.

End to Child Labour Could Save Mozambique From Products Ban

Mozambican Labour Minister Margarida Talapa has warned that the use of child labour could lead to the banning of Mozambican products on the international market. Speaking at the opening of a national conference on the elimination of child labour, Talapa said "While child labour is often regarded as a social problem with mostly economic causes, it is important to note that, in an increasingly competitive market, the use of child labour could lead to the banning of our products, since they will be considered as unfair and damaging competition". 

Meanwhile, United Nations officials have received increasing reports of the use of children in armed groups and other violations - including abduction and sexual violence by militant Islamist groups in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado region. In a part of the territory of northern Mozambique controlled by the militants, officials from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that thousands of children are at risk.

Child labour is prevalent in many African countries in Africa where it has negatively affected well-being of children.

Atlas Green /Unsplash

(File photo)

Nigeria: SDG2030 - Nigeria Must Eliminate Female Genital Mutilation to Achieve Other Goals - Official

rufai ajala/Flickr
A banner denouncing female genital mutilation (FGM).

28 APRIL 2022
Premium Times (Abuja)

By Nike Adebowale

Over 200 million girls and women have been subjected to the harmful practice of FGM in 30 countries including Nigeria.

Nigeria's minister of women affairs, Pauline Tallen, has said for Nigeria to achieve a majority of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, it must address issues of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the country.

The minister said this while speaking at the launch of the "movement for good to end FGM" in Abuja on Thursday.

Ms Tallen said the 2030 targets on health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, decent work, and economic growth cannot be achieved except FGM is eliminated in the country.

She noted that the continuous practice of FGM denies girls and women the right to quality education and opportunities for decent work and their sexual and reproductive health is threatened.

She said the procedure of FGM has no health benefit for girls and women but rather causes more problems for them.

"The resulting outcome of FGM are adverse haemorrhage, infection, acute urinary retention following such trauma, damage to the urethra or anus," she said.

She added that during the procedure, the victim would struggle through an experience which leads to chronic pelvic infection, dysmenorrhea, retention cysts, sexual difficulties, obstetric complications, bleeding, prolonged labour, leading to fistula formation, amongst others.

"The mental and psychological agony attached with FGM is deemed the most serious complication because the problem does not manifest outwardly for help to be offered," she said.

"FGM, a violation of human right"

FGM, according to United Nations (UN), "comprises all procedures that involve altering or injuring the female genitalia for non-medical reasons".

It is recognised internationally as a violation of human rights, the health and the integrity of girls and women, the global organisation says.

The global body says it aims to have the practice eradicated around the world by 2030.

Over 200 million girls and women have been subjected to the harmful practice of FGM in 30 countries including Nigeria.

With an estimated 19.9 million survivors, Nigeria accounts for 10 per cent of the 200 million FGM survivors worldwide.

Speaking at the event, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator, Matthias Schmale, said the prevalence of FGM amongst girls up to 14 years old is still on the rise.

Mr Schmale said 86 per cent of these children were mutilated before the age of five, meaning FGM is the s greatest in the early years of life.

"What this tells us is that the perpetrators of this harmful practice are devising ways to circumvent surveillance and diminish the gains recorded over the years towards the eradication of FGM in Nigeria, by targeting infants who neither knows nor understand the enormity or magnitude of the practice they are being subjected to," he said.

He explained that the practice of FGM which he noted is handed over from generation to generation, and culturally justified, is no longer acceptable.

He noted that this practice violates women's and girls' rights to life, health, and dignity as well as their bodily autonomy.

"The time to end FGM in Nigeria is now and the responsibility to do so lies with us all," he said.

The French Ambassador to Nigeria, Emmanuelle Blatmann, said, at least 200 women worldwide have undergone genital mutilation and more might be affected in the coming years.

Ms Blatmann said FGM contravenes the rights of every woman.

"Indeed to promote the elimination of this scourge, coordinated and systematic efforts involving everyone are needed," she said.

In her remarks, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Leonard, said FGM harms women and girls across the continent and the US is working with its partners around the world to eliminate all forms of gender-based violence including FGM.

Ms Leonard said the US government has been steadfast in its partnership with Nigeria.

The launch

Mr Schmale said the movement launched today will support innovative and safe platforms driven by young people who have pledged their commitment to end the practice of FGM using the hashtag "act to end FGM."

He said the expansion of digital literacy and increased access to social media platforms in the country presents an opportunity to advance positive social norms that promote the health and well-being of children and in particular girls.

Surprise: Ex-general pushing for NATO troops in Ukraine has weapons industry ties

Ret. US Gen. Philip Breedlove wants to escalate the military conflict with Russia but media outlets don’t disclose he works for defense firms.

APRIL 26, 2022
Written by Eli Clifton

Weapons companies and military contractors stand to book new orders and enjoy heightened demand for new weapons systems, as the United States and NATO countries scale up spending in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Coincidentally or not, one of the most high-profile advocates for dramatically escalating NATO’s involvement in the war — literally calling for putting troops and arms inside Ukraine — quietly moonlights as a consultant for weapons firms and defense contractors, interests that presumably stand to benefit from a direct conflict between NATO and Russia.

More importantly, that conflict of interest hasn’t been disclosed in any of his media appearances or interviews.

On Sunday, retired U.S. general and former top NATO commander Gen. Philip Breedlove told The Times of London:

So what could the West do? Well, right now there are no Russian troops west of the Dnieper River. So why don’t we put Nato troops into western Ukraine to carry out humanitarian missions and to set up a forward arms supply base?

The escalation of NATO boots on the ground inside Ukraine would make NATO a direct participant in the war, dramatically increase the likelihood of Russian attacks on NATO personnel and facilities, and raise the risk of a nuclear conflict.

Breedlove, whom The Times notes is “advising the Biden administration on Ukraine,” also works as a consultant for the weapons industry, a fact which The Times did not disclose.

According to Breedlove’s LinkedIn profile, he works as a “Senior Advisor to Culpeper National Security Solutions,” a firm that the Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote about in 2019 in the wake of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Ignatius wrote:


A U.S. plan to train and modernize the Saudi intelligence service is also on hold, pending State Department approval of a license. This project was developed by Culpeper National Security Solutions, a unit of DynCorp, with help from some prominent former CIA officials. No work on the project has been done.

DynCorp was a scandal-plagued military contractor with an expertise in military flight operations support, whose primary client was the U.S. government until its acquisition last year by Amentum, a company that boasts of its “deep relationships with customers in the U.S. Department of Defense and Department of Energy.”

Breedlove is also promoted as an “advisor” at Stellar Solutions, a consultancy that markets itself to clients needing expertise in “coalition operations” and “expert solutions for Department of Defense customers related to space and missile systems of national protection and security.”

In other words, since retiring from the Air Force, Breedlove associated himself with firms that either directly profit from military contracts, like DynCorp, or market themselves as effective consultants for defense contractors seeking to manage their relationships with the U.S. government.

Breedlove may genuinely believe that a direct military confrontation with Russia, and the heightened risk of nuclear war, is necessary, but his downplaying the risks of boots on the ground dovetails nicely with his consulting work for industry interests that stand to benefit from increased U.S. and European defense spending.

Speaking on Thursday at The Wesley Foundation at Georgia Tech, a campus ministry of the United Methodist Church, Breedlove batted away concerns about a direct military conflict between NATO and Russian forces, telling the audience:

“So Mr. Obama took 500 Russians off the battlefield in northern Syria. He faced the same Putin and the same nukes. Robert [sic] F. Kennedy faced nukes in Cuba aimed at our country and he did it. There are a series of presidents in history who have taken on Russia and their nukes and it went OK so my thought is do not take counsel of your fears and take all options off the table. We need to examine all options.”

Those events are quite different from a potential showdown between NATO and Russian forces in Ukraine.

Both U.S. and Russian forces in Syria deliberately avoided direct engagement, and the Cuban Missile Crisis is widely seen as a sobering historical event that brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the precipice of nuclear war, an event that both sides have actively tried to avoid repeating. Indeed, one immediate consequence of the crisis was the installation of a “hotline” between Moscow and Washington precisely to facilitate communication at the highest levels in crisis situations.

But for Breedlove, these events “went OK” and, as a slide behind him read, “The ‘West must respond’ and the United States must lead!”

That course of action might be bad news for avoiding a NATO military engagement with Russia, a country with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. But it’s good news for the weapons and defense contractors who hire consultants like Breedlove.

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Lockheed CEO on excessive gov’t contracts: We just do what they ask

When asked whether the taxpayer funds the weapons giant receives reflects US priorities, James Taiclet left out how much his company spends lobbying.

APRIL 29, 2022
Written by Eli Clifton

Weapons manufacturers aren’t often faced with questions about how the size of their government contracts compares to other government expenditures and what their outsized slice of federal spending might say about national priorities. But Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet was put on the spot to answer those questions by NBC News correspondent Courtney Kube at an event on Friday that had every sign of having a home field advantage for the weapons executive.

After all, the event was hosted by the Atlantic Council, which received between $100,000 and $249,999 from Lockheed in 2019 (the last year the Council revealed its funding sources), and was part of the Council’s Forward Defense Forum, which is also funded by Lockheed.

Before the event, a spokesperson for NBC News told Responsible Statecraft that Kube was receiving no payment for engaging in a one-on-one interview with the top executive of the largest weapons company in the world and “retains full editorial control over her questions.”

The first audience question she chose to ask Taiclet, whose company received 70 percent of its revenue from U.S. government contracts in 2018, came from Responsible Statecraft. Using the Cost of War Project figures, I asked whether Lockheed receiving $75 billion in Pentagon contracts in fiscal year 2020, one and a half times the State Department and Agency for International Development budgets, was a reasonable balance of expenditure and if it was reflective of U.S. national priorities.

Taiclet defended the allocation of federal funds as “up to the U.S. government” and claimed to have no influence over taxpayers paying 70 percent of his $23 million salary.

“It’s only up to us to step to what we’ve been asked to do and we’re just trying to do that in a more effective way, and that’s our role,” said Taiclet.

Taiclet’s claim that he’s only doing “what we’ve been asked to do” doesn’t line up with Lockheed’s own statements or actions.

In 2021, Lockheed spent over $14 million lobbying the federal government. According to OpenSecrets.org, the legislation on which Lockheed lobbied the most heavily was the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022,” the bill that largely determines the amount of taxpayer funding going to Lockheed Martin, their shareholders, and a large portion of Taiclet’s salary.

Taiclet oversees millions of dollars of Lockheed expenditures to influence and lobby the U.S. government on matters that impact the company’s bottom line. Lockheed’s own website describes their Government Affairs group as, “manag[ing] all U.S. government customer relationships and develops policy, regulatory and legislative strategies with Congress for all Lockheed Martin programs, products and services.”

“It is Lockheed Martin policy to present a single, clear, and consistent business message and approach to the Corporation’s United States-based government customer community and a unified approach to policy, regulatory, legislative and marketing strategies to advance the Corporation’s business and financial interests,” says the website.

So in other words, Lockheed Martin isn’t passively standing by, waiting for the government to ask for something, as Taiclet said. The weapons giant is actively seeking taxpayer funded contracts, seemingly without regard to whether or not they are necessary for the security of the United States.

Watch Kube and Taiclet’s exchange here:

 

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Congressman to F-35 contractors:

 ‘what in the hell are you doing?’

Lawmakers find out that the DoD’s premier fighter

can’t pass tests and will cost $1.3 trillion over its 

lifetime to sustain.

APRIL 29, 2022

Written by
Nick Cleveland-Stout

In a tense House Subcommittee on Readiness hearing on Thursday, several lawmakers questioned Department of Defense officials overseeing the F-35 fighter program, which had been the subject of a Government Accountability Office report released Monday detailing major, unresolved defects with the plane.

In his opening statement, Chair of the Subcommittee Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) laid out the issues of sustainment — a term referring to logistical challenges including operating and support costs, aircraft availability, supply chain management, and mission capability — facing the most expensive weapons system in Pentagon history: 

“Over the past few years, it has become abundantly clear that sustainment is the most acute long-term challenge facing the F-35 program. Sustainment will amount to more than 80 percent of the program’s total lifecycle costs, at a mind-boggling $1.3 trillion. Largely because of supply issues and poor reliability and maintainability, average F-35 mission capability rates are barely over 55 percent, with a paltry 30 percent of the aircraft capable of performing all of their assigned missions.” 

Lieutenant General Eric Fick, who oversees the program, was coy with his answers, often claiming there have been funding issues, or deflecting the blame to contractors and maintaining that the F-35 program has “made significant progress.” 

Of particular focus was the Autonomic Logistics Information (ALIS) — the plane’s information infrastructure which, according to the GAO report, has faced “long-standing challenges, including technical complexity, poor usability, and inaccurate or missing data.” In one heated exchange, Rep. Garamendi asked General Fick to give an update on the ALIS program: 

General Fick: “I have a new material leader working ALIS…he’s got a very very solid plan in place.”

Rep. Garamendi: “And if it fails, will he just get another promotion?”

The lack of accountability for defense contractors, including both Lockheed Martin and engine contractor Pratt & Whitney, was also front and center. The GAO report detailed how Pratt & Whitney only delivered six out of 152 engines on time in 2021, many of them with quality issues. A frustrated Garamendi asked: “For the contractors out there, what in the hell are you doing? Why can’t you give us a piece of equipment that actually works?” 

Of course, lawmakers shoulder plenty of blame for the disastrous program. Instead of attempting to address systemic problems, Congress continues to fund the F-35 at levels beyond what the Pentagon has even requested; for instance, in the FY 2020 Defense Appropriations Act, there was $2 billion allocated in earmarks to fund an additional 22 F-35s beyond what the Pentagon itself requested. And, it appears many of them still haven’t learned.

Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), who received a $6,000 campaign contribution in the 2020 cycle from the prime contractor Lockheed Martin, asked General Fick: “If there was one thing this committee could do in this next NDAA to get those FMC (fully mission capable) rates where they need to be, what would that be?” 

Not all members of Congress shared that line of thinking. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) criticized Congress’ full-steam-ahead approach to the program by saying:

“We are incapable of turning off the spigot when something doesn’t work…and we’re asking the American people to pay for F-35s, only 55 percent of which are considered mission capable when the standard is supposed to be 75 percent.” 

Speier also pointed out that perhaps part of the lack of accountability comes from the nature of the contracts doled out. “We created a sustainment contract, much like we did with ALIS, where we’re not in charge and Lockheed Martin has the maintenance contract, so it’s a cash cow for them for the future,” she said.

Despite all of the F-35 program’s design errors — 845 of them according to a recent testing report — the Pentagon is still on track to acquire one-third of the total number of F-35s before the aircraft even finishes operational testing. This will only place a further burden on everyday Americans since problems addressed later on will be even more costly, and likely pose national security risks, since many of the design flaws are related to cyber vulnerabilities.

“The F-35,” Garamendi points out, is a “shared problem. It’s a problem of the contractor, Lockheed Martin, and others, it’s a problem of the Department of Defense not paying attention to sustainment, and it is a problem of this committee, and the Senate wanting to buy new bright shiny things and not paying much attention to the sustainment of what was purchased.”

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OPINION

World Press Freedom Faces a Perfect Storm

By Farhana Haque Rahman 

The UN will be commemorating World Press Freedom Day on May 3. The following article is part of a series of IPS features and opinion pieces focused on media freedom globally.

TORONTO, Canada, Apr 29 2022 (IPS) - Empowered by a global pandemic and the drum beats of war, the strongest despots are growing more despotic, and criminal cartels even more brazen in their violence. Extremists of various hues are also stepping out of the shadows.

Just when the world most needs press freedom to thrive, the liberties that societies only really treasure when they are emasculated are coming under more pressure from different directions, old and new.

Farhana Haque Rahman

The 2021 World Press Freedom Index measured by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) declined last year, and is 12% down since first issued in 2013. RSF reported “a dramatic deterioration in people’s access to information and an increase in obstacles to news coverage”. The coronavirus pandemic was cited as widely used to block journalists’ access to information.

Lest you think that this deterioration is the preserve of less developed countries under autocratic rule, RSF noted an increase in attacks against journalists and arbitrary arrests in Germany, France, Italy and several other European states.

This year –as we approach World Press Freedom Day on May 3 — is measurably worse already, notably in Russia and China, but also in Mexico with an escalation of targeted killings of journalists by suspected drug traffickers.

Some 200 Russian journalists and several dozen foreign reporters have left Russia since the passing of a draconian media law on March 4 which criminalises “deliberately false” information. It outlaws calling the invasion of Ukraine a “war”. In addition Russia is still applying its “foreign agents” legislation to punish and intimidate critical media outlets, including PASMI dedicated exclusively to fighting corruption.

“The Russian authorities’ crackdown on independent media is escalating at breakneck speed. Evidently unsatisfied with merely blocking critical news sites or forcing reporters into exile, the Kremlin now seeks to incarcerate journalists who report on anti-war protests or Russian soldiers who refuse to fight in Ukraine,” Amnesty International said on April 14 commenting on the arrests of two journalists in the Russian republics of Altay and Khakassia.

“Apart from state propaganda, there is no media landscape in Russia,” Journalist Alexey Kovalyov, now based in Riga, told Al Jazeera. The power of that propaganda must not be underestimated. Accounts are widespread of people living in Ukraine telling relatives in Russia that they are being bombed by the Russian army but their own family members refuse to believe them.

The “world’s biggest jailer of press freedom defenders”, reports RSF, is however China, with 115 men and women currently incarcerated. China ranks 177 out of the 180 countries and territories surveyed. “Media freedom in China is declining at breakneck speed,” the Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC) stated in January. China has labelled the FCC an “illegal organisation” and appears in its rhetoric to be encouraging an exodus of foreign journalists.

Free media in Hong Kong, once among the freest in Asia, has been almost completely dismantled, according to Hong Kong Watch, a UK-based advocacy group. Its recent report followed the HK FCC’s announcement it would suspend its Human Rights Press Awards as it risked violating the city’s national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.

Whereas Russia and China are deploying “lawfare” against independent journalists and big companies in developed countries are stifling the press with “vexatious” lawsuits, it is more a legal wasteland or absence of the state that is killing journalists in Mexico, among others.

A wave of murders has targeted at least eight journalists so far this year, with seven killed in all of 2021, making Mexico under populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador one of the most dangerous countries for the press. Journalists, in the words of Adela Navarro Bello, director of the Tijuana weekly Zeta, are “caught in the crossfire between the threats and bullets of narco-traffickers and organised crime and the threats and verbal attacks and attempts to morally annihilate us from the federal and state governments”.

International human rights organisation Article 19 says the Mexican government’s denial of what is happening “results in no urgent measures being taken to stop this brutal spiral of violence”.

A similar pattern is seen in Bangladesh where suspected narco-traffickers killed Bangladeshi journalist Mohiuddin Sarker Nayeem on April 13.

The Committee to Protect Journalists publishes an annual Global Impunity Index and notes that no one has been held to account in 81% of journalist murders worldwide over the past 10 years. Somalia tops the list, with Mexico ranked 6th and Bangladesh 11th.

State-sponsored or tolerated violence and political persecution aside, world press freedom is also being eroded in an insidious way in places where such freedoms are commonly understood to be vital in sustaining well-functioning democracies. Coupled with the apparently unstoppable rise of social media as a source of information – some surveys suggest 50% of adults in the US and UK get their news from social media – the state of much of the traditional press, digital or not, is far from healthy.

The annual Digital News Report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found the US ranked last in media trust, at 29%, among 92,000 news consumers polled in 46 countries. (Finland came top).

Governments must not be passive while the same powerful corporate lobbies that have spent fortunes over decades spreading climate dis/misinformation in traditional media now feed on the rapacity of Big Tech social media, which are failing to disclose comprehensive policies to combat this. Climate disinformation as a threat to climate action is highlighted in the latest UN Climate Reports.

Press offices of international organisations, particularly the UN and large INGOs, also have a particular responsibility to uphold media freedom by eschewing the corporate dark arts of delay, denial and obfuscation.

A new proposal by the EU executive to protect journalists and campaigners from so-called vexatious lawsuits is highly welcome. The move would target “strategic lawsuits against public participation” known as Slapps, where the rich misuse legal means to silence troublesome investigative reporters and NGOs.

No press freedom, no democracy. Just like freedom of speech, that does not mean a free press can publish whatever it wants. Both need to be defined and, in these very dark times, defended.

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS North America, including it’s UN Bureau; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Peru evictions enter second day at halted Las Bambas mine

 

Reuters  Friday April 29, 2022 

(Adds statement from MMG) LIMA, April 28 (Reuters) - Peruvian police evicted indigenous protesters from MMG's Las Bambas copper mine for a second day on Thursday, as they disperse a camp set up on company property, an adviser to the community told Reuters.

The action at the Chinese-owned Las Bambas, which supplies 2% of the world's copper, follows Wednesday's eviction of another community that had pitched its camp near the massive open pit of the mine. "Yes, they are coming from three different directions, they are already coming in," Alexander Raul, an adviser to the Huancuire indigenous community, said about Thursday's police action.

In a security filing late on Wednesday Las Bambas had said the Huancuire community remained inside company property, although it had evicted the Fuerabamba community, which had been demanding the return of their ancestral lands.

In a statement, MMG said community members had again invaded the Las Bambas property on Friday and damaged some equipment. On Thursday, Peru's left-wing government said it had not participated in the evictions, but national police had joined in support of the company's right to expel trespassers.

Peru is the world's No. 2 copper producer and mining is a key source of tax revenue.

Las Bambas suspended operations on April 20 after the two communities settled inside the mine, saying it had failed to fulfill previous agreements. It is unclear when it will be able to resume production, halted for safety reasons. Huancuire sold land to Las Bambas in recent years to make way for a planned mine expansion this year. But the adviser, Raul, and Huancuire residents say the mine has not fully honored all commitments under the sale agreement and that profits have not trickled down to their community, allegations the company denies.

Peruvian law allows the use of force by property owners to expel trespassers during the first 15 days of an invasion, a legal statute that Las Bambas invoked this week, according to a company statement.

(Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun, additional reporting by Indranil Sarkar; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Malaysia goes after rights groups for opposing Singapore execution

A candlelit vigil held outside the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday. 

Photo: Amnesty International Malaysia/Facebook

By Coconuts KL

Apr 29, 2022 | 

Human rights group Amnesty International Malaysia said last night that the Malaysian police were engaged in reprisal against two rights groups for participating in vigils for Malaysian death row inmate Nagaenthran “Nagen” Dharmalingam.

The group said police were investigating members of the Bar Council and nonprofit Lawyers for Liberty for their roles in two vigils organized outside the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur prior to the execution of a man widely believed to have been mentally impaired – a fact disputed by Singaporean officials.

“This abuse of power—in the form of threats of reprisal against those who participate in peaceful public protests—is unacceptable. The right to gather peacefully is guaranteed under the constitution and under international human rights law,” the group wrote.

The KL rallies were staged Saturday and Tuesday in conjunction with protests and vigils held in Singapore. Nagen was hanged Wednesday.

Amnesty International Malaysia called on the police to drop their investigations as the gatherings “ended peacefully.”

Zaid Malek, Mahajoth Singh and Nabila Khairuddin of Lawyers for Liberty were called in for questioning Saturday and accused of violating Section 9(5) of the Peaceful Assembly Act, and Rule 7 of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act.

New Sin Yew and Yohendra Nadarajan, co-chairs of the Bar Council’s human rights committee, were expected to give statements next week for organizing Tuesday’s candlelight vigil attended by 80.

Both Singapore’s Attorney-General’s Chambers and drug enforcement agency have denied that Nagen was handled unfairly, and they insist he was fully aware of what he was doing when he trafficked heroin into Singapore, despite having a reported IQ of 69.

Another Malaysian death row inmate Datchinamurthy Kataiah, who was scheduled to be executed today, was granted a stay of execution yesterday by the Singapore High Court on the grounds that he has a pending civil case before the court.

 OPINION

UN Aims at People-Centered Governance in a Post-Pandemic World

By Simone Galimberti

A rescued boat woman and her two children eat some welcome food at a centre in Kuala Cangkoi, Indonesia. The UN urges 'people-centred' approach to migrants and refugees in Southeast Asia. 

UNHCR

KATHMANDU, Nepal, Apr 29 2022 (IPS) - The recently disseminated Zero Draft Ministerial Declaration of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF)– the main UN event to track the member states’ progress to achieve the Agenda 2030 slated to be held in the first half of July– is a disappointment.

For all its comprehensiveness, the document neglected to mention one of the most significant elements that could help the world navigate the next pandemic while successfully tackling climate change and biodiversity loss and excruciating levels of inequalities.

It was in July 2020 when the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres delivered the 18th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, an important speech focusing on eliminating inequalities and injustices.

It is also where the idea of a New Social Contract emerged strongly.

Seen as an indispensable antidote against raising inequalities and injustices that the pandemic both exposed and further expanded, the Secretary General was not only remarkable for recalling the sins of colonialism perpetuated by Europeans like him in the past.

He was also bold for proposing a “New Social Contract, between Governments, people, civil society, business and more, must integrate employment, sustainable development and social protection, based on equal rights and opportunities for all”.

The concept of reinventing the social contract wasn’t’ particularly new in truth.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Oslo Governance Centre (OGC), the Friedrich-Ebert- Stiftung (FES) in Berlin and New York, the Julian J. Studley Fund of the Graduate Program of International Affairs at The New School had been working on a global research study on resilient social contracts.

The outcome of this research was “Forging Resilient Social Contracts: Preventing Violent Conflict and Sustaining Peace, an11-country research and policy dialogue” that looked at the drivers that can either lead to stability and shared prosperity or the opposite, more insecurity and a continued state of violence.

The OECD has been also looking at the issue of state’s legitimacy with a groundbreaking report in 2010, The State’s Legitimacy in Fragile Situations unpacking complexity, a document that highlighted the risks of thinking from a western only perspective while supporting the extremely complex process of nation building.

Hybridity forms of governance that rely on local contexts and traditions, were highlighted as promising, though certainly not perfect, spaces of decision making, able to effectively hold together elements of bottom up decision making.

With the idea of top down nation building projects disintegrating following the Afghan’s debacle, strengthening local legitimacy is turning again to the fore.

Without it, it is impossible to shape and deliver effective and inclusive institutions that are so important now more than ever and, as to speak, not only in traditionally fragile political systems.

That’s why Guterres’s lecture in 2020 was so transformational because he was able to shift the focus on the social contract from a narrow peace building frame related to developing nations emerging from conflicts to a much broader context that significantly affects also more established democracies.

The stress and tensions that democratic systems have been experiencing in the last decade are supporting dynamics that risk to tear apart the fabric of many prosperous nations founded on a liberal political system.

Yet the Zero Draft Ministerial Declaration seems to totally forget the day-to-day relevance of establishing a new social contract, a new model based on civic engagement and people’s participation where citizens co-own the process of policy making.

Is this happening because the matter in discussion is so sensitive that some members of the United Nations might feel uneasy about getting engaged in a serious discussion about people’s involvement in shaping the public good?

For example the draft just mentions the role of Voluntary Local Review, the central process around which the SDGs can be localized, a dynamic that has been recognized as central to advance the overall Agenda 2030 and instrumental to build a new civic rapport between the citizenry and the state.

On the positive side, at least there is a mention of the UN Youth 2030, the global youth blue print that is supposed to play a big role in advancing a UN system that is more youth centered.

It is not that there is not enough discussions on partnerships, an essential element if we are serious about rethinking the process of decision making from the ground up.

For example, The Mexico Partnership Forum held in Merida on 17-18 March 2022, served as a “platform to strengthen engagement and relationships across all relevant stakeholders and sectors, while building back better from COVID-19, leading to more transformational whole-of-society approach to partnerships for advancing SDGs in Mexico”.

In another instance, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the International Development Law Organization, and the Government of Italy are organizing the SDG 16 Conference 2022, People-Centered Governance in Post Pandemic World that was held from 21 to 22 April.

In addition, we should not forget that the UN Habitat promoted New Urban Agenda is based on stronger level of collaborations and partnerships to redefine, through the lens of shared prosperity and equity, our existence in cities across the world.

Perhaps it is just easy to talk about partnerships and collaborations among different stakeholders but ultimately the SDG16 that embraces partnerships at its core, should be seen in a much broader and progressive way.

In Pathways for Peace Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict, a joint publication between the World Bank and the United Nations released in 2018, it is remarkably clear the fundamental role of inclusive decision making.

First, “societies that offer more opportunities for youth participation in the political and economic realms and provide routes for social mobility for youth tend to experience less violence”.

Second “Inclusive decision making is fundamental to sustaining peace at all levels, as are long-term policies to address economic, social, and political aspirations”.

The reports continues: “Fostering the participation of young people as well as of the organizations, movements, and networks that represent them is crucial”.

Good governance does not happen with a stroke of raise in international aid to fragile nations.

International aid could enable and support certain dynamics especially if resources reach out effective non state actors but it is a very tricky business that could also result in more corruption and lack of accountability and perpetuation of exclusive power generation.

Genuine localized good governance instead is all about a local leadership able to nurturing through a self-strengthening loop, resilience and inclusion on the ground, though, in many cases such loop is too weakened to bear fruits.

Social protection policies, difficult to design and hard to deliver and certainly very expensive, are the key ingredient capable of enabling a sense of agency for those who have been the most neglected in the society.

Yet intervening in the economic space, as difficult as it is, along won’t suffice.

We need to offer real and meaningful opportunities for people to participate regardless of the political systems in place.

If one party nations do hesitate to foster this new sense of participation, then their entire foundations upon which their legitimacy is based, could crumble while dealing with any future crises and by now, we know well that we will experience more and more of them.

That’s why that speech of Antonio Guterres in 2020 was so important and should not be left forgotten.

It is also not enough to talk about the New Social Contract from a perspective of volunteerism as valuably done by UNV with the State of the World Volunteering Report 2022.

We need to deeper into discussing effective ways to empower the citizenry, starting from those left behind.

Hopefully this challenge, one of the biggest of those we face as humanity, would be adequately discussed by the United Nations.

The upcoming conference on Power, Politics and Peace, scheduled for May 31 by the UNDP Oslo Governance Centre, could offer an opportunity to do so.

Power, politics and peace, are, after all, the defining treats of the New Social Contract and if we forget it, it would be at a very high cost for all of us.

Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, an NGO partnering with youths living with disabilities. He writes on civic engagement, development and regional integration and politics. Opinions expressed are personal.

IPS UN Bureau

Learn From The Pandemic To Strengthen Workplace Safety: UN Labour Agency

Friday, 29 April 2022, 7:10 pm
Press Release: UN News

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how effective dialogue between employers, workers and governments, is the best way to strengthen safety and health at work, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said in a new report published on Thursday.

Each year, nearly three million workers die due to occupational accidents and diseases, and hundreds of millions more suffer non-fatal injuries at work, the UN agency reported.

Learning from the pandemic might help prevent millions of deaths, according to the report, which was issued on the World Day for Safety and Health at Work.

Guy Ryder, the ILO Director-General, said occupational safety and health (OSH) remains at the forefront of national response even as countries continue to grapple with the impact of COVID-19, and uneven recovery.

“The lessons learned from this crisis about the importance of social dialogue in strengthening safety and health at the national and workplace level, need to be applied to other contexts. This would help reduce the unacceptable level of occupational deaths and disease that occur every year.”

Collaboration and action

The report, titled Enhancing social dialogue towards a culture of safety and health, found that during the pandemic, Governments that prioritized active participation of employers’ and workers’ organizations in OSH governance, were able to develop and implement emergency laws, policies and interventions.

Collaboration has been critical to ensuring these measures were both acceptable to, and supported by, employers and workers, meaning they were more likely to be effectively implemented in practice.

As a result, many countries have adopted legal requirements covering areas such as measures to prevent and handle COVID-19 cases in the workplace, to teleworking arrangements.

The report provided examples from countries such as Singapore, where changes to rules on vaccination took place after consultations and discussions among the partners. In South Africa, tripartite discussions led to amending measures targeting coronavirus spread in workplaces.

Value of tripartite dialogue

In some countries, dialogue between Governments, employers and workers at the national level has been followed by further consultation at the regional or sectoral level, so that policies might be adapted to specific contexts.

In Finland for example, trade unions and employers’ organizations worked with the government to develop measures for the tourism and restaurant sectors, while in Italy, dialogue led to the creation of detailed rules on telework in the banking sector, which outlined the right to privacy and the right to disconnect.

National tripartite OSH bodies have also played an important role in the fight against COVID-19, according to the report. These entities are usually composed of government representatives – for example, from the Ministry of Labour and other relevant ministries and institutions - as well as representatives from employers’ and workers’ organizations.

During the pandemic, many participated in the decision-making process at the national level. They have also been involved in defining lockdown and restriction measures, return to work strategies, and other instructions or guidance aimed at mitigating impacts.

The report cited examples from countries, including the Philippines, where the two national tripartite bodies dealing with OSH were involved in the design and implementation of guidelines to ensure the quality of ventilation in workplaces and public transport as part of efforts to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19.

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