low-income countries. Most such projects are concentrated in a few countries.
PPPs tend to be found in countries with large and developed markets allowing faster cost recovery and more secure revenues. This implies market ‘cherry-picking’ – a selection bias – with private investments going to more affluent urban areas rather than to the needy.
The major setbacks to both the SDGs and climate progress in the last decade are not only due to financing. But they are more than enough to underscore that recent reliance on blended finance and PPPs has worsened, rather than helped the situation. The empire of private finance has no clothes!
