UKRAINE

A country of volunteers and activists. How civil society helps to withstand the war

The Maidan was a turning point for the Ukrainian civil society. Since the Revolution of Dignity local and national initiatives of citizens gained an explosive growth. Liudmyla Tiahnyriadno, journalist at the public radio Suspilne, collected six stories of civil society initiatives that emerged or transformed in times of war and will be drivers of change, not only during wartime but also in post-war Ukraine.

Abducted child. Picture S&D

By Liudmyla Tiahnyriadno

Ukrainian civil society with thousands of local and national initiatives gained an explosive growth 9 years ago as a result of the Revolution of Dignity of 2013/2014. Civil organizations became the drivers of change in the state and society. Many public figures joined the civil service striving to transform the system from within. Examples of successful cooperation between non-governmental organizations and authorities soon sprung up.

When Russia annexed Crimea and unleashed a war in the east, a powerful volunteer movement bolstered the tendency. Finding resources and solving problems that the state could not solve is a superpower of Ukrainian society. When Russia launched a full-scale offensive on 24 February 2022, this superpower was one of the main reasons why the Ukrainians managed to hold out.

During the year and a half of the full-scale war, 3500 of new non-governmental organizations and foundations were registered in Ukraine. In total, there are almost one hundred thousand of them in Ukraine; yet many initiatives have no official registration. Currently, Ukrainian civil society organizations are engaged in literally everything, from providing supplies for the military to rescuing animals from war, from helping internally displaced people to advocating sanctions against Russia, from organizing leisure activities to developing environmental restoration plans.

Drones for the army are provided through crowd funding. Photo Prytula foundation

Part of these efforts is financed by international donors, but the same time, Ukrainians have developed a strong donation culture: millions of people regularly transfer money to volunteers and public organizations. Big organizations like Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation or Come Back Alive Foundation fundraise millions of dollars for helping Ukrainian army. Moreover, volunteering and civic activism became a solution for those who want to help the country, but do not join the army.

People who evacuate others from the occupied territories

‘When my city was occupied, I could not just stay by’, Albina Shevchenko says. She is from Mariupol, although she lives in Kyiv. – I started looking for a driver, buses, fuel. On March 16, we had the first evacuation ride. There were 18 seats in the minibus, and we took 30 people to Zaporizhzhia’. Albina works for the HelpPeople NGO, which evacuates civilians, including those seriously ill or persons with severely limited mobility, from the occupied and frontline territories.

Albina joined the HelpPeople team after that first ride, and soon several buses started evacuating people. Now HelpPeople aids residents of the occupied part of the Kherson region. In total, about twenty-five thousand people were taken out of the occupation.

Volunteer bus drivers risk their lives. During the evacuation from Mariupol, the Russians captured ten HelpPeople drivers. They were kept in basements, tortured, and denied water. ‘After being released from captivity, two drivers resumed working. They don't go to the occupied territories because they are not allowed to go there, but they work in the front-line areas’, Albina says.

Civilians are evacuated from Volnovakha in the Donetsk region. Photo Wikipedia CC.

The Russians often deliberately fired artillery at evacuation points. While leaving Lysychansk in Luhansk region, the HelpPeople team got under fire; one of the drivers lost an eye.

HelpPeople has special minibuses with couches and carts to transport people with disabilities. And the organization helps people to leave even the occupied territories, which cannot be accessed through the frontline: it pays for fuel, gives money for departure, assists in the preparation of documents.

Another challenge for volunteers is to gather people and convince them to evacuate. Often, residents of occupied and front-line territories refuse to leave because ‘they don't know where they are going’, says Albina. More than once people agreed to evacuate only when a projectile hit their house. ‘We deliver humanitarian kits to those who refuse to leave. We feed them because they have nothing – neither water nor food’, says the volunteer.

People who save children abducted by Russia

Ukraine inherited a system of prison-like state orphanages from the Soviet Union. Before the full-scale invasion, the non-governmental organization SOS Children's Villages Ukraine engaged in a comprehensive solution to this problem: from advocating for reforms to helping families and providing comfortable conditions in foster families for children deprived of parental care, as well as preparing orphans for independent life. In 2022, activists set out to save deported Ukrainian children.

No one knows how many children the invaders abducted from Ukraine to Russia or displaced within the occupied territories. According to the official statistics, as of 26 June, 616 children are considered missing, 19,499 — deported. The actual number may be much higher.

‘We received information that children who had been staying in resorts or recreation centers during the occupation of Mariupol were taken to occupied Donetsk, and then to Russia. Later, the same thing happened in the occupied territories of Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions’, says Dariya Kasyanova, National Development Director of SOS Children's Villages Ukraine programs. ‘Sometimes parents agreed to send their children to a camp for recreation, expecting them to return in a few weeks, but months pass, and the children are not there.’

Children are often transported to remote Russian regions, where they are accommodated in places not suitable for living. The children who were saved tell about bullying and psychological pressure. ‘The Russians are trying to deprive the children of their identity’, says Darya. In some places, Ukrainian children, even those who have relatives in Ukraine, are forcibly placed in foster families.

Deported children are welcomed by family at their return in Ukraine. Screenshot from Youtube.

SOS Children's Villages Ukraine together with the Ministry of Reintegration work on the return of deported children: they help to draw up documents, plan logistics, provide psychological support to those who plan to go to Russia to get a child out. Specific methods of returning children to the organization are not disclosed, for it being dangerous. ‘The most difficult cases are when parents have died,’ says Dariya Kasyanova. ‘It is not enough to find relatives; it is necessary to understand at least approximately where and when the child could have been taken.’ ‘SOS Children's Villages Ukraine’ helps children who have been returned – and there are dozens of them – to adapt at their homeland.

People who help rebuild the destroyed houses

Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, Borodyanka – the names of these towns near Kyiv are now known to the whole world. Fierce battles raged here with the invaders who tried to break through to Kyiv. Many houses were destroyed by shelling. The Brave to Restore initiative took roots during the repairing of one of them.

Every weekend, teams of 10-15 volunteers of the initiative go to towns and villages where people need help rebuilding their homes destroyed by the Russians. It all started in Kyiv region, and later volunteer teams consolidated in Kharkiv and Kherson regions. Debris get dismantled, windows and roofs are repaired so that people can continue living in their houses. There is a lot of work: the Russians have already destroyed about 150,000 houses and left a million Ukrainians homeless.

‘We do not only help people, for example, with bricks or roof repairs, we also communicate with these people. Our volunteers give them hope that they are not left behind, that they will get help, that everything will be fine’, says Vitaliy Selyk, co-founder of the initiative. Volunteers also deliver humanitarian aid and distribute bicycles to people who have lost their own transport.

Brave to Restore initiative procures construction materials through micro-grants, and donations are also collected. ‘The reconstruction of individual houses is only part of the work we are planning. In the future, I would like to replan and rebuild cities and villages. War is, on the one hand, a bitter grief, suffering and crisis, on the other hand, it is a point of reset that provides great opportunities’, says Vitaliy Selyk. He is among those who expect that the restoration of Ukraine will give a chance not only to build new houses instead of destroyed ones, but also to remedy the mistakes of the first decades of independence and get rid of social flaws inherited from Soviet times.

Forest fire in Mykolaiv after Russian shelling. Picture Wikicommons.

People who make rebuilding environmentally friendly

Activists of the Ecoaction organization also hope to implement their visions in the process of recovery. They advocate for energy efficiency and renewable energy, the development of sustainable transport and agriculture, oppose industrial pollution, etcetera. Recovery is a chance to switch to energy-efficient and clean technologies. ‘We are trying to consolidate public organizations and work to ensure that the recovery process adheres to new principles. So that people are willing to return to the new country’, says Nataliya Gozak, Executive Director of Ecoaction.

It is important for eco-activists that all environmental protection and energy efficiency considerations are taken into account at the stage of reconstruction planning. ‘The city decides either to rebuild the road with a lane for public transport and bicycles, with a green zone, or to use the same money to widen the road and compensate motorists. This will determine whether we will have cities for cars, or whether we will have cities for people’, Natalia explains.

Rebuilding everything that was destroyed by the Russians in the same form and format as before the full-scale war will deprive the country of a chance for renewal. Therefore, eco-activists insist that money for restoration projects be allocated only on the condition that the projects are ‘green’: ‘Funding must go hand in hand with the fulfillment of requirements that must be linked to the progress of Ukraine's membership in the European Union. We will convince the authorities that we need to include a ‘green’ component in the recovery’.

In addition to ‘green’ recovery, Ecoaction has embarked on the new activity areas: advocating for the introduction of sanctions against Russia, which will prevent it from exporting fuels, and documenting the environmental crimes committed by the occupiers for the future litigation.

People promoting sanctions against Russia

The Center of Combating Corruption, one of the most powerful anti-corruption watchdogs in Ukraine, is also engaged in the advocacy for sanctions. This organization contributed to the introduction of sanctions against pro-Russian politicians, the family and cronies of the former President Yanukovych, monitored the ties of Ukrainian politicians with the Kremlin, and also contributed to the creation of transparent anti-corruption bodies. Now the Center for Combating Corruption has taken up new activity areas.

‘When Ukraine refused to surrender, and Zelenskyi said that he ‘needs ammo, not a ride ‘, when he was offered to leave Kyiv, it became a powerful call to mobilize all forces inside the country – the army, public resistance forces, and volunteers, — to protect our state’, says the Executive Director of the organization, Daryna Kaleniuk. Thanks to their global network, activists of the Center for Combating Corruption began to promote the idea of introducing new sanctions against Russia, to identify and expose the assets of Russia and Russian politicians abroad, to encourage the West to introduce an all-out embargo on Russian fuels and to give Ukraine the weapons necessary to protect and restore its integrity. The Center for Combating Corruption calls on the governments of the countries that have not yet been engaged in providing the aid not to be ‘neutral’ but to make a choice in favor of the civilized world.

‘We demanded to support the Ukrainian victory, because this is the only way ahead to peace. Therefore, Western governments later began to communicate the message that Ukraine will win and are ready to provide weapons to help in this’, Daryna Kaleniuk says. Activists organize advocacy visits, meetings with politicians and the media, inviting, in particular, the women serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, so that the West has a firsthand account of the war in Ukraine.

People who sew clothes for women serving in the army

The Women Veterans Movement also helps women serving in the army. This organization, which protects the rights of women who had been and are fighting, was founded in 2019. With the beginning of the full-scale war, some of the founders returned to the frontlines, and the others scaled-up assistance to women in the military. In particular, they set up a workshop sewing military uniforms.

‘Men's and women's knees are at a different height’, says Yuliya Kirillova, coordinator of the social sector of the ‘Women Veterans Movement’. ‘Therefore, when we buy a uniform with knee pads, it fits men properly, but for women, these knee pads are higher than necessary. Therefore, we developed a cut of the female uniform that fits all anatomical features.’ In addition to uniforms, the Women Veterans Movement has designed women's army underwear and provides it to women in combat: the army has not yet ordered these items. They plan to sew T-shirts, hats, balaclavas and thermal underwear.

A volunteer makes camouflage nets for the army. Photo from Women Veterans Movement

When the full-scale invasion started, the Women Veterans Movement turned into a volunteer hub. ‘We prepared meals, delivered food to the basements, fed people. The headquarters helped female veterans who became servicemen again. We bought cars, tactical medical items, delivered aid to civilian hospitals’, Yuliya Kirillova says. Currently, the humanitarian headquarters on the basis of the organization helps displaced people, people from the combat zone, has evacuation crews that take people and animals out of the danger zone.

Volunteers and visitors to the headquarters of the Women Veterans Movement weave camouflage nets for the military. Today, people who weave such nets work in almost all Ukrainian cities and towns. Volunteers are invited to weave nets in volunteer offices, libraries, museums, cultural centers, schools and universities. It takes days to attach hundreds of fabric scraps onto a rope net. This painstaking, monotonous work, which everyone can manage – children, people with disabilities, the elderly and those whose relatives are at the frontlines – relieves anxiety and gives a sense of belonging to a common cause. Nine years ago, the Revolution of Dignity revealed to many people in Ukraine that the contribution of each of them to democracy and the struggle for change for the better is important. And now, during the full-scale war for independence, this idea consolidated the society.

Drivers of change, also in post-war Ukraine

So far, public organizations and volunteer initiatives remain the drivers of change in the state, as well as co-creators of the country's recovery. They develop ideas and concepts of the intangible component of recovery — from ways of organizing urban space to reforms in the fields of health care or education. Thirty civil society organizations united into the RISE coalition aiming at ensuring transparency and accountability of the post-war reconstruction and spending international aid funds. Other initiatives develop opportunities for rehabilitation and socialization of veterans and civilians affected by war.

Actually, these grass-root initiatives demonstrate better vision and long-term strategy than a clumsy state machine, as well as more maturity and devotion than many politicians. Civil society in Ukraine has grown into a potent power and game-changer, it is able to advocate for necessary reforms, serve as a watchdog and protect those who needs protection. Moreover, coming through this war which literally became a question of survival for Ukrainian society will strengthen non-governmental sector even more. Thus, civil society organizations will become the basis post-war Ukraine will rebuild on.

About the author

Liudmyla Tiahnyriadno is a reporter/presenter for Ukrainian Public Radio. She has been working there since the beginning of the reforming of Ukraine’s National Radio Company into the public broadcaster Suspilne after the Maidan-revolution. Tiahnyriadno is currently living in Kyiv. She is also the producer of Window on Kherson, a documentary about the 256 days of Russian occupation of Kherson.

31 juli 2023

This article is a coproduction of Liudmyla Tiahnyriadno together with the Ukraine Voices Appeal of The Institute for War & Peace Reporting and Raam op Rusland.

Opinion

Canada’s burning forests remind us why we need carbon crediting

Companies that are material users of carbon credits decarbonize twice as fast as those that do not use carbon credits.
Image: Unsplash/Marcus Kauffman

Candace Vinke

Director, Nature-Based Innovation, Verra
Jul 31, 2023

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Some people believe that we shouldn’t use carbon markets to support healthy forests because forests can burn.

Tools such as non-permanence buffer pools, which account for potential unexpected loss of carbon stocks, ensure the net impact remains positive, even if some forests burn.

Research suggests that companies that are material users of carbon credits decarbonize twice as fast as those that do not use carbon credits.

Driving through the charred remains of forests in British Columbia and Alberta, it’s impossible to escape the heartbreaking reality that none of this had to happen. Scientists long warned that human activity was changing the planet in dangerous ways, and by 1979 it was already clear that we’d flipped the world’s forests from being a natural carbon sink to a net source of greenhouse gas emissions.


The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tells us we must flip those land systems back to being sinks if we’re to meet the climate challenge, and carbon markets can help do that.


Unfortunately, an argument has taken hold in some circles – namely, that we shouldn’t use carbon markets to support healthy forests because forests can burn.

The debate over carbon credits


The argument has its roots in two perspectives. The first relates to a disconnect between the lifecycle of CO2 and the lifespan of forests, while the second reflects a distorted perception of how voluntary carbon credits are used.


To the first point: carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for 300 to 1,000 years after being emitted. Some argue against using forests to absorb industrial emissions because we can’t guarantee any individual forest will be around that long. But this only makes sense if you ignore the IPCC’s dire warnings about the need to save forests now or risk finding none left centuries from now.

Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) aims for a century’s worth of impact, which buys enough time to get us well beyond 2050, by which point we need to reach net-zero emissions. We have created a variety of mechanisms for achieving this, and one is to require that all forest carbon projects contribute credits to our “non-permanence buffer 

The contributions are based on the project’s risk of having a loss in the next 100 years. If a fire, hurricane or other catastrophe causes a reversal, credits equal to the size of the loss are canceled from the pool to compensate the atmosphere and ensure the environmental benefit of the issued credits is maintained.

Only one project has suffered a loss in the current conflagration so far – a 40,000-hectare project called the BigCoast Forest Climate Initiative. It contributed just over 15% of its credits to the buffer pool and may have lost as much as 100 hectares, or 0.25% of the project area.

To put this into perspective, that is a tiny fraction of the 8 million hectares of Canadian forests incinerated in 2023, which have pumped more than 600 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere so far this year.

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Once we know the exact size of BigCoast’s loss, the emissions will be deducted from the next tranche of issued credits. If the project cannot cover the loss on its own, credits from the buffer pool will be canceled, and the project will need to pay back the buffer for any credits used exceeding the project’s previous contribution.

The big question in all of this is how risk is calculated, and this is also changing as science evolves. When the buffer pool concept was created more than a decade ago, there was no scientific agreement on how to estimate future risks of climate change with numerical precision. Then came two IPCC initiatives: the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) and the Working Group I Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report: The Physical Science Basis (AR6).

These efforts infused more science into risk analysis, and the result is something called the “climatic impact-driver” (CID) approach to estimating risk. CIDs synthesize the analysis of sector resilience plans and impacts, as well as the assessment of risk management literature, to categorize the risk into 33 distinct drivers, such as extreme heat, extreme cold and drought, in specific areas.

Three years ago, we began exploring means of incorporating future climate impacts into Verra’s risk assessments. We engaged a consulting team that included leading climate scientist Daniel Ruiz-Carrascal, who served as lead author on IC’s AR6. Working with more than two dozen independent reviewers, Ruiz-Carrascal and the team helped develop a digital tool that estimates climate impacts on projects under several mid-term climate change scenarios. A consultation on the proposed update was held in February 2022, and the final tool will be available in August 2023.

In short, forests do burn, but the global buffer pool ensures the net impact remains positive.

To the second point: it’s an article of faith among some that companies buy voluntary credits to buy themselves out of a problem rather than address it head-on, but research has long shown the opposite to be true. The most recent evidence comes from Trove Research. They compared the reductions achieved by companies that use carbon markets to those that don’t and found that “companies that are material users of carbon credits decarbonize twice as fast as those that do not use carbon credits.” That doesn’t include the additional reductions they finance through carbon credits.

What’s more, it shows that a growing number of companies follow the “mitigation hierarchy” that Verra advocates. These companies both abate their emissions in alignment with a 1.5°C warming scenario and accelerate global reductions further by using the VCM for emissions that can’t be reduced immediately. This aligns with new guidance from the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative on claims and will be further supported in Verra’s upcoming claim guidance.

The bottom line is that Earth’s living ecosystems are hemorrhaging carbon, and the IPCC has warned that we must stop the hemorrhaging immediately. We cannot withhold treatment until a perfect solution comes along, and history shows that’s unlikely to happen. Instead, we need realistic, science-based treatments to stabilize the planet at net-zero emissions. Carbon markets and investing in protecting forests are one of the best treatments we have.

The innovative climate finance model that has protected over 120 million hectares of ecosystem

Climate finance needs to be doubled in order to protect nature.
Image: Reuters/Bruno Kelly

Carter RobertsPresident and CEO, World Wildlife Fund in the US

Rosa Lemos de SáCEO, Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (FUNBIO)

Jul 31, 2023

Climate finance needs to be doubled in order to protect nature.

The Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) model offers more guarantees to investors that governments will meet environmental commitments.

Brazil's ARPA for Life PFP, protecting 62 million hectares in the Amazon, demonstrates the model's long-term potential.

More and more governments around the world recognize that the climate and nature loss agendas are inextricably intertwined. One cannot be solved without the other. The challenge is financing.

Annual financing for nature-positive efforts stands between $124 billion and $143 billion from all sources. The UN Environment Programme calls for a doubling of finance flows to restore the nature on which we all depend. This will only be possible by supporting ambitious international, national and community commitments, and by combining all types of finance: public and private, domestic and international, and innovative new funding models including high-quality nature-based carbon solutions, debt restructuring and payments for ecosystem services. While all public and private actors mobilize more financial resources, all governments should revert, eliminate and phase out perverse incentives, subsidies and policies that are harmful to biodiversity. Doing so would substantially decrease the cost of conservation and restoration.

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We see a premium being placed on initiatives that are grounded in places and communities, that support local leadership and rights, and that are benchmarked against performance-based mechanisms with real accountability.

Consider some of the most recent climate and nature platforms gaining momentum globally. Take, for example, the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership, launched last year at COP27 to help make good on a pledge by 145 countries to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030, with the US and Ghana serving as co-chairs this year. It emphasizes accountability and annual reporting with independent assessments of progress toward the partnership’s goals.


A climate finance model that works


At last month’s Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, an array of global leaders called for a new and scaled use of creative financial instruments. They range from high-integrity, trusted nature-based solutions, to debt restructuring to relieve the burden of debt on developing countries and convert it to a stream of conservation finance, to payments for ecosystem services, and more.

We’re excited about one model in particular: Project Finance for Permanence (PFP). PFP is a tool to enable governments and local communities, in partnership with funders and NGOs, to take advantage of an array of financial instruments and secure long-term management and financing for networks of conservation areas. They are designed to withstand changes in national leadership and are adapted to the social, political and environmental context of the particular place.

Here’s how PFP agreements typically work. A national government presents investors with a plan to effectively manage its protected areas. The investors then create a “bridge fund” to help the government gradually assume the full cost of conservation over a period of at least 10 years. The government has to achieve a series of performance-based milestones to keep drawing from the fund. And the fund doesn’t go into effect until investors gather enough commitments to close the government’s funding gap, which means no investor risks backing a plan destined to fall short of its goal, and the government knows it has reliable funding as long as it keeps meeting the milestones.

This model has already been applied to conservation initiatives in Bhutan, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru. Together, these projects have financed the protection of over 120 million hectares – all to the benefit of local communities, biodiversity and the climate.

New proof of results

The most striking proof of the durability of the PFP model comes from Brazil. There, a PFP called ARPA for Life, launched in 2014 to fund the Amazon Region Protected Areas programme has withstood political changes over time. The programme covers 62 million hectares in the Amazon, an area larger than France. That makes it the world’s largest initiative for tropical forest conservation. The PFP agreement established in 2014 delivered $215 million to secure the long-term protection of the conservation areas covered under ARPA. It is the backbone for conservation across the country, enabling the value of nature to supersede partisan political views. It ensured that the sovereign pride communities have in their great ecosystems endured through elections and shifting political priorities.

According to a recent study published in the journal Biological Conservation and conducted by researchers from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), WWF-Brazil, Fundo Brasileiro para a Biodiversidade (FUNBIO) and the University of Bonn, significant areas of the Brazilian Amazon have continued to see lower levels of deforestation in the face of immense pressures and threats. The authors look at the impact of the ARPA program on reducing deforestation and avoiding CO2 emissions in the Brazilian Amazon between 2008 and 2020.

The study reveals that during the monitored period, protected areas and Indigenous lands in the Amazon reduced deforestation by 21% (based on the difference between observed deforestation and estimated deforestation that would have happened if the areas were not protected). The protected areas supported by ARPA prevented nearly 260,000 hectares of deforestation. That’s the same as preventing 104 million tons of CO2 emissions, roughly equivalent to Belgium’s total emissions in 2021.

The secret to achieving this consistency is the combination of government commitments, corresponding closing and disbursement conditions for funding, and a vibrant local Brazilian institution, FUNBIO, that holds funds and disburses them based on progress over time – not just on the protection of nature, but also the provision of benefits and resources and jobs to local communities.

Scaling up to protect nature

The World Economic Forum estimates that transitioning to a nature-positive economy could generate annual business opportunities worth $10 trillion and create 395 million jobs by 2030. What we need is to design and implement innovative financial mechanisms to help secure landscapes and seascapes on the scale required to realize these benefits. It is time to scale up performance-based mechanisms like PFPs, and platforms like the Enduring Earth partnership have been established to help. Our organizations stand ready to collaborate with national leaders interested in protecting their natural heritage.

If we work with willing governmental partners to put these agreements in place, we are more confident than ever they will stand the test of time. And we will, ultimately, deliver the long-term results needed to protect nature and turn the tide on the climate crisis.

This piece represents a shared vision from the following global conservation leaders: 

Carter Roberts, President and CEO of World Wildlife Fund in the US (WWF-US); Avecita Chicchón, Program Director, Andes-Amazon, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; Rosa Lemos de Sá, CEO, Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (FUNBIO); Jennifer Morris, CEO, The Nature Conservancy (TNC); Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, CEO and Chairperson, the Global Environment Facility (GEF); Cristián Samper, Managing Director and Leader for Nature Solutions, the Bezos Earth Fund; and Sue Urahn, President and CEO, The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Cameroon Women Protest Separatist War, Cost of Living on Pan African Women’s Day

A woman shops at the Mvog Ada market in Yaounde, Cameroon, Jan. 29, 2022.

July 31, 2023 
Moki Edwin Kindzeka

YAOUNDE —

Hundreds of women and activists marched in the capital of Cameroon Monday, calling for an end to the country’s separatist crisis and for the government to provide more help to reduce the high cost of living. The march coincides with the observance of Pan African Women’s Day.

Several hundred women at a courtyard in the neighborhood of Tsinga listen or sing along with the song “Family Love” by singer Kareyce Fotso.

The song urges families to sincerely love each other and be united as they try to overcome difficulties caused by several crises Cameroon is experiencing.

Anne Anaba, one of the coordinators of Monday’s march, says the women assembled at the courtyard afterward to demand an end to the separatist war in Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions.

The war has killed about 6,000 people and displaced 700,000 others.

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The march was also part of activities marking the annual observance of Pan African Women’s Day. The holiday, declared by the African Union, is observed every July 31.

Anaba says poverty and hardships triggered by armed conflicts and unprecedented spikes in commodity prices have impacted families from building foundation stones for solid African societies. She says conflicts kill or displace men from communities and women spend time running for safety instead of teaching children to love, live together in peace and socially develop their communities.

She said women are the most affected by Cameroon’s separatist crisis.

Women and children are also deeply affected by food insecurity along the northern borders with Chad and Nigeria where an Islamist insurgency has left more than 36,000 people dead, and 3 million displaced.

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Cameroon women say besides the armed conflicts, they are finding it extremely difficult to cope with the rising prices of goods— which they blame on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.


The government says since the Russian war began in February 2022, prices of rice, wheat, fuel and fertilizer have increased by between 40 to 60%.

Kiven Juliet, the president of Wheat Farmers in Cameroon’s Center region, says she followed the Russia-Africa summit on July 27 when Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow will begin free deliveries of 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain to some African countries.

But Kiven says Cameroon can ensure sufficiency by growing its food at home.

"I heard during the Russia-Africa summit that Russia will be giving wheat to African countries free of charge, but that is not what we want. Our governments should give subsidies for farmers to buy fertilizers and produce the wheat themselves," she said.

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Marie-Therese Abena Ondoa, Cameroon's minister of women's empowerment, says in 2022, President Paul Biya ordered the disbursement of over $15 million to grow wheat in the central African state. She says women who apply will have funding for fertilizer, wheat and rice seeds.

FILE - Marie-Thérèse Abena Ondoa, Cameroon's minister of women's empowerment and the family, in Yaounde, Feb. 2019. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA)

"Women represent an essential agricultural workforce and undeniably contribute to [the] fight against hunger and poverty," she said. "Women contribute significantly to the stability of life in the countryside and reduce the scale of rural exodus. They take care of their children, are involved in domestic and agricultural works to ensure food and nutrition for families and communities. They are also known for their support of movements for democracy, human rights and peace."


Biya was among the African leaders who attended the summit in St. Petersburg. He asked Putin to help Africa by increasing investment and canceling debt from loans.

Iraqi government should consider more dams to prevent rivers vanishing: Iraqi engineer

An Iraqi expert cautions that corruption remains the biggest challenge in front of Iraq's reconstruction


An Iraqi youth strolls through the receding waters of the 

Tigris River in Baghdad on 12 July 2023. [Getty]

Dana Taib Menmy
Iraq
31 July, 2023

The reconstruction sector in Iraq is facing critical challenges, mainly corruption and the lack of governmental follow-ups and planning, which in turn is jeopardising the country and depriving it of international loans, the director of a famous Iraqi engineering consultancy company, Midhat Zwayen, told The New Arab during an exclusive interview.

Decades of war and corruption have made Iraq face serious infrastructure and environmental problems, including poor water quality, soil salinity, air and water pollution, climate change impacts and the threat of water shortages.

Iraq ranked 157 out of 180 countries in Transparency International's corruption perceptions index in 2022.

The New Arab interviewed Midhat Zwayen, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Dijlah Consulting Engineers. Established in 1993, the company was awarded multiple projects such as hospitals, roads and bridges, water treatment plants, and electrical transmission and substations. The company has been involved in major infrastructure projects throughout Iraq, such as the new building of the Central Bank of Iraq and the Imam Ali Shrine extension.

"Corruption is a big challenge; the Iraqi government needs to address that as soon as possible because if it continues, the funders will not fund Iraq forever," Zwayen said. "The private sector in Iraq is fragile; we do not deal with corruption because that would ruin our reputation, especially at the consultancy; we have no interaction with any kind of corruption, which is why we are famous in the international community."

Regarding how they did their projects in Iraq, he clarified that they focus on international and bank funds, indicating that most of the mega projects in Iraq have been funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOCA), or the United Nations.

He said the bank controls funds by those agencies, and the Iraqi government or the militias cannot impose their will on how the funds should be spent.

He said his company had been kicked out from some of the projects with the Iraqi government because, as he opined, "We rejected certain behaviours they do."

Zwayen said that according to his sources, although JICA funded some finished projects in Iraq years ago, now the agency is not ready to give loans to the country because they do not feel the Iraqi government takes care of the money they gave them, like follow-up on the projects.

"Iraq's infrastructure is devastated; Iraq needs international funds to help us rebuild because we do not have experience, knowledge, and technology, and that is how we try to mediate with the Iraqi government," he noted.

Despite spending billions of dollars on energy projects in Iraq, the country still suffers from total blackouts and mainly depends on neighbouring Iran to import gas for generating electricity. Utilising renewables, especially solar, is to the minimum.

Authorities said a fire at an electricity substation in southern Iraq triggered a nationwide power outage Saturday just as demand peaks amid the searing summer heat."Renewable energy takes time to build and needs experience that we lack. Any Iraqi government prioritises power generation for now because it cannot survive without it," Zwayen stressed.

Most housing projects in Iraq are still not benefiting from new technologies of heat isolation. Hence most of the country's energy and power generation is lost in cooling systems in summer and warming the houses in Winter. "Iraq's Engineers Association has all these specifications and have submitted it to the Iraqi builders, but again builders often disregard it as it costs more and because of corruption they keep the money for their pockets", Zwayen outlined regarding the issue.

Regarding Iraq's environmental issues, specifically water pollution, he said Iraq's main two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, "are too polluted, first because we dump sewage to the rivers and lack sewage processing projects. Secondly, we are losing water flowing to wash away the sewage to the ocean. As Iraq's population has increased to 41 million, this is crucial and should be addressed. Otherwise, our rivers will die soon."

The two rivers are on the brink of running dry, as Turkey and Iran restrict water flow to Iraq.

"Following 2003, none of the Iraqi governments came up with an idea on how to deal with this, except for blaming the neighbouring countries; they will not do everything for you because they manage water efficiently, and we don't. Again, the situation deteriorates in Iraq because of corruption," Zwayen said."Turkey and Iran's excuses for restructuring the water flow might be somehow logical when they say we flow the water for you and what you are doing with it and why you waste it."

Drought threatens to render boatbuilding extinct in Iraq

Environment and Climate

Azhar Al-Rubaie

"To deal with this issue, Iraq must build more dams to keep the sewage flowing into the ocean. Iraq needs to reconsider building the Bekhme Dam. I do not know why they do not reconsider it, and finishing this dam should be the priority of any Iraqi government," he added.

The Bekhme Dam is an unfinished multi-purpose dam on the Great Zab 60 kilometres (37 mi) northeast of Erbil in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

The dam's primary purpose was to produce hydropower and manage flooding in Iraq. Construction on the dam started in 1979 but was halted permanently due to wars and the Western embargo on the country. Following the 1991 Kurdish uprising in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish ruling parties smuggled all reconstruction tools and power-generating turbines at the unfinished dam to neighbouring Iran.

Provincial elections have been scheduled to take place in 15 Iraqi provinces on 18 December, but many Iraqis are reluctant to renew their biometrics to participate in the vote.

Regarding Iraq's democracy, Zwayen stresses that "until now, leaders in Iraq, from a general manager to the president or the prime minister, did not understand the concept of democracy; it is linked to the economy, you need to have an open economy and an open investment." He also emphasised that Iraqi leaders think democracy means "you do what you like."

"That is not true; in a democracy, there are rules; if we don't have a strong understanding of democracy, then we will see militias in Iraq, just as we see it now," he added.

 

Space junk: India says object found in Australia is theirs

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The object washed up on a Western Australia beach in July, about 250km north of Perth

By Kathryn Armstrong in London & Geeta Pandey in Delhi

BBC News

India has confirmed that an object that washed up on a Western Australian beach recently was from one of its rockets.

The giant metal dome was found at Green Head beach, about 250km (155 miles) north of Perth, in mid-July - prompting speculation about its origins.

India's space agency spokesman told the BBC on Monday it was from one of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV).

Sudhir Kumar added that it would be up to Australia to decide what to do with the object. He did not comment further.

His comments came after the Australian Space Agency (ASA) on Wednesday said that the object was "most likely" the third stage of a PSLV, which are used by India to launch satellites into orbit.

Countries often plan for debris from their launches to land in oceans to prevent them damaging people and property.

Dr Alice Gorman, a space archaeologist and Associate Professor at Australia's Flinders University, said that while there are often serial numbers on components, it was also possible to identify debris based on appearance.

The ASA said it was working with India's space agency to "determine next steps, including considering obligations under the United Nations space treaties".

The BBC has approached the agency for further comment.

According to the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, countries are required to return any "foreign" space objects found in their territory to the owners.

Dr Gorman said that there were many reasons why a country would want debris back, such as mission analysis.

In this case, however, she said there would be no benefit in India retrieving the object.

• Space junk: What is it and why is it a problem?
• New technology could use a giant litter picker in space

Western Australia has already indicated it would be happy to keep it.

The state's premier, Roger Cook, suggested to local media that the object could be stored in the state museum alongside debris from Nasa's Skylab station, which was discovered in 1979.

Locals said they might be interested in turning it into a local tourist attraction, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Dr Gorman said another option would be to put in a park, adding: "Things that have been in space have this kind of aura and to touch something that has been in space would be a bit special."

The object is currently in storage with the ASA. It is still not clear which mission it was used in, nor how long it had been in the water before washing up at Green Head.

Experts estimated that it would have been at least a few months. The debris was covered with barnacles.

There were initially concerns about potentially dangerous toxins leaking from the object if it was found to be part of a rocket.

However, the authorities later determined it was not a risk to the public.

The ASA has asked that any members of the public who finds further suspected debris should get in contact with them.

It is not the first time that space junk has landed in Australia. Last year, a chunk from one of Elon Musk's Space X missions was found in a paddock in the state of New South Wales.