A woman weeds a sesame crop field in South Sudan's Eastern Equatoria state. Credit: Charlton Doki/IPS

By Moyiga Nduru
JUBA, South Sudan, Apr 8 2016 (IPS)

Facing an unprecedented economic crisis, South Sudan — the newest nation of the world — has urged its 12 million inhabitants to turn to agriculture instead of depending on declining oil revenues.

Before the fall of oil prices below $30 a barrel in the international market, oil-rich South Sudan used to import virtually all of its basic requirements from overseas.

Chicken came from Brazil. Tomatoes, onions, maize flour, cooking oil, dairy products and beans are still being imported from neighbouring Uganda. China and Dubai export a variety of goods such as soft drinks, smart phones as well as construction materials.

All of this is unsustainable and worries the government. South Sudan has ignored agriculture since it achieved its independence in July 2011. Up to 75 per cent of the country’s land area is suitable for farming.

“South Sudan has virgin land. Yet we import most of our food from neighbouring countries,” finance minister, David Deng Athorbei, complained during a meeting organised in the national capital Juba recently to address the deteriorating economic situation in the country.

Every year, South Sudan spends between US$200-300 million on food imports, according to estimates for 2013 provided by the Abidjan-based African Development Bank (AFDB).

“South Sudan currently imports as much as 50 per cent of its needs, including 40 per cent of its cereals from neighbouring countries, particularly Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia”, according to AFDB.

During the first two years of independence, the country was producing nearly 245,000 barrels of crude oil per day, raking in billions of dollars in revenue annually. As a result, the elite saw no value in labour-intensive activity like farming.

That is now changing. A drop in the oil output, a decline in global oil prices and the devastating conflict in South Sudan, as well as an acute scarcity of hard currency have triggered shortages of goods in the market.

South Sudan, which currently produces 165,000 barrel of crude oil per day, depends on oil revenue for nearly 98 per cent of the total government budget.

“We must diversify. We should not depend on one commodity — oil. We have gold in Kapoeta (on the border with Kenya). We have cattle,” said Gabriel Alak, a senior official of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) on a popular programme, Face the Nation, on the state-owned South Sudan Television recently.

Campaigners are now focusing on food production to mitigate the impact of a devastating conflict that erupted in Juba in December 2013. The violence spread quickly to oil-producing states of Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile.

The fighting has left hundreds of thousands of people in need of humanitarian assistance.

At the height of the oil boom, South Sudanese businesspeople had directed their energy toward trade, ignoring agriculture.

“The business of trade is over. We now need to embark on the business of production. We have to change our ways of doing business. Let’s start with agriculture,” Athorbei advised.

In April 2015, President Salva Kiir donated 1,000 tractors to farmers around the country. He also set up the country’s first food security council headed by himself.

“I am determined to end hunger and malnutrition in the Republic of South Sudan,” Kiir said during the launch of the tractors in Juba.

“We have vast fertile lands, abundant water and climate suitable for production of wide variety of food and cash crops but the country still faces enormous challenges which prevent it from realising its full potential,” he said.

“Experts estimate that up to 300,000 metric tonnes of fish could be harvested on a sustainable basis from its share at the River Nile swamps and tributaries,” Kiir disclosed.

South Sudan produces some food crops, but the food is rotting in the bush due to poor road network to transport the commodities to the market.

Athorbei said he would set aside some money in the financial year 2015/2016 to boost agriculture. He did not say how much he would allocate.

With South Sudan joining the East African Community (EAC) on 2 March 2016, Juba hopes to invite farmers across the region to till the country’s vast lands. “This will cut transport costs and reduce food prices,” vice-president James Wani Igga told a parliamentary caucus of the ruling SPLM in Juba on March 10, 2016.

EAC comprises Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and now South Sudan, with a combined population of more than 157 million.

As South Sudan works out plan to fix agriculture, prices have continued to spiral beyond the reach of the poor. The crisis has prompted parliament to urge government to reduce inflation to mitigate the sufferings of ordinary persons.

“There is urgent need to mobilise up to US $20 million for the importation of food commodities and medicines within a period of one month. The food commodities shall be sold through established consumer cooperative network,” the chairperson for the committee for economy, development and finance in parliament, Goc Makuach Mayol, said in a 14-page report on March 7, 2016.

The parliament has also called for a probe into a US$70 million, which was disbursed by an agency known as “financial auction” to commercial banks and forex bureaux with instructions by the central bank to allocate 50 per cent for importing food commodities, 30 per cent for industrial inputs and 20 per cent for school fees and medical treatment overseas.

The parliament did not indicate when the money was disbursed. But it has demanded for a record showing how the money was spent.

(End)

Diabetes test, Mauritius. Credit: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPS

By Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 7 2016 (IPS)

Diabetes, which now affects more than 400 million people worldwide, is closely linked to poverty in most regions of the world, World Health Organization Medical Officer Alessandro Demaio told IPS Thursday.

Demaio, who specialises in non-communicable conditions and nutrition, said that poverty is a risk factor for diabetes across low, middle and high income countries, disproportionately affecting poorer populations, apart from the absolute poor who mostly live in low income countries.

In light of the rapid increase in the disease, the WHO made diabetes the theme of this year’s World Health Day on April 7.

“We’ve had an enormous increase in the prevalence of diabetes in the past 30 years,” Francesco Branca, Director of Nutrition for Health and Development at the WHO told IPS.

As of 2014 there were 422 million people living with diabetes, compared to 108 million in 1980. Worryingly, Branca said that “half the people with diabetes don’t know,” particularly in developing countries where diagnoses can be limited and health services may not have the ability to do the required glucose blood tests. In some parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, said Branca, health workers have been known to mistake the symptoms of diabetes for malaria which they are more accustomed to diagnosing.

The rapid increase in the prevalence of diabetes is in part due to “dramatic changes in diets around the world”, over the past few decades, said Demaio, as well as “changes in the environmental systems that deliver these foods.”

Many of the people affected are in so-called middle income countries, but they are often the urban poor. For example said, Branca there is “a very dire situation in countries like India” where people have been moving away from the country side to areas where they are exposed to different life conditions and a different diet.

For those in the poorest countries, getting access to treatment can be difficult. Insulin, which is an essential part of diabetes management, isn’t available at all in 23 percent of low income countries, said Branca. Health services in developing countries are also not equipped to treat the complications of diabetes, including limb amputations and kidney dialysis, and, said Branca, diabetes is now the leading cause of blindness.

The high cost of accessing health care for diabetes and the disability it causes means that diabetes can also lead to poverty, said Demaio, describing the relationship between diabetes and poverty as cyclical.

Branca and Demaio said that the sharp rise in non-communicable diseases has resulted in a different approach by the United Nations and the World Health Organization to nutrition and health-related issues.

The U.N. General Assembly recently declared the years 2016 to 2015 as the decade of action on nutrition.

The focus on nutrition now reflects a “a wider conceptualisation of nutrition”, said Demaio, recognising that conditions like obesity and diabetes are also related to poor nutrition.

According to a Lancet study published last week, there are now more people in the world who are obese than underweight. However, Branca added that it is possible to be both overweight and undernourished in important nutrients, particularly iron. There are other connections as well, for example in Latin America it is common for children who are stunted, short for their age, to be overweight.

That some Indians have stashed money abroad was known even when I began my journalism career almost 60 years ago. The West German government once provided us with a list of depositors from India, but nothing came out of it because the people involved enjoyed political patronage. The much-hidden Swiss accounts were also given to the government when it made an official request. No action followed since it was once again seen that the people who had kept their money were influential.

I recall the Union Home Ministry once making an inquiry into the foreign funding of political parties after a furore in Parliament. The report was never revealed, but it was revealed unofficially that all political parties, including the Left, had their accounts in West Germany or Switzerland.

The revelations made now about the offshore investments by Indian businessmen and industrialists are in the same category. One must congratulate the intrepid journalists for this. After talking to the journalists, I found that it had taken more than six months to collect information about the money deposited here and there, and collate it.

Understandably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set up a panel of officials from the income-tax department, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Enforcement Directorate to probe the matter and apportion responsibility. Yet, nothing concrete would come out of it because the persons connected with the dealings have political clout.

The Parliament may take up the matter, since the entire nation is horrified over the disclosures. Yet again, the matter would not go beyond accusations and counter-accusations, since all political parties are involved in some way or the other. Parties have to oil their setups, and they have to have some sources to do so.

The bane of the problem is the money needed during elections. Election cost to assembly constituencies is estimated at Rs. 10,000 crore. Naturally, the Lok Sabha elections would need several more crores of rupees. Even individual voters are being paid in cash or kind by different political parties to woo them. For example, Tamil Nadu, which is going to the polls next month, has already had the maximum number of arrests connected with pre-poll unaccounted money.

Many parliamentary committees have gone into the funding with the purpose of reducing the expenditure. Instead, the expenses have gone up. The Election Commission has banned publicity and several ills which were spotted during the electioneering process. But the overall situation has worsened, not improved. In fact, every political party, particularly the ruling ones, use all kinds of methods to win elections.

Power has come to mean not only authority but also money for the cadres. Therefore, no method is ‘mean’ enough to win. The manner in which caste is exploited, makes a mockery of free balloting. The Constitution debars all these practices, and yet parties use castes and sub-castes because this, apart from money, influences voters the most.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitely’s statement that there are “no holy cows for them: is all right as it goes. Yet, he knows that those who finance political parties cannot be touched because they are the ones which sustain them. How can a political party cut the hand that feeds it?

The Election Commission in its various reports has complained that a candidate spends more than the limit laid down. According to the limits defined, an assembly candidate should not spend more than Rs 28 lakh while the Lok Sabha’s limit is up to Rs. 70 lakh per constituency. However, candidates spend many times more. Since there is no limit placed on the expenditure by political parties, the Election Commission is helpless in taking action when it finds that a candidate for assembly or the Lok Sabha does not stay within the limit.

The accounts which the legislatures submit to the Election Commission are all cooked up because they find it not possible to adhere to the rules if they have to cover the constituencies. Several vehicles and volunteers are required to reach every part of the constituency and yet the candidates find it difficult to cover all of them. The television medium has made things easier. But a candidate does not want his message go out as an advertisement. One, it costs a lot of money, and two, the viewers do not like canvassing through advertisements.

If the Prime Minister can live with statements of bogus election expenses, he can very well accept the offshore investments which are unethical but not illegal. After all, this is their way of avoiding paying high taxes in India. High taxation in the county is again the reason why businessmen and others prefer to keep their money abroad. The government has declared amnesty many a time and made it attractive for businessmen and industrialists to disclose their assets abroad. But how to make them keep money at home and pay taxes is the problem.

I recall that India was facing acute foreign exchange crisis when I was the High Commissioner at London in 1990. I made a personal appeal to the people of Indian origin living there that the country which they called Bharat Mata required their contribution urgently. But my request fell on deaf ears. They were looking for good returns. Once they were offered bonds which would ensure high returns in foreign exchange, they were very willing to invest. For them, the love of the country had to be translated into money.

By all means, the Prime Minister should probe offshore investments. And he is justified in doing so. But he should realise that the investors who found tax havens abroad will find some other ways to evade taxes. In fact, a probe is needed to find why Indians prefer money to the interests of their motherland? For this, mere slogans like Bharat Mata Ki Jai will not help. The RSS which has coined the slogan should find ways to evoke that kind of love. But how can it do so when it doesn’t believe in a pluralistic society, the ethos of India?

The writer is an eminent Indian columnist.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Credit: Anne Holmes/IPS

By Jeff Williams
Mombasa, Kenya, Apr 7 2016 (IPS)

There is a ‘Little Boy’ who has nothing to do with the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. This time it is about another ‘Little Boy’ who has been devastating the harvests in many regions, especially in Africa.

This ‘Little Boy’ (from El Niño in Spanish) is a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific including the coasts of South America. In Latin America the term “El Niño” refers to the Child Jesus, so named because the pool of warm water in the Pacific near South America is often at its warmest around Christmas.

In other words, the current El Niño, which in 2015 and 2016 has been among the strongest on record, affects the climate world wide, unleashing more floods in some areas and longer periods of droughts in others, as well as stronger typhoons and cyclones.

The point is that developing countries dependent upon agriculture and fishing, particularly those bordering the Pacific Ocean, are the most affected by ‘Little Boy’.

In the specific case of Africa, this adds a new, heavy burden on food production in this vast continent, which is home to 54 countries with a total combined population of more than 1,2 billion inhabitants. Why?

On the one hand, because while roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year —around 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted, these losses are particularly dramatic in Africa where 220 million people—one in five Africans, are estimated to be undernourished.

On the other hand, the collapse of commodities prices all over the world has severely impacted Africa, where agriculture still represents a major source of income.

The climate-induced crop failures -including those caused by the on-going El Niño phenomenon– have further compounded the food insecurity situation in the affected parts of Eastern and Southern Africa.

The UN agency in charge of food and agriculture on 24 March 2016 stressed in Harare the need for a shift in focus to not only increase productivity at farm level, but also to improve post-production handling among smallholder farmers and other value chain actors.

Shortly before, the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on 12 February informed that Southern Africa was in the grip of an intense drought that has expanded and strengthened since the earliest stages of the 2015-2016 agricultural season, driven by one of the strongest El Niño events of the last 50 years.

Across large swathes of Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, and Madagascar, the current rainfall season has so far been the driest in the last 35 years.

Dry, cracked soil. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

“Much of the southern African sub-region has consequently experienced significant delays in planting and very poor conditions for early crop development and pasture re-growth. In many areas, planting has not been possible due to 30 to 50 day delays in the onset of seasonal rains resulting in widespread crop failure.”

Little Hope

Although there has been some relief since mid-January in certain areas, the window of opportunity for the successful planting of crops under rain-fed conditions is nearly closed, FAO, WFP and FEWS NET alerted. Even assuming normal rainfall for the remainder of the season, crop-water balance models indicate poor performance of maize over a widespread area.

“Seasonal forecasts from a variety of sources are unanimous in predicting a continuation of below-average rainfall and above-average temperatures across most of the region for the remainder of the growing season.”

The combination of a poor 2014-2015 season, an extremely dry early season (October to December) and forecasts for continuing hot and drier-than-average conditions through mid-2016, suggest a scenario of extensive, regional-scale crop failure.

South Africa has issued a preliminary forecast of maize production for the coming harvest of 7.4 million tonnes, a drop of 25 per cent from the already poor production levels of last season and 36 per cent below the previous five-year average.

These conditions follow a 2014-2015 agricultural season that was similarly characterised by hot, dry conditions and a 23 percent drop in regional cereal production.

This drop has increased the region’s vulnerability due to the depletion of regional cereal stocks and higher-than-average food prices, and has substantially increased food insecurity, FAO and its partners reported.

For its part, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) stated that even before the current crisis began, the number of food-insecure people in the region (not including South Africa), already stood at 14 million.

As of early February, Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) estimated that, of this total, at least 2.5 million people are in crisis and require urgent humanitarian assistance to protect livelihoods and household food consumption.

The numbers of the food insecure population are now increasing due to the current drought and high market prices (maize prices in South Africa and Malawi were at record highs in January).

Consequently, drought emergencies have been declared in most of South Africa’s provinces as well as in Zimbabwe and Lesotho. Water authorities in Botswana, Swaziland, South Africa and Namibia are limiting water usage because of low water levels.

And power outages have been occurring in Zambia and Zimbabwe as water levels at the Kariba Dam have become much lower than usual.

“While it is too early to provide detailed estimates of the population likely to be food-insecure in 2016-2017, it is expected that the population in need of emergency food assistance and livelihood recovery support will increase significantly. Additional assistance will be required to help food-insecure households manage an extended 2016 lean season,” says the joint statement.

Ethiopia’s Worst Drought in 30 Years

This weather phenomenon, aggravated by climate change, has also strongly hit Eastern Africa. This is the case of Ethiopia, which has been battling its worst drought in 30 years due to the El Niño weather pattern, with 8.2 million people already in urgent need of food aid.

The United Nations sent an emergency health team to help support the Government’s response to a crisis that is expected to become even worse over the next eight months.

“The food security emergency is coming against a background of multiple on-going epidemics in the country,” the interim Director of Emergency Risk Management and Humanitarian Response at the UN World Health Organisation (WHO), said Michelle Gayer on 4 December 2015 in Geneva.

“This creates an additional burden for people’s health as well as the health system as malnutrition, especially in children, predisposes them to more severe infectious disease, which can kill quickly,” she added.

Ethiopia has experienced two poor growing seasons in 2015. Due to delayed rains attributed to El Niño, its main annual harvest was severely reduced.

Every month since January has seen an increase in the number of malnourished children, with 400,000 likely to face severe malnutrition in 2016, according to WHO. Moreover, some 700,000 expectant and new mothers are at risk for severe malnutrition.

(End)

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 7 2016 (IPS)

The Chinese character for crisis combines the characters for ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. Our ability to improve the human condition depends critically on our ability to recognize and address dangers, but also to seize opportunities made possible by recognizing that crises offer rare opportunities to pursue extraordinary options not normally available.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram. Credit: FAO

World War Two was a case in point. The Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944 committed to create the conditions for enduring peace through post-war reconstruction and post-colonial development through sustained growth, full employment and reducing inequality.

Thus, Bretton Woods created the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) Development and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IBRD, better known as the World Bank, was created to support long-term investment and development. The IMF would help countries, not only to overcome balance of payments difficulties, but also “to direct economic and financial policies toward the objective of fostering orderly economic growth with reasonable price stability”. Similar concerns were behind the International Labour Congress two months earlier. On 10th May 1944, the Congress had adopted the historic Philadelphia Declaration which emphasized that “lasting peace can be established only if it is based on social justice”.

For decades after the war, labour’s share of output and gross income increased as other inequalities declined. This Golden Age also saw greater investment in health, education and public services, including social protection. The underlying post-WW2 consensus endured for over a quarter century before breaking down in the 1970s.

Marshall Plan

As the Cold War began, US Secretary of State General George Marshall announced a re-industrialization plan for war-torn Europe. Politically, the Marshall Plan was intended to create a cordon sanitaire to contain the spread of communism. Generous infusion of US aid and support for national developmental policies ensured the rebirth of modern Europe. For many Europeans, this is still seen as America’s finest hour.

In the decades that followed, the Marshall Plan developed into what is probably the most successful economic development assistance programme in history. Similar economic development policies and assistance were introduced in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, especially following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and the outbreak of the Korean War.

This experience offers valuable lessons today. Europe and Northeast Asia rebuilt quickly, industrialized and achieved sustained and rapid growth through policies including economic interventions such as high duties, quotas and other non-tariff barriers. Free trade was only pursued as international competitiveness was achieved.

George Marshall knew that shared economic development is the only way to lasting peace, as John Maynard Keynes had warned in his criticisms of the impact of the Treaty of Versailles on Germany after the First World War. Marshall also emphasized that aid should be truly developmental, not piecemeal or palliative. National economic capacities and capabilities had to be nurtured to ensure sustainable development.

Counter-Revolution

Each era, no matter how successful, sows the seeds of its own end. The celebration of markets and private property were the major new economic norms invoked from the 1980s to undermine the post-war consensus. Nobel laureate Simon Kuznets’ hypothesis – suggesting the inevitability of inequality rising with growth before its eventual decline – was invoked to justify related inequality.

The higher propensity to save of rentiers and profiteers, compared to wage earners, became the pretext for the tolerance, if not deliberate promotion of inequality in favour of the former, ostensibly to accelerate investment and growth. Conversely, progressive redistributive measures were deemed bad for growth, as they allegedly not only lowered savings and investment rates, but also deterred investors.

From the early 1980s, the so-called “Washington Consensus” – the policy consensus on developing countries uniting the American government and the Bretton Woods institutions located in the US capital city – emerged to rationalize the counter-revolutions against development economics, Keynesian economics and progressive state interventions.

Macroeconomic policies became narrowly focused on balancing the annual budget and attaining low inflation – instead of the previous emphasis on sustained growth and full employment with reasonable price stability. A relentless push for deregulation, privatization and economic globalization followed. Such measures were supposed to boost growth, which would trickle down, thus reducing poverty – hence, we were not to worry about inequality.

But the ‘neo-liberal’ measures largely failed to deliver sustained growth. Instead, financial and banking crises have become more frequent, with more devastating consequences, exacerbated by greater tolerance for inequality and destitution, which have undermined effective demand, in turn forming a vicious cycle, impeding sustained economic recovery and growth.

Global New Deal

The new global priorities from the end of the Second World War remain very relevant today. Empirical evidence has disproved the previous conventional wisdom that progressive redistribution retards growth. Instead, inequality and social exclusion have been shown to be detrimental to development.

After the last three and a half decades of regression, we have to recommit ourselves to the more inclusive and egalitarian ethos of the Philadelphia Declaration, Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan with a global New Deal for our times.

(End)

Spring has not shed its bloom, yet its roses have turned the colour of congealed blood. The latest massacre of our innocents took place this time at Gulshan-i-Iqbal Park Lahore on March 27. Over 75 children, their parents and other holiday-goers died. More than 340 were injured. It was a cruelly premature Easter resurrection for the Christians amongst them, and a hellish holiday for their Muslim co-victims.

Surviving Lahoris did not need to proclaim: `Je suis Lahore.` Over centuries, that slogan has been repeated with less grief in the adage `Lahore Lahore hai` (Lahore is Lahore). L ahore did not need to illuminate its Minar-i-Pakistan in mourning colours. That eastern Eiffel tower stood shrouded already in white, which on our national flag symbolises our terrified minorities.

Who, it could be asked, amongst those who lost their lives on that Easter Sunday, secured martyrdom the suicide bomber or his hapless victims? A contemporary Oxford historian Peter Frankopan, speaking recently in Lahore, provided an answer. He differentiated between a martyr sacrificing his/her own life in the name of faith, and those who commit suicide as an act of faith, to gain martyrdom, but murder unwary martyrs around them.

Did that suicide bomber in Gulshan-i-Iqbal Park believe that there are discrete heavens, as there are separate graveyards on earth, for Muslim and Christian martyrs? Surely, divinity does not contain discrimination in its DNA.

Whichever heaven those martyrs have gone to, it is certainly not in Panama. That heavenly haven was once thought secure and inviolate. Instead, e-leaks have disclosed reams of secret offshore transactions by luminaries such as Putin, the Bachchans, and the Sharifs. They all assumed that they would take their secrets (if not their money) with them to the grave. Instead, their financial fandango has been exposed. Their fiscal tomfoolery has become known to the public, and probably also to their spouses. The last thing these well-known names expected to see was their laundered money being washed again like dirty linen in public.

Money laundering is not a new phenomenon. Nations have been doing it for centuries.

Imperial Athens and Rome, Beijing and Moscow, London and Paris transferred regularly the portable riches of their colonies to swell their treasuries at home. Immoveable assets were kept abroad, in kind.

For example, in the 1880s, King Leopold II effectively owned the Congo Free State. That allowed him to exploit its enormous mineral resources and then divert the proceeds to his personal benefit. Victorian Britain became Great Britain riding astride the elephantine economies of its colonies. Even a minnowcountry like Holland expanded its lungs breathing in oxygen provided by the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).

By contrast, the rulers of today prefer to denude their own nations and instead window-dress the economies of foreign ones. One single super-rich Russian oligarch, for example, can prop up London`s property market on his littlest finger, like Krishna did Mt Goverdhan. The post-Gorbachev perestroika of the 1980s made the island economy of Cyprus a sanctuary, to cool red-hot Russian money. Dubai`s property boom soared after Arab oil shifted from beneath the sand and transmuted into skyscrapers built above it.

Now that Panama has destroyed its reputation (who needs a tell-tale bank manager?) and damaged those of its trusting clients, one wonders how newer 21st-century Nadir Shahs will hide their troublesome wealth? Will they solidif y it into gold? Each would need a private Fort Knox to safeguard that. In property abroad? As Rockwood Estate once showed, there is always the danger of having to disclose beneficialownership. Through shell companies? Sea clams are more reticent than Panamanian lawyers. In overpriced jewellery? Not any longer. Even majesties dress like frugal republicans. The maladies of the overrich are peculiar to their own species. That is whythey invent their own antidotes.

Strange as it may seem but plausible in its perversity, perhaps the safest haven for our Muslim magicians is to make their money disappear into Israeli banks. Who would think of searching there? How could NABeven if it was so inclined retrieve assets that have been squirreled away in a country we do not even recognise? Only a myopic optimist or a naïve parliamentarian would believe that money that has been taken out of the country will ever find its way back. Black money has no such homing instincts. Similarly, there is little to be gained from moral finger-wagging and social tut-tutting. Neither will arouse the conscience of either democratically elected kings or of their courtiers. They donotcare.

As Nietzsche said: `He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.

Money no longer matters to those slaughtered in Gulshan-i-Iqbal Park and in Army Public School, Peshawar. They paid admission fees with their lives. Pakistanis pay every day to admit their filthy rich into Panama.

The writer is an author.
www.fsaijazuddin.pk

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

A worker at a cocoa farm in Klang, outside Kuala Lumpur.

By Carlo Clini
Apr 7 2016 (Longitude - Italy)

In the last months of 2014 breaking news shocked the world’s chocolate lovers: within a few years the world could face a significant potential cocoa shortage due to climate change.

The news that by 2050 there might be not enough cocoa to make one of the most loved and affordable luxury products came as a bolt in the blue in a year when the chocolate industry enjoyed record global revenues of $117 billion. Such a relevant performance was driven by a 2.1% increase in volume, reflecting above all a growing appetite for chocolate in emerging markets.

The single biggest factor improving the industry’s performance is in fact due to a significant increase consumption in many major emerging markets such as India, Brazil and China. The potential long-term growth in emerging economies – many of which have growing middle classes – is vast. To give just one example: the per capita consumption of chocolate in China is only a tenth of that in Switzerland. Yet the future is not without challenges because in the last four decades cocoa production, which is already under pressure due to unsustainable farming techniques and lack of investments by smallholder farmers, will be significantly challenged by climate change.

Combining the above-mentioned factors with the rising demand for chocolate from China, Brazil and other emerging markets as well, the cocoa industry is likely to face supply shortages in the near future.

According to a study released by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, temperatures in some regions of Ghana and Ivory Coast, which together account for more than 60% of global cocoa supply, would become unsuitable for cocoa growing. The objective of the study, which was partially financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, was to design future climate scenarios to predict the impact of climate change on the suitability for growing cocoa in the main growing regions of Ghana and Ivory Coast.

In Ghana and Ivory Coast the yearly and monthly rainfall will decrease slightly by 2050, except for coastal areas in Ghana, but the yearly and monthly minimum and maximum temperatures will increase by 2030 and continue to increase by 2050. Overall climate becomes less seasonal in terms of variation throughout the year with temperature in specific districts increasing by about 1.2°C by 2030 and of 2.1°C by 2050 and less seasonal in precipitation with the number of dry months decreasing from four to three.

The implications are that the distribution of suitability within the current cocoagrowing areas in Ghana and Ivory Coast in general will decrease quite seriously by 2050 because of the temperature increases. Higher temperatures mean that more water evaporates into the air from leaves and earth, leaving less behind for cocoa trees – a process called “evapotranspiration.”

Climate change will increasingly affect weather patterns around the world, as well as water availability and agricultural productivity. The cocoa tree only grows in equatorial climates where significant areas of land may no longer be suitable for cocoa growing. Moreover, cocoa is a major cash crop of the tropical forest, and export earnings from its sales form a major part of the economics of those countries in equatorial Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America where small-scale family farmers rely completely on cocoa production for living.

According to the 2012 Cocoa Barometer Report, around 90% of world cocoa is produced on small family farms, with an estimated 20 million smallholders and rural workers depending directly on cocoa for their livelihood. Cocoa trees play an absolutely critical role in rural life and many of these farmers use the cocoa trees like “ATM machines: they pick some pods and sell them to quickly raise cash for school fees and medical expenses.”

The decline in cocoa production will uncover the fragility of farmers’ reliance on a single crop to make a living and, even if some areas remain suitable for cocoa, this will happen only when the farmers adapt their agronomic management to the new conditions. Therefore, without empowering and investing in small-scale farmers, the industry will struggle to provide sufficient supply. In fact, these small-scale family farmers, most of whom have never tasted a bar of chocolate, live in chronic poverty.

Without a strong and effective intervention from major chocolate companies, it is more likely that they will simply switch to more lucrative crops like palm oil or rubber, accelerating the negative trend in cocoa availability. In this context, chocolate companies have to invest more money in sustainability programs to improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers.

According to the Earth Security Index 2015, multinational companies as well as countries like Switzerland, which is the global hub of the lucrative chocolate trade, need to do much more to prevent a future supply chain crisis. Some companies, for example Barry Callebaut (which alone processes almost a quarter of the world’s cocoa beans), are encouraging cocoa farmers to plant shade trees, including valuable timber trees. These trees will not only provide shade to protect the cocoa trees, but they will also provide an income when the aging plantation has to be replanted, bridging the income gap until new trees start bearing fruit. As clearly stated in the study released by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture: “the winners will be those who are prepared for change and know how to adapt.”

In the meantime, keep calm and eat chocolate… before it’s too late!

Carlo Clini is an Associate Fellow of The Institute for Environmental Security.

This story was originally published by Longitude, Italy

A meeting to discuss the restoration of land in Colombia to rural victims of the half-century armed conflict – a situation that the voluntary guidelines on land tenure can help solve. Credit: Helda Martínez/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Apr 6 2016 (IPS)

Voluntary guidelines on land tenure adopted by the international community to combat the growing concentration of land ownership and improve secure access to land have begun to make headway in Latin America, a region that is a leader in the fight against hunger and that is taking firm steps towards achieving food security.

“The guidelines are an absolutely political document, which helps even out the playing field,” promoting dialogue and negotiation, said Sergio Gómez, a consultant with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) regional office, in the Chilean capital.

“The dynamics of the land market and the concentration of land ownership and land-grabbing by foreign interests had gotten out of control, and the FAO addressed this because if these things are not kept within reasonable limits, food security is jeopardised,” he told IPS.

The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security can only be understood in relation to the existing levels of land concentration and land-grabbing, he said.“The land tenure situation today is unprecedented, because it is happening at a very particular moment, when the food crisis that applies heavy pressure to natural resources is compounded by an energy crisis and a financial crisis.” -- Sergio Gómez

According to a FAO studied carried out in 17 countries in this region, land-grabbing has increased significantly since the turn of the century.

In this region, the concentration of land ownership and land-grabbing are at their strongest in Argentina and Brazil, followed by the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Nicaragua and Uruguay.

These problems are at a mid- to high level of intensity in Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru, while they are less present in the countries of Central America and the English-speaking Caribbean.

“The land tenure situation today is unprecedented, because it is happening at a very particular moment, when the food crisis that applies heavy pressure to natural resources is compounded by an energy crisis and a financial crisis,” Gómez said.

“All of this leads to unprecedented pressure with regard to the land question,” he said.

The Guidelines, approved in 2012 by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) – described as the foremost inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for all stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition for all – are aimed at serving as a reference point for and providing orientation to improve the governance of land tenure, fisheries and forests.

“The Guidelines are a negotiating tool in an area where there are no clear formulas, but where, in a wide range of situations, the affected groups have to sit down and dialogue, to seek agreements,” Gómez said.

The document establishes 10 rules that the different actors must accept before engaging in dialogue. They are called implementation principles, and are obligatory and designed to provide orientation for this kind of discussion.

They range from respect for human dignity and existing laws to gender equality and transparency.

All of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have signed the accord, and although it is not binding, “it is understood that there is a willingness to comply,” Gómez said.

Three approaches

But the guidelines are just now starting to be applied in the region.

Concrete experiences in three countries – Guatemala, Colombia and Chile – represent three different approaches.

In Guatemala, the initiative emerged from a request from the government, which in 2013 asked the FAO to provide support and technical assistance to strengthen the country’s agricultural institutions.

“What we did in Guatemala is the most significant thing we have done in the region,” said Gómez.

The land issue, fraught with conflict and inequality, is a major problem in that Central American country of 15.8 million people, where nearly 54 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and 42 percent are indigenous.

In rural areas in Guatemala, the poverty rate climbs to 75 percent, and six out of 10 people living in poverty are considered extremely poor.

This Mapuche couple, Luis Aillapán and his wife Catalina Marileo, were tried and convicted under an anti-terrorism law for protesting the construction of a road across their land, which violated their land rights. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

In terms of land ownership, two percent of farmers own 57 percent of the land, while 92 percent own just 22 percent.

As a result of the progress made, 80 percent of the aspects tackled in discussions in the country were incorporated in the 2014 national agrarian policy plan.

But the 2015 political crisis brought the process to a halt, although the FAO hopes to get things moving again.

In Colombia, meanwhile, land questions are at the heart of the armed conflict that has shaken the country for over half a century, and resolving this problem is essential to achieving peace, and to ensuring compliance with a preliminary agreement on justice and reparations reached Dec. 15 in the peace talks between the government and the FARC insurgents in Havana.

An estimated 6.6 million hectares – roughly 15 percent of Colombia’s farmland – were stolen or abandoned when the families were forcibly displaced since the early 1990s. Today, 77 percent of the land in the conflict-torn country of 48 million people is in the hands of 13 percent of owners, while just 3.6 percent own a full 30 percent of the land.

“In Colombia, land is a hot issue, and it is key to the peace agreement” expected to arise from the peace talks in the Cuban capital, Gómez said.

He added that the authorities “have passed a few laws to restore land to people who were forced off it, who number in the tens of thousands. But now we’re entering another phase, based on a project for cooperation with the European Union, as part of the peace process.”

On the road to implementation of the Guidelines, the FAO has discussed holding regional workshops and has stressed the need for local involvement.

Nury Martínez, a leader of FENSUAGRO, the largest agricultural workers union in Colombia, which has contributed to the process aimed at implementing the Guidelines, said some of the points included in the Guidelines “are very important to us as peasant farmers…and are tools of struggle.”

But to use a tool it is necessary to be familiar with it. With that aim, the Food Sovereignty Alliance drew up a popular manual on the Guidelines, “aimed at helping people understand them better and enabling peasant farmers and indigenous people to make them their own,” Martínez, who is also a regional leader of the international peasant movement Vía Campesina, told IPS from Bogotá.

In Chile, meanwhile, the FAO has worked in the southern region of La Araucanía, where the Mapuche indigenous people have long been fighting for their right to land.

In the South American country of 17.6 million people, forestry companies own 2.8 million hectares of land, with just two corporations owning 1.8 million hectares.

José Aylwin, co-director of the Citizen Observatory, a Chilean NGO, told IPS that in Chile, “there is no other case, except private conservation projects, of such heavy concentration of land in so few hands.”

He added that the context surrounding the conflict in southern Chile “is that of a people who lived and owned that land and the natural resources, and a state and private interests that came in later and stripped the Mapuche people of a large part of their territory.”

Despite the polarisation of groups in the area, the FAO managed to bring together 67 people, including Mapuche and business community leaders, in May 2015.

Aylwin said these talks demonstrated “the timeliness of the Guidelines” with respect to conflicts generated by the concentration of land in the hands of the forest industry.

“The conflicts in La Araucanía do no one any good; solutions are needed, and the Guidelines provide essential orientation,” he said.

Despite the difficulties, Gómez predicted that the Guidelines would increasingly be applied in the region. “So although we feel distressed that faster progress isn’t being made, we’ll have Guidelines for several decades.”

With additional reporting by Constanza Viera in Bogotá.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

By Sanam Naraghi Anderlini
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 6 2016 (IPS)

Violent extremism is the topic du jour, as government officials are busy developing plans of action on “preventing or countering violent extremism” (P/CVE). In these plans there is dutiful reference to engaging “women”. The more progressive mention gender sensitivity.

But scratch the surface, and it is clear there is widespread misunderstanding of what this means or how to do it. So they tend to slide back into an age-old axiom: women are victims, perpetrators, or mothers.

But this perception misses some of the most important women involved in P/CVE: women human rights defenders and peace activists working in Iraq, Pakistan, Syria not only countering extremism but providing positive alternatives and challenging state actions.

The simplification of women to victims and perpetrators is akin to the virgin/prostitute dichotomy that has littered history for centuries. The Yazidi girls epitomize the horrendous victimhood of women, while the teenagers in the UK joining ISIS, and the girls implicated as Boko Haram ‘suicide’ bombers, personify the perpetrator. It seems that, in the male-dominated world of security experts, men determine which women matter.

Their real fascination is with the women fighters especially ‘jihadis’. They are either evil because they have transgressed unsaid but deeply riven norms of femininity and joined ISIS. Or they are the ultimate symbols of self-empowerment, brave enough to fight, and heroic, like the women in the Kurdish militias. Yet women becoming fighters is neither news nor shocking.

Throughout history, a minority of women have joined armed liberation movements (and national armies). Like many men, they are attracted by the larger cause or vision, or for revenge and justice (as with some Kurds and now Yazidis), to feel the sense of belonging and protection. Daesh promises respect, agency and responsibility for women feeling stifled in traditional homes.

There is little discussion of the complexity of women’s experiences who may be simultaneously victims and perpetrators. For example, research on young women (many under 18) traveling to Syria, reveals a strong dose of online sexual grooming in the communications between them and their recruiters.

The media’s labeling of Boko Haram female ‘suicide bombers’ obscures the fact that many are young girls, who may have been brain washed or had no power to stop bombs being strapped to their small bodies.

Female victims are finally being recognized because it would be downright indecent if they were ignored. But as with victims everywhere, they are spoken about, but not given the chance to speak for themselves or provided with the necessary care to cope with the trauma or given the opportunity to continue with their lives.

The results are plain to see. Some Yazidi girls were subjected to virginity tests by Kurdish authorities. Many are committing suicide. It is as if the label of ‘rape victims’ is etched into their foreheads in perpetuity.

Reference to mothers as the panacea against extremism is the latest trend. Mothers, we are told, wield enormous influence. They can hold back their children and inform the police. Their influence is indeed noticeable but they can wield it both directions. In Pakistan, for example, an extremist radio-sheikh railing against state corruption and sympathetic to women’s concerns offered a vision of a purer Islamic society, and successfully targeted rural mothers, who sent their gold bangles to pay, and their boys to fight for the Taliban.

Now policy makers in Washington, London, Baghdad and New York want to mobilize an army of mothers to fight their cause. But they want mothers who do not challenge them. The motherhood paradigm packages women in apolitical and non-threatening ways according to traditional, and even biological norms of femininity — it is the image of the lioness protecting her cubs.

Of course there is overlap between the concerns of parents and those of the state. But by pressing them to act as frontline whistleblowers, governments are using women. As one Iraqi woman notes, “the government wants women to mop up their mess.” Not surprisingly from England to Iraq, many mothers find the overtures of governments offensive.

The simplification of women, excludes one critical group: women who become civic activists fighting for rights, peace and justice. They may be mothers, but their motivations and actions are not limited to their own children. They understand that extremism is growing because of deeper socio-economic and political problems. They see firsthand, how poor governance and state oppression fuel grievances and radicalization, especially when moderate civic activism and dissent are quashed.

They also know that simply ‘countering’ extremism is not enough: What is needed is a positive alternative to address the grievances and aspirations of those most vulnerable to the lure of extremist movements. From Pakistan to Nigeria, they are doing it. Many are working in their communities, developing tailored approaches to engage youth and religious leaders, not just women.

They address the wider ecosystem, combining religious teachings rooted in co-existence and non-violence, critical thinking, economic skills and socio-cultural activities. Among young men, they generate a sense of personal pride, offer belonging to groups that contribute to improving their community.

Women activists also understand the interconnectivity between the local, national and international levels. They provide acute analysis and uncomfortable truths of the impact of Western military policies on their communities. They bear witness to the consequences – good and bad- of US and European training of their police and military forces. They have the courage to criticize bad national and international policies, and the creativity to offer an alternative vision for their societies.

In fighting for their vision, they put themselves at profound risk. As the Iraqi woman notes, “When we try to mobilize civilians to hold the state accountable or transform our communities, the government accuses us of regime change.”

Do women’s peace and rights activists raise uncomfortable truths? Of course they do; because they are committed to eradicating the intolerance and violence in their communities – whether it is perpetrated by non-state extremists or by states. They are in it for the long haul, for a simple reason: The threats they face are existential to their way of life.

The international community stands at an important juncture. As the P/CVE action plans and policies are being developed, policymakers can limit them to victims, perpetrators or mothers, or they can recognize the agency, vision, and leadership of women who are courageously taking a stand against these ideologies.

This would require not only listening to women, but also heeding their advice gleaned from the experience of working and living in their own communities for decades. For many policy makers, this may be just too threatening.

(End)

Credit: Courtesy FAO

By Osman Sharif
CASABLANCA, Morocco, Apr 6 2016 (IPS)

This is not a minor issue. Chickpea, faba bean, lentil, common bean, field pea, mung bean, black gram, pigeon pea, cowpea, and grass pea are the major pulse crops produced globally. And these especially play an important role in food and nutritional security and sustainable agricultural production systems in the drylands, which cover over 40 per cent of the world’s land area and are home to approximately 2.5 billion people.

“These crops are the mainstay of agriculture and diets in these regions, constituting a major source of protein for billions. With an ever-growing health conscious population, the demand for pulses is increasing, says the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), while announcing its International Conference on Pulses for Health, Nutrition and Sustainable Agriculture for Drylands in Marrakesh, Morocco, 18-20 April 2016.

Coinciding with the 2016 International Year of Pulses (IYP), the conference aims at sensitising main actors in pulse research and industries about the more recent scientific findings on health, nutrition and environmental benefits of producing, processing and eating pulses.

And the conference is expected to provide a platform to various stakeholders, including scientists, policy-makers, extension workers, traders and entrepreneurs, to discuss the various contributions of pulses to food and nutritional security and ecosystem health.

“Challenges ahead for driving greater production and benefits for all will be addressed with a focus on Central and West Asia, and North Africa,” says ICARDA and adds “a roadmap will be developed for increasing productivity and profitability of pulses through diversification and intensification of cereal/livestock-based cropping systems.

These, among others, are expected to be the main outcomes of this international conference, which is organised, along with the Moroccan National Institute forAgricultural Research (INRA), in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and other national and regional institutions.

How to Get kids to Eat Pulses?

But technical issues aside, the question is how to learn to eat pulses. One of the conference main co-organisers, FAO, apparently recommends to start from the very beginning, by posing this question: How to get kids to eat pulses?

Credit: Courtesy FAO

But just like any new ingredient, convincing the pickiest eaters in the family to try these nutritious beans, peas and lentils can sometimes prove more than difficult.

For this, FAO presents some fun and creative suggestions for getting your kids excited about eating their pulses:

Start with the Familiar

Hummus is a widely popular dip made of chickpeas and many children love it. But did you know you can make it with almost any kind of cooked pulses?

Using your favourite hummus recipe, simply replace the chickpeas with cooked lentils or beans. Try serving with toasted pita or sliced veggies, or spread on a sandwich.

Burgers and meatballs are also a popular food with children, and lentils, beans or a mixture of the two can be substituted for meat to make delicious, homemade veggie patties and meatless meatballs.

Eliminate Mushiness

Many kids hate the “mushy” texture of beans. This can be eliminated by cooking with dried beans instead of canned beans, which produce a much more palatable texture. Dried beans should be soaked overnight before cooking.

Take the Hands-on Approach

Getting kids involved in the cooking process can excite them about trying the dishes they helped create. Take a trip to the market together and let your children choose the pulses that they want to eat.

When making veggie patties with pulses, let kids help you mix and shape the patties. You can also let kids build their own burritos or tacos using beans as an ingredient.

Play with Your Food

Beans, peas and lentils are easy to arrange on a plate to create different designs. Shape your beans into happy faces or your lentils into shooting stars—or let your children design their own plate of pulses.

What About the Grown-Ups?

For his part, Dr. Francesco Branca, Director of Nutrition at World Health Organization (WHO), knows much about how eating pulses can have a positive impact on nutrition and health.

Credit: Courtesy FAO

Dr. Branca states that unhealthy diet is the greatest underlying cause of deaths worldwide, accounting for 11 million deaths each year. Another measure of the burden of disease is the disability-adjusted life year (DALY), which is the number of years lost due to poor health, disability or early death.

“Unhealthy diet is responsible for 241.4 million DALYs; child and maternal malnutrition accounts for 176.9 million DALYs; and obesity for 134 million DALYs.”

Pulses contain many nutrients, one of the most important of which is fibre. Asked to explain some of the health benefits of a diet rich in fibre?, Dr. Brabca said: When someone has a diet that is high in fibre, this can help prevent him or her from becoming obese, especially when s/he also does sports or other physical activity.

Studies suggest that one of the reasons that type 2 diabetes was relatively rare in rural Africa 40 years ago was because people there were eating a diet that was high in fibre. More recent studies in the United States also indicate that diets that are high in fibre reduce the chances of developing diabetes, he adds

“Eating foods like pulses that are high in fibre can help bring down blood glucose and insulin levels, which is crucial for people who are diabetic or pre-diabetic.”

Many studies indicate that diets high in fibre can reduce the risk of heart disease and reduce blood pressure, according to D. Branca, who adds: “one of the ways this works is because many types of fibre reduce the levels of the so-called ‘bad’ cholesterol in a person’s blood, which in turn lowers his or her risk of heart disease.’

There are many other health benefits of a diet rich in fibre, including some suggestion that it may reduce the risk of certain types of cancers and can protect from tooth decay, he said, explaining that in populations that are transitioning away from traditional diets that are high in fibre (e.g. the Mediterranean diet)—fibre intake is going down, spurring an increased risk of non-communicable diseases.

(End)

More than six kilometres of water separate the southwest region from the rest of Bangladesh. The longstanding Padma Bridge project holds potential to span that gap both physically and economically, linking the region with Dhaka, Chittagong, and the rest of the country to the east.

After significant delays and cost overruns, however, the relevant question today is whether the project still makes overall social and economic sense. There is limited funding for infrastructure, and there are alternative transportation projects and many other proposals that could also produce benefits for Bangladesh.

New research by Ashikur Rahman, Senior Economist at the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh, and Bazlul Khondker, Professor of Economics at the University of Dhaka, shows that even given the budget overruns from the project, the Padma Bridge is still cost beneficial. Every taka spent on the bridge would do about Tk. 2 of social good.

In 2010, the Bangladesh Bridge Authority assessed the economy-wide benefits of the Padma Bridge project with financial assistance from the World Bank. The BBA concluded that the project would be financially viable. But after allegations of corruption, the World Bank removed support from the project.

The project was interrupted, and its deadline was pushed back from 2015 to 2018. According to the BBA’s latest estimate, the total cost has risen to Tk. 28,793 crore – nearly three times higher than the original projected cost of Tk. 10,162 crore in 2007.

The recent research from Bangladesh Priorities updates the cost-benefit projections. One important factor that the analysis demonstrates is that price inflation and currency depreciation accounted for 91 percent of the cost increase from 2007 to 2015. And even with the cost increases, the Padma Bridge still makes financial sense.

Benefits of building road and rail transportation across the river would come from three main sources: decreased vehicle operating costs, increased time-savings, and a boost in GDP due to increased economic activities.

Currently, drivers have to use longer and poorer roads on alternate routes to cross the river. So once the bridge is complete, vehicle-operating costs will fall significantly. Plus, savings in travel time will account for nearly one-quarterof total benefits of the project. Over the 31 years following completion of the bridge, overall benefits to road users from these two sources are projected to be Tk. 130,000 crore.

The economists estimate that over that three-decade timeframe, the bridge will reach its full traffic capacity of 75,000 vehicles each day. One-third of those vehicles will be trucks, which carry cargo and boost trade. Due to that increased economic activity, the Padma Bridge stands to permanently increase GDP of the southwest region by up to 2.5 percent.

Even given delays and cost overruns, completing Padma Bridge has potential to do Tk. 2 of good for each taka spent. But when it comes to transportation within Bangladesh, there are additional options to consider.

Research by Kazi Mahmudur Rahman, Assistant Professor of Development Studies at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, and Md. Tariqur Rahman, an economic consultant, examined the benefits that could come from vehicle agreements between nearby countries that are designed to encourage trade.

Bangladesh and its neighbours continue to forge stronger economic ties, but traffic bottlenecks and gaps in transport infrastructure have hindered progress. This presents an opportunity to increase trade and economic growth through better links with India, Nepal and Bhutan.

Currently, trucks that carry cargo internationally often have to offload their cargo once they reach a border, so that it can be reloaded onto a different truck on the other side. This is costly and logistically inefficient, and it also creates the potential for graft.

For these reasons, it can take more than six weeks for a 20-foot rail container to reach Dhaka from New Delhi, at a cost of Tk. 195,000. And the route is anything but direct – the container must first leave New Delhi and go to the port of Mumbai, then travel to Singapore by ship, before reaching Chittagong port. Finally, it would travel from Chittagong to Dhaka by rail. If there were direct rail connectivity between Dhaka and New Delhi, however, it would take at most five days for the same container to reach the intended destination, and at only about one-third the cost.

Enacting reciprocal trade agreements and improving cross-border transport infrastructure would increase international freight traffic by an estimated 2 percent per year for Bangladesh. Depending on the exact nature of the transport project and trade agreement, each taka spent on these efforts would do about Tk. 2-2.5 of good.

The Padma Bridge will still be cost-beneficial, and other improvements in transport infrastructure could improve trade and economic growth for Bangladesh. What transport strategies would you choose to help the country prosper? Join the conversation at https://copenhagen.fbapp.io/transportationinfrastructure, where you can also read about other exciting development opportunities for Bangladesh. We want to know what you think as we continue to search for how the country can prosper most.

The writer is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, ranking the smartest solutions to the world’s biggest problems by cost-benefit. He was ranked one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

By Shyam Saran
NEW DELHI, Apr 6 2016 (IPS)

It was in 2001 that the Chief Economist of Goldman Sachs, Jim O’Neill, coined the acronym, BRICs, to denote the special category of large emerging economies, which he predicted were destined to transform the structure of the global economy, through sustained growth in the twenty first century. According to him, the BRICs, namely, Brazil, Russia, India and China, which at the turn of the century accounted for 25% of global Gross domestic product (GDP), could double their share to 50%.

Shyam Saran

Will it be able to narrow the as yet expanding gap with China, which is a 11 trillion dollars economy to India’s 2 trillion dollars GDP?India enjoys sound economic fundamentals. It has a large and still growing young population, which with proper education and skills, could constitute a “demographic dividend” precisely when most advanced economies, as well as China, are confronting challenge of an ageing population. The country has followed a policy of fiscal prudence and conservative monetary policies which create a stable environment for investments and innovation.

The latest budget has pegged the fiscal deficit to 3.5% of the GDP. It has introduced several important reforms such as allowing foreign direct investment (FDI) into agro-processing and marketing which has the potential of transforming Indian agriculture. A bankruptcy law is in the offing and legislation has been passed on linking all subsidies and benefits to the ‘Aadhar’ , or the unique identification number which has by now enrolled over 900 million Indians (out of a total population of 1.2 billion). This will allow direct benefit transfer, through bank accounts, to those entitled to subsidies, such as on LPG, kerosene and essential food items. This is expected to reduce leakages and corruption significantly. However, the Government has so far been unable to pass legislation instituting the General Sales Tax (GST) which is indispensable to creating a true national market and reducing barriers to inter-State commerce and movement of goods.

India today has a pro-reform and pro-business government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A most important change from the past has been the public embrace by the political leadership of economic reforms, including unrolling a welcome mat for foreign investment, a commitment to improving the ease of doing business and providing incentives for the burgeoning start-up domain. The Prime Minister has been unequivocal in courting foreign direct investment, this being a major priority in his foreign visits. In this sense, India is no longer engaged in “reforms through stealth”. Reforms have entered the political mainstream and this provides assurance and predictability on the sustainability of the reform process.

Despite this congenial political environment for economic reforms, there has been mixed record of progress on the ground. This is, to some extent, the result of a much less favourable international economic environment since the global financial crisis erupted in 2007- 2008. The advanced economies of the U.S., Europe and Japan, are struggling to restore health to their severely impaired economies. The Chinese economy, which had emerged as the engine of global economic growth in the past 3 decades, is now slowing down more precipitously than expected.

Global trade, which was growing at double the rate of global GDP (6% against the GDP growth of 3% per annum) since 1990, is now expanding at a slower rate than global GDP (2.5% per annum). Since the 2007 – 2008 crisis, protectionist trends in major economies are on the rise, further shrinking market access for goods and services from emerging economies like India. Thus, the investment and export driven strategies which were successful in transforming East Asian economies, including China, are not as effective as before. India will need to find other drivers of growth, including within its domestic economy, to sustain accelerated growth. In this context, innovation becomes important. The surge in start-ups in India is an encouraging development. In having to deal with a more competitive and slower-growing global market-place, India will need to leverage is strengths. One key asset it has is the very size of its market and its significant growth prospects. For example, it has a mobile market of 900 million and the prospects for similar growth in its smart-phone market are immense. Its e-commerce sector is expanding at a rapid rate. It is in these new lines of business that opportunities for leap-frogging exist. However, the Modi government has not so far been able to formulate an overall economic strategy which takes into account the altered global economic environment and the implications for India’s economic prospects. Exports have been declining 15 months in a row and domestic investment is at a standstill. The banking sector, in particular, public sector banks, are heavily exposed to non-performing assets and foreign investors are confused by bureaucratic decisions which contradict the Prime Minister’s positive messaging. There appears to be a lack of capacity and leadership at the ministerial and senior bureaucratic level, leading to contradictory policies and lack of implementation. More recently the development narrative which won the elections for Modi has been in danger of being overwhelmed by the politics of polarization and communal and sectarian divide which appear to be driven by short term electoral calculations. This also acts as an inhibiting factor on foreign investment .

While India may have the best prospects today among emerging economies, it is likely to achieve only sub-optimal results unless some of these structural problems are resolved.

(End)

The Panama Papers only confirm what has long been known. The unprecedented leak of confidential documents provides some insight into how the rich and powerful stash away their wealth in secret offshore companies. The trail leads to national leaders, top politicians, celebrities and businessmen around the world. Information gleaned from over 11 million documents from a Panama-based law firm is just the tip of the iceberg. The disclosure has triggered global investigations into secret offshore money.

Not surprisingly, the long list of those who use of fshore tax havens include family members and associates of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and the names of several other prominent politicians.

Although some information about the Sharif family`s foreign assets is already known, details of the offshore companies owned by them is shocking, and has generated a political storm in the country.

The companies owned by Sharif`s sons and daughter were reportedly used to acquire properties worth millions of pounds in Britain. While not directly named in the leaks, the revelations pertaining to his apparently massive family business abroad have certainly put the beleaguered prime minister in a tight spot. It seems hard to believe that Sharif has no connection whatsoever with the wealth belonging to his children. The defence offered by the family and government spokesmen has so far failed to answer basic questions about the money trail.

It is not just the nation`s first family that is under scrutiny the leaks have also exposed some 200 prominent Pakistani businessmen and politicians, raising questions aboutsources oftheir allegedhidden wealth. While the Saifullah family is on top of the list, former interior minister Rehman Malik, and many close associates of former president Asif Ali Zardari also figure in the scandal. Most shockingly, however, is the inclusion of a retired and a sitting high court judge in the list.

The leaks provide just a glimpse of the money that has been taken out of the country. The revelationsgive credence to suspicions about the relationship between power and greed.

Surely it is not illegal to invest in offshore companies. But it is a fact that there are myriad ways in which ill-gotten wealth is channelled through offshore companies. The Panama Papers show that many dictators, drug traffickers and criminals have exploited offshore havens to hide their wealth. The leaks have linked over 70 current and former heads of state, including some of the most infamous dictators, to billions of dollars parked in offshore accounts.

Indeed, this is not the first time that information about the offshore financial assets of Pakistan`s political leaders has surfaced. It was revealed during the Swiss money-laundering case that Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Zardari were the beneficiaries of an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands, through which alleged kickbacks on government contracts were channelled.

PPP leaders have denied the charge. But the latest leaks include the names of Benazir Bhutto and some of her close family members. It was not surprising to see the names of some of Zardari`s closest associates on the list.

Nawaz Sharif was also accused and investigated for money laundering in the 1990s. The investigation was, however, never completed after Sharif returned to power for the second time. A major defence of Pakistani leaders was that the cases were politically motivated. Of course, there is no denying that anti-corruption campaigns have often been used by successive governments to beat down their political opponents. But there is little doubt that most of the corruption cases against political leaders were valid, though they were never convicted by a court of law. It is also true that the corruption cases were used as a blackmailing tool and for political bargaining.

This biggest data leak in history has triggered protests in various countries. Thousands of people came out on the streets in Iceland demanding the resignation of their prime minister after a leakeddocument showed his wife owned a secret offshore company. France, India, Australia and New Zealand have ordered investigations against their nationals named in the Panama Papers for money laundering and tax evasion. British Prime Minister David Cameron has also come under pressure af ter the disclosure that his late father invested money in an offshore company in order to evade taxes.

Interestingly, the skeletons tumbling out of Panamanian closets have brought the PML-N and the PPP together in denouncing the leaks as a conspiracy to malign politicians. No one, however, can beat Rehman Malik, who has declared the Panama files a `RAW conspiracy` against him. The leaks tell a rags-to-riches story of a former FIA official who later became the country`s interior minister.

Considering his alleged involvement in shady business dealings, is it a surprise that he was the former PPP government`s most powerful member? The Panama leaks have exposed the links between power and greed. Not surprisingly, the offshore financial regime has become the biggest haven for often ill-gotten money accumulated by political leaders and businessmen. The Panama Papers have provided the most substantive evidence of how billions of dollars were taken out of the country. It may be true that not all the money invested in offshore companies was obtained through illegal means. But there is still a need for an impartial and across-the-board investigation.

Crying themselves hoarse over perceived conspiracies does not clear Pakistani politicians of allegations of misdeeds. Sharif needs to explain how some of the offshore companies were formed in the early 1990s, during his first term in office. It is hard for him to completely disassociate himself from the business empire that his family has built, in Britain and other countries over the past two decades, under the umbrella of offshore companies. The power elite should not wait for public dismay over the scandal to turn into outrage.

The writer is an author and journalist.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

By Mandeep S.Tiwana and Teldah Mawarire
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 5 2016 (IPS)

South Africa celebrated human rights month this March with President Zuma recalling the “heroism of our people who stood up for their rights.” However, this same month which commemorates the sacrifices of those who took part in the struggle against apartheid and those who died in the Sharpeville Massacre of 21 March 1960 was not a happy one for today’s civil society activists and organisations engaged in defending human rights. Two shocking incidents raise troubling questions for the future of civil society in the country.

Mandeep S. Tiwana

A day after observing national human rights day, the land and community rights activist Sikhosiphi Rhadebe was brutally assassinated near his home. A day before national human rights day, the offices of the venerable Helen Suzman Foundation were robbed of their equipment, including computers containing information about politically sensitive cases being pursued by the organisation.

Sikhosiphi Rhadebe was the chair of the Amadiba Crisis Community (ACC), which has led a campaign for several years to protect the ecologically fragile Xolobeni area of South Africa’s pristine Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape province from harmful mining activities. The struggle of the ACC is a principled one. It opposes mining on the grounds that it will adversely affect local agricultural activities and potentially lead to forced displacements.

Teldah Mawarire

Sikhosiphi Rhadebe was rallying the local population against the activities of Transworld Energy and Minerals (TEM), a South African subsidiary of the Australian mining company, Mineral Commodities (MRC) which wants to mine the shoreline for titanium. His killing with eight gunshots to the head by suspects masquerading as police is not the first instance of violence against those who oppose the mining activities – community activists have reported being subjected to lethal attacks and raids on their houses by local authorities – but it is probably the most brutal.

Two days prior to the attack on Sikhosiphi Rhadebe, in a robbery orchestrated with military precision, several computers and important documents were taken from the offices of the Helen Suzman Foundation in the upmarket Parktown area of Johannesburg. The Foundation had recently challenged in the High Court regarding the fitness to hold office by the head of the country’s premier investigation agency, Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation also known as the Hawks.

With its mission to promote and defend constitutional democracy, the Helen Suzman Foundation has been involved in a number of high profile cases, including acting as amicus curie or friend of the court in the case involving the non-compliance by South Africa’s government with an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir. In a consequential ruling, a few days before the robbery, the Supreme Court of Appeal held the government’s failure to arrest war crimes suspect, Omar Al Bashir when he visited South Africa to attend an African Union Summit in 2015 as “inconsistent with its constitutional duties.”

Both of these instances raise worrying concerns among civil society in South Africa about the price of taking on the rich and powerful. A joint statement issued by 82 organisations after the assassination of Sikhosiphi Rhadebe points out, “For years, poor people’s movements in different parts of the country have experienced regular harassment, intimidation, detention and violence against their members. It is worst felt when the media are far away and when the victims are poor, black or rural, and when major industries stand to make billions in profit.” This sentiment is borne out of the fact that there have been no convictions for the pre-orchestrated massacre of 34 miners by police in Marikana over three years ago. Those who died in Marikana were seeking a wage increase from the profitable and politically well- connected Lonmin mine.

As the Helen Suzman Foundation case shows, it’s not just activists and organisations deep in South Africa’s hinterland who face intimidation. The Pretoria based Southern Africa Litigation Centre which is working with the Helen Suzman Foundation on the Al Bashir case has been subjected to derogatory rhetoric by several political figures who have questioned its sources of funding to insinuate that it is operating at the behest of foreign governments. A civil society statement following the not-so-ordinary robbery at the Helen Suzman Foundation, executed by well-dressed suspects who knew exactly what they were looking for, laments that the ‘raid’ happened in “a context of increasing hostility by some within the state towards civil society.”

Civil society organisations have urged South African authorities to thoroughly investigate Sikhosiphi Rhadebe’s murder as well as the attack on the Helen Suzman Foundation with a view to bringing the perpetrators to justice. Positively, the murder case of Sikhosiphi Rhadebe has now been taken over by the Hawks but there are few indications that the Helen Suzman case will receive urgency.

While Sikhosiphi Rhadebe‘s murder and the Helen Suzman raid are serious setbacks for civil society, in a positive development South Africa voted in favour of a landmark resolution on the protection of defenders of economic, social and cultural rights at the United Nations Human Rights Council. In this instance, South Africa broke ranks with its BRICS partners, China and Russia, who sought to undermine the protection of rights defenders by proposing several hostile amendments to the text, which were overruled. The resolution supported by South Africa recognises the important and legitimate role of human rights defenders, expresses grave concerns at the risks faced by them and their families and calls upon states to take all necessary measures to ensure their rights and safety. It is now up to the country to reflect on what this means in reality, with the Rhadebe and Suzman incidents being cases in point.

With the country facing several tests in its nascent 21 year old democracy, the role of civil society in dealing with poverty and inequality while addressing gaps in governance and social cohesion is ever more relevant. So far, despite challenges, South Africa’s myriad – and vibrant – civil society groups have been more or less able to publicly express their concerns and get on with their work to advance human rights and social justice. But the events of this March could mark a turning point. Tellingly, there has been no public condemnation of the two shocking incidents by any senior government official.

United Nations Secretary General, Ban ki Moon has called civil society, the ‘oxygen of democracy’, lauding its role as a catalyst for social progress and economic growth. With its raging contemporary debates on corruption, economic downturn, racism and student protests, South Africa needs its civil society more than ever to come up with innovative solutions to complex national problems. Let’s hope the democratically elected leaders of the country are paying attention. Implementing the recent UN resolution could be a good start.

(End)

Photo Credit: Din M Shibly

By Sohara Mehroze Shachi
Apr 5 2016 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

Climate change is the harsh reality of today, and its impacts are undeniable for nations such as ours. Global warming is leading to unprecedented rise in sea level, and for a low lying nation like Bangladesh, that means widespread inundation. Changing weather patterns are also wreaking havoc on agricultural production which is dependent on regular patterns of rainfall, heat and cold. Frequency and intensity of droughts, floods and cyclones are on the rise. And millions of hapless victims are finding themselves in dire straits.

Bangladesh contributes very little to global warming – its emissions being less than 0.35% of the global total. But as countries around the globe continue to emit millions of tons of carbon, the impacts of climate change will keep worsening for Bangladesh. It was labeled as the most climate vulnerable nation according to the Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI-2011), which calculated the vulnerability of 170 countries to the impacts of climate change over the next 30 years. According to the Asian Development Bank’s estimates, climate change may cost Bangladesh a 2% loss of GDP annually by 2050.

The impacts of climate change that vulnerable nations such as Bangladesh are experiencing today are primarily the results of historic emissions by developed nations during their path to development, but paying the blame game will get us nowhere. Making a stand against climate change today requires concerted effort by all states. Recognising this need for global action, developing and developed countries have made public pledges known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to fight climate change at their national level, in the largest international climate conference- COP 21- last year.

Photo Credit: Din M Shibly

As Bangladesh’s emissions are minimal and adaptation needs are extensive, the most important element of Bangladesh’s INDCs is the support the country needs or will provide to aid the vulnerable populace adapt to climatic impacts. In order to so, Bangladesh is not only prioritising adaptation measures that aid mitigation, but is also aiming to minimise the carbon footprint of adaptation interventions. To make sure its INDCs are implemented, the country has undertaken commendable policies and interventions.

Bangladesh submitted its revised National Adaptation Programme of Action in 2009 and was the first country to develop a Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan – a coordinated plan of action for combating climate change. Moreover, the country has prepared a roadmap for a comprehensive National Adaptation Plan (NAP), with the aim of facilitation the integration of climate change adaptation into national policies, development planning processes and strategies.

The Bangladesh government has invested over $10 billion over the last thirty years to increase climate change and disaster resilience, and allocates 6-7 per cent of its annual budget (around $1 billion) for adaptation. The government has established the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF) with support from international development organisations and the Bangladesh Trust Fund (BCCTF) using $400 million of its own money. The BCCTF has funded over 230 local adaptation projects so far, which include construction of cyclone resilient housing, sluice gates, waste management and drainage infrastructure, excavation of canals, introduction and dissemination of drought tolerant seeds, installation of solar panels and afforestation.

As recognition of the efforts to fight climate change, and the vision to turn Bangladesh into a developed nation by 2041 through implementing environmentally aware policies, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina received the United Nation’s Champion of the Earth award last year.

Photo Credit: Din M Shibly

“Through a number of forward-looking policy initiatives and investments, Bangladesh has placed confronting the challenge of climate change at the core of its development,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner. “As an early adopter and advocate of climate change adaptation policy, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina continues to be an example to follow.”

Through its innovative policies and proactive measures to implement its INDCs, Bangladesh is leading the path for climate change adaptation for vulnerable developing nations. But no level of adaptation will be enough in the long run unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced significantly, as developed nations have pledged. Now it is time for them to turn their promises to actions, and build a global resistance to prevent catastrophic climate change in a last stand to save Mother Earth.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Boats stranded on the dry bed of Moyúa lake in northern Nicaragua, which has lost 60 percent of its water due to the severe drought plaguing the country since 2014. Credit: Courtesy of Rezayé Álvarez

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Apr 5 2016 (IPS)

A three-year drought, added to massive deforestation in the past few decades, has dried up most of Nicaragua’s water sources and has led to an increasingly severe water supply crisis.

Since January, photos and videos showing dried-up streams, rivers and lakes have been all over the social networks, local news media, blogs and online bulletins of environmental organisations.

Jaime Incer, a former minister of the environment and natural resources and the president of the Nicaraguan Foundation for Sustainable Development (Fundenic-SOS), is one of the loudest voices warning about the accelerated environmental deterioration in the country.

Incer told IPS that by late March the country had lost 60 percent of its surface water sources and up to 50 percent of its underground sources, which either dried up or have been polluted.

To illustrate, he cited the disappearance of at least 100 rivers and their tributaries in Nicaragua, and the contamination of Tiscapa and Nejapa lakes near Managua, as well as lake Venecia in the western coastal department of Masaya and lake Moyúa in the northern department of Matagalpa.

The scientist said the country’s largest bodies of water are also in danger: the 680-km Coco river, the longest in Central America, which forms the northern border with Honduras, is now completely dry for several stretches of up to eight km in length.

The water level in the river is at a record low, to the extent that it can be crossed by foot, with the water only ankle-deep.

And because of the low water level in the country’s other big river, the San Juan, along the southern border with Costa Rica, large sand banks now block the passage of boats, despite the dredging operations carried out in the last few years.

In addition, the 8,624-sq-km Lake Nicaragua or Cocibolca, the biggest freshwater reserve in Central America has suffered from serious water losses since 2012, which means docks and piers have been left high and dry, said Incer.

The same thing is happening in the country’s other large lake, Xolotlán, in Managua.

Although clean-up operations in the lake were launched in 2009, the results of these efforts have not been announced. But what is clearly visible is that since the drought began in 2014, the shoreline has receded up to 200 metres in some areas, according to reports by Fundenic-SOS.

This is what Lake Moyúa in northern Nicaragua looked like before it lost 60 percent of its water due to the effects of the El Niño climate phenomenon, which in this Central American country has spelled drought. Credit: Matagalpa.org

The environmental organisation does not only blame the crisis on the impact of climate change that has been felt in Nicaragua since 2014 due to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) – a cyclical climate phenomenon that affects weather patterns around the world – but also the lack of public policies to curb the rampant deforestation.

The big forest reserves in the south of the country have shrunk up to 40 percent, according to a study by the British consultancy Environmental Resources Management (ERM), hired by the Chinese consortium HKND Group to carry out feasibility studies for the canal it is to build that will link the Pacific and Atlantic oceans across Nicaragua.

The environmental deterioration of the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve and the Cerro Silva and Punta Gorda nature reserves in southeast Nicaragua was worse in the period 2009-2011 than in the previous 26 years, the ERM reported in 2015.

The study says that between 1983 and 2011, “nearly 40 percent of the natural land cover in southeast Nicaragua was lost.”

The non-governmental Humboldt Centre also reported 40 percent loss of forest cover in Bosawas, the largest forest reserve in Central America, declared a biosphere reserve by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1997.

Food security, a major victim

The impact of the drought has been felt in the economy and the food security of a large part of this country’s population of 6.2 million people, 2.5 million of whom live on less than two dollars a day and 20 percent of whom are undernourished, according to statistics from international bodies.

Organisations of farmers, stockbreeders and tourism businesses have complained about economic damages caused by water shortages.

For example, the National Livestock Commission of Nicaragua (CONAGAN) confirmed in February that the sector is extremely concerned about the scarcity of water in the parts of Nicaragua that account for at least 30 percent of the country’s livestock.

What worries them the most is that according to international and national weather reports, the drought caused by El Niño could last through August, when the first rainfall in 2016 is forecast.

And this month, the Union of Agricultural Producers in Nicaragua (UPANIC) estimated losses caused by the drought at 200 million dollars in 2015.

Nicaragua’s Central Bank, meanwhile, reported that in 2015, the drought affected hydropower production – the least costly energy in terms of production costs.

Sociologist Cirilo Otero, the director of the Centre of Environmental Policy Initiatives, said the part of the country hit hardest by water shortages is the so-called “dry corridor” – a long, arid stretch of dry forest where 35 of the country’s 153 municipalities are located.

According to Otero’s studies, the impact of the drought and the lack of water in that region, which stretches from northern to south-central Nicaragua, has been so heavy that 100 percent of the crops have been lost and 90 percent of the water sources have dried up.

“The measures adopted by the government are ‘asistencialistas’ (band-aid or short-term in nature) – water and food are distributed on certain days – but there are no public policies to curb deforestation in the pine forests in the mountains of Dipilto and Jalapa, and that is one of the main causes of the disappearance of rivers and wells,” Otero told IPS.

He said children and the elderly are suffering the worst food insecurity in the dry corridor.

“There are entire families who have nothing but corn and salt to eat. The situation is very serious,” said Otero.

The government, which has been the target of complaints for failing to declare a national emergency for the drought, has continued to assist families in the area, providing them with medicine, food and water.

Ervin Barreda, president of ENACAL, Nicaragua’s water and sanitation utility, said they send some 65 tanker trucks a day to the most critical areas, supplying some 2,000 families every day.

According to official data, in February 2016 there were 51,527 families in 34 localities who depended on highly vulnerable aquifers for their water supply.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Land mines are not the only type of explosive devices that families returning home after conflicts risk stumbling across, representatives from the UN’s Mine Action Service (UNMAS) told journalists here Monday.

“There is a lot of stigma about using mines now – the real issue is just the explosive detritus of conflict,” said Paul Heslop, UNMAS chief of program planning on the International Day for Mine Awareness. This detritus, said Heslop, includes unexploded hand grenades, rockets, bombs, shells, cluster munitions, and improvised explosive devices.

This is why UNMAS does not discriminate when removing unexploded ordinances in conflict and post-conflict zones, said Agnes Marcaillou, director of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS). For UNMAS, it doesn’t matter if the explosive device is a land mine or an improvised explosive device inside a soda can, she said.

Marcaillou described how in Iraq people are returning home to find their homes deliberately booby-trapped. “In Iraq if you decide to return to your home after Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL) has left your village you are likely to find your doors, your windows, everything will be booby trapped,” she said.

Syrian families who return home are faced with “a land littered with unexploded bombs and cluster munitions that might kill (them) or (their) children today, or perhaps tomorrow,” she said.

While some of these devices are sometimes described as improvised or homemade, they are actually sophisticated systems designed to make sure that people are not safe to return home even after the fighting has ended, said Marcaillou.

Marcaillou told journalists that it is essential that mine action is incorporated into the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit to be held in Istanbul in May. If not, it will be impossible to meet the cost of clearing mines and other unexploded devices from Iraq and Syria, which, she said, could exceed 100 million dollars. However Marcaillou said that the cost of removing the unexploded weapons was small in comparison to the amount spent on purchasing bombs and fighter jets. “There is money to clean up what money paid to do,” she said.

And while progress has been made on mine clearance, including in some of the worst affected countries such as Afghanistan and Cambodia, the international community should not yet see the problem as solved, said Heslop.

For example, in Afghanistan, he said, the number of deaths from mines has dropped from hundreds per month down to five or six, yet other types of unexploded ordinances still cause about 70 deaths per month.

And despite decades of clearing land mines from Cambodia, Heslop said that making Cambodia mine free could still take another decade, with cluster munitions posing a new challenge as people move to areas which haven’t yet been cleared.

In a statement issued to mark the International Day, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said that he was “particularly concerned about the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.”

However Ban also noted that even in extremely challenging contexts such as Syria progress is being made on removing mines. Since August 2015, some 14 tonnes of unexploded ordnance have been destroyed in Syria, he said.