Africa

Water and Sanitation Challenge in Ekta-Vihar Slum in New Delhi

By Fawzia Tarannum
NEW DELHI, Mar 21 2016 (IPS)

During the month of March 2016 and ironically very close to the World Water Day, the Supreme Court of India had to step in to resolve a water sharing dispute between three contiguous states including the National Capital Region. That, this was not the first time that the Supreme Court had to intervene is a stark indicator of the extent of the water crisis that is confronting India, a country that aspires to be a global power. Earlier Supreme Court had to step in to resolve a bitter dispute on water sharing between two Southern states of India – Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

On the international front, India has been having major differences on water sharing arrangements with almost all its neighbouring countries. For a country that is home to almost 17.5% of the world’s population but has only 4% of world’s fresh water resource; the criticality of sustaining these sources of water cannot be overemphasized. The Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC has identified India as one of the most vulnerable countries due to climate change. The impact of climate change, manifested in the increased incidences of droughts and crop failure, is already leading to large scale rural-urban migration in India. Even though, as per official figures, India’s pace of urbanization is considered to be much slower than the global average, the World Bank brief ‘Leveraging Urbanization in India’ brought out in 2015, disputes this fact and highlights that urbanization in India is ‘messy and hidden’. Statistical disputes apart, what cannot be denied is the sheer size of the humanity affected by this rapid urban sprawl, characterised by lack of access to clean water and sanitation.

Fawzia Tarannum

In India, the multiplicity of agencies with overlapping jurisdictions over water and sanitation, have led to diffused accountability and therefore official impunity in denying the basic right to urban slums. While ambitious schemes like the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) were launched in 2005 with an objective to create ‘economically productive, efficient, equitable and responsive Cities’ through capacity building and infrastructure development, the outcomes on the ground have been marginal. Drawing from the experiences of the earlier schemes, the present government launched their flagship programmes like Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission) in 2014.

The objectives of these developmental agenda of India are also closely aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While SDGs have taken of from where the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) left, it has looked at water and sanitation more holistically by including other water related challenges like insufficient availability of water, inequity in its access, efficiency in its usage and sustainability of water resources in its targets. Water being a cross cutting goal has a bearing on achievement of other goals like poverty eradication, quality education, gender equality, good health, sustainable cities etc. Thus, achieving SDG 6 would be like winning half the battle. According to the latest UNICEF report, India accounts for 59 per cent of the people in the world who practice open defecation, a major cause for the diarrheal deaths, malnutrition and school drop-outs among children and health, safety and dignity issues among women. Nevertheless, open defecation has a cultural approval in India and building toilets may not bring about an immediate attitudinal change. In addition, the geographic constraints present in the urban slums in India also pose a major challenge in setting up conventional sewerage infrastructure. Simpler technologies in the form of low-cost communal toilets have not gained popularity due to lack of ownership and odour.

TERI University in partnership with TERI and Coca Cola India and with the support of USAID has been working on a project, ‘Strengthening of Water and Sanitation in Urban Settings’, since 2014. The project aims to help achieve the government’s sanitation targets as well as contribute to the SDG target 6.2, by conducting a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) risk analysis and socio-economic behavioural assessment in urban slums in two Indian cities. The data thus generated shall be used in developing participatory intervention strategies in urban areas and capacity building of university faculty and students through design and implementation of model sanitation curriculum. The program interventions aim to reach 20 municipal schools, 2500 students through school WASH programs, 50000 beneficiaries in low-income settlements, and over 300 professionals through governance strengthening activities. As part of this project, the alliance has recently concluded an Inter-University National Water Competition designed to create awareness among undergraduate students in the field of water and sanitation. The competition focused on engaging with youth to develop sustainable, replicable and scalable decentralised solutions for water management. Parallely, the team is also engaged in conducting summer schools for stakeholders and training of trainers programme for catalyzing behavioral changes in slum children on WASH.

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By Zarrar Khuhro
Mar 21 2016 (Dawn, Pakistan)

The German language is truly underappreciated. Talce `Drachenfatter` for example: translating as `dragon fodder` this is the gift one gives as a peace offering to an angry partner or spouse. Then there`s `Schadenfreude` which means: `pleasure derived from another person`s misfortune` There`s a lot of that going around these days, with careful statistical research showing that global schadenfreude levels peak whenever Donald Trump opens his mouth.

This isn`t just expected, it`s also deeply satisfying. After all, America has lectured the world for decades on everything from human rights to democracy and everything in between. For those used to a steady stream of `do mores` from the exceptional nation, the opportunity for some payback is irresistible.

Latest to take a pot shot is the state-owned Chinese newspaper Global Times. In a mirror image of editorials one would normally see in the New York Times or Washington Post, the Global Times expresses concern that democracy itself may be the problem. After all, they argue, if such a `clown` can get so far in `one of the most developed and mature democratic election systems` in the world then what does that say about that system of government itself? In another jab, it points out that Hitler also came into power through the ballot box before going on to say that while Trump would probably not become president, the US does face the `prospect of an institutional failure`. Implicit in this criticism is the message that the Chinese system is far superior, given that it delivered dividends and not Donalds.

Echoing think pieces written by American journalists about the Middle East, journalist Murtaza Hussain sought to explain Trump`s rise in the context of American culture, saying that `it makes sense that fascist politics in the US would come via a reality TV star`.

In Pakistan, we are used to retired servicemen regaling us with their opinions about politics and even firing occasional shots across the bow of civilian statecraft and now, lo and behold, former CIA chief retired Gen Michael Hayden has come out saying that the US military would `refuse to act` if Trump were to actually order them to kill the family members of terrorists, as he pledged to do in his campaign speeches.

Were a former ISI chief to say this in Pakistan, we would be forgiven for keeping a close eye on the movements of the 111 brigade. As it stands, it isn`t impossible to picture a container outside the Capitol if Trump doesn`t get his way, with the soulchilling possibility of Kanye West standing in for DJ Butt. However, any possible (andprobable) Trump agitation would be nowhere near as peaceful as Imran Khan`s dharna, given that Trump has repeatedly and actively advocated violence against protestors at his rallies and has actually warned that his supporters may riot if he doesn`t clinch the nomination.

Add to that the massive support his fascist rhetoric garners and one can safely assume that were this to be happening in another country the US State Department would have issued at least one strongly worded statement of `concern` about the democratic process while readying the cruise missiles.

Turnabout is fair play of course, and Lebanese humorist Karl Sharro took advantage of the Chicago clashes between proand anti-Trump factions to express the hope that the US could one day hold peaceful elections. He also offered to send Lebanese election observers to help with capacity building for Americans in what seems to be an increasingly sectarian election season.

He`s (mostly) joking, but the highlyrespected Economist Intelligence Unit is dead serious when it warns that a Trump presidency would pose a major threat to the global economy.

On a scale of one to 25, they rank the threat of a Trump presidency at12,four points above a clashin the South China Sea and three points below the breaking up of the eurozone and the fracturing of the European Union.

According to the EIU, Trump gets this ranking due to his hostility towards free trade, his `exceptionally right-wing stance on the Middle East` and his `alienation of China and Mexico`. However, while the EIU also states that it does not expect Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton, his `most likely` contender for the Presidency, it says that there are `risks to this forecast, especially in the event of a terrorist attack on US soil` It`s not without irony then that, at number 12, Trump ties with the danger of an escalation in `jihadi terrorism`.

America borrows many symbols with the Roman Empire of old, so it is instructive to remember that Rome fell only after being weakened by a succession of weak, and of ten insane emperors. It`s also instructive to remember the old saying, `those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad`.

Or in this case, make ridiculous.

The writer is a joumalist. Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

By N Chandra Mohan
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Mar 21 2016 (IPS)

For the first time, an all-female flight crew recently operated a Royal Brunei Airlines jet from Brunei to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Such a feat certainly appears noteworthy in a country where gender segregation is pervasive. When women are still not permitted to drive a car; where there are separate entrances for men and women in banks, is there a possibility of an all-female crew operating a Saudi Airlines plane from Jeddah to Brunei? Not immediately, as there are disturbing signs that the limited gains on the gender front might face reversals.

N Chandra Mohan

To be sure, official Saudi attitudes to female pilots are not that rigid as is the case with women driving passenger cars. A couple of years ago, a Saudi woman, Hanadi al-Hindi, became the first to be licensed to fly and she has been followed by others. This was largely because of pressure from a billionaire who wanted her to pilot his small and wide-bodied luxury planes. But the numbers of female pilots are still too small to envision an all-female flight deck crew operating the national flagship carrier. Reform to ease the rigours of gender discrimination is still twisting in the wind.

Paradoxically, Saudi women occupy only 13 per cent of job positions in the private and public sector despite accounting for 51 per cent of graduates according to the central department of statistics and information. More and more women are getting educated both at home and abroad but their participation in the labour market is limited. Only 2 per cent of lawyers in the country are women. Women vote and participate in elections. But only 18 per cent of them in the age group 15-59 years are either employed or looking for work. Their rate of joblessness among women is high at 33 per cent.

How does one interpret these dismal numbers? A conservative view is that women are not used to working and have got used to stay at home. Another is that the 33 per cent number reflects a desire on their part to search for work. An unemployed person is not only out of work but is also actively searching for it. The high rate of unemployment thus reflects a situation where job openings are much less than the demand for work. The bogey that they prefer to stay at home is not quite true as more and more women are getting out of the house to take up or seek employment.

According to an article by Elizabeth Dickinson in Foreign Policy, two-income families have become the norm in Saudi Arabia. As many as 1.3 million out of 1.9 million women in the workforce are married. The latest numbers also indicate that the number of female employees rose by 48 per cent since 2010. These trends are very much in line with economic development and urbanisation. The growing number of nuclear families with both the husband and wife working to support a middle-class standard of living has been observed elsewhere in the developing world.

Interestingly, the current juncture of low oil prices offers the best prospect for Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries in West Asia to reap a gender dividend. Oil prices have fallen off the cliff from over $114 per barrel in June 2014 to $40 per barrel. They are expected to stay low in the near future as well, which seriously strains the finances of the Saudi government. With back-to-back double digit budgetary deficits – the gap between dwindling revenues from selling cheaper and cheaper oil and rising expenditures, the decks are being cleared for swingeing cuts in subsidies and reform.

So long as crude prices remain low, Saudi Arabia’s royal family must look to a future beyond oil. Following Thomas Friedman’s first law of petropolitics, there is an inverse relation between oil prices and economic freedom and reform. Reformists like Muhammad bin Salman, deputy crown prince and defence minister are now talking about diversifying into mining, subsidy reforms, expanding religious tourism, leveraging unutilised assets, among other ideas. Foreign investments are being attracted. The big global banks are opening branches in the royal kingdom.

More jobs in the private sector are bound to be created. Unlike in the past when expatriate labour would take them up, the preference now is for using educated Saudi youth. Employing more Saudi women could be part of this emerging scenario. But this is not a done deal as the Saudi government is desperately trying to control the supply of oil to ensure that prices head up from $40 a barrel to a more comfortable range of $60 to $80 a barrel. Leading oil producers thus are contemplating a freeze in output when meet in Doha on April 17. Rising and high oil prices weaken the hand of reformers.

There are signs that this is already happening with the return of more conservative elements. The limited gains in on the gender front in Saudi Arabia thus are tenuous when compared to the situation in other Gulf economies like Bahrain. Even in Iran, the situation is much better. UAE recently appointed women as state ministers for happiness, and tolerance and a 22 year-old to head youth affairs. In contrast, the only female deputy education minister in the Saudi government lost her job last year. An all-female Saudi fight deck crew might have to wait for some more time!

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Customary landowners in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, both rainforest nations in the Southwest Pacific Islands, are suffering the environmental and social impacts of illegal logging. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Mar 21 2016 (IPS)

The vast rainforests of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean are crucial for environmental sustainability, survival of indigenous peoples and the wider goal of containing climate change. But forest degradation, driven primarily by excessive commercial logging, most of which is illegal, is a perpetual threat.

PNG is now the world’s top exporter of tropical timber, estimated at 3.8 million cubic metres in 2014. But an estimated 90 per cent of the formal trade in wood-based products from the country and 85 per cent from the Solomon Islands are illegal, reports the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Eighty per cent of log exports from PNG are exported to China, the world’s main destination for illicit timber.

On the International Day of Forests, observed on March 21, Pacific Islanders spoke of why fighting for the future of their rainforests is also a struggle against fraud and crime.

Samson Kupale of the PNG Eco-Forestry Forum, a non-governmental organisation headquartered in the capital, Port Moresby, told IPS that lack of compliance and enforcement of the logging code of practice is a major issue.

“Trees are being cut in prohibited zones, logging occurs beyond surveyed areas….community obligations [by logging companies], such as roads and bridges, are not built to standards,” he declared.

PNG is one of the world’s largest tropical rainforest nations with an estimated 29 million hectares covering about 75 per cent of its landmass. Neighbouring to the east, the Solomon Islands has 2.2 million hectares of forest covering 80 per cent of the country, considered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation to contain ‘globally outstanding biodiversity.’ More than 80 per cent of the population of both countries resides in rural areas and forests are essential sources of food, fresh water and materials for shelter.

But industrial logging has escalated with the immense demand for raw materials by emerging Asian economies. Land clearance for other uses, such as agriculture and plantations, now contributes further to high timber export volumes.

The monitoring of logging operations, which are mostly conducted in remote rural locations, can be a serious challenge for forestry authorities in developing countries. Recently, the London-based Chatham House rated PNG 25-50 per cent for level of forest governance.

Professor Simon Saulei of the PNG Forest Research Institute said that, amongst other factors, “the [forestry] authority is not effectively addressing and responding to such issues [of logging non-compliance] due to insufficient manpower and other resources, including funds.”

Inadequate law enforcement further undermines PNG’s strong forestry legislation, according to Chatham House.

Meanwhile, the US-based Oakland Institute recently claimed in a new report that there are strong indicators of widespread transfer pricing in the country with the potential loss of US$100 million per year in tax revenues. Despite the rapacious appetite for timber extraction by foreign investors, the majority claims that they have made little or no profit over the past decade and, thus, avoided paying 30 per cent income tax on profit, the report details.

“In any business venture, if you cannot make any profit from whatever you are doing then it makes no sense to continue and you might as well close up or do something else profitable. Here one can only ask where are they getting the money to continue their respective operations?”, Professor Saulei probed.

In the Solomon Islands, the situation is now critical where, after decades of commercial logging peaking at seven times the sustainable rate of 250,000 cubic metres per year, accessible forest resources are nearing exhaustion.

Half the forests on Kolombangara Island in the country’s northwest are now degraded after 50 years of voracious extraction while local landowners have battled against illegal loggers in the courts for years.

Timber trafficking depends on the agency of government, forestry and customs officials; the actions, often involving bribery and patronage, of people in critical positions throughout the production and supply chain. Crooked collusion between foreign logging companies and political elites is acknowledged as a serious barrier to industry compliance.

“There are government ministers, provincial ministers who are agents of these loggers and they exercise undue discretionary powers over the granting of logging concessions,” Ruth Liloqula, Chair of Transparency Solomon Islands, told IPS, adding that loggers also “have undue influence over the politicians not to pass relevant legislation in this sector.”

Misconduct in public office, according to the nation’s leadership code, includes business associations which could lead to conflicts of interest with public duties. However, the Leadership Code Commission, which is mandated to hold leaders accountable, is “under-resourced and the penalties are too small,” Liloqula claims.

Another problem, she said, is that logging companies, rather than the government, now pay the costs of timber rights meetings where decisions are made about logging proposals.

“Even when the evidence is heavily on the side of the objectors, the decision is [often] in favour of the side supported financially by the loggers,” Liloqula said.

The fate of forests is being decided at the local level, too. More than 80 per cent of land in the Solomon Islands is under customary ownership and negotiation between logging companies and traditional landowners for access to land can be flawed. ‘Middle men’, or individuals within communities who do not have the traditional authority, are known to sign-off logging agreements in return for sweeteners, Liloqula confirms.

Yet educated informed rural communities play a significant role in environmental justice. In 2012, landowners from Western Province in PNG, supported by the Center for Environmental Law and Community Rights, achieved a victory in the national court following legal action against Malaysian logging company, Concord Pacific. It was found to have cleared a vast tract of unauthorised forest either side of a road construction project and fined US$97 million for environmental damage associated with the wrongful extraction of an estimated more than US$60 million worth of timber.

“This win was an important moment for the environmental NGO movement in PNG and sends out a clear message that destructive logging is not acceptable and cannot be tolerated,” Kupale emphasised.

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Children from the Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced performed in 2015 traditional dances at the International Day of UN Peacekeepers, El Fasher, Sudan. Credit: UN Photo/Albert Gonzalez Farran

By Kareem Ezzat
Cairo, Mar 20 2016 (IPS)

When the United Nations was still getting ready to mark this year’s International Day of Happiness on 20 March, the rulers of an Arab State could have well said: ”but we are ahead and have already created a Ministry for Happiness and appointed a young lady to be in charge of it!”

It is the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a federation of seven emirates: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. That beat the UN on happiness, it seems.

Located in the southeast end of the Arabian Peninsula, the UAE was established in 1971 as a federation, forming the second richest state in the Gulf, after Saudi Arabia.

Well, the decision to create a Ministry for Happiness was announced at the beginning of February this year as part of the largest-ever government reshuffling that implied the appointment of a cabinet of 30 ministers and secretary of state, including 8 women. The youngest woman minister is only 22-years-old.

The young woman, Ohoud al-Roumi, appointed as minister of state for Happiness, is expected to drive policy “to create social good and satisfaction,” according to the UAE’s president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is also the ruler of Dubai.

Map of the United Arab Emirates | Credit: Ksamahi | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Wikimedia Commons

A new post of minister of state for Tolerance was also created “to promote such virtue “as a fundamental value in UAE society”, Sheikh Mohammed said. The ministry’s main task will be to oversee tolerance in the Arab Gulf country that is home to a diversity of faiths and ethnicities.

Sheikh Mohammed added that several ministries would also be merged. He also unveiled plans to outsource most government services. “Governments must be flexible. We don’t need more ministries, but more ministers capable of dealing with change.”

“We want a young and flexible government that will fulfill our youth’s aspirations and achieve our people’s ambitions,” he said while announcing the creation of UAE Youth National Council.

The “elite group of young men and women” would advise the government on youth issues and be led by a female minister of state for youth no older than 22, he said, adding “The energy of youth will fuel our government in future.”

“It is the beginning of a new journey of achievements for our people.”

The Sheikh went on saying that “the new executive will focus on the future, on young people, but also on development of education and the fight against climate change”.

Credit: UNICEF

The cabinet reshufflE includes entrusting all issues relating to climate change to the Ministry of Environment and Water, and to call this portfolio Ministry for Climate Change and Environment. “The goal is to develop programmes, laws and policies aiming at keeping a clean Emirati environment for future generations’” the UAE leader stressed.

Furthermore, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced that the UAE would privatise some governmental services.

With a combined population estimated at around 10 million inhabitants, of which 1,5 million are Emirati and 8,5 are expatriates, the UAE has the second largest economy in the Gulf Cooperation Council (after Saudi Arabia), with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $377 billion in 2012.

Since 1971, UAE’s economy has grown by nearly 230 according to estimates by financial corporations. The non-oil trade has grown by around 28 times from 1981 to 2012.

THE UAE is ranked as the 31st best nation in the world for doing business based on its economy and regulatory environment, ranked by the Doing Business 2016 Report published by the World Bank Group.

Although the UAE has the most diversified economy in the Gulf, its economy remains extremely reliant on oil. With the exception of Dubai, most of the UAE is dependent on oil revenues.

The gross domestic product (GDP) of the UAE has reached 339.085 billion dollars in 2015, which amounts to 35,392 dollars if translated into GDP per capita.

Meanwhile, United Nations secretary general Ban ki-moon, marked the International Day of Happiness, with a message saying: “At this time of grave injustices, devastating wars, mass displacement, grinding poverty and other man-made causes of suffering,” the Day is a global chance to assert that “peace, well-being and joy deserve primacy.”

“It is about more than individual contentment; it is an affirmation that we have a collective responsibility to humanity,” he added.

By advancing progress towards the interlinked Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the UN General Assembly last September, “we can help spread happiness and secure peace, he stressed. “The best way to celebrate this International Day of Happiness is by taking action to alleviate suffering,” he urged.

“Peace, prosperity, lives of dignity for all – this is what we seek. We want all men, women and children to enjoy all their human rights. We want all countries to know the pleasure of peace,” the Secretary-General said in his message for the Day.

Well, it seems that there is at least one country—the UAE that is taking it seriously.

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Comedian Eddie Izzard has completed his challenge in South Africa to run 27 marathons in 27 days for Sport Relief.

A still from Afia Nathaniel’s Daughter.

By Laila Khondkar
Mar 20 2016 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

You give dowry and I receive it, why are you bringing government into this?”said a woman in a village in Rangpur district during a discussion on women’s status. I had the opportunity to facilitate the session, and have thought of this many times since hearing several years ago. The comment reminds me that it is extremely challenging to get rid of a harmful practice if it is socially accepted, even when it is prohibited legally. Law is important, but not enough to bring social change.

Recently there have been several discussions about child marriage, since there were reports that the government might lower the minimum age of marriage for girls. Like many others, I strongly believe that the minimum age of marriage for girls must remain 18 years, and any move to change this is a serious violation of child rights. But today’s article is not about this. I would like to reflect on why the rate of child marriage (64 percent) is so high in Bangladesh, even when we have the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929.

Child marriage is one the most significant reasons for girls dropping out of school, and marks the end of childhood for them. This increases the risk of domestic violence to the girl children. Due to physical and mental immaturity, married adolescents are sometimes unable to perform responsibilities according to the expectations of their in-laws. This makes them vulnerable to abuse. In extreme cases, there is divorce or separation. Married adolescents are also not able to participate in the decision making process of their family, and thus the patriarchal norms continue. Child marriage leads to early pregnancy, and adolescent girls are not properly prepared for parenthood. Adolescent mothers are more likely to suffer from birth related complications than adult women. Malnutrition is also very common for them.

All of us are aware that poverty, social insecurity of adolescent girls, lack of education and vocational skills development opportunities for girls, natural disasters, social acceptance and weak enforcement of law are some of the reasons contributing to child marriage. I want to emphasise on something that is usually missing in child marriage discourse. Gender inequality is one of the root causes of child marriage. The society places disproportionate emphasis on women’s reproductive and caring roles, and they are often not viewed as individuals with the right to realise their full human potential. Thus, marriage becomes the most important and central event for a girl or woman (across all socio-economic groups), and parents consider it to be their major responsibility to ensure that their daughters are married off. So when they find a ‘suitable’ groom, they arrange marriage for their daughters, even when they are under-aged and/or have not completed their education. When a boy drops out of school, even poor parents take initiatives (for example, enrolling him in vocational training or giving him money to run a small business) so that he can be economically productive. But when a girl drops out of school, most parents will arrange their marriage. Parents believe that they need to ensure that their son gains the capacity to generate income, but they do not hold the same belief for their daughters. This does not only happen in poor families. Many parents from well-off backgrounds do not understand the importance of continuing education of girls or their full participation in the workforce. That is why they do not hesitate to arrange the marriage of their daughters in the middle of their university education.

In her novel Motichur published in 1904, Begum Rokeya wrote:

“We shall do whatever is needed to be equal to men. If we have to earn independently in order to gain independence then we should do that…Why shouldn’t we earn? Don’t we have hands, legs, and intellect? Can’t we engage in business with the amount of energy that we spend in household work in the husband’s place? […] Why do we cry if our girls are not married off? Educate your daughters properly and let them enter the workplace; they can earn their own livelihood.”

We have not been able to live up to the vision of the revolutionary Begum Rokeya in creating an environment where women’s economic emancipation is valued and celebrated. More than a century ago, Begum Rokeya wrote that women are suitable for any profession, including being a judge, magistrate, barrister and even viceroy. Wouldn’t she be upset to learn that even now parents ‘cry’ when they are unable to marry off their daughters? Marriage is critical for maintaining one’s family and social life, but that is relevant for both men and women. Why should only women’s lives revolve around marriage? Why do they have to ‘sacrifice’ their academic and professional ambitions to maintain a family life? Don’t most of them face gender stereotypes in choosing a career? We shall not be able to address child marriage until we truly confront these issues.

Child marriage is one form of sexual violence and is a major challenge of our time. So what should be done to prevent this? Integrated programmes, instead of disjointed projects, addressing the structural causes should be implemented to address child marriage in a holistic way. The enforcement of legal processes, proper birth and marriage registration, strengthening social safety net programmes to increase parents’ income, improving girls’ safety in communities, including through national and community-based child protection systems are needed to address child marriage. Men and boys should be involved as key agents to prevent child marriage. But most importantly, parents should be educated on the rights of girls to education, health and protection. Their capacity should also be developed in treating boys and girls equally. There must be attitudinal changes in the ways parents and the community, in general, view girls and women. A social movement is required to achieve true gender equality. There must be full economic, political and social empowerment of women; we must learn to celebrate their achievements beyond their roles as wives and mothers.

Let us have the same aspirations for our boys and girls. Let us raise our girls in a way that they become confident about themselves, and can realise their dreams to the fullest.

The writer is Director of Child Protection, Save the Children.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

By Bina Shah
Mar 20 2016 (Dawn, Pakistan)

For as long as I can remember, people have been talking about the possibility of revolution in Pakistan. They were originally inspired, or perhaps frightened, by the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when ordinary Iranians rose up under the leadership of the clergy and overthrew Western-backed Reza Shah Pahlavi.

As an intellectual exercise, Pakistanis have always wondered whether a similar revolution could take place in Pakistan, and if so, what would that revolution look like? Some envision it as a religious revolution where the Pakistani religious right wing encourages its militants to come out on the streets and seize power and enact Sharia throughout the country. Others imagine a revolution along the lines of the French revolution, where the have-nots slaughter the haves in a bloody uprising, and take control of their land and property.

Most people dismiss the idea of these kinds of revolutions, however, in light of the cloud of apathy in which Pakistanis live. The status quo, they think, is here to stay. Well, the revolution is already here, but it doesn`t quite look like what people imagined it to be.

Nor is it being enacted by the people they expected it to encompass. Pakistan`s revolution is a women`s revolution, and although we`re in its early stages, it`s already looking powerful enough to change a nation.

Although women have always participated in political revolutions around the world, the women`s liberation movement in the 1970s was the first time that women, mostly in the developed world, joined together to agitate for their rights. While many offshoots of feminism, including radical feminism and socialist feminism, developed from this movement, women in countries like Pakistan did not feel its benefits directly in their lives.

Pakistani women had their own problems to deal with when Bhutto started to Islamise Pakistan. Then Gen Zia picked up the baton after deposing Bhutto, hurtling the country towards even greater heights of gender discrimination. And he wielded that baton unmercifully on Pakistani women`s bodies.

Pakistani women have never truly held full authority over their own bodies; their bodies belonged to their families, to their male protectors, fathers, husbands, brothers and sons, who decided how and when to dispose of them through marriage or other means.

Now the state was codifying the control of women`s bodies, prescribing jailing, lashing and even execution for adultery and for the crime of being raped. Encasing them in chadar and chardiwari, repressing their very existence until the practice of pre-Islamic Arabs burying their baby girls at birth started to look less painful compared to how Pakistani women were being symbolicallyburied throughout their lives. And while Zia is long gone, regressive societal attitudes towards women live on.

Reading Ta-nehisi Coates`s excellent book on race in America, Between the World and Me where Coates writes of the state`s ability to enact destruction on black bodies with no repercussions for perpetrators of those attacks, it struck me that the same thing happens to the bodies of women in this country.

Here in Pakistan, families enact the violence, but the state is complicit through its inaction. Without legal and social reform, Pakistan`s girls and women will continue to be shot in the head for trying to exercise their own autonomy. Men will continue to enslave women while pretending to be their protectors and caretakers. Half the country`s population will continue to function as second-rate citizens, and justice and peace will forever remain elusive in Pakistan.

The furore of the religious right against the Women`s Protection Act in Punjab, and the anger and hysteria about something that is morally unarguable a woman`s right tonot be abused, thrown out of her house, even killed proves that a rotten nerve has been exposed to the light. We cannot accept this situation as the status quo anymore. Yet as proven in the American Civil War, men do not give up their slaves easily.

Revolution begins when a human beingsays `Enough.` Pakistan`s women have finally said `enough`. Enough of the domestic violence, the sexual harassment and abuse, the beatings, the acid attacks, the `honour` killings. Enough of keeping girls illiterate, of stopping women from collecting their inheritance, from owning property.

Enough blood their own has been spilled.

Pakistan`s women are raising not just their voices, but their bodies. They are insisting on the right to be educated, to work, to live in safety and security. Women parliamentarians are taking up their cause in the legislature, enacting laws to protect them. Nobody can reverse this social awakening.

It may seem like the path to chaos and societal destruction, but when the smoke clears, it will change Pakistan for the better. This revolution may even rescue us from the morass of degeneracy that has gripped us for so long we no longer know what a normal environment for women looks like.

The writer is an author. Twitter: @binashah

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

Martin Jol guides Al Ahly into the last-16 of the African Champions League as fellow Egyptians Zamalek also win.

March 19, 2016 (JUBA) - Abiem Community leadership in the defunct Northern Bahr el Ghazal state of the newly created Aweil East state has announced removal and replacement of the chairperson of the community, Sultan Abdel Bagi Ayii Akol from his position.

Aweil politicians at community meeting in Juba on 1 Nov. 2012 (ST)

The community leadership, according to the statement which Sudan Tribune has received, cited long time absence from the area as the reason for removal.

Phillip Gong Awier was named as the immediate replacement. Awier was the immediate deputy of the leadership elected in 2015 under Sultan Abdel Bagi Ayii Akol, a former presidential advisor on peace, border and traditional affairs.

The dismissed Akol is a prominent and controversial community figure. He was one of the militia commanders who fought alongside the Sudanese armed forces against the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) during the second civil war between the north and south which took more than two decades and ended with the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) in January 2005.

Akol later became part of the other armed forces under the overall command of late General Paulino Matip Nhial, who signed a 2006 Juba declaration. The deal allowed the forces under Nhial, including forces associated with Akol, to be integrated into the SPLA.

In 2010, Akol displayed dissatisfaction with the performance of president Salva Kiir after accusing him of failing to listen to him and acted on his advice on matters related to the affairs of the country.

Akol then left Juba for Khartoum where he joined ranks and file with several armed dissident groups, including General Peter Gatdet Yakah and late General George Athor Deng, who had taken up arms against the government.

The group accused Kiir of allegedly having rigged elections, displayed dictatorial tendencies and failed to effectively control with efficiency to manage the affairs of the country thereby leading to rampant corruption and insecurity.

Akol was later convinced by his community elders and returned to Juba where he met with President Kiir but was not given any assignment.

In 2015, he was selected as the community leader of his Abiem East community, replacing late General Alfred Deng Aluk. He thereafter travelled to Khartoum for medical treatment. In Khartoum, however, one of his closest sons to him, Hussein, again started releasing statements indicative of dissatisfaction with the system under President Kiir.

The statements have therefore received mixed reactions and some people started interpreting them to mean another rebellion in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, though there has not been formal declaration.

While this was not cited as the reasons for change of community leadership, observers say this may have been one of the reasons which prompted Akol's dismissal from the leadership in order to dissociate other members from his activities and pre-empt any suspicious links to him.

(ST)

Leicester go eight points clear at the top of the Premier League after a goal from Algeria's Riyad Mahrez sees off Crystal Palace.

An elderly woman receives cooking oil at an emergency food aid distribution in the village of Estayish in Ethiopia's northern Amhara region, February 11, 201 (Photo Reuters/ Katy Migiro)

March 18, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA) – The Ethiopian government on Friday has appealed for more food assistance as the Horn of Africa's nation faces the worst drought in decades.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said his country is seeking of more international support because of the hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighbouring countries it hosts.

According to aid agencies, the conflict in neighbouring South Sudan, which causes huge influx, is also among factors causing a worsening food insecurity situation.

Ethiopia has witnessed a huge influx of South Sudanese refugees since the outbreak of violence in South Sudan in mid-December 2013.

Currently over 280,000 South Sudanese refugees mainly women and children are being sheltered at camps in Ethiopia alongside local communities.

Recently, Ethiopia's refugee agency has launched an urgent appeal for food aid to assist hundreds of thousands of refugee's particularly South Sudanese refugees.

The call for emergency assistance came as Ethiopia struggles to feed millions of its citizens affected after a drought induced by an El Nino weather phenomenon.

Ethiopia currently hosts over 730,000 refugees mainly from South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan.

Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA), a local implementing partner of UNHCR says the refugees mainly those from South Sudan, are in a critical state as the national refugee agency has run short of supplies of food for the refugees.

UNHCR officials told Sudan Tribune that although the refugee agency appealed for 280 million US dollars, donors however have funded only 8% of it.

According to Aid agencies, more than 10 million Ethiopians need urgent food aid and more than 1.4 billion US dollars is needed to deal with the crisis.

Meanwhile, the Ethiopian government said Friday that the drought has no effect on the construction of Ethiopia's massive dam Project; the Grand Renaissance Dam Ethiopia is building in the Nile River.

The Office of National Council for the Coordination of Public Participation on the Construction of said “the drought has no adverse effect on the construction of the dam”.

Media and Communication Directorate Director with the Office, Hailu Abrham, told a local media that Ethiopia is intensively engaged in the completion of the GRED despite El-Nino's effect on the country.

Hailu added that Ethiopians are contributing a lot for the construction of the dam by defying the El-Nino effect.

Currently, the construction of the 4.2 billion dollar massive dam project is at half-way mark.

Slated for completion in 2017, what would be Africa's largest dam will have power generation capacity of 6,000 MWs.

(ST)

March 18, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday appointed a south African diplomat as special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan.

Nicholas Haysom, head of UN mission in Afghanistan speaks to journalists following a Security Council meeting on December 2016 (UN Photo)

Nicholas Haysom will succeed Haile Menkerios, ''to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his dedication and commitment,'' said a statement released by the office of the UN chief's spokesperson.

Haysom who has focused on democratic governance, constitutional and electoral reforms, reconciliation and peace processes, served as the principal adviser to the Mediator in the Sudanese Peace Process from 2002 to 2005.

Until recently, he was UN special envoy for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) since 2014 and Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General of UNAMA since 2012.

From (2007 to 2012) he served as Director for Political, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs in the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General. Also he was the Head of the Office of Constitutional Support for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) (2005 to 2007).

During his work in the South African government Haysom was involved in the Burundi Peace Talks as chair of the committee negotiating constitutional issues, from 1999 to 2002 under the facilitation of the late former President Nelson Mandela

(ST)

By Mahir Ali
Mar 19 2016 (Dawn, Pakistan)

It is wise of Angela Merkel not to have panicked in the wake of setbacks for her Christian Democrats (CDU) in Sunday`s three regional elections. The German chancellor acknowledged the blow, but discounted the likelihood of abrupt changes to her government`s policy on refugees.

That very policy has accounted for a surge in support for the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a recently formed party with links to the far-right Pegida movement. But that is only part of the picture.

Whereas the AfD`s seats in regional assemblies are based to a large extent on the backing of Germans who previously did not bother to vote, a fairly substantial number of CDU appear to have drif ted to the Green party and the Social-Democrats, notably in situations where CDU candidates sought to distance themselves from Merkel`s generosity.

In Baden-Württemburg, for instance, 30pc of the voters who switched from the CDU to the Greens said their decision was based on the refugee issue. The state`s Green premier has been quoted as saying that he was `praying ever day` for Merkel`s well-being.

Germany`s divisions on this issue were inevitably exacerbated after the appalling sexual assaults and coercive thef ts in Cologne on New Year`s Eve, even though only a tiny proportion of the assailants turned out to be components of the latest wave of refugees that brought more than a million people to Germany last year.

Merkel`s open-borders policy has been held responsible for precipitating a Europewide crisis, with those who are able to make their way from Turkey to Greece and beyond opting for relatively welcoming countries such as Germany. The alternative, though, was to deny entry to Europe to the clearly desperate victims of the strife in Syria in particular.

In some ways, that scenario has lately come to pass, with Macedonia seeking to seal its border with Greece and all too many of its neighbours pursuing similar policies in blatant disregard of the international rules put in place in the wake of the Second World War. Back then, it was Jewish refugees from Germany and Nazi-occupied territories who suffered the consequences of reactionary bigotry.

Not many European countries other than Germany have flung open their doors to the wretched of the earth, with some letting in refugees from Syria and Iraq but refusing access to others from various African countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh. That may seem fair enough in some respects, given Europe cannot be expected to accommodate the all too many economic refugees that international capitalism has spawned.

Levels of desperation are hard to judge, though.Greece`s fear, meanwhile, of turning into what its prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has poetically characterised as a `warehouse of souls` is perfectly legitimate. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Turkey keep on turning up In Greece, with no intention of remaining there, but find their pathway to elsewhere in Europe blocked.

The European Union, meanwhile, has reached an agreement with Turkey whereby all refugees who make it to Greek shores will be returned to Turkish soil, but Europe will accommodate one Turkey-based Syrian for each one sent back. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, and various other human rights organisations have pointed out that such a policy would violate international law.

Whether the agreement will bear fruit remains to be seen. Europe`s handling of the unprecedented crisis thus far has provided plenty of cause for consternation. And former members of the Soviet bloc have been by far the least inclined to adopt a humanitarian approach.The Russian president, meanwhile, has been accused of actively striving to whip up tensions in Europe by funding the anti-immigrant backlash. It`s hard to tell, though, whether that is indeed the case, given thatthe charge has been made by a Latvian official associated with Nato who has an axe to grind vis-à-vis Russia.

That doesn`t necessarily mean he is lying,although Vladimir Putin`s announcement on Monday that most Russian forces will be pulled out of Syria militates against the notion that his intervention was intended primarily to exacerbate Europe`s refugee woes.

Not much hope was held out for the talks on Syria`s future taking place in Europe this week, but it would be folly to completely write off the prospect of some sort of agreement. After all, the ceasefire put in place three weeks or so ago has largely held, contrary to expectations.

It would be unduly optimistic, though, to read into that an indication that the awful conflict in Syria is approaching its conclusion. It would be amazing if that were indeed the case. In the interim, though, the `warehouse of souls` remains in place, and it could very well return to haunt Europe for decades hence unless Merkel`s plea for a Europe-wide humanitarian solution finds at least a few more takers.

m mahir.dawn@gmail.com

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

March 18, 2016 (MOROBO) - A multi-purpose agricultural farmers' vocational training centre has been launched in South Sudan's Morobo county of Yei River state on Friday, with government officials and farmers commending the project as a tool to improving productivity in the area.

(ST Photo)

The facility is aimed at improving crop production, education, sanitation, health and environmental management skills. The project is funded by an Italian international group for technical cooperation with developing countries (ACAV).

The organization's South Sudan program manager, Pierluigi Florretta, said the project will support more than 200 farmer cooperative groups in Morobo and Yei River Counties, adding the centre will also help in building the capacity of youth to towards fighting dependency syndrome.

“What you have in front here is a working progress in order to establish a vocational school, the vocational school which has been a need is going to be a centre for training youth and giving them opportunity to come out [of] poverty and start a job,” Florretta said.

However Taban Samuel, a farmers' representative, called on the organization to introduce poultry, fishery and bee keeping to the farmers in the area.

“We are hoping that poultry keeping be introduced for us to reduce importation of chicken from somewhere. If there could be fishing, then we could produce and people consume from here. Thirdly if bee keeping is brought nearer then it will take root very well,” Samuel suggested.

Meanwhile, Yei River state agriculture minister, Huda Michael Laila, appreciated the Italian government in supporting human resource development in the state and South Sudan at large. She said no need for South Sudanese to go to Uganda in search of vocational studies.

“We are going to stand with this facility and our partners together so that this vocational centre train our youth, women and men so that that at the end of the day we shall not send our children to Uganda because we now have a vocational centre,” she explained.

On his part, Morobo county commissioner, Toti Jacob, added that the facility will assist the Government and the community to train drop out students in the area, revealing the county has planned to expand areas of crop production to more than 30 hectors of land this year.

“In my work plan for this year, I have planned to cultivate 30 square of land so that we can push out what we call hunger in the region. I believe with the presence of this facility in my area, it will help to improve farmer's skills as well as instilling new skills to the drop out students in the area,” said commissioner Jacob.

The Italian regional minister for research and university, youth policy and development cooperation, Sara Ferrari, on the other hand has asked the government of South Sudan to prioritize human resource and agricultural development as key sectors for economic growth.

“South Sudan is rich and blessed with natural resources and human resources, it's time for the government and the people to sit down and think ways forward towards developing [the] country. We as donors are ready to support developing countries in all areas of development,” she said.

(ST)

March 18, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA/KHARTOUM) - Sudanese government, armed groups in Sudan's Two Areas and Darfur Friday kicked off a Strategic Consultations Meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Mbeki speaks to participants at the inaugral session of Strategic Consultations Meeting in Addis Ababa on 18 March 2016 (AUHIP Photo)

The African Union High Level-Implementation Panel (AUHIP), which brokers Sudan peace process, seeks to bring the parties to end the fighting and strike a deal on the humanitarian access to civilians in the rebel held areas. The two confidence building measures will prepare the ground for comprehensive process on peace and constitutional reforms the mediators seek to facilitate.

AUHIP chief Thabo Mbeki who just concluded a visit to Khartoum urged the participants before to start talks in separate tracks, to innovate their approach and develop ideas on how to overcome differences that led to the failure of previous meetings.

Mbeki said the purpose of these consultations which include the opposition National Umma Party (NUP) is to reach a common ground for a comprehensive political process on democratic reforms in Sudan. He also spoke about his meeting with some opposition groups that he met for the first time during his visit to Khartoum.

The chief mediator also held a meeting with the European Union, U.S, Germany and Norway envoys to brief them on his plans and the meetings he held in Khartoum with the Sudanese government and opposition groups.

The parties will hold separate discussions on Darfur region involving a government delegation led by Amin Hassan Omer and rebel delegations from the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement of Minni Minnawi (SLM-MM). Gibril Ibrahim and Minnawi lead their respective delegations.

For the track on the conflict in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, the government team is led by Presidential Adviser Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid while SPLM-N delegation is led by it Secretary General Yasir Arman.

In the previous rounds of negotiations, the mediation sought to bring the parties to sign a cessation of hostilities agreement which was seen as a step before the signing of a Declaration of Principles, defining the agenda of the peace talks.

However, the chief mediator in his remarks to the participants stressed that the agenda of this meeting will focus on the strategic issues without the details that the parties tackled during the previous meeting. They will also discuss ways to connect the cessation of hostilities and the humanitarian access with the issues of the national dialogue in Sudan, he underlined.

In statements to the official news agency SUNA, the head of the government delegation for peace talks with the SPLM-N stressed that the most important is to stop war, adding it will lead to the solution of all other issues including the humanitarian access.

The Sudanese presidential assistant was alluding to the recent call by the SPLM-N chief negotiator to separate the discussions on the humanitarian aid from the political process.

During an informal meeting held in Ethiopia last February about Darfur conflict, the government and rebel delegations said the discussions were "fruitful".

JEM and SLM-MM demand to open the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur for talks particularly on issues related to the compensations, land ownership, justice and security arrangements.

(ST)

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 19 2016 (IPS)

When the only female candidate failed in her attempt to become UN Secretary-General back in late 2006, an Asian diplomat weighed in with an upgraded Biblical quote: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle”, he said, “than for a woman to become the Secretary-General of the United Nations.”

But as an unrelated New Yorker cartoon jokingly pronounced: “We (may still) need either bigger needles or smaller camels.”

That female candidate, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, never made it to the 38th floor of the UN Secretariat, the office of the UN chief.

The other six candidates in that race were all men: UN Under-Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor of India; former Foreign Minister Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan; Jordanian Ambassador Prince Zeid Raad al-Hussein; Thai Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai; and UN Under-Secretary-General Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka.

The sixth male candidate, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, was eventually elected Secretary-General (SG), and took office in January 2007.

For most of the 70 years of its existence, the UN has remained mostly male dominated as part of an embedded political culture.

But that environment appears to change – although appearances are known to be deceptive, and politically so, in the world body.

However, if the current campaign for a woman Secretary-General picks up steam, there is still a chance the UN will get its historic first later this year—in a world where nearly half of the 7 billion people are women.

For the first time in the history of the UN, the President of the 193-member General Assembly (GA) Mogens Lykketoft of Denmark says he is committed to an “open and transparent process” for the selection and appointment of the next Secretary-General.

All member States have been invited to present candidates to the President of the General Assembly, as well as to the President of the Security Council. As of last week, there were seven officially declared candidates, four men and three women.

The list includes: Dr. Srgjan Kerim of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; Ms Vesna Pusić of the Republic of Croatia; Dr. Igor Lukšić of Montenegro; Dr. Danilo Türk of Slovenia; Ms. Irina Bokova of Bulgaria; Ms. Natalia Gherman of Republic of Moldova and Antonio Guterres of Portugal.

Jessica Neuwirth, one of the founders and Honorary President of Equality Now, told lPS: “I think the time for a woman SG has finally come – SG Ban ki-moon has said he would like for a woman to succeed him, there are member states formally endorsing the idea that it is time for a woman SG, and while there have always been qualified women for the post, there are now a number of these women who are actually campaigning for it”.

“As for the regional rotation, I think more than any region’s turn, it is women’s turn to be represented and so there could and should be some flexibility to be sure that a woman can be chosen for the post,” said Neuwirth who is the founder/director of Donor Direct Action, an offshoot of Equality Now, founded to raise funds for frontline women’s groups.

She pointed out that Equality Now launched its first call for a woman SG soon after the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995 at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women.

She said the Platform for Action called for the development of “mechanisms to nominate women candidates for appointment to senior posts in the United Nations” and set the target of “overall gender equality, particularly at the Professional level and above, by the year 2000.”

“We are still waiting for implementation of this commitment, 16 years after the target date of 2000. Maybe if we start from the top we can actually get there,” she declared.

Charlotte Bunch, Founding Director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University, told IPS: “We are closer than ever before to the possibility of a woman being selected as the next SG.”

She said the more transparent process adopted by the GA this year and the growing recognition of the need for diversity in leadership, including gender as well as geography, all bode well for this to happen.

“There are a number of well qualified women from various regions whose names have been either formally nominated and/or publicly discussed, and we hope all will be given serious consideration.”

But it is critically important which woman is chosen, as a poor choice sets women up for failure. “Her gender should be a strong plus, but not her primary qualification,” said Bunch.

Her vision of the future of the United Nations in these troubled times and her ability to communicate and carry that out organizationally as well as her demonstrated commitment to the UN principles – of human rights, peace, development and gender equality – are also crucial, said Bunch who took a leading role in the campaign for the creation of UN Women.

As part of the transparency process, the President of the General Assembly will begin a series of informal dialogues with the candidates April 12 through April 14.

This meeting will provide candidates a platform to present their candidature and an opportunity for the 193 member states to ask questions and grill the candidates. The candidates will be offered a two-hour meeting for individual presentations.

Meanwhile, there is a global campaign by a collective group of NGOs called “1 for 7 Billion” demanding an open election process “which until now has been shrouded in secrecy.”

The group criticizes the “woefully inadequate way in which the Secretary-General has been elected to date by a handful of powerful countries (read: the five permanent members of the Security Council) behind closed doors.”
Last year The Colombian Ambassador Maria Emma Mejia circulated a letter seeking support for a female Secretary-General. Over 44 governments initially signed on to the initiative.

But not the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council – the US, UK, France, China and Russia – who have always had the final say on the selection of the Secretary-General.

Russia has already made a statement that the job should go to the most competent person – irrespective of gender.

But it is rooting for an Eastern European on the basis of geographical rotation because the last eight UN chiefs have come from Western Europe (3), Asia (2), Africa (2) and Latin America (1).

A senior US woman journalist, who was at one-time based at the United Nations, told IPS: “My instinct is that the choice of a woman could be very narrow, since there are no obvious candidates — and I see that the US has been critical lately of the management of UNDP.”

“I don’t think Washington is focused very much on this with the pandemonium going on in the primary races. And the Russian nomination of a woman from Moldova looks more like mischief than anything else.”

Incidentally, she said, German Chancellor Angela Kane would like to be on that list but hasn’t got any backing from Germany.

The current Secretary-General’s all-male predecessors were: Kofi Annan (Ghana), Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt), Javier Pèrez de Cuèllar (Peru), Kurt Waldheim (Austria), U.Thant (Burma, now Myanmar), Dag Hammarskjöld (Sweden) and Trygve Lie (Norway).

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Añelo, a Patagonian town in southwest Argentina that experienced explosive growth because it is next to the country’s biggest shale oil and gas field, is now starting to feel the impact on the development of these resources due to the plunge in international oil prices. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Fabiana Frayssinet
AÑELO, Argentina, Mar 19 2016 (IPS)

The dizzying growth of Añelo, a town in southwest Argentina, driven by the production of shale oil and gas in the Vaca Muerta geological reserve, has slowed down due to the plunge in global oil prices, which has put a curb on local development and is threatening investment and employment.

Vaca Muerta, a 30,000-sq-km geological reserve rich in unconventional fossil fuels in the province of Neuquén, began to be exploited in mid-2013 by the state-run oil company Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales (YPF) in a joint venture with U.S. oil giant Chevron.

“We had an interesting growth boom thanks to the strategic development plan that we were promoting, to get all of the oil services companies to set up shop in Añelo. That really boosted our growth, and helped our town to develop,” Añelo Mayor Darío Díaz told IPS.

The population of this town located 100 km from the provincial capital, Neuquén, in Argentina’s southern Patagonian region, rose twofold from 3,000 to 6,000.

And that is not counting the large number of machinists, technicians, engineers and executives of the oil companies who rotate in and out of the area, along with the truckers who haul supplies to the Loma Campana oilfield eight km from Añelo.

“There were around 10 services companies operating in Añelo; now we have about 50, and some 160 agreements signed for other companies to come here,” the mayor said.

The shale gas and oil in Vaca Muerta has made this country the second in the world after the United States in production of unconventional fossil fuels.

Loma Campana, where there are 300 active wells producing unconventional gas and oil after a total investment of three billion dollars, currently produces 50 billion barrels per day of oil, according to YPF figures.

The shale oil and gas industry has fuelled heavy public investment in Añelo and nearby towns. The population of this town is expected to reach 25,000 in the next 15 years.

“We’re building two schools and a hospital,” Díaz told IPS. “The primary and secondary schools have been expanded. We are making town squares and a new energy substation. We built a water treatment plant and have improved the sewage service. In terms of public works we have really done a great deal, keeping our eyes on our goal: growth.”

But the expansion of the town has also brought problems.

The mayor pointed out, for example, that rent for a two-bedroom housing unit has climbed from 33 dollars to 100 dollars a month, and that a plot of land that previously was worth 1,700 dollars cannot be purchased now for less than 130,000 dollars.

“Those are abrupt changes brought by the oil industry,” Díaz said. “What us old-time residents of Añelo have suffered the most is the social impact of all of this movement, of so much vehicle traffic, so many people, which brings insecurity and other things that are typical of development in general.”

New complications

People in Añelo are now worried that despite the costs they are paying for the development boom, the promised progress will not arrive.

On Mar. 4, the outgoing president of YPF, Miguel Galuccio, announced in a conference with international investors that the cutbacks in the industry in 2016 would be reflected in slower progress in Vaca Muerta.

Workers in Loma Campana, a field with 300 shale oil wells in Vaca Muerta. The decision to slow down the development of unconventional fossil fuels in Argentina has led to lay-offs in the area. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

In 2015, the company’s revenues shrank 49 percent, while investment grew less than four percent, below previous levels.

The costs of producing shale gas and oil, which requires an expensive technique known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”, are not competitive in a context where international oil prices are hovering between 30 and 40 dollars a barrel.

In Argentina, the cost of extraction in conventional wells stands at 25 to 30 dollars a barrel, and in unconventional wells at around 70 dollars a barrel, oil industry experts report.

But the internal price of a barrel in Vaca Muerta is regulated at 67.5 dollars and in the rest of the country’s oilfields at 54.9 percent – an artificial price established to shore up the oil industry’s expansion plans, especially in this part of the country, although at a slower pace now.

YPF announced that in Vaca Muerta, it would cut oil production costs by 15 percent, which has led to lay-offs.

“The situation is very complicated,” said Díaz, who estimated that there will be 1,000 more unemployed people in the province, added to those who have already lost their jobs. “A reduction in activity,” has already been seen, he said, and “people are working fewer hours” and wages have fallen, which has a social impact, he added.

Oil worker unions in Vaca Muerta say 1,000 people have been laid off so far in the industry, as well as 1,000 in other areas.

Eduardo Toledo, an agricultural technician who decided to move from Buenos Aires to Añelo and invest his savings in a restaurant, is worried about the slowdown in oil industry activity in Vaca Muerta.

“When we started, we had just one stove with three burners and an oven,” said Toledo, whose customers are truck drivers, factory workers and other oil industry employees who have been drawn to this area by the relatively high wages paid by the industry.

Like Toledo, many people invested in hotels, rental housing, shops and small-scale service businesses. “Everyone wanted to come to what was going to be the shale gas and oil capital,” he said.

But now his restaurant is working at a “mid to low level of activity.”

“If people know they’re going to lose their jobs, they don’t want to spend money,” he said.

Toledo is still confident that interest in shale gas and oil will keep things moving, despite the plummeting prices.

In Vaca Muerta, 77 percent of the proven shale reserves are gas.

Besides, “there are major gas resources that have not yet become reserves,” Ignacio Sabbatella, who holds a PhD in social sciences from the University of Buenos Aires and is the co-author of the book “History of a privatization; How and why the YPF was lost”, told IPS. (YPF was renationalised in 2012.)

But experts and local residents are taking a long-term view.

Sabbatella stressed that it is important to keep in mind that beyond the current international oil price swings, the investments in Vaca Muerta “will yield fruit in the long term” – in five to 10 years.

He pointed out that shale oil and gas production only got underway in the area in 2011, “and especially after the recovery of state control of YPF, in a joint venture with transnational corporations like Chevron.”

YPF, Argentina’s biggest company, was in private hands from 1992 to 2012, when the government of Cristina Fernández (2007-2015) decided to renationalise it.

Sabbatella said the announced cutbacks in YPF have coincided with an overall “shift in policy” since the arrival to the presidency on Dec. 10 of the centre-right Mauricio Macri, who ended a period of centre-left governments under Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and later his wife and successor, Fernández.

“The previous government did everything possible to sustain the levels of investment, exploration and production, even in an unfavourable international context, and what we are seeing is that this government is only halfway maintaining that policy and is even pushing YPF to cut its investments,” said Sabbatella.

“The current administration believes that the best thing is to adjust domestic oil industry policy to external conditions. In a context of low prices, they believe the best idea is to not sustain domestic investment, and they have even shown some illustrations of this, by importing cheaper crude and fuel from abroad, for example,” he said.

But Toledo prefers to be optimistic, because otherwise, he said, “I have to close my restaurant.”

“I can’t afford to go somewhere else and I’m not interested anyway because it’s hard to set down roots again in a place like this.”

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

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