<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" version="2.0"><channel><title>IRIN - Economy</title><link>http://www.irinnews.org/</link><description>Updated everyday</description><language>en-gb</language><lastBuildDate>Mon, 20 May 2013 16:30:53 GMT</lastBuildDate><item><title>Malaria overstretching healthcare in DRC</title><pubDate>Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201101050950250805t.jpg" />]]>KAMPALA 20 May 2013 (IRIN) - Gaps in the healthcare system in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are hampering the fight against malaria, a leading killer of children, say experts.</description><body><![CDATA[KAMPALA 20 May 2013 (IRIN) - Gaps in the healthcare system in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are hampering the fight against malaria, a leading killer of children, say experts.

Malaria accounts for about a third of outpatient consultations in DRC clinics, Leonard Kouadio, a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) health specialist, told IRIN. He added, “It is the leading cause of death among children under five years and is responsible for a significant proportion of deaths among older children and adults.”

Kouadio continued: “Recent retrospective mortality surveys have revealed that in all regions of the country, the fever is associated with 40 percent of [deaths of] children under five.”

Malaria is also a leading cause of school absenteeism in DRC, and it may have other adverse effects. “In cases of severe malaria, children who survive face serious health problems such as epilepsy, impaired vision or speech,” he said.

According to UN World Health Organization (WHO) estimates [ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs094/en/index.html ], out of about 660,000 malaria deaths globally in 2010, at least 40 percent occurred in DRC and Nigeria. 

In DRC, malaria accounts for about half of all hospital consultations and admissions in children younger than five, according to the government’s National Programme for the Fight against Malaria (NMCP). On average, Congolese children under five years old suffer six to 10 episodes of malaria per year, according to UNICEF’s Kouadio.

Other leading causes of death among under-five Congolese children include acute respiratory infections, diarrhoeal diseases and malnutrition, according to UNICEF’s 2013-2017 DRC Country Programme Document. 

A deficient health system 

“It is apparent that major deficiencies in the health system have contributed to the severity of recurrent outbreaks [of malaria],” Jan Peter Stellema, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) operational manager, told IRIN via email. 

“Mosquito nets are not being sent to vulnerable areas, and there are shortages of rapid diagnostic test [kits and] drugs and the equipment for carrying out blood transfusions vital for children suffering from anaemia caused by malaria.” 

Other problems include costly care and management challenges.

For example, the treatment of an uncomplicated bout of malaria ranges from about US$22 to $35, and treatment for severe cases can cost $75 to $100, according to NMCP. Such costs are prohibitive for a large number of people, many of whom live on about one dollar a day.

“In DRC, the absence of other healthcare providers and overstretched health systems leave people vulnerable to contracting malaria. Too many health centres lack the supplies necessary for coping with a new outbreak, and as a result children are dying because they did not receive care for malaria,” MSF’s Stellema said.

According to the DRC Country Programme Document, “Governance, management and coordination problems plague the [health] system at the national, provincial and local levels, thereby undermining political commitment, planning, budgetary expenditure, coordination and alignment of partnerships, the accountability and transparency of service providers, and the participation of the population in management of the services.” 

It adds, “Combined with extreme poverty, these factors create financial barriers hampering families’ access to nutrition and services, and weaken the social standards that are essential for keeping families together and maintaining a protective environment for children.”

Investment in healthcare needed

“The absence of government investment and the fragmentation of public assistance have eroded the capacity of civil society and of functional public facilities to maintain quality services,” adds the DRC Country Programme Document.

“The re-mergence and expansion of certain epidemics (polio [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/91200/DRC-Polio-cases-on-the-rise ], measles [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94516/DRC-Measles-immunization-campaign-targets-1-7-million-children ] and cholera [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94028/DRC-Fighting-cholera ]) are proof of that. In addition, little has been done to modernize infrastructure. Essential supply systems, such as the cold chain, have not been put in place,” it states.

There is an urgent need to address the struggling health system to fight malaria, experts say.

“The fight against this scourge must remain a top priority of the country, despite the lack of financial resources,” said UNICEF’s Kouadio. “The government and its partners should increase the funding for the fight against malaria in the DRC, in particular, acquisition and universal distribution of mosquito nets to households, provision of essential drugs and rapid diagnostic test [kits], and dissemination of environmental sanitation measures.”

Malaria occurs almost year-round in DRC due its tropical climate and its river and lake system. The country has some 30 large rivers totalling at least 20,000km of shoreline, and 15 lakes totalling about 180,000km, which offer environments conducive to the proliferation of diseases and disease vectors, including the Anopheles mosquito, which spreads malaria. 

According to MSF’s Stellema, the DRC government and national and international health actors need to take rapid and sustainable measures to prevent and treat malaria in order to avoid unnecessary child deaths. In 2012, MSF treated half a million Congolese for malaria, many of them children under five.

“MSF's emergency response is saving lives in the short term. But in the longer term, the organization cannot address the [malaria] crisis alone,” said Stellema.

so/aw/rz

]]></body><pubDate>Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98069/Malaria-overstretching-healthcare-in-DRC</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201101050950250805t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">KAMPALA 20 May 2013 (IRIN) - Gaps in the healthcare system in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are hampering the fight against malaria, a leading killer of children, say experts.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Making WASH work in Burkina Faso’s cities</title><pubDate>Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305161656290386t.jpg" />]]>OUAGADOUGOU 17 May 2013 (IRIN) - Earlier this year Denis Ouedraogo, a tailor living in the Tampouy neighbourhood just north of Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou, connected his mud-walled home to the water network for the first time. “Even without electricity, having enough water can make you happy,” he said.</description><body><![CDATA[OUAGADOUGOU 17 May 2013 (IRIN) - Earlier this year Denis Ouedraogo, a tailor living in the Tampouy neighbourhood just north of Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou, connected his mud-walled home to the water network for the first time. “Even without electricity, having enough water can make you happy,” he said.

He is among 1.9 million people to have connected to the government water grid since 2001, thanks to major changes in how the National Office for Water and Sanitation (ONEA) delivers water to urban Burkinabés.

In 2001 just 73,000 Burkinabés could access clean water, according to research [ http://www.developmentprogress.org/sites/developmentprogress.org/files/burkina_water_progress.pdf ] by Peter Newborne at the Overseas Development Institute, which is trying to track and communicate examples of progress on development [ http://www.developmentprogress.org/ ].

In 2002 just half of Burkina Faso residents had access to clean water. In 2008 (the latest statistics available) this had risen to 76 percent - 95 percent in urban areas. The plan was to reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to double the number of those with access to clean water, in this case to 87 percent, by 2015. Those tracking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) progress in Burkina Faso, say the goal will be surpassed [ http://www.unicef.org/sowc2012/pdfs/SOWC-2012-TABLE-3-HEALTH.pdf ].

How?

A number of factors made this possible: ONEA was nationalized and restructured in 1994 following a period in which it had become unprofitable and poorly functioning. The new national company ran along commercial lines, instilling a culture of performance and efficiency, said Newborne.

The second priority was to find a bulk water supply, in this case by building the Ziga dam 45km from the capital.

A mixture of government grant funds (from France and other European donors) and concessionary loans at low interest rates (predominantly from the World Bank), provided the required finances. This helped them bring costs down: for instance, connecting to the grid now costs a household US$61, down from on average $400 in the 1990s, according to ONEA’s chief operating officer, Moumouni Sawadogo.

Next came the work: building a network of pipes throughout Ouagadougou, including in the city’s unzoned [unplanned]  suburbs, which house one third of the capital’s residents and had hitherto been overlooked in terms of household water supply.

“Even in non-zoned areas, people can pay their water bills,'' said Halidou Kouanda, head of NGO Wateraid in Burkina Faso, citing a 2011 ONEA study noting that financial recovery rates in unzoned neighbourhoods were 95 percent.

Now, with a steady income and an 18 percent leakage rate, ONEA is one of the best-performing water utility companies in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Bank.

Targeting the poor

While targeting unzoned areas upped the percentage of urban dwellers who could access clean water (thus helping to meet the MDG), it did not ensure that water was affordable.

Now ONEA needs to try to target the poor, as it pledged to do in an initial equity strategy agreed with the Ministry of Water and Sanitation.

As part of its strategy, ONEA built 17,290 wells and standpipes for some areas without household-level connections. Water from a standpipe costs 60 CFA (11 US cents) for a 220 litre barrel (transported on wheels). But the very poor cannot afford such barrels, turning instead to water vendors who sell the same amount for 200-500 CFA (40-98 cents) depending on the season.

Thus paradoxically, the poorest families pay up to eight times more than others for their water.

ODI is discussing different pro-poor targeting methods that might work, including: subsidizing part of the water supply for certain households; targeting poor areas; allocation by housing type; means-testing; community-based targeting; or self-targeting.

At the moment, all households are charged the same connection tariff. “Is this equitable? We think not,” said Newborne. “You could means-test it; you could waive the connection charge for some; or charge the first X cubic metres at a different rate,” he suggested, adding that lower-income households could pay bills weekly or on a pay-as-you-go basis, to keep track of costs. “Think of how mobile phone companies have fixed their pricing plans to be accessible,” he said.

The concern is that households who experience running water for the first time may use more than they can afford, then falling behind  and drop off the grid, said WaterAid’s Kouanda. This happened to 6.8 percent of Ouagadougou’s ONEA customers in 2009.

Families must be made aware of this risk, said Kouanda. But many customers are so nervous of this happening, that they practice their own careful monitoring.

Ami Sidibé, who lives in Somgandé neighbourhood, which was connected to the water mains three months ago, said she continues to fill jerry cans - using tap water - to monitor her household’s use. “I’ll do anything to avoid returning to the situation before,” she told IRIN.

Reduced disease risk?

No studies have yet been published linking the spread of the water network with the incidence of disease, but some Somgandé residents who were recently connected to the grid said their children were falling sick less frequently. Water-borne illnesses are among the top five reasons for children’ health visits, according to the Health Ministry.

Future challenges will include how to extend such networks to rural areas, which are currently under-serviced in terms of clean water: 72 percent of rural Burkinabés access clean water, versus 95 percent of city residents.

The local authorities are responsible for rural water supply under Burkina Faso’s decentralized governance system.

According to a just-published report Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water 2013 Update [ http://www.unicef.org/media/media_69091.html ] by UNICEF and the World Health Organization, striking disparities remain between rural and urban water access, with rural communities making up 83 percent of the global population without access to an improved water source.

bo/aj/cb

]]></body><pubDate>Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98054/Making-WASH-work-in-Burkina-Faso-s-cities</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305161656290386t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">OUAGADOUGOU 17 May 2013 (IRIN) - Earlier this year Denis Ouedraogo, a tailor living in the Tampouy neighbourhood just north of Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou, connected his mud-walled home to the water network for the first time. “Even without electricity, having enough water can make you happy,” he said.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Briefing: Restive northern Kenya sees shifting power, risks</title><pubDate>Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2010/201011251201360592t.jpg" />]]>GARISSA-NAIROBI 17 May 2013 (IRIN) - The presence of foreign militias in parts of northeastern Kenya, and their collusion with security officials and business people there, may be to blame for a rise in insecurity in the region, where multiple gun and grenade attacks have been reported over the past two years.</description><body><![CDATA[GARISSA-NAIROBI 17 May 2013 (IRIN) - The presence of foreign militias in parts of northeastern Kenya, and their collusion with security officials and business people there, may be to blame for a rise in insecurity in the region, where multiple gun and grenade attacks have been reported over the past two years. 

But securing northern Kenya is increasingly vital to the government, with the badlands growing in economic viability, the new constitution shifting power to the counties, and mega development projects being planned in the region. 

In October 2011, Kenyan troops launched an intervention into Somalia [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94018/KENYA-SOMALIA-A-risky-intervention ] in pursuit of the Somali insurgent Al-Shabab militia, which it blamed for incursions into Kenya. Since then, dozens of people, including security officers, have been killed in attacks, mainly in the northeastern town of Garissa and the mainly-Somali Dadaab refugee camp.  

To address this, a number of security operations have been launched, involving the deployment of hundreds of police and military officers, arrests and curfews, as well the cessation of the registration of new Somali refugees amid fears of Al-Shabab infiltration. 

The most recent security operation in Garissa led to hundreds of arrests. "Ten police officers, among them the head of crime investigations [and] six local [administration] chiefs, have been suspended,” Charles Mureithi, the northeastern regional police chief, told IRIN, adding, “More arrests are on the way, and, of course, convictions.” 

The police officers and chiefs were said to be operating in league with the criminals, a view shared by a Garissa political leader, who spoke with IRIN on the condition of anonymity. 

"The monster responsible for all the sufferings we have experienced is… a club of wealthy traders from the Far East, Somalia [and] Kenya [as well as] politicians, our security officers and at least two sects of Al-Shabab,” said the Garissa leader. 

Who is to blame for the rising insecurity? 

An Al-Shabab-linked militia group has been blamed for some of the attacks in Garissa. 

"They only strike with an objective [of] fight[ing] other religions,” said Maulid*, a Garissa resident. “In Garissa, they worship in two mosques, same [as] in Nairobi. They consider us as infidels.” 

Churches in Garissa have been among the buildings targeted by grenade attacks. 

An Islamic religious leader, who preferred anonymity, called for the arrest of Al-Shabab-linked leaders and the seizure of their properties. "We want to see traders who paid gangs of criminals to kill arrested,” he said. 

According to Ahmed Yasin, a political science graduate from Somalia, the Al-Shabab-linked militias are retaliating against some prominent Kenyan Somalis’ support for the creation of an autonomous region of Jubaland [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97860/Briefing-Somalia-federalism-and-Jubaland ] in southern Somalia - which could serve as a buffer zone between the two countries - and against their support for the Ras Kamboni militia. 

In September 2012, the Ras Kamboni militia, alongside Kenyan troops, forced Al-Shabab out of the lucrative port city of Kismayo, which is a key economic and strategic resource for militias in southern Somalia. On 15 May, Ras Kamboni leader Sheikh Ahmed Madobe was announced as Jubaland’s president. 

While Al-Shabab is bitter at losing Kismayo, Yasin said, it also opposes the creation of a buffer zone, which would protect Kenya from Al-Shabab incursions. 

"Political leaders, elders and clerics must abandon support for [the] Ras Kamboni militia group... They must be wise [and] restrain from Somalia politics… and let their people enjoy peace," warned Yasin. 

What has been the fallout of the insecurity? 

A security operation to pacify the region has led to dozens of arrests; those found without legal identification documents were netted. Rights groups, however, are critical of these sweeping operations. 

Some Kenyan youths in Garissa are wrongfully being arrested as they lack identity cards, said Abdiwelli Mohamed of the local organization Citizens Rights Watch. The process of acquiring identification documents is often fraught with challenges, including long delays in the often-neglected northern region. 

According to Khalif Abdi Farah of the Garissa Northern Forum for Democracy, a civil society organization, dozens of people have also been injured, with others being illegally arrested in the crackdown. 

The police denied claims of arbitrary arrests, a view shared by Haji*, a Garissa resident and retailer. "It’s true [that] the police conducted house-to-house searches [and] stopped people on the streets. They checked identity cards and counter-checked with a list they were carrying. It’s clear [that] they are looking for particular individuals," he said. 

Besides a rising death toll and a large number of people injured in attacks over the past two years, the insecurity has had adverse socio-economic effects. Garissa businesses have been hit hard. 

A night club and guest house owner in Garissa said his business has suffered due to the curfew. "I only have an hour to operate. [I] open the pub at 5pm and close by 6pm.” 

Fear has also affected his business: “My guest house clients, [who] were mainly travellers either heading to Wajir, Mandera or Nairobi, these days no longer spend a night in Garissa for fear of arrest or attack," he said. 

Proceeds from the once-booming Garissa livestock market are declining too, said a revenue officer, noting that livestock traders are afraid of arrest. Asset and property values have also dropped significantly since December 2012, with fewer people opting to live or invest in Garissa. 

Why is securing northern Kenya vital? 

Securing Garissa and other northern Kenya regions has become a priority for the government, particularly amid the country’s newly devolved governance structure, lucrative cross-border development plans and the north’s growing economic viability. 

Devolution [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97726/Briefing-Devolution-to-transform-Kenya ], a centrepiece of Kenya’s 2010 constitution, will allocate more resources to the county governments, a move that is expected to reduce the marginalization of outer areas like northern Kenya. 

Kenya is also seeking to develop closer ties with its neighbours in the north, mainly Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan, amid planned mega development projects, such as the Lamu Port and Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET [ http://www.vision2030.go.ke/index.php/pillars/project/macro_enablers/181 ]), which will link the Horn of Africa region. 

“Previously peripheral areas to the north and east will assume a new economic, and so political, significance,” states a 2 May analysis by Oxford Analytica [ http://www.oxan.com/ ], a global analysis and advisory firm, which notes that development had previously been concentrated in the central belt stretching from Nairobi to the Ugandan border. 

Kenya also expects to get relief from its current electricity shortages by 2016 thorough the Eastern Electricity Highway Project [ http://www.worldbank.org/projects/P126579/regional-eastern-africa-power-pool-project-apl1?lang=en ], which will connect Kenya’s electrical grid to Ethiopia’s, adds the analysis. “Protecting this supply will require: greater security in border areas; more careful management of local conflicts between communities in border areas to prevent escalation into disputes between the two states; and continued friendly relations between Nairobi and Addis Ababa.” 

Recent oil discoveries [ http://www.irinnews.org/report/95547/KENYA-Oil-hope-and-fear ] in northwest Kenya, and ongoing exploration in other regions, such as near Lamu [ http://www.irinnews.org/report/96675/KENYA-Disquiet-over-Lamu-port-project ], “ further underline the importance of once-peripheral areas of the country to future economic development,” added the analysis. 

What challenges lie ahead? 

“Nairobi's incentive to extend state authority to historically neglected regions will grow, but not without facing significant challenges,” said a 14 May Oxford Analytica analysis. 

The northern Kenya regions are characterized by widespread insecurity [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/90505/KENYA-SOMALIA-Insecurity-without-borders ]. Inter-communal violence and the proliferation of small arms are common, the state is largely absent, and the borders are mostly porous. 

For example, there are currently inter-clan clashes in Mandera, which neighbours Garissa, with several people being reported dead and at least 6,600 displaced, according to the Kenya Red Cross Society [ https://www.kenyaredcross.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=476&Itemid=124 ]. 

In response, security in Mandera has been beefed up and residents have been urged to surrender illegal firearms. 

Forceful disarmament [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/89060/KENYA-Your-guns-or-your-freedom-please ] is likely there, as similar moves have occurred elsewhere in the north. But this only further alienates residents who blame insecurity on the inadequate state presence. 

“While such events appear familiar and of little wider significance, the new geography of Kenya's development plan - including energy, transportation, hydrocarbons - alters the political considerations of centre-periphery relations and increases the relevance of long-standing insecurity and distrust,” Oxford Analytica’s 14 May analysis said. 

“If an historical state reliance on coercion continues, rising insecurity in northern and coastal areas creates some risks for smoother longer-term economic development,” it noted. 

Kenya After the Elections [ http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Kenya-after-the-elections.pdf ], a 15 May policy briefing by the International Crisis Group (ICG), warns that devolution may not “be a ‘magic bullet’ that will allow the country to correct historical patterns of neglect, and redress regional marginalization and inequitable development… There are concerns devolution could ultimately balkanize counties, creating ‘ethnic fiefdoms’.” 

The briefing urges county governments to be inclusive of minority interests to address inequality. 

“The new government has the opportunity to usher in a new era of peace and socioeconomic development that would benefit all communities and unite the country. The foundation has been laid with the overwhelming support the constitution received in 2010, a base that should be maintained and built upon for a peaceful and prosperous future.” 

*Name changed 

aw-na/rz

]]></body><pubDate>Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98059/Briefing-Restive-northern-Kenya-sees-shifting-power-risks</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2010/201011251201360592t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">GARISSA-NAIROBI 17 May 2013 (IRIN) - The presence of foreign militias in parts of northeastern Kenya, and their collusion with security officials and business people there, may be to blame for a rise in insecurity in the region, where multiple gun and grenade attacks have been reported over the past two years.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Microcredit helps small businesses buck the system in Madagascar</title><pubDate>Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305161340310590t.jpg" />]]>TOLIARA 16 May 2013 (IRIN) - Justine Sija, 60, begins her day at 4am, when she buys catch from local fishermen to hawk on the streets of St Augustin Village, in Madagascar’s southern Atsimo-Andrefana Region. The work is hard, but in the last year, access to microcredit has boosted both her business and her hope for the future.</description><body><![CDATA[TOLIARA 16 May 2013 (IRIN) - Justine Sija, 60, begins her day at 4am, when she buys catch from local fishermen to hawk on the streets of St Augustin Village, in Madagascar’s southern Atsimo-Andrefana Region. The work is hard, but in the last year, access to microcredit has boosted both her business and her hope for the future. 

“Before, I used to make 10,000 to 20,000 ariary (US$4.50 to $9) a day. Now, with the credit, I can make double that amount,” she told IRIN. “I can put my four [grand]children in school, buy some livestock and save the rest of the money. Eventually, I plan to sell other goods also, like rice and other local products,” Sija said. 

Madagascar’s microfinance sector was established in 1990, but it began to experience rapid growth only in the last 10 years; it was worth about 22.7 billion ariary ($10 million) in 2002, and by 2011, it was valued at about 244.4 billion ariary ($112 million) [ http://www.iss.nl/fileadmin/ASSETS/iss/Documents/Research_and_projects/Unlocking_potential_Microfinance.pdf ].

Microfinance is seen as a vehicle to help Madagascar attain some of its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly the goal on eradicating extreme poverty. The UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) [ http://www.uncdf.org/ ] says about 85 percent of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day. 

The poor often lack access to formal banking and credit services; according to some estimates, only 2 percent of low-income households have access to credit. Instead, they rely on informal money lenders, who charge annual interest rates for unsecured loans of between 120 to 400 percent - compared with microfinance institutions’ (MFI) average rate of 36 percent for the same period, or between 2 and 4 percent a month. (The country’s annual inflation rate was pegged at 5.4 percent in March 2013.) [ http://www.instat.mg ] 

Madagascar’s microfinance sector has about 31 players, which include state, foreign investor and donor-supported initiatives, operating under a legal framework and regulated by Madagascar’s Central Bank [ http://www.banque-centrale.mg ].

Since 2011, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) [ http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home.html ] and UNCDF have jointly managed the $350,000 Support Programme for Inclusive Finance for Madagascar (PAFIM) [ http://www.uncdf.org/en/madagascar ], which operates through three MFIs and charges a zero interest rate on loans. 

“Through this mechanism we have good hope that the cycle of poverty caused by poor farmers’ debts will be broken,” Fatma Samoura, UNDP’s country representative, told IRIN. 

Education needed 

“People in Madagascar need to work together and the poor here need a direct approach to development. The products are there, but people also need the right education to be able to access them,” said Harinavalona Rajaonah, who works at Ombona Tahiry Ifampisamborana Vola (OTIV), one of the UNDP-partnered microfinance organizations. 

“We have tried to put a culture of credit access into place here. The hardest part is to change the mentality of the people,” Jean Olivier Razafimanantsoa, regional director of the Central Bank-registered credit cooperative Caisses d'Epargne et de Crédit Agricole Mutuelles (CECAM), told IRIN. 

“We work together with other organizations in the city, as some people are a member [of other MFIs] everywhere, and so they take out too many loans. Also, the farmers tend to overestimate how much they need. They want us to finance their rice crop, which is worth 700,000 ariary ($321), but they’ll come and ask for two million ($917). When you ask them how they got to this amount, they don’t know,” he said. 

All microloan borrowers receive business advice, but with technical assistance and funding from UNDP, microfinance players have also established microcredit education programmes aimed at vulnerable groups. 

One such programme, run by CECAM, mainly targets poor female street vendors. Razafimanantsoa says the programme has 1,303 clients, including Sija and other women from St Augustin Village. The women must save between 200 and 400 ariary ($0.09 to $0.18) a week, as part of the initial loan agreement. 

They are then enrolled in lending system that goes through nine cycles, the first entitling the recipient to an 80,000 ariary ($36) loan. Each time the clients repay a loan, they are eligible for another, with progressively higher loan ceilings up to 300,000 ariary ($137). Repayment schedules range from a few months to a year. The programme also offers education on basic money management, family planning and health issues. 

After completing all the cycles, the women become eligible for CECAM’s normal commercial microcredit system. 

“Right now, our goal is for these women to eat three times a day and feed their children, but eventually, they should be able to build up a guarantee to get a commercial business going and enter into the regular CECAM system,” Razafimanantsoa said. 

Cyclone 

The weekly obligatory savings plan acts as a buffer against hard times, which is especially important in this cyclone-prone country. 

After Cyclone Haruna struck Madagascar in February [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97805/Consecutive-catastrophes-hit-Madagascar-s-farmers ], many of CECAM’s clients in Toliara, the regional capital of Atsimo-Andrefana Region, were left penniless. 

“The first weeks, we didn’t give out any more loans, as we were afraid people would just use the money to eat. We are now helping some of the women who have lost their homes to reschedule their loans,” Razafimanantsoa said. 

Prisca, 33, who did not provide her family name, from Belem, a district of Toliara, had entered her second credit cycle, and was using the capital to buy eggs from producers to sell at the market. “After I got the microcredit, I went from selling 100 eggs a day to selling up to 300. I could send the children to a private school and was able to buy some chickens,” she told IRIN. 

But she was left homeless in the wake of the cyclone, and now lives in a displacement camp, sharing a tent with 10 others. “We left with only the clothes on our back. The first week we stayed in a school. Then the BNGRC [National Disaster Risk Reduction Office] came to give us these tents,” she said. 

Prisca owes a 44,000 ariary ($20) debt to CECAM, and in the interim has enrolled in a cash-for-work project. “We’re working to rehabilitate the roads, earning 24,000 ariary ($11) a week. I want to pay the CECAM [debt] first, as that will enable me to take out a new loan. Then, I can earn money again and rebuild the house little by little. This credit is what takes care of our daily needs,” she said. 

In the wake of the disaster, Sija, the fishmonger, was grateful for the loan’s savings requirement. “We pay back our loans from our savings,” she said. “After the cyclone in February, we had some problems paying, as there were no more goods to sell, so it was good I had saved up some money.” 

Growing businesses 

The programmes are working. 

Hanisoa Ravalison, 43, operates a small roadside restaurant selling sausages and simple meals in the village of Ambanitsena, about 26km east of Antananarivo, the capital. Following a visit by an OTIV agent, who recruits prospective clients, Ravalison decided to expand her business. 

“At first, I borrowed money to renovate and enlarge the snack bar and to buy a fridge,” she told IRIN. “Now, I use money to buy more goods, so I can make more profit.” 

Ravalison is in the tenth borrowing cycle of OTIV’s 12 cycles - which have an initial loan of 60,000 ariary ($27.50) and reach a loan ceiling of 440,000 ariary ($201). 

“Before I received training, I just used the money I made to buy whatever was needed. Now, I separate personal expenses and money for the business. I also know the difference between sales and profits and know that I need to use part of the profits to make the company run.” 

On a good day, her restaurant takes in 85,000 ariary ($39). “During holidays and festivals, we sell as many as 100kg of sausages,” she said. 

Her husband has set up a second restaurant, and two of their five children work in the family businesses. Ravalison said her next business plan was to open a wholesale food business. 

Liva Harininana Ramanatenasoa began a small business selling charcoal in Ambanitsena. “One day, an agent from OTIV came along and explained that, with microcredit, I could do better,” she told IRIN. 

With the first loan, Ramanatenasoa bought more charcoal. “Without credit, I would be able to buy 10 bags maximum, but with credit, I could afford as many as 22, so I made a lot more profit,” she said. 

Two years after first enrolling in the microcredit scheme, Ramanatenasoa used the profits from her charcoal business to buy the rights to a stone quarry for 200,000 ariary ($90). She now employs a staff of 14. Profits from the business have enabled her to build a house and put her children in school. 

“If it wasn’t for the credit, I would have still been selling coal,” she said. 

ar/go/rz

]]></body><pubDate>Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98050/Microcredit-helps-small-businesses-buck-the-system-in-Madagascar</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305161340310590t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">TOLIARA 16 May 2013 (IRIN) - Justine Sija, 60, begins her day at 4am, when she buys catch from local fishermen to hawk on the streets of St Augustin Village, in Madagascar’s southern Atsimo-Andrefana Region. The work is hard, but in the last year, access to microcredit has boosted both her business and her hope for the future.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Pastoralism’s economic contributions are significant but overlooked</title><pubDate>Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201108010808430012t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 16 May 2013 (IRIN) - Pastoralism is often regarded as an antiquated practice ill-suited to the modern economy, yet trade between pastoral communities in Africa - much of it informal and illegal - generates an estimated US$1 billion each year, according to a new book published by the Futures Agriculture Consortium.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 16 May 2013 (IRIN) - Pastoralism is often regarded as an antiquated practice ill-suited to the modern economy, yet trade between pastoral communities in Africa - much of it informal and illegal - generates an estimated US$1 billion each year, according to a new book [ http://www.future-agricultures.org/pastoralism/7666-book-pastoralism-and-development-in-africa ] published by the Futures Agriculture Consortium. 

“If we shift our gaze from the capital cities, where the development and policy elite congregate, to the regional centers and their hinterlands where pastoralists live, then a very different perspective emerges. Here we see the growth of a booming livestock export trade, the flourishing of the private sector, the expansion of towns with the inflow of investment, and the emergence of a class of entrepreneurs commanding a profitable market, and generating employment and other business opportunities; and all of this driven without a reliance on external development aid,” said the authors of the study. 

Pastoralism contributes between 10 and 44 percent of the GDP of African countries. An estimated 1.3 billion people benefit from livestock value chain, according to the International Livestock Research Institute. 

“Pastoralism contributes to the livelihoods of millions of people across Africa, in some of the poorest and most deprived areas. It is a critical source of economic activity in dryland areas, where other forms of agriculture are impossible,” Ian Scoones, from the Institute of Development Studies [ http://www.ids.ac.uk/ ], told IRIN. 

Ced Hesse, a researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), told IRIN that in East Africa alone, “pastoralism directly supports an estimated 20 million people” and produces “80 percent of the total annual milk supply in Ethiopia, provides 90 percent of the meat consumed in East Africa, and contributes 19 percent, 13 percent and 8 percent of GDP in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, respectively”. 

He continued, “This is an enormous contribution to the regional economy, but often is unrecognized.” 

Invisible 

IIED’s Hesse explains why little attention is paid to pastoralists’ contributions: “The benefits that pastoralism brings are invisible to most governments because the methodologies they use for assessing economic activity and growth, the most popular being GDP, are not adapted to pastoralism.” 

“A ‘total economic valuation’ framework is needed. When Intergovernmental Authority on Development, IGAD, used this methodology to calculate the contribution of livestock to the Kenyan economy, they found livestock’s contribution to agricultural GDP is about two and half times greater than official estimates,” Hesse said. 

“Kenya’s livestock were under appreciated and no attempt to enumerate it had been made for decades,” the IGAD report said. 

Experts like Scoones say the rapid urbanization in Africa will continue to provide increased market opportunities for pastoralists. Not all will benefit from the direct sale of livestock, but there are opportunities for diversification. 

“There are spin-off benefits from such trade, including opportunities for engaging in diversified activities, including processing animal products, providing transport, fodder and marketing support, and offering services in the growing small towns in pastoral areas,”  said Scoones. 

“Not all those in pastoralist areas can be involved directly in the growing, vibrant livestock trade that feeds the burgeoning cities across Africa,” Scoones added. 

Bad press 

Yet other than reports of pastoralists suffering from poverty and climate-related shocks, pastoralism receives little attention from national governments or the media. 

Of the reporting that does exist, much is negative, according to Media perceptions and portrayals of Pastoralists in Kenya, India and China [ http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/14623IIED.pdf ], an April 2013 IIED report. 

In Kenya for instance, 93 percent of news articles on pastoralist analyzed by the authors were about drought and conflict. Fifty-one percent of articles mentioning conflict presented pastoralist as the cause of the problems rather than the victims of conflict. 

In India, on the other hand, 60 percent of articles reviewed portrayed pastoralists as victims “who have lost access to grazing land because of the growth of industrial agriculture, the dominance of more powerful social groups, and limits to grazing in forested land, among others.” 

The bad press has generated calls for pastoralist communities to change their lifestyles. 

Media reports also fail to mention the environmental benefits of pastoralism, which can contribute to biodiversity conservation [ http://www.pastoralismjournal.com/content/pdf/2041-7136-2-14.pdf ], and the role it plays in making food systems resilient by, for example, preventing overreliance on drought- and flood-vulnerable crops. 

“The media tends to portray pastoralists as a source of problem or as lost causes, yet most media articles about pastoralists do not even quote the pastoralists themselves. The media portrayals paint a partial picture, one that rarely mentions the important economic and environmental benefits of pastoralism, or the way that herder mobility helps increase the resilience of food systems in a changing climate, so that even distant consumers in cities benefit,” Mike Shanahan, communication specialist and author of the study, told IRIN. 

Minorities Rights Group International observed in its 2012 State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples [ http://www.minorityrights.org/11374/state-of-the-worlds-minorities/state-of-the-worlds-minorities-and-indigenous-peoples-2012.html ] report that pastoralists are being forced to abandon their livelihoods by national governments. Experts see an increase in the phenomenon of land grabs, in which pastoralists and minority groups are driven out of their lands to pave the way for development projects considered more “viable”, such as large-scale irrigation projects [ http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2011.652620 ]. 

Some experts, like IIED’s Hesse, say there is a case for modernizing pastoralism - not in the “sense of settling them or turning them into ranchers”, but by focusing on the “logic of pastoralism’s production strategies that allow it to produce the benefits in arid and semi-arid environments characterized by rainfall variability.” 

ko/rz   

]]></body><pubDate>Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98052/Pastoralism-s-economic-contributions-are-significant-but-overlooked</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201108010808430012t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 16 May 2013 (IRIN) - Pastoralism is often regarded as an antiquated practice ill-suited to the modern economy, yet trade between pastoral communities in Africa - much of it informal and illegal - generates an estimated US$1 billion each year, according to a new book published by the Futures Agriculture Consortium.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Call for oil revenues to improve living standards in Congo</title><pubDate>Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201203071330530657t.jpg" />]]>BRAZZAVILLE 15 May 2013 (IRIN) - Congo, which is heavily dependent on revenue from the oil industry, has been declared as “conforming to” a global standard that aims to ensure transparency of payments for natural resources; NGOs hope the announcement will improve the lives of the poor.</description><body><![CDATA[BRAZZAVILLE 15 May 2013 (IRIN) - Congo, which is heavily dependent on revenue from the oil industry, has been declared as “conforming to” a global standard that aims to ensure transparency of payments for natural resources; NGOs hope the announcement will improve the lives of the poor. 

More than half the country’s 3.6 million people live below the poverty line. 

The Initiative for Transparency in the Extractive Industries (EITI) [ http://eiti.org/ ], adopted by G8 countries in 2003, aims to improve the transparency of the management of mineral resources. It brings together, in a single structure, governments, oil companies, international financial institutions and NGOs. 

"Being validated and found to comply with the EITI means Congo ticked 21 boxes, including membership of EITI, implying a commitment to publish all necessary information relating to the management of our industries, especially oil, our primary export resource," Florent Michel Okoko, coordinator of EITI in Congo, told IRIN. 

Oil accounts for 80 to 90 percent of Congo’s exports and budget revenues. 

EITI covers both solid and liquid mines. However "at this stage, we are focusing on the oil industry because, in terms of solid mines [iron ore mining in the southwest], we are still at the stage of prospecting. In the relatively near future, we will also integrate solid mines," said Okoko. 

Congo’s achievement of compliance has not come overnight: The country became associated with EITI in 2004, but oil has remained a sticking point. 

“However, since 2011 the government seems to have made an effort because from then on, there is an 80 to 90 percent overlap between revenues that were reported by oil companies and those said to have been seen by the Treasury,” Christian Mounzéo, of the Congolese organization Publish What You Pay (PWYP), told IRIN. 

Much-needed revenues 

Congolese civil society groups insist that such revenue should benefit the lives of all Congolese citizens. 

"Being consistent with EITI is not an end in itself. Instead, the government should mandate the equitable distribution of [revenue from] petroleum, mining and gas products. The Congolese want to touch and taste the income of its oil daily,” Brice Mackosso, secretary-general of the Diocesan Commission for Justice and Peace (CJP), told IRIN. 

Officially, annual income from oil exports is around US$6 billion. 

"These oil revenues are currently very, very important, so it is time for the average Congolese to feel them in terms of better access to education, water, electricity and health," said Mackosso. 

According to the most recent Demographic Health Survey (2007), 47 percent of the population had access to water in urban areas, and 11 percent in rural areas. The figures for electricity were 45 and 6 percent respectively. 

Literacy rates, which used to be around 100 percent in the 1980s, dropped to 80 percent in 2010 due to the civil war, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP). UNDP’s Human Development Index says life expectancy is 55. 

Officially 24 to 30 percent of the population under 30 is unemployed, according to 2011 World Bank estimates. 

Between February and April 2013, at least 9,500 state school teachers went on strike to demand a 60 percent pay increase. "Teachers have expressed aloud what all Congolese think to themselves. In any case the oil money is not kept in Congo, but in tax havens," Elo Dacy, a member of the opposition Patriotic Union for National Renewal (UPRN), told IRIN. 

lmm/cb/rz

]]></body><pubDate>Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98044/Call-for-oil-revenues-to-improve-living-standards-in-Congo</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201203071330530657t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BRAZZAVILLE 15 May 2013 (IRIN) - Congo, which is heavily dependent on revenue from the oil industry, has been declared as “conforming to” a global standard that aims to ensure transparency of payments for natural resources; NGOs hope the announcement will improve the lives of the poor.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Briefing: Egypt rethinks its subsidy system for the poor</title><pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305141109580576t.jpg" />]]>CAIRO 14 May 2013 (IRIN) - The Egyptian government has taken tentative steps towards reducing the roughly US$20 billion subsidy system that supporters say provides vital aid to the one-in-four Egyptians in poverty, and critics say is unsustainable and enriches the corrupt.</description><body><![CDATA[CAIRO 14 May 2013 (IRIN) - The Egyptian government has taken tentative steps towards reducing the roughly US$20 billion subsidy system that supporters say provides vital aid to the one-in-four Egyptians [ http://www.capmas.gov.eg/pdf/studies/pdf/enf1.pdf ] in poverty, and critics say is unsustainable and enriches the corrupt.

“Most of the subsidies do not go to the people who really need them,” said Osama Kamal, who until the 7 May cabinet reshuffle was petroleum minister.

The government plans a series of piecemeal reforms to revolutionize its decades-old subsidy system in a bid to rein in a runaway budget deficit, and adapt to the conditions of a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

But as Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Bassem Auda said recently, the subsidy system protects at least eight million Egyptians against poverty, and any changes are highly sensitive.

The government wants to reduce the budget deficit to 5.5 percent in the 2016-2017 budget from 10.7 percent in the 2012-2013 budget, according to the Finance Ministry [ http://www.brecorder.com/world/africa/118022-egypt-eyes-55pc-budget-deficit-in-2016-17.html ].

A high priority in the subsidy reform scheme is energy subsidies, which are estimated at 115 billion pounds ($16.8 billion), and bread subsidies [ http://www.almasryalyoum.com/node/1398046 ] (Arabic), which are estimated at 21 billion pounds ($3.1 billion).

Manal Metwaly, an economics professor from Cairo University, says cuts will have a devastating effect on the poor: “The government says the subsidy system opens the way for corruption, but it doesn’t have to slash subsidies in order to fight corruption.

“The subsidies keep millions of people afloat, while commodity prices keep rising. This means that any change in the system can affect the lives of millions of people.”

What’s the plan to reduce bread subsidy corruption?

Subsidized bread is a permanent item on almost all Egyptian tables; it is a lifeline for the poor, but the system is also frequently abused.

Egyptians consume as many as 210 million loaves of subsidized flat bread every day, helping to make it the world's largest wheat importer.

The government sells a subsidized loaf of bread at the nation's more than 25,000 bakeries for five piasters (less than one US cent) whereas the production cost of the same loaf is more than 40 piasters (six US cents).

“Bread subsidies are a real headache for the government because, like most other subsidies, they open the way for massive corruption and profiteering by a group of dishonest traders,” Hamdy Allam, a senior official at the Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade, told IRIN.

In order to reduce corruption resulting from the selling by bakery owners of subsidized flour on the black market, the government introduced a new system in April, which has been implemented in several governorates and accepted by 15,000 bakeries.

Instead of selling subsidized flour to the bakeries, the bakers buy the flour at the market rate, but are then reimbursed 35 piasters by the government per loaf, to make sure the sales price remains 5 piasters.

The system is expected to be implemented across Egypt in the next two months after all the nation's bakeries sign up to the reforms.

The government’s aim here is to reduce corruption rather than financial support for poor consumers.

What’s the plan for ration cards?

Egypt's ration cards date back to 1964 when the population was less than 30 million. Back then, the government earmarked two million pounds ($301,204) to give citizens rice, sugar, lentils, cooking oil, and tea at subsidized rates.

Now, the government spends as much as nine billion pounds (US$1.3 billion) every year on the food subsidies, which go to around 17.6 million families (around 68 million people).

In July, the government plans to start limiting ration cards to citizens whose monthly income is below 1,500 Egyptian pounds (US$216), but at the same time is planning to allow children born after 2005 in low-income households to be registered for the cards, reversing a suspension of registrations introduced under President Hosni Mubarak.

The minister of supply also announced last week that it would be working to improve the quality of ration card goods, which have a poor reputation.

…and for energy subsidies?

Energy is by far the largest recipient of subsidies.

The Petroleum Ministry produces oil to the value of 165 billion pounds (US$23.8 billion) every year, but then sells these products for 50 billion pounds [ http://digital.ahram.org.eg/Policy.aspx?Serial=1239531 ] (Arabic).

Most energy subsidies go on factories and industrial projects, which get their energy needs at less than market prices. But private vehicle owners also benefit.

The government has already started reducing subsidies on car fuel, and targeting 95-octane gasoline was the first step in this regard [ http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/3/12/58834/Business/Economy/Egypt-announces-cut-of-octane-gasoline-subsidies.aspx ].

The government says that from July it plans to cut subsidies on car fuel by 10 percent in the first stage of the reforms, but this will rise to 50 percent within five years. If applied in July, the government says, the plan will bring overall fuel subsidies down to 99 billion pounds (US$14.5 billion).

To do this, it plans to give coupons or smart cards to car owners allowing them to purchase limited amounts of subsidized fuel.

…and gas cylinders?

Gas cylinder subsidies are enjoyed by almost every Egyptian household.

The government says gas cylinder subsidies amounted to 60 billion Egyptian pounds (almost US$8.9 billion) in the 2012-2013 budget [ http://www.mss.gov.eg/mss/ar-eg/%D9%85%D8%B4%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A9.aspx?udt_517_param_detail=14 ] (Arabic).

Although the production of one cylinder costs 78 pounds ($11.2), until recently the government sold the same cylinder to the public for five pounds (72 US cents).

Now, the government plans to link subsidized gas cylinders to ration cards.

Ration card holding families made up of three people will be allowed to get one gas cylinder every month at the subsidized rate of five pounds. Families of more than three people will get 1.5 gas cylinders at the same subsidized rate every month.

The government started implementing the first stage [ http://dostor.org/%D8%A7%D9%82%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%AF/%D8%A7%D9%82%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1/172028-%D8%AD%D9%83%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A9-%D9%82%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%84-%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%AD%D9%84%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%88%D9%84%D9%89-%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%B4%D9%8A%D8%AF-%D8%AF%D8%B9%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D9%88%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%B2 ] (Arabic) of the gas cylinder subsidy reform plan in April by raising the price of the cylinders to eight pounds ($1.15) for homes and 16 pounds for restaurants and shops ($2.30).

The government says it will start distributing gas cylinder coupons in July in all governorates.

The price of a cylinder without the coupons is expected to rise to 30 pounds ($4.3). The government says the coupon system will save three billion pounds a year.

Egyptians consume as many as 360 million gas cylinders every year.

What might the consequences be?

Egypt has long discussed subsidy reforms [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/77691/EGYPT-Can-bread-subsidies-continue-in-their-present-form ], but has struggled to change a system seen as both unsustainable but too sensitive to reorganize.

A senior Muslim Brotherhood official, who asked not to be named, told IRIN the government was determined to push through reforms.

“We will not buy votes at the expense of the national economy. This subsidy system must be reformulated in ways that allow the subsidies to reach the people who really need them.”

Given the continued street protests and the upcoming parliamentary elections, analysts say the government will need to argue that reforms are about reducing corruption rather than hitting the poor.

“Some of the measures we take are unpopular. They will make people hate us. But this is not what we care about. We only care about putting the economy of this country back on track,” said the official.

Politicians have always feared social unrest from the inevitable price rises that will result.

“The price of one ton of concrete iron [iron bars used in the construction industry] jumped 30 percent as soon as the government slashed the subsidies on energy for concrete iron factories,” Rashad Abdo, head of local think tank Egyptian Economic Forum, told IRIN. “The same will happen with all other commodities. Ordinary citizens will foot the bill at the end of the day.”

ae/jj/cb

]]></body><pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98031/Briefing-Egypt-rethinks-its-subsidy-system-for-the-poor</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305141109580576t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">CAIRO 14 May 2013 (IRIN) - The Egyptian government has taken tentative steps towards reducing the roughly US$20 billion subsidy system that supporters say provides vital aid to the one-in-four Egyptians in poverty, and critics say is unsustainable and enriches the corrupt.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Analysis: Getting governments to cough up for DRR</title><pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201301091116460112t.jpg" />]]>AQABA 09 May 2013 (IRIN) - Investing in preparation for potential disasters is a “no brainer”, Elizabeth Longworth, director of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), told a recent disaster risk reduction (DRR) conference in Aqaba, Jordan.</description><body><![CDATA[AQABA 09 May 2013 (IRIN) - Investing in preparation for potential disasters is a “no brainer”, Elizabeth Longworth, director of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), told a recent disaster risk reduction (DRR) conference in Aqaba, Jordan.

And yet a report [ https://ochanet.unocha.org/p/Documents/WEB%20Humanitarianism%20in%20the%20Network%20Age%20vF%20single.pdf ] published last month by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said DRR funding accounts for only 3 percent of humanitarian aid and just 1 percent of all other development assistance.

Last year (seen as a relatively quiet year by natural disaster experts), the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) [ http://cred01.epid.ucl.ac.be/f/CredCrunch31.pdf ] recorded 310 natural disasters, leading to 9,930 deaths affecting 106 million people.

In total in the last three years, disasters have caused more than US$300 billion of recorded damage [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97655/Tallying-natural-disaster-related-losses ].

So, if the scale of the damage is not in dispute, why is DRR not better resourced? Has the funding argument not yet been won?

Improving funding

“Funding is a challenge,” said Jordan Ryan, director of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery at the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

“DRR doesn’t always get sufficient funding. Sometimes the donors don’t put a priority on disaster risk. They don’t always come through. So, I think we need even more attention.”

But natural disaster experts are emphatic that DRR funding is fundamentally a good investment. Estimates vary about how much can be saved, but the most conservative figures say that every $1 spent on DRR is worth $4 later on.

One example of the difference preparation can make is in what is now Bangladesh where in 1970 the Bhola cyclone killed up to 500,000 people. Nearly four decades later when another destructive storm hit (Cyclone Aila, 2009), early warning systems, hundreds of cyclone shelters, and disaster volunteer networks helped keep the country’s death toll below 200.

When natural hazards meet unprepared communities, populations are left extremely vulnerable, as seen when Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar in 2008, a country without early warning systems or storm shelters.

Perceptions of the importance of disaster preparedness vary from country to country.

“In Japan people understand this is money well spent,” Kimio Takeya, visiting senior adviser for the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), told IRIN, saying the country had been buffeted by earthquakes, typhoons and floods in the last 50 years: “Everything hit Japan.”

This follows a clear pattern. Governments find it difficult to appreciate risk and the need for risk reduction, until disaster strikes.

Changing perceptions

“I suppose that if we had won the argument [about DRR funding], we wouldn’t be making the case for increased donor commitment anymore as much as we do, so I guess the simple answer is no, we haven’t won it yet. But I do also believe that it is changing,” said Jo Scheuer, team leader for DRR and recovery at UNDP.

“The recent events, including in Japan and US, have shown clearly that they disasters affect everybody. It is an increasing risk that we are facing, particularly in terms of climate change, and if you look at the global discussions around also humanitarian aid and the resilience debate, there is a clear movement - I would say a political will - to move away from just responding to humanitarian crises or disasters, to actually building resilience.”

For donors, agencies like UNDP make the argument that DRR spending can be a means of reducing the long-term emergency humanitarian aid needed annually to deal with each new natural disaster.

“Donors are now increasingly putting money into preparedness and resilience, so that there aren’t only these millions of dollars that are for response, but that you can actually prepare countries beforehand for building their resilience, particularly in urban cities, where there’s growing infrastructure and the risk of massive potential economic damage,” Aditi Banerjee, disaster risk management specialist in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region at the World Bank, told IRIN.

But beyond donors, experts say there needs to be a change of attitude in governments, which find it difficult to reallocate funds from areas like health and education to DRR.

“Of course it is very difficult to convince the political leaders or the people to spend money before the disaster. This needs something like far-sightedness,” said Takeya.

He has been looking at the impact of DRR spending on GDP growth. “We are modelling and trying to calculate and analyse for each country. There’s a definite positive pattern - we can show the evidence that… your GDP growth will go down without DRR investment,” he said.

Convincing governments that they are not yet spending what they should on DRR is crucial, said Longworth.

“The sustainability of DRR is when budget-holders, whether they be governments, local governments, or other entities actually start re-orientating their budget allocations to DRR, and that’s why we’re putting so much attention on the economic case. It is absolutely well established now that the scale of economic losses from disasters justifies significantly more investment in reducing risks.”

More data, a growing awareness of the link between the scale of a disaster and preparedness, and international initiatives like the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), agreed in January 2005 just after the Indian Ocean tsunami, have helped change perceptions about DRR.

For Banerjee at the World Bank, even in the MENA region, which has been less affected by natural disasters than others, thinking is clearly changing.

“To me this shift has been the most intense in MENA, because MENA is not typically a region that is like Asia or Latin America that is hit by a disaster every few months. It’s hit by big disasters but over time, which is why sometimes the institutional memory is forgotten. But in the five years that I’ve been here there’s been so much more dialogue on this.”

Using climate funds

One potential source of funding for DRR projects that garnered a lot of interest from delegates at March’s first DRR conference in the Arab world [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97941/Arab-cities-aim-to-build-resilience-to-natural-disasters ] is climate change resource streams.

“This is already happening. If you look at some of the projects, programmes, entities that have been funded from the various existing financial instruments related to climate change adaptation, many of those activities are actually classic DRR activities - from early warning systems to agricultural livelihood measures and so on,” said Scheuer.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is in charge of three climate funds: the Adaptation Fund, the Least Developed Countries Fund, and the Special Climate Change Fund, set up under the Kyoto Protocol to offset the negative effects of climate change in the developed world.

The first two projects [ http://irinnews.org/Report/90571/CLIMATE-CHANGE-Adaptation-Fund-starts-delivering ] under the Adaptation Fund were to help handle rising sea levels in Senegal, and water management in Honduras.

Another recent US$7.6 million project in northern Pakistan funded by the Adaptation Fund is to help communities better prepare for sudden glacial lake flooding.

“If it’s rising sea levels, or depleted water table, when you address it, you are reducing the risk, you’re also anticipating what’s coming in terms of global warming,” said Longworth.

Several Pacific countries are drawing up joint strategies at a national level to tackle DRR and climate change adaptation together.

“The issue here is not that you get a transfer from the climate pots into the disaster pots of money. The issue is that programmatically and substantively speaking, we make sure that we have the synergies between those two funding streams,” said Scheuer.

“It doesn’t matter where the money comes from; it matters that we address the issue of risk and build resilience,” he said.

But preparedness is not all about big money - much DRR work, experts stress, can be relatively cheap things like training volunteers, teaching basic first aid techniques, and making better use of tools like mobile phones that many people already have.

Sometimes it can even just be a question of remembering former ways of living that were more resilient in terms of natural hazards.

In Japan, flood prone areas in traditional communities normally had an elevated building somewhere in the area that people could escape to, with second floors commonly storing a boat to help residents escape.

Build back better

In reality, it is very difficult for governments to grasp the value of DRR until they have been the victim of a major disaster.

In the case of Algeria, it was only after the Boumerdès earthquake of 2003 and the deaths of around 3,500 people that the government beefed up regulations for the construction of schools and hospitals, according to Hichem Imouche from the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The same thing happened after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, which levelled most of Tokyo. Building regulations were strengthened again in Japan after the Great Hanshin earthquake near the city of Kobe in 1995; rubber blocks were placed under bridges and earthquake proof shelters constructed.

“Once disaster happens it is of course a bad situation but it is a chance to revise the way of thinking,” said Takeya.

No doubt the debate will move forward when DRR experts and officials meet on 19-23 May for the Fourth Session of the Global Platform for DRR [ http://www.preventionweb.net/globalplatform/2013/ ] in Geneva, Switzerland.

jj/cb

]]></body><pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98003/Analysis-Getting-governments-to-cough-up-for-DRR</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201301091116460112t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">AQABA 09 May 2013 (IRIN) - Investing in preparation for potential disasters is a “no brainer”, Elizabeth Longworth, director of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), told a recent disaster risk reduction (DRR) conference in Aqaba, Jordan.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Hunger projects stalled in Guinea-Bissau</title><pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201208141544380935t.jpg" />]]>BISSAU/DAKAR 09 May 2013 (IRIN) - The World Food Programme (WFP) has not received the money it needs to run basic nutrition and food security schemes in Guinea-Bissau, leaving projects in jeopardy or at a standstill.</description><body><![CDATA[BISSAU/DAKAR 09 May 2013 (IRIN) - The World Food Programme (WFP) has not received the money it needs to run basic nutrition and food security schemes in Guinea-Bissau, leaving projects in jeopardy or at a standstill.

The organization needs US$7 million immediately to cover its food security and nutrition programme targeting 278,000 people for 2013; and a further $8 million to extend the project through 2014. The project involves school-feeding, preventing moderate and acute malnutrition, and boosting rice production, and was supposed to start in February this year.

WFP head of programmes Fatimata Sow-Sidibé told IRIN the money is lacking because traditional donors suspended all development cooperation following the April 2012 coup.

“We have some promises [from donors],” said Sow-Sidibé, “but the programme was supposed to start in February and we have no resources to buy the food we need.”

Traditional donors more or less stopped all development funding in Guinea-Bissau following the 12 April 2012 coup d’état, leaving infrastructure projects and basic services at a standstill across the country, but humanitarian funding was supposedly untouched. LINK The problem for WFP is that their project spans development and emergency activities and thus is not just eligible for humanitarian funding.

The African Development Bank also suspended its funding for rural agricultural development projects, following the coup. The cuts “are having a direct impact on food security in Guinea-Bissau, where we already have severe cereal deficits due to inadequate local production,” said a civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture who preferred anonymity.

Food insecurity in Guinea-Bissau is driven mainly by an inability of people to access food because prices are beyond their reach. Most Bissau Guineans rely on imported rice as they grow mainly cash crops (cashews) and not grains.

Food prices have risen year on year since 2008 (imported rice is currently U$1.20 per kg), and the most recent countryside hunger assessment (2011) cited high prices as the biggest barrier for vulnerable households to access food.

The coup put off a planned countrywide food security assessment in 2012 but a rapid assessment in the regions of Biombo, Oio and Quinara in June 2012 revealed one in five people were food insecure (regions in the east were not included in the survey). Some 65 percent of households at the time had under one month’s supply of food stocks and more people were resigned to further indebtedness, selling animals and producing wine from the cashew fruit, to get by.

Cashew crisis

People’s ability to buy food has been severely hampered by a crisis in the cashew industry: 80-95 percent of Bissau-Guineans depend on cashew sales to purchase food as well as meet other household expenses. Terms of trade for cashews have been deteriorating since 2011: In a good year 1kg of rice can be roughly exchanged for 1kg of cashews; this shifted to 1.5kg of cashews to buy 1kg of rice in 2012, and to 2kgs of cashews for 1kg of rice in 2013, according to Ministry of Agriculture and WFP research. “Everything here is linked to cashews,” said Sow-Sidibé.

The poor terms of trade are linked to a poor 2012 cashew crop, and plummeting cashew prices following the coup (from 80 US cents per kg in May 2012 to 50 US cents one month later), and also linked to low fixed prices on international markets.

Cashew farmers are further stymied by exorbitant petrol prices (US$1.50 per litre) which makes it increasingly expensive for them to get their crop to market.

Ongoing projects

WFP continues to run food assistance programmes where it can. In two districts in Gabu, eastern Guinea-Bissau (Mancadndje Dara, Madina Madinga), and in two districts of Bafata (Djabicunda and Sare Biro), the organization helps villagers improve their farming techniques to boost rice production, including giving them improved seeds and helping them rent animals to get their crops to market. It also helps villagers grow market gardens to improve their food diversity and boost household income.

Mutaro Indjai, head of the village committee of rice producers in Saucunda village in Gabu, told IRIN: “This project helped us improve our production to last through four months, whereas before we only produced enough for one month.”

If the project comes to an end, they will continue to use improved techniques of production, but they would lack the seeds needed to plant next year. “We won’t have access to improved seeds, nor to the animals we need to speed up planting and to help us transport our harvest to nearby villages,” he told IRIN.

Nutrition

Nutrition programmes have also been affected. WFP pushes food diversity, given that feeding practices are a key component of high chronic malnutrition levels in Guinea-Bissau.

The organization tries to push a more varied diet (than the starch-dominated fare given to most infants) including fish soup, peas, carrots, tomatoes, and millet-based cereal. They also support local NGOs to make regular visits to health centres and villages on vaccination days to talk about how to prepare nutrient-rich meals for infants made out of corn flour, peanut powder, bean powder, oil and sugar, among others. Programmes target children in their first 1,000 days of life.

Some 17 percent of children under-five are underweight, and 27 percent are stunted due to inadequate nutrition, according to a December 2012 UNICEF-Ministry of Health nutrition survey.

Hunger specialists fear chronic malnutrition levels will rise if prevention is not stepped up.

UNICEF supports the Ministry of Health to set up nutrition treatment centres; provides therapeutic food for severely malnourished children; and helped update the government’s strategy to manage acute malnutrition, in February 2013. “Lack of funding, very few partners in nutrition, and limited human resources trained in nutrition” are the major challenges facing UNICEF, said Victor Suhfube Ngongalah, head of child survival there. UNICEF needs US$750,000 to implement its projects in 2013 and 2014.

Guinea Bissau is ranked 176 out of 187 countries assessed in the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Report. Political instability has also marred development. Since 1994 no elected president in Guinea-Bissau has finished his mandate.

aj/dab/cb

]]></body><pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98004/Hunger-projects-stalled-in-Guinea-Bissau</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201208141544380935t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BISSAU/DAKAR 09 May 2013 (IRIN) - The World Food Programme (WFP) has not received the money it needs to run basic nutrition and food security schemes in Guinea-Bissau, leaving projects in jeopardy or at a standstill.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Semi-synthetic artemisinin promises to boost global malaria gains</title><pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2006217t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 09 May 2013 (IRIN) - The UN World Health Organization has accepted the first semi-synthetic version of artemisinin, the key ingredient for malaria treatment globally, for use in the manufacture of drugs, boosting hopes that more people will have access to life-saving medication.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 09 May 2013 (IRIN) - The UN World Health Organization has accepted the first semi-synthetic version of artemisinin [ http://apps.who.int/prequal/info_press/documents/PQ_non-plant_derived_artemisinin_1.pdf ], the key ingredient for malaria treatment globally, for use in the manufacture of drugs, boosting hopes that more people will have access to life-saving medication.

With an estimated 219 million malaria infections and 660,000 deaths – mainly children under five – annually, the disease is one of the world’s biggest killers.

Until now, artemisinin, the key ingredient in the WHO-recommended first-line malaria treatment artemisinin-combination therapy (ACT), has only been available by extraction from the sweet wormwood tree, native to Asia. However, climatic factors have meant it has suffered from uneven supply over the years.

“Normally, artemisinin is sourced from a plant, which is affected by seasonal factors - now, we have a man-made source, which ensures a constant supply of the drug,” Anthony Fake, active pharmaceutical ingredients focal point for WHO’s prequalification of medicines programme, told IRIN.

Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, scientists at the University of Berkeley, California, were able to genetically engineer a strain of baker’s yeast [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97924/Smart-science-in-the-fight-against-malaria ] to mass-produce the semi-synthetic artemisinin.

French pharmaceutical firm, Sanofi [ http://en.sanofi.com/Images/32474_20130411_ARTEMISININE_en.pdf ], which manufactures the semi-synthetic artemisinin, recently announced that it planned to “produce 35 tonnes of artemisinin in 2013 and, on average, 50 to 60 tonnes per year by 2014, which corresponds to between 80 and 150 million ACT treatments”.

Agencies involved in fighting malaria say they have big expectations for the new product.

“The production of semi-synthetic artemisinin will help secure part of the world’s supply and maintain the cost of this raw material at acceptable levels for public health authorities around the world and ultimately benefit patients… Having multiple sources of high-quality artemisinin will strengthen the artemisinin supply chain, contribute to a more stable price, and ultimately ensure greater availability of treatment to people suffering from malaria,” Scott Filler, senior technical adviser for malaria at the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, told IRIN via email.

According to Martin de Smet, who heads up Médecins Sans Frontières’ working group on malaria, the uncertainty of natural artemisinin’s availability has led to bulk buying and speculation in the market, leading to the price of the raw product varying widely - from US$400 per kg to $1,000 per kg - over the years.

He noted that the new development would have gains wider than ACTs: “It also opens doors to other forms of artemisinin use other than ACT, for example, artemisinin injections for severe malaria.”

Not a replacement

De Smet said it would be important for the supply of the natural version of artemisinin to continue alongside the semi-synthetic production.

“We hope that the message will not be that it will replace the natural product, because this would act as a disincentive to the farmers, who could stop producing their crops. It should be complementary, with a growing share of the market,” he added. “Hopefully, we will see the price of ss artemisnin matching the lowest price available for the natural product.”

Both WHO’s Fake and MSF’s de Smet say there is no need for concern over differences in efficacy or safety, as drugs manufactured with both versions of artemisinin contained the same active chemical ingredient.

“There is still a lot to do - pharm companies need to formulate the end products that they will produce based on the semi-synthetic artemisinin, and these then need to be prequalified by WHO - a bureaucratic process but one which ensures that the drugs are safe and effective,” he said.

“We don’t expect to see change overnight, but rather a gradual increase in the market share by companies manufacturing drugs using the semi-synthetic artemisinin - even if we see them getting 10 percent and eventually 20 percent, this will help ease speculation about the product’s availability and stabilize prices.”

kr/cb

]]></body><pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98006/Semi-synthetic-artemisinin-promises-to-boost-global-malaria-gains</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2006217t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 09 May 2013 (IRIN) - The UN World Health Organization has accepted the first semi-synthetic version of artemisinin, the key ingredient for malaria treatment globally, for use in the manufacture of drugs, boosting hopes that more people will have access to life-saving medication.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Trading conflict for coffee in DRC</title><pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305081446130806t.jpg" />]]>GOMA 08 May 2013 (IRIN) - Entrepreneur Gilbert Makelele wants armed groups in his part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to wake up and smell the coffee.</description><body><![CDATA[GOMA 08 May 2013 (IRIN) - Entrepreneur Gilbert Makelele wants armed groups in his part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to wake up and smell the coffee.

"You should tell the population to grow coffee, as it's the best way for them to make money," he told a militia member during a recent visit to the town of Kalonge, where he and his fellow cooperative members have planted a nursery for coffee seedlings.

The Kivu Cooperative of Coffee Planters and Traders (CPNCK), which Makelele founded five years ago, has planted six of these nurseries in the Kalonge-Pinga-Mweso triangle, a hotbed of militia activity.

"If the young men in this area knew how much they could earn with coffee, they would not be interested in joining militias," Makelele told IRIN.

“A paradise for coffee”

Coffee, a traditional export crop, was virtually abandoned across much of North Kivu in the past 30 years. DRC’s production shrank from 110,000 metric tons in the late 1980s to about 50,000 metric tons in 2009, according to the DRC’s national coffee office.

CPNCK says it is giving away half a million arabica seedlings to help relaunch coffee’s cultivation.

Many people in the Kalonge area, including members of armed groups, appear to be interested in planting coffee. The militiaman told IRIN he would like to plant the crop on his ancestral land of more than 100 hectares, but that he would first have to raise US$1,000 to pay the land registry for title deeds.

Uncertainty about land titles and the involvement of Congolese and foreign armed groups are just some of the problems local farmers will face if they decide to take Makelele’s advice.  Planting coffee is a long-term investment, prices have been volatile and the market is not as reliable as that for food crops.

Nevertheless, the crop has paid off for neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda, which have increased their production in recent years. The crop is Uganda’s single most important export, and coffee and tea together account for nearly half of Rwanda’s exports.

The recent history of coffee prices could also deter would-be planters: The New York market price for mild arabica, currently slightly above the inflation-adjusted average for the past decade, has fluctuated by more than 300 percent since 2003, and has trended downwards since the late 1970s.

But coffee’s promoters argue that increasing demand in middle-income countries, plus the possibility that climate change could lead to the spread of diseases in coffee plants, point to higher prices in future - and bright prospects for Kivu coffee.

Additionally, the temperate climate in the Kivu region’s hills is thought to be protection against coffee rust, the most devastating disease affecting arabica. Partly for this reason, World Coffee Research describes the area as “a paradise for coffee”.

This optimism has helped to persuade several NGOs - including Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Oxfam, the Eastern Congo Initiative and the Fairtrade organization Twin - to launch coffee projects in the Kivu provinces.

Twin has helped a South Kivu co-operative, Sopacdi, replant coffee and improve yields, quality and post-harvest processing, enabling its 3,500 members to become the first producers in Kivu to achieve organic and Fairtrade certification.

Income potential

Sopacdi has publicized the job opportunities it has provided to ex-combatants. A number of them work at a mechanized washing centre - paid for by Twin and employing 161 people - where the coffee berries are depulped and dried.

One of the staff at the washing centre, former rebel Habamungu Engavashapa, told IRIN he was happy with civilian life because he was able to spend nights in a house rather than in the forest.

Another ex-combatant, Abdul Mahagi, said Sopacdi had trained him as a machinist and given him a contract; he said he was beginning to see a way to organize his life.

Other workers at the washing centre, however, complained that their salaries, about $60 a month, were barely enough to live on.

The main opportunities that coffee co-operatives are likely to provide for ex-combatants in the short term would be to clear land and plant seedlings.

CPNCK has been employing 50 ex-combatants on these tasks at a rate of $1 a day, much less than they would earn in artisanal mining, but not insignificant in most of the villages, says Jean-Baptiste Musbyimana, an agricultural journalist based in Goma.

The returns could be more enticing for ex-combatants and smallholder farmers who are able to grow coffee for themselves.

For information on the profitability of coffee versus that of alternative crops, IRIN consulted Franck Muke, an agronomist who has studied coffee production in DRC and in Brazil; Xavier Phemba, CRS’s agricultural project co-ordinator in Goma; and Sandra Kavira, an agronomist working for the International Fertilizer Development Centre.

Their data suggest returns from a hectare of 2,500 coffee trees could be two to three times as high as the returns from a hectare of maize or beans, assuming an absence of mineral fertilizers and only limited use of organic fertilizers.

Jean-Baptiste Musabyimana, of the Federation of Agricultural Producer Organizations of Congo (FOPAC), which does not promote coffee, said coffee is regarded as having several advantages over other crops, including the potential for intercropping with bananas, beans or legumes, which provide organic waste and additional profits from the same acreage.

Once the trees have been planted, coffee also requires less labour than annual crops and is less likely to be stolen.

"Armed groups won't cut off the berries and eat them," coffee plantation owner Eric Kulage told IRIN. "And the workers don't want the berries either, whereas when they are harvesting maize they always solicit some bags."

Coffee’s major disadvantage is the cost of planting and the fact that the trees cannot be harvested for the first three years and do not reach their full potential for five to eight years. Muke estimated costs of planting 2,500 trees per hectare, and pruning for three non-productive years, at $850 to $950. These costs, and the risks involved, limit the acreage farmers will be willing to devote to the crop.

Helping DRC compete

A significant limitation to DRC’s coffee industry is the lack of mechanized washing stations, which cut down on waste and help maintain product consistency. Washing stations are the norm in Uganda and Rwanda, but there are hardly any in Kivu, where producers depulp the berries by hand or sell the wet berries to merchants from Uganda and Rwanda.

Aid agencies are planning to install several washing stations at sites close to large population centres and to Lake Kivu. But Muke says this could be a mistake, as the lakeside areas have higher humidity, which is thought to promote coffee rust.

There could be social advantages to promoting a perennial crop in areas further from Lake Kivu, like Kalonge Pinga and Mweso, where many young men see joining an armed group as their most viable livelihood option.

“If they have a perennial crop to look after, they will want to settle down,” suggested CPNCK’s Makelele.

But a major obstacle to promoting agriculture in areas where militias recruit is, of course, insecurity. Although armed groups are unlikely to steal coffee berries, they might try to steal bulk loads of dried coffee from washing stations.

Plantation owner Kulage commented that, in his experience, armed groups had not succeeded in stealing and marketing large coffee harvests in recent years. He suggested that security forces might be deployed to protect washing stations during the limited periods when bulk loads of dried coffee are left there.

Oxfam’s co-ordinator for North Kivu, Tariq Riebl, doubted whether any donor would accept the risk of building a washing station in a place like Kalonge. He noted that 90,000 seedlings had recently been stolen from a CPNCK nursery near Kalonge.

“If you mention that to donors, they won’t want to hear anything more,” he said.

But Makelele argues that the theft was not a problem because the co-op was going to give the seedlings away anyway.

“I am very happy about it,” he told IRIN. “It shows that people want to plant coffee.”

nl/rz

]]></body><pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97998/Trading-conflict-for-coffee-in-DRC</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305081446130806t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">GOMA 08 May 2013 (IRIN) - Entrepreneur Gilbert Makelele wants armed groups in his part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to wake up and smell the coffee.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Analysis: Sending the right message on mHealth</title><pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201208091451120607t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 08 May 2013 (IRIN) - We’ve read the stories: From bedridden patients sending text messages to their health workers, to young people receiving HIV prevention messages via SMS, the mobile phone seems to have morphed from communications device to essential life-saver. But is the evidence there yet that mHealth is an effective health delivery intervention for the developing world?</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 08 May 2013 (IRIN) - We’ve read the stories: From bedridden patients sending text messages to their health workers, to young people receiving HIV prevention messages via SMS, the mobile phone seems to have morphed from communications device to essential life-saver. But is the evidence there yet that mHealth is an effective health delivery intervention for the developing world?

IRIN, like others, has been reporting for years on mHealth’s potential: This communication technology could provide the answer to distant and under-resourced health services, in particular for Africa’s poor. Kenyan health workers have recounted [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/88653/KENYA-R-U-OK-2day-SMS-check-up-takes-off ] how mobile phones have made it easier to track their patients’ progress; there have been anecdotal reports of lower maternal mortality rates as a result of Ghanaian mothers [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/87261/GHANA-Cell-phones-cut-maternal-deaths ] being able to call for ambulances during labour.

In Africa, with some 63 mobile phones per 100 inhabitants (compared to Asia and the Pacific’s 89 per 100 inhabitants), the cell in your pocket can become a direct channel [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/91287/AFRICA-Mobile-phones-for-health ] for receiving public health messages, improving communication between patients and health providers, boosting data collection and, increasingly, assisting in diagnosis.

But a systematic review - published in January in PLOS Medicine [ http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001363 ] - into the effectiveness of mHealth technology in improving health delivery found mixed results from 42 trials of mHealth interventions. SMS appointment reminders, for example, were found to have modest programmatic benefits, while using phones to send digital images for diagnosis actually led to a drop in the correct analysis in two trials examined.

A 2012 study by the mHealth Alliance [ http://mhealthalliance.org/images/content/baseline_evaulation_report2013.pdf ], which advocates the use of mobile technologies in health care, found that sub-Saharan Africa had a higher number of mHealth projects compared to Asia and Latin America, with more than half of all mHealth projects related to communicable diseases such as HIV and malaria.

Insufficient evidence

Despite the rapid growth, "there is currently a gap in terms of evidence linking mHealth to improved health and operational benefits, and this is particularly true when it comes to studies in low- and middle-income countries," Patricia Mechael, executive director of the mHealth Alliance, told IRIN.

The PLOS review found that “none of the trials were of high quality - many had methodological problems likely to affect the accuracy of their findings - and nearly all were undertaken in high-income countries.”

Rajesh Vedanthan, an assistant professor at New York’s Mount Sinai Medical Centre who is currently working with AMPATH [ http://www.ampathkenya.org/ ], an academic health programme involved in research and health care in Kenya, told IRIN via email that some of the practical challenges with the use of mHealth technology included “optimizing the user interface, ensuring that users have an easy and error-free working experience with the mHealth device, not impeding the workflow of clinicians, issues related to network connectivity, access to a central server, coordination of individual devices with a central coordinating office, systems integration, etc…

“mHealth has the potential to assist with several aspects of the ‘supply chain’ of care for non-communicable diseases - including screening/diagnosis, linkage to care, treatment/decision support, retention and follow-up, systems coordination, etc.,” he added. “Whether mHealth will be effective in all of those arenas is still not robustly known, and rigorous research is still required.”

A need for standards

The mushrooming of mHealth pilot projects has caused concern around monitoring. Uganda has declared a moratorium on pilot mHealth initiatives as it seeks to bring them in line with national health policies.

“We first needed to study them [mHealth and mHealth initiatives]… Some of these people are duplicating what is already there,” Asuman Lukwago, the permanent secretary in Uganda’s Ministry of Health, told IRIN. “As a ministry, we only implement innovations that have been tested and approved. At the moment, we are suggesting reforms to put into practice for these new innovations.”

The mHealth Alliance recently released a review [ http://www.mhealthalliance.org/images/content/state_of_standards_report_2013.pdf ] of standards in the use of mHealth among low- and middle-income countries, which found that as mobile health systems “move towards scale, existing guidelines and strategies will need to be revised to reflect new demands on executive sponsorship; national leadership of eHealth programmes; eHealth standards adoption and implementation; development of eHealth capability and capacity; eHealth financing and performance management and eHealth planning and architecture maintenance”.

Scaling up mHealth

Mechael noted that mHealth could only meet its potential if it was fully integrated into general health programmes, becoming “so much a part of health systems that we no longer need to use ‘m’ as a designation”, something that cannot happen unless mHealth projects move beyond the pilot phase and really reach scale at a national or regional level.

Importantly, experts say, the use of mHealth and other humanitarian technology should be allowed to be driven by the communities who benefit from it.

“There has been a recognition - belatedly, in some cases - of the ways beneficiaries are using technology, voting with their wallets and their feet... We can see that the most innovative models of humanitarian technology are driven by communities themselves,” Imogen Wall, the coordinator of communications with affected communities for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told IRIN.

She noted that humanitarian agencies would increasingly need to increase their engagement with the private sector as partners in preparedness and response, recognizing that the private sector is no longer merely a support system, but a humanitarian service provider as well.

OCHA recently released a report, Humanitarianism in the Network Age [ https://ochanet.unocha.org/p/Documents/WEB%20Humanitarianism%20in%20the%20Network%20Age%20vF%20single.pdf ], which stresses the importance of information and communication in humanitarian work and urges new ways of thinking that adapt to the changing realities of communities around the world.

“In order for humanitarian technology to meet its full potential, there must be a willingness - an openness - to innovate, to think outside the box, to test new ideas and to risk failure and success in both the processes and the deliverables - essentially, a willingness to accept change,” Wall said.

kr/so/oa/cb

]]></body><pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98001/Analysis-Sending-the-right-message-on-mHealth</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201208091451120607t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 08 May 2013 (IRIN) - We’ve read the stories: From bedridden patients sending text messages to their health workers, to young people receiving HIV prevention messages via SMS, the mobile phone seems to have morphed from communications device to essential life-saver. But is the evidence there yet that mHealth is an effective health delivery intervention for the developing world?</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Zimbabwe short on climate change funds</title><pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305071409390879t.jpg" />]]>HARARE 07 May 2013 (IRIN) - Inadequate funding and limited resources are frustrating Zimbabwe’s efforts to develop plans to deal with the impact of climate change, says a government progress report.</description><body><![CDATA[HARARE 07 May 2013 (IRIN) - Inadequate funding and limited resources are frustrating Zimbabwe’s efforts to develop plans to deal with the impact of climate change, says a government progress report. 

Zimbabwe has been facing political and financial turmoil for more than a decade, derailing the government’s ability to function and respond to crises. 

Sparse and erratic rains have already caused the water table to drop, affecting the country’s ability to produce food and contributing to the spread of water-borne diseases. In 2008, the country experienced one of the worst cholera outbreaks recorded anywhere in recent years; the outbreak killed at least 4,000 people and infected 100,000 others [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97312/Zimbabwe-s-climate-change-policies-need-an-urban-focus ].

The government report, Strengthening the National Capacity for Climate Change, says Zimbabwe lacks the funds needed to hold a workshop to identify a National Implementing Entity, an accredited body able to receive direct financial transfers from the Adaptation Fund in Zimbabwe [ https://www.adaptation-fund.org/page/implementing-entities ]. The Adaptation Fund, set up under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is the most important source of funds to help developing countries adapt to climate change. 

The government also lacks sufficient funds to devise a national strategy, review the work of its technical team on climate change or conduct advocacy work to raise awareness of climate change, the report says. 

Funds short 

In 2012, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) commissioned a three-year, US$8.3 million project with the government, aiming to incorporate climate change issues into the country’s national development plans and to leverage funds from the global finance mechanisms. 

Veronica Gundu, a principal environment officer in the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Management, told IRIN that when the idea to craft a national climate change response strategy was proposed, UNDP agreed to provide funds, but “as we went on to develop the strategy, the funds were not enough, so we sourced additional funding from COMESA [Common Markets for East and Southern Africa]”. 

COMESA is said to have agreed to complement the UNDP funding with $170,000, which is meant to go towards the projected $400,000 needed for the national response strategy. COMESA has yet to release the funds. 

Additionally, Gundu said the government had, for the first time last year, released funds for climate change; she did not disclose the figures. 

Sara Feresu, director of the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of Zimbabwe, the institution leading the climate change strategy-formulation process, told a workshop in early April that still more funds were needed. 

The government has put together a draft national response strategy with the money that was available, conducting consultations in select urban centres. But the draft strategy needs feedback from provinces and districts. Consultations with civil society, most of whom have yet to see the draft, are also needed. 

In spite of the funding gaps, Gundu is optimistic that by the end of the year the first draft, which the government says is in circulation, will be ready for adoption. 

Short on development aid 

Climate change pundits say fundraising for climate change adaptation has proved difficult due to the global economic crisis, which has seen donors minimizing funding to NGOs and governments. Advocates insist on more government involvement in fundraising efforts. 

Leonard Unganayi, who manages a climate change project administered jointly by the government-owned Environmental Management Agency (EMA), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and UNDP, says there can never be enough funding for such a mammoth task. 

He says that even at the global level there are major outcries for funding and resources [ http://www.irinnews.org/report/96893/CLIMATE-CHANGE-Underfunding-leaves-poor-unable-to-adapt ].

The development agency Oxfam said an analysis of new figures of Official Development Assistance [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97785/Global-aid-drops-as-rich-nations-struggle ] by the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee shows a staggering 40 percent drop in funding focused on climate change adaptation. 

Shepherd Zvigadza, chairperson of the Climate Change Working Group, a coalition of NGOs, said most NGOs were making efforts to fundraise for adaptation, but that most of the money coming in is just for pilot projects that do not have the desired impact. 

“Zimbabwe has been under sanctions, and so many donors have been shying away from supporting us, both as government and NGOs... Besides sanctions, the country has not been able to tap into the global funding windows because emphasis is on supporting least developed countries, and Zimbabwe is not classified as one,” he said. 

After flawed elections in 2002, European governments placed targeted sanctions on the leadership of ZANU-PF, which was the ruling party at the time, and on development aid to the government. In 2012, the European Union suspended some of the sanctions on assistance to Zimbabwe, but it has yet to [ http://www.irinnews.org/report/96289/Analysis-Zimbabwe-crisis-over ] reinstate development aid to the government. 

To overcome the funding issues, Gundu says government is working towards the establishment of a National Climate Change Fund, which will be administered under the Green Climate Fund, also set up under the UNFCCC [ http://gcfund.net/about-the-fund/mandate-and-governance.html ]. But the fund has yet to become operational. 

Unganayi says Zimbabwe should try to identify innovative ways to raise money locally. 

tnm/jk/rz

]]></body><pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97994/Zimbabwe-short-on-climate-change-funds</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305071409390879t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">HARARE 07 May 2013 (IRIN) - Inadequate funding and limited resources are frustrating Zimbabwe’s efforts to develop plans to deal with the impact of climate change, says a government progress report.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The long road home to South Sudan</title><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305061029030617t.jpg" />]]>RENK, UPPER NILE STATE 06 May 2013 (IRIN) - George Malual Deng, 24, has spent two years stuck in a transit site waiting to return to his home in South Sudan’s Jonglei state. He is among 20,000 people who have made a home of sorts in the river port of Renk, waiting for a barge to take them further south.</description><body><![CDATA[RENK, UPPER NILE STATE 06 May 2013 (IRIN) - George Malual Deng, 24, has spent two years stuck in a transit site waiting to return to his home in South Sudan’s Jonglei state. He is among 20,000 people who have made a home of sorts in the river port of Renk, waiting for a barge to take them further south.

When he began his journey from Khartoum, Sudan was a single state, albeit one still bitterly divided between north and south in the wake of decades of civil war, despite the signing of a major peace accord in 2005.

Since then, almost two million people have left the north for their homelands in what became the independent Republic of South Sudan [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/91660/SUDAN-Referendum-vote-over-now-the-hard-work-begins ] in July 2011. 

Many, like Deng, say they left amid increasing discrimination and reduced access to education.

The period following secession was tumultuous, marked by sporadic conflict between the neighbours’ armed forces and a row over how much Sudan could charge for piping and exporting South Sudan’s oil - a dispute that led to the shutdown of oil production, cutting off 98 percent of South Sudan’s revenue. Amid the furore, Sudan closed its common border, thereby halting the movement of both people and goods.

"Nobody anticipated on independence that the border with Sudan would be shut... that the barges would stop moving up and down the River Nile," said Toby Lanzer, the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan and Deputy Representative for the UN Secretary-General.

Peter Lam Both, chairman of the state-run Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, says helping South Sudanese come home is one of the government's priorities, but without funds little can be done.

Luggage

Those living in and returning to the world’s newest country, which is among the least developed and most import-dependent in the world, have to put up with exorbitant prices for basic goods and household items.  For this reason - and to avoid carrying large amounts of cash that might prove attractive to officials - many returnees head south laden with large quantities of furniture and other household items, in effect, their entire life savings.

In the four camps in Renk, piles of such belongings sit beside makeshift shelters.

"The main problem, really, for the returnees in Renk is the issue of luggage. When they were brought from Khartoum or Kosti [a Sudanese river port a little north of Renk], at that time, the government had the resources to bring them with a lot of luggage," Both said.

The South Sudan government says plans to transport both luggage and people back were hampered by a lack of funds following  the January 2011 secession referendum.  In its first year of statehood, Both says the government earmarked around US$16 million to finance returns, but these plans were scotched by austerity measures necessitated by the oil shutdown.

When their turn comes to travel by barge from Renk to Juba, many returnees discover that they have more luggage than can be carried on the barges, so some family members tend to stay behind to watch over the excess cargo.

According to the International Organization for Migration, which assists the returnees, each reaches Renk with an average of one ton in luggage.

People are unwilling to leave their valuables behind, said Deng, the 24 year old. "They say if they sell their luggage... they won't find [the items they need] again, and it will be difficult to buy them again, and you're not guaranteed a job, so it's difficult," he said.

He says selling off his family's only assets is unthinkable.

"I want to go, [but] there's no way. Why would I leave my things and go alone? I would sleep where? I need to take my things to Juba [South Sudan’s capital]. There's no money. I cannot sell my things," he said.

Poor conditions

Grace Nasona, 38, has been in a Renk transit camp for eight months.

It is a "very, very dirty place. No food, no water [that's] good, no anything I want to use", she said.

"Renk County does not have a lot of facilities, and when you have 20,000 people that have arrived here, some two years ago, it puts a lot of constraints on the local population," said Both.

Local officials complain that school class sizes for both morning and afternoon sessions have swollen to up to 150 pupils. They say healthcare is also overstretched and crime is rising.

At a clinic in the Mina transit settlement, nurses say malaria is common, caused by proximity to the Nile, lack of shelter and lack of food, which weakens people's immune systems.

"We don't want to settle here, but we are waiting here until we can all go down with our possessions, and my father's [pension] dues have not been received," said Nanu Chuol, 17, while she had her four-month-old baby tested for malaria.

"The difference is that in the north, many things were available and my father was working so we could get food. But now, he's not working, and his pension hasn't come, so we can't eat much," she said.

"Your chair or your wife"

Renk became even more of a bottleneck after the oil shutdown as the government looked for other sources of revenue.

"In Upper Nile State, the authorities decided to impose some taxes on the aid agencies. That problem has been sorted out now, but of course, it did delay things," said Lanzer.

The IOM says these tax issues resulted in the closure of Renk Port for three months at the start of 2013.

Two barges packed high with luggage were docked in the port in late April. 

Lanzer says that it costs around $1,000 per person to travel downstream to Juba, and is telling people that now it is time to choose between "your chair or your wife".

"To my mind, keeping families together is a very important consideration, as opposed to having some family members stay with luggage in the middle of nowhere," he said.

"People have been stuck in this situation now, some of them for two years, and I think it's the moment for hard choices to be made. Do people want to stay here and integrate into the community? If they do, then let's help them with that. Let's work with the government to get them a plot of land. If they do want to continue on to their destination, I think the reality is that they will have to do that without their luggage," he said.

"Our job is really to help people who have no resources to return," said Both.

After a prolonged stay in Renk, and days of transportation under rain and blistering sun, he says that much of the luggage is ruined by the time it gets unloaded.

More to come

The recent resumption of oil production should refill South Sudan's coffers in the coming year, but the austerity budget will be in place until 2014. 

Meanwhile, Both says around 250,000 more South Sudanese are thought to be in Sudan, and 40,000 are living in poor conditions at transit camps in Khartoum who need to come to South Sudan soon.

And while both countries have agreed in principle to honour one another’s "four freedoms" of citizenship, property ownership, jobs and basic rights, this deal has not yet been finalized.

hm/am/rz

]]></body><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97981/The-long-road-home-to-South-Sudan</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305061029030617t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">RENK, UPPER NILE STATE 06 May 2013 (IRIN) - George Malual Deng, 24, has spent two years stuck in a transit site waiting to return to his home in South Sudan’s Jonglei state. He is among 20,000 people who have made a home of sorts in the river port of Renk, waiting for a barge to take them further south.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Countering the radicalization of Kenya&apos;s youth</title><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305031222150686t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 06 May 2013 (IRIN) - Unemployment, poverty and political marginalization are contributing to the Islamic radicalization of Kenya&apos;s youth, a situation experts say must be addressed through economic empowerment and inclusive policies.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 06 May 2013 (IRIN) - Unemployment, poverty and political marginalization are contributing to the Islamic radicalization of Kenya's youth, a situation experts say must be addressed through economic empowerment and inclusive policies.

Youth unemployment is extremely high, as are levels of political disenchantment. An estimated 75 percent of out-of-school youths are unemployed, according to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) [ http://kenya.usaid.gov/programs/education-and-youth/51 ]. 

"The unemployment crisis is a ticking bomb. Over 60 percent of the population is under 25. You cannot ignore that," said Yusuf Hassan, the Member of Parliament for Nairobi’s Kamukunji Constituency, which has a large Muslim population. "A huge and significant population is restless. And the gap between the rich and poor is getting wider."

"When access to resources is based on ethnic, cultural or religious characteristics or there is a growing divide between the 'haves' and 'have nots' in countries and communities, economic conditions further contribute to instability," says a new report by the Institute for Security Studies in Africa (ISS) [ http://www.issafrica.org/assessing-the-vulnerability-of-kenyan-youths-to-radicalisation-and-extremism ]. "Countries confronted by large differences between 'haves' and 'have nots' are additionally vulnerable to conflict, which may include resorting to acts of terrorism."

Marginalized and radicalized

A string of grenade attacks - some allegedly by Somali Islamist insurgent group Al-Shabab or their sympathizers - have occurred in the Kenyan towns of Garissa, Mombasa and the capital, Nairobi, since Kenya began its military incursion in Somalia in October 2011 [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94018/KENYA-SOMALIA-A-risky-intervention ].

But Islamic radicalization is not new to Kenya. Kenyans were involved in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and the Tanzania city of Dar es Salaam; the coordinated attacks, which killed more than 220 people, were Africa's first suicide bombings by Al-Qaeda's East Africa cell. In a 2002 dual car-bomb and suicide attack on a hotel and plane in Mombasa, at least one of the suspects was Kenyan.

Muslims make up an estimated 11 percent [ http://www.knbs.or.ke/docs/PresentationbyMinisterforPlanningrevised.pdf ] of Kenya’s population; large Muslim communities can be found in the country’s northeast and in the coastal region. Traditionally, Kenya’s Muslims are moderate, with the community peacefully seeking participation in politics. But ISS pointed to the historical political marginalization of Muslims - right from negotiations for Kenya’s independence, in which ethnic Somalis, who are overwhelmingly Muslim, were not represented - as a contributor to the radicalization of young people. 

“Although Kenya is a secular state, it is essentially a Christian country because of the dominant Christian population… There is the perception that Islam is ‘alien’, despite the fact that it came to Kenya before Christianity,” the report notes.

The report also found that some young Kenyan Muslims have been influenced by radical preaching, which leads them to believe that wars being fought against Muslims abroad - for example, in Afghanistan and Iraq - are part of “a global campaign against Islam”.

According to a 2011 report [ http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2011/433 ] by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, non-Somali Kenyan nationals constituted the largest and most organized non-Somali group within Al-Shabab.

Taking advantage of vulnerable youth 

"We've already seen the rumblings of 'Pwani si Kenya' [Coast is not Kenya, the slogan of a separatist group in Kenya’s Coast Province] [ http://www.irinnews.org/report/96630/Briefing-Kenya-s-coastal-separatists-menace-or-martyrs ] - radicalized, marginalized, poverty-stricken young people are saying, ‘we don't belong to Kenya’," said Hassan, who was seriously injured in a 2012 grenade attack in his constituency. 

The ISS report found that Islamist militants were exploiting sub-standard socioeconomic conditions, and the government's inability to provide basic services, by positioning themselves as providers of assistance. "Creating or infiltrating bona fide charity organizations... is a sure way to win the general support of ordinary people," the report said. 

The report points to the growing influence of the Muslim Youth Centre (MYC), a Kenyan group whose objectives include promoting community health and social welfare, but which also advocates "an extreme interpretation of Islam and prepares members to travel to Somalia for 'jihad' [holy war], thus attracting the attention of security agencies in Kenya and abroad." According to the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea [ http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2012/544 ], Al-Shabab announced a merger with MYC in 2012.

Hassan Sheikh, a cleric in the northeastern town of Garissa, said extremist groups have taken control of many mosques and Islamic schools, setup orphanages, and employed teachers and imams.

"North Kenya is a hub for mercenaries. You can easily get [attract] them - it’s out of poverty,” said Khalif Aabdulla, a civil rights activist from Wajir, also northeastern Kenya.
NGOs and government officials in Kenya acknowledge an urgent need to develop a counter-radicalization policy to prevent young people from turning to violent groups, and some say Kenya’s newly elected government may be an opportunity to tackle the issue. NGOs say the government must do more than promote economic empowerment among marginalized communities; it must also foster a sense of belonging.

"There are some efforts to use the Council of Imams or Islamic Preachers' Association to talk to the youths," said Mwalimu Mati, CEO of governance watchdog Mars Group Kenya. "The moderates are trying to assist the government, but I can't say it's a complete success." 

Counter-productive counter-terrorism

"The problem is exacerbated by counter-terrorism programmes by the Kenya police who carry out mass raids rather than targeted arrests. It keeps the youths feeling repressed generally. They then identify that as oppression based on religion," Mati said. He says the problem is primarily in North Eastern District, Eastleigh and Coast Province. 

The ISS report describes the current approach as "collective punishment based on perceptions".

"Most perceptions are completely wrong, especially that Somali nationals are responsible for attacks in Kenya or that Kenya is an innocent bystander when acts of terrorism are committed on its soil," it stated. 

Following attacks in Nairobi, ethnic Somalis - both Kenyan and foreign nationals - said they experienced xenophobia [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94090/KENYA-Xenophobia-fear-follow-Nairobi-blasts ] and lived in constant fear of arrest.

Under the government of former president Mwai Kibaki, both the Ministry for Peace-building and Conflict Management and the Ministry for Education told IRIN that they had no programmes to address radicalization.

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sport said they ran "empowerment programmes" in conjunction with the formal education system. But as Leah Rotitch, a director in the education ministry, said, "The people Al-Shabab target are normally young people who are out of school."

The persecution felt by ethnic Somalis and other Muslim communities has only increased [ http://www.kenya-today.com/news/kenyan-muslims-fear-the-worst-over-proposals-to-boost-police-powers ] in recent years, with police allegedly engaging in extrajudicial use of force and even killings of terror suspects; the police deny these claims.

"Since the passing of the new anti-terror bill, we have seen a huge spike in extrajudicial killings. And terrorism has become an easy label," said Horn of Africa analyst Abdullahi Halakhe. "Such efforts only succeed in alienating the local population, who usually have critical human intelligence. They are turning the Islamic radicalization of young people into a matter of national security, making those young people their enemies, thus making it worse."

The ISS report calls for "introspection on the part of the police officer stopping and searching a person because he looks Somali".

Reaching the young

Tom Mboya, who established the Inuka Kenya Trust in response to the role young people played in perpetrating the post-election violence of 2007-2008, says now is an opportunity to engage the youth. "They're what should be the engine of this country," he told IRIN.

"Devolution is positive," he says, referring to the process of decentralizing power from Nairobi [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97726/Briefing-Devolution-to-transform-Kenya ], which was set in motion by Kenya's new constitution. Mboya believes this process will create opportunities for young people. But, he says, "in parts of the country more prone to violent extremism, there needs to be policy in place. The leadership will have to be more alive to that problem".

A focus on young people formed a key part of new President Uhuru Kenyatta's election campaign - his government will now have to work out an acceptable and effective approach in tackling the issue of violent extremism. 

Mars Group's Mati says using moderate imams to neutralize potentially radical youths does not work because young people no longer regard them as credible. "It's a generation gap - control over youths has somehow become difficult. In the old days, what an imam said went. The radical preachers are young," he said.

Hadley Muchela, programmes manager for Kenyan rights group Independent Medico-legal Unit, says targeting violent extremism will require sensitivity because, thanks to the way the issue has been handled in the past, it is often seen as an indictment against all of Islam. "You find very few Kenyans willing to go into it," he said. 

Abdikadir Sheikh, who works with the Sustainable Support and Advocacy Programme, a local NGO, said the group has set up a pilot project to dissuade youth in the northeastern towns of Dadaab and Garissa from joining extremist groups. 

"We are very careful or [we could] lose our lives; you can’t confront radicalization directly - you need different approaches," he told IRIN. "We have established a strong team of more than 600 youths… some have so far joined colleges. We plan to work with the county governments.” 
The ISS report warns that "there is no quick fix for the level of radicalization seen in Kenya".

"The biggest threat to stability in Kenya will be if extremists succeed in dividing Kenya between Muslim and non-Muslim," the report said. 

jh/na/kr/rz

]]></body><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97982/Countering-the-radicalization-of-Kenya-apos-s-youth</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201305031222150686t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 06 May 2013 (IRIN) - Unemployment, poverty and political marginalization are contributing to the Islamic radicalization of Kenya&apos;s youth, a situation experts say must be addressed through economic empowerment and inclusive policies.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Analysis: “Wake-up call” for Bangladesh’s building industry</title><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201304301155150667t.jpg" />]]>DHAKA 06 May 2013 (IRIN) - Corpses are still being recovered from Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster ever - a factory building collapse on 24 April that killed at least 600 workers near the capital. Government experts are scrambling to prevent a repeat.</description><body><![CDATA[DHAKA 06 May 2013 (IRIN) - Corpses are still being recovered from Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster ever - a factory building collapse on 24 April that killed at least 600 workers near the capital. Government experts are scrambling to prevent a repeat.  

“This is a wake-up call for us because a lot of construction is going on in Dhaka [the capital] and other cities, so we are definitely trying to find out the solution,” said Abdus Salam, a senior research engineer in the government’s Housing and Building Research Institute (HBRI). 

One government explanation for the accident is that shoddy construction combined with vibrations from inappropriately placed heavy machinery brought down the eight-story building, known as Rana Plaza, filled with hundreds of textile workers.  

An early damage assessment (still unpublished) by NGO Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) conducted on the day of the collapse revealed how a building intended for retail merchants was being used for industrial purposes. It housed five garment factories that employed at least 3,000 workers and placed weight on the floors (including four huge electrical generators on the third and fourth floors) almost six times greater than the building was intended to bear. Support columns were erected haphazardly. Building materials and methods were below par. 

Experts say the building was but one example of a broken system for authorizing, carrying out and monitoring construction; tens of thousands more buildings - and millions of people inside them - face the same fate, said Anisur Rahman, an urban planner with ADPC’s office in Bangladesh. 

“We are looking at the foundation for a big disaster.” 

Lack of clear planning authority 

Legislation from the 1950s gave the Ministry of Housing and Public Works authority to regulate town planning, while a 2009 Municipality Act transferred that power to local governments. Since then each of the capital’s five municipalities (including Savar, the site of the industrial accident 30km outside Dhaka) has handled its own planning.  

“It’s a management mess,” admitted K.Z. Hossain Taufique, an urban planner and director of town planning for the government’s Capital Development Authority, explaining how since the 1980s, as more businesses and people located in cities, responsibility for town planning has been divided between the Housing Ministry and the Ministry of Local Government, creating a patchwork of authorization - and leaving deadly gaps.  

Unenforced building codes 

The National Building Code from 1993 [ http://buildingcode.gov.bd/ ] and building construction guidelines (2008) are rarely - at best weakly - enforced, say government experts. The UN’s highest official for disaster risk reduction, Margareta Wahlstrom, called in 2012 for an update of the building code (a process then under way for one year) to protect the seismically active country from widespread devastation. 

But Mohammed Abu Sadeque, director of the governmental Housing and Building Research Institute (which is spearheading the building code’s revision), said with the recent industrial disaster, the problem was not the code (which is “good enough” and “fairly safe and sound”), but rather its lack of enforcement.  

Corruption and lack of integrity at all levels - from dishonest architects and engineers to profiteering owners and government officials - means “cutting corners” said Bashirul Haq, an architect in Dhaka who recently served on a government committee revising the building code. 

“Dhaka has limited space. Developers are in this market for money and want to squeeze as much as they can into any space. Yes, we have a law, but who is implementing it?” he asked. 

Police have arrested the building’s owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, as well as the engineer who approved the building’s design.  

Low professional standards 

Haq has advocated a professional registry of architects and engineers to weed out unethical ones and to boost standards. “Design needs to be more rigorous, especially these days,” said the near-retiring architect, referring to the country’s high risk to natural disasters [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97889/Political-instability-undermines-disaster-preparedness-in-Bangladesh ], as well as the steady pace of factory construction in cities.  

The current process of signing off constructions as safe is haphazard and ill-informed, he added. Though companies should submit detailed plans to their local planning officials, which are then approved by an architect and engineer, mostly only rough sketches and outlines are required now, said Haq. 

Local government may not have engineers or architects qualified to give approval, he added. 

“Overall, building-oriented disaster management needs strengthening,” he concluded. By shaving off 0.3 metre of a staircase’s width, designers can help prevent a stampede during an emergency as only two people are able to fit through at once, which is “only a detail, but an important one”, said Haq. Suggested revisions to the building code are now before parliament. 

Poor land use 

The building collapse highlighted the dangers of unplanned development, said ADPC’s Rahman. According to the 20-year Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan [ http://www.rajukdhaka.gov.bd/rajuk/dapHome ], effective until 2015, extra attention was to be paid to construction in Savar due to three fault lines that pass through the municipality, making it the “most severe” earthquake zone nationwide.  

“That plan has essentially been ignored, something that everyone shares blame [for], starting with the `Rajuk’ [Capital Development Authority],” said Rahman. 

But due to the 2009 Municipality Act, the Capital Development Authority cannot intervene in municipal planning, the group’s chairman, Nurul Huda, told IRIN. “If I were to come over [to Savar’s municipal government] asking questions about land use, they would ask me, ‘Who are you to come here?’”  

He said his office has requested the Ministry of Housing and Public Works to “clarify the controversy” surrounding conflicting laws in an effort to regain control of the capital’s planning.  

Also needed is a re-evaluation of ways to disperse industrial development to prevent over-construction in any one area, said Rahman. “There are vacant industrial zones to re-locate new factories,” he said, mentioning the southwestern city of Khulna (formerly a jute industrial zone) as one way to spread the risk of buildings collapsing in an earthquake.  

Change interrupted 

“Finding a regulatory body to prevent a similar tragedy - that is our goal,” said Salam with the Housing and Building Research Institute. He said proposals are circulating on boosting local officials’ expertise on construction standards and safety monitoring, as well as creating high-level district committees that will bring together architects, engineers, health officials and representatives from local government and the Ministry of Housing and Public Works. 

Meanwhile, the Urban Development Directorate, part of the Housing Ministry, is seeking government approval to draft a national urbanization plan up to 2021 which would centralize planning power in the Housing Ministry once again.  

The country’s Garment Manufacturers’ and Exporters’ Association has asked garment factories in the capital to submit structural drawings, while the labour and employment minister is heading another committee to investigate factories outside the capital. 

As of 2011, there were some 5,100 garment factories nationwide employing 3.6 million people, according to the trade organization.  

The Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology is supposed to conduct risk assessments to find the most vulnerable buildings in the capital. Halfway completed is a visual seismic assessment by the government’s Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme of some 400,000 buildings, also in the capital area. 

Altogether, there are some 1.26 million residential and commercial structures there, according to the Capital Development Authority.  

There are already some 5,000 cases against owners occupying unsafe buildings in Dhaka, but without court orders city officials have not been able to evict them, said the chairman, Huda. Since 2010, processing time has improved somewhat due to three mobile courts handling the backlog, he added.  

Rahman from ADPC remains skeptical about pledges to reform the building industry. He heard similar promises following a 2005 commercial building collapse in Palash Bari (near the Savar disaster) that killed near 70 and left dozens more missing; a 2010 chemical explosion in a residential area of the capital caused by improperly stored chemicals, which killed 120; and most recently, a fire in a garment factory in November 2012 that killed at least 100. 

But Dhaka’s development authority chairman, Huda, said efforts to change have been under way. Since 2010, his request for more engineers and architects has gone through six departments in three ministries for approval.  “We hope to be able to recruit more experts soon.” 

pt/cb

]]></body><pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97987/Analysis-Wake-up-call-for-Bangladesh-s-building-industry</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201304301155150667t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DHAKA 06 May 2013 (IRIN) - Corpses are still being recovered from Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster ever - a factory building collapse on 24 April that killed at least 600 workers near the capital. Government experts are scrambling to prevent a repeat.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Aiming for climate change-resilient coffee in Uganda</title><pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201107202046420353t.jpg" />]]>KAMPALA 03 May 2013 (IRIN) - In Uganda, a new pilot project seeks to understand the threat climate change poses to coffee, which will enable growers to enhance the crop&apos;s resilience to extreme weather events.</description><body><![CDATA[KAMPALA 03 May 2013 (IRIN) - In Uganda, a new pilot project seeks to understand the threat climate change poses to coffee, which will enable growers to enhance the crop's resilience to extreme weather events. 

Coffee contributes about US$400 million of Uganda's total annual export revenue, directly or indirectly employing at least two million people. But coffee production, like other export crops in Uganda, is mainly rain-fed, making it vulnerable to climate variability. 

"The economy of Uganda remains largely dependent on a few agro-commodities (coffee, tea, cotton), predominantly rain-fed and grown by smallholders with limited external inputs, making the country highly sensitive to climate risks," Julie Karami Dekens, the International Institute for Sustainable Development's (IISD) project manager for climate change and energy, told IRIN via email. 

The six-month pilot project, which was launched on 5 April, is a collaboration between Uganda's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives (MTIC), the local Makerere University and IISD. 

The programme will explore climate vulnerabilities across the coffee value chain - the movement of coffee from farming to processing to marketing - with a view to expanding these assessments to other agricultural value chains. It reflects growing recognition that climate change will have far-reaching effects across the agricultural, administrative and economic sectors. 

"Climate change is a multi-sector challenge, which calls for concerted efforts of not only the environment sector, but also the trade sector," Norman Ojamuge, MTIC senior commercial officer, told IRIN. 

Value chain development 

According to a recent government briefing on the project, value chain development is crucial to the growth of agricultural commodities. But limited work has been done to understand the impact of climate risks along the levels of value chains. The project hopes to help bridge this gap. 

A separate 2013 study [ http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2013/crm_uganda.pdf ], Climate Risk Management for Sustainable Crop Production in Uganda, noted: "There is a need to understand how climate risks are distributed and transmitted (or not) among all the stakeholders of value chains (not just at production level) to identify solutions that benefit all actors along the value chain and opportunities for investments." 

Incorporating climate change into agriculture will mean that "there will be a coherent and thorough integration of climate change adaptation and the associated disaster risk management agendas and structures. into sectoral and national strategies," said Betty Namwagala, the executive director of the Uganda Coffee Federation. 

Climate risks 

Climate risks facing coffee production in Uganda include the increased prevalence of pests and diseases. For example, coffee leaf rust [ http://coffeeleafrust.ning.com/ ] has been reported in many arabica coffee growing areas, with the black twig borer pest emerging as a threat in robusta coffee growing areas. 

There has also been a fluctuation in coffee production in Uganda over the past 40 years, a situation attributable to climate variability, reduced soil fertility and mismanagement, according to Uganda's Coffee Development Authority (UCDA). 

Droughts and floods are also challenges. 

"Water stress in the dry season affects the physiological activity of the arabica plant, causing a reduction in photosynthesis," explained Namwagala. 

"Some farmers have lost their plantations and lives to landslides that are attributed to climate change. Areas that depend on rain-fed agriculture may sometimes require irrigation, and taking into consideration the nature of our producers, many have abandoned their farms since they cannot afford irrigation or access to sources of water that can support irrigation," she added. 

"If climatic events, such as exceedingly high temperatures, occur during sensitive periods of the life of the crop, for example during flowering or fruit setting, then yields will be adversely affected, and particularly if accompanied by reduced rainfall, thereby reducing incomes of all sector players," she said. 

David Mafabi, a coffee farmer in the eastern Uganda district of Mbale, said: "Coffee production depends on nature. We suffer if there is too much [rain] or drought. As a result of drought, coffee does not mature well, and the harvest will be disappointing." 

Climate change can affect links further up the value chain, as well. 

"More frequent or intense extreme weather events may deteriorate infrastructure such as storage facilities and roads, leading to reductions in crop quality and limited access to markets," said IISD's Dekens. 

Development planning 

The management of these climate risks is key to development planning. 

Uganda's development strategy relies heavily on exports - including coffee - to achieve the country's 'Vision 2040' national development plan that aims to transform the nation from a low-income country to a competitive upper-middle-income country with a per capita income of about $9,500. 

At present, some of strategies being used to minimize the negative impacts of climate hazards on coffee production include the breeding and selection of more disease-resistant and drought-tolerant varieties. Through the UCDA, coffee farming is also being introduced into new areas, especially in northern Uganda, to boost production and to test potential growing locations. 

Coffee farmers are also adopting best practices such as crop diversification, intercropping and agroforestry. Still, further support in managing climate risk is still needed. 

According to IISD's Dekens, "Further studies are required assess the economic impacts of climate hazard[s] on coffee production. It is difficult to differentiate the costs associated with the impacts of climate risk on coffee production from that of other factors, such as reduced soil fertility and mismanagement, which also contribute to reduce coffee production in Uganda." 

so/aw/rz

]]></body><pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97971/Aiming-for-climate-change-resilient-coffee-in-Uganda</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201107202046420353t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">KAMPALA 03 May 2013 (IRIN) - In Uganda, a new pilot project seeks to understand the threat climate change poses to coffee, which will enable growers to enhance the crop&apos;s resilience to extreme weather events.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Mapping the world’s trachoma hotspots</title><pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201304291616370589t.jpg" />]]>LONDON 01 May 2013 (IRIN) - When Iyabo Dolarin’s trachoma mapping team conducts surveys in Nigeria’s Kaduna State, they begin with a ritual: They go to the centre of the community and spin a bottle on the ground to determine which household will first be checked for signs of this painful and disabling disease.</description><body><![CDATA[LONDON 01 May 2013 (IRIN) - When Iyabo Dolarin’s trachoma mapping team conducts surveys in Nigeria’s Kaduna State, they begin with a ritual: They go to the centre of the community and spin a bottle on the ground to determine which household will first be checked for signs of this painful and disabling disease.

The activity always attracts a crowd. “When they see it, they laugh,” said Dolarin, an eye nurse. “But we make them understand that, although it’s not every house we visit… we are not choosing one and leaving another. And we explain that after we finish mapping, if anyone has eye disease, we will see them later.”

The mapping project - led by the charity Sightsavers, with funding from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and support from other agencies - is part of an ambitious plan to eliminate trachoma, a bacterial infection spread by flies that causes blindness. 

“We had been mapping slowly, but now it’s all about speed,” Simon Bush, the Sightsavers director for neglected tropical diseases, told IRIN. “The international community has set out to eliminate blinding trachoma by 2020. We have to get the mapping completed and start the treatment programme by 2015, otherwise we are just setting ourselves up, once again, to fail.”

SAFE

The mapping project sets out to determine the prevalence of disease in each district.

In places with low prevalence, where fewer than 10 percent of children have trachoma, the World Health Organization recommends focusing efforts on hygiene to prevent the disease - for example, building latrines and encouraging face washing. Places with high prevalence, where more than 10 percent of children have trachoma, receive a more aggressive intervention, including mass treatment with antibiotics.

The protocol is called SAFE, which stands for: Surgery (for those whose eyes are already damaged), Antibiotics (to treat those infected), Facial cleanliness, and Environmental improvement (to prevent the spread of the disease).

The bacterium itself, Chlamydia trachomatis, is unlikely to be eradicated the way smallpox was, but the harm caused by the disease can be minimized. Trachoma causes damage over time, with repeated infections in childhood causing eyelid scars that turn the lashes inwards. The lashes scratch the eye, leading to blindness. The aim, therefore, is to reduce incidence of the disease and to treat cases before scarring and damage take place.

“If you implement SAFE over five years, you will eliminate blinding trachoma,” Bush said. “Ghana and the Gambia have already reached the elimination stage, where trachoma is no longer a serious public health concern.”

Backlog

Those whose eyes are already damaged can be treated with surgery.

“The backlog,” said Bush, “is my constant worry. We estimate that there are around eight million people needing surgery, some three million of them in Africa. And if we don’t operate on them, they will go blind.”

But to treat so large a caseload, many more health workers will have to be trained in the surgical procedure - and surgeons of any kind are in short supply in the countries most affected by trachoma. 

“It is important that we don’t divert attention from things even more important than trachoma,” the project’s chief scientist, Anthony Solomon, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told IRIN. “Trachoma causes blindness, but, finally, it doesn’t kill you. I wouldn’t want it to stop obstetricians doing caesareans or other surgeons draining liver abscesses.”

But Solomon says others can be trained in the procedure: “We are also going to be training eye nurses to operate, and they will do it in addition to their other duties.”

Mapping tool

The mapping project collects data with a smartphone app. Collectors like Dolarin, the eye nurse, take global positioning system (GPS) readings for every household surveyed. 

Soloman, who worked on the app’s development, says organizers have been pleased with it: “It’s very robust because the data is stored on the phone’s micro SD card. If you drop the phone out of a window, run over it in a car or drop it in the river, we can recover the card, and the data will still be readable.”

Dolarin says the tool is a great improvement over old-fashioned disease mapping. “It’s much better, much faster. There’s no need for moving about with lots of papers, and immediately after we do the work we send the result, so it doesn’t waste time at all.”

She has also been pleased to find fewer trachoma cases in the areas she surveyed. “When we did this before, there were many [cases]. The living condition of the people then was very bad. Most of the communities didn’t have boreholes. Now, most communities have them, so there is water now, people are cleaner, and there’s much less trachoma.”

eb/rz

]]></body><pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97948/Mapping-the-world-s-trachoma-hotspots</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201304291616370589t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">LONDON 01 May 2013 (IRIN) - When Iyabo Dolarin’s trachoma mapping team conducts surveys in Nigeria’s Kaduna State, they begin with a ritual: They go to the centre of the community and spin a bottle on the ground to determine which household will first be checked for signs of this painful and disabling disease.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>More freedom but less security?</title><pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201212181454160527t.jpg" />]]>BAGHDAD/DUBAI 29 April 2013 (IRIN) - After a decade of sanctions, Iraq’s GDP has been growing consistently since 2003, and poverty rates have more than halved since 1990. But observers say billions of dollars in oil revenues have not translated into adequate gains in Iraqi well-being.</description><body><![CDATA[BAGHDAD/DUBAI 29 April 2013 (IRIN) - US officials and others argue former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was a “clear danger” to the Iraqi people and to the region, pointing to the two wars he instigated in the 1980s and 1990s, the execution of his political opponents and the atrocities he committed against his own people. In an editorial this month in the Washington Post, Paul Wolfowitz argued [ http://www.aawsat.net/2013/04/article55298231 ] Hussein’s removal by US-led forces saved many lives and prevented the completion of a “genocide”.

For Kurds in the north, who were victims of severe violations of human rights under Hussein’s rule, the invasion has brought a new sense of security. But for many others in the country, the opposite is true.

More than 111,000 Iraqis have been killed since 2003, according to the tracking group Iraq Body Count [ http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ ]; most of these deaths occurred in 2006-2007, the worst period of sectarian violence in the last 10 years. Security improved in subsequent years - from nearly 30,000 civilian deaths in 2006 to fewer than 10,000 in 2008, and fewer than 5,000 in 2009. In the years following, it stabilized at around 4,000 civilian deaths per year.

In 2011, nearly three-quarters of the population perceived themselves to be secure or very secure, according to the Iraq Knowledge Network survey [ http://www.japuiraq.org/documents/1677/IKN_Introduction_en.pdf ].

However, civilian deaths increased [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94677/IRAQ-People-consider-fleeing-as-violence-increases ] by about 10 percent in 2012, after the withdrawal of American forces. Established insurgent groups, like al-Qaeda in Iraq, have been regaining strength, and new ones, like the Free Iraqi Army, have emerged. Anbar Province, the epicentre of the Sunni insurgency in 2007-2009, has become restive once more.

Sectarianism increasing

Under Hussein, power was concentrated in the hands of Sunni partisans; the end of Hussein’s rule brought new opportunities to the long-marginalized Shia majority. But as Shiites have risen to power, sectarianism has become a major feature of Iraqi politics.

This is due, in part, to the decades of repressive policies seen under Hussein, but analysts also point a finger at US policies, which created a political system based on the repartition of power among three main groups: the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. The US also sought to purge the government of members of Hussein’s Baath party, which many Sunnis saw as a move to alienate them.

“At his most vulnerable position, Saddam Hussein used sectarianism and nationalism as weapons against his internal enemies,” the Civil-Military Fusion Centre (CFC) wrote in a recent briefing on the risk of a renewed breakout of large-scale violence [ http://www.irinnews.org/pdf/20130415_Thematic_Anbar_Province_Final.pdf ]. “Today’s Iraqi Shiite parties and government appear to be doing far worse as governmental rule is justified on a sectarian basis.”

This sectarianism has inspired many of the suicide bombings, kidnappings and terrorist attacks [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95999/Briefing-Why-is-Iraq-still-so-dangerous ] that have affected civilians in the past 10 years. According to CFC, “There is a legitimate, growing fear of civil conflict due to unaddressed grievances in Anbar and other Sunni-majority provinces.”

More freedoms

Despite the insecurity, some point to a new level of freedom, including increased personal rights, improved access to legal services and democratic structures in government.

“It’s not just about access to basic services. People have other aspirations [now],” says Sudipto Mukerjee, deputy head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP). “The whole issue of equal opportunities, access to decent jobs and [having a] voice is coming up much more strongly than ever before.”

But this, too, is a mixed blessing, countered by what many observers call a dysfunctional parliament and corrupt cabinet.

“Now, we can write whatever we want,” says journalist Safa Muhammed. “We are not afraid of saying anything or criticizing anyone. We have that freedom, but it’s useless. No matter how much you write, no one [in government] is listening or willing to make changes.”

For other development indicators, visit IRIN's series Iraq 10 years on [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97897/Iraq-ten-years-on-the-humanitarian-impact ].

af/da/ha/rz

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A decade after US-led forced toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, IRIN examines the progress in basic living standards.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

]]></body><pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97937/More-freedom-but-less-security</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201212181454160527t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BAGHDAD/DUBAI 29 April 2013 (IRIN) - After a decade of sanctions, Iraq’s GDP has been growing consistently since 2003, and poverty rates have more than halved since 1990. But observers say billions of dollars in oil revenues have not translated into adequate gains in Iraqi well-being.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Boko Haram threat chokes trade with Cameroon</title><pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201304291759290784t.jpg" />]]>YAOUNDE 29 April 2013 (IRIN) - Tighter security in Cameroon’s Far North Region due to the widening threat posed by Nigeria-based radical Islamist militia Boko Haram is stifling cross-border trade, hurting livelihoods and raising fear among civilians.</description><body><![CDATA[YAOUNDE 29 April 2013 (IRIN) - Tighter security in Cameroon’s Far North Region due to the widening threat posed by Nigeria-based radical Islamist militia Boko Haram is stifling cross-border trade, hurting livelihoods and raising fear among civilians.

Cameroon has stepped up security over the Boko Haram (BH) threat. In November 2011, Nigeria shut its border with Cameroon, prompting Yaoundé to bolster security [ http://www.esisc.org/upload/publications/briefings/Boko%20Haram%20in%20Cameroon.pdf ] in the largely Muslim Far North Region, close dozens of Koranic schools and hand over suspected BH members to Nigeria, which reopened the border in 2012.

Despite the intensified security, suspected BH militants on 19 February abducted [ http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/19/us-cameroon-kidnapping-idUSBRE93I0I820130419 ] seven French tourists, including four children, from a national park in the Far North Region, freeing them two months later. 

Cross-border trade sustains the local economy in the Far North Region which sells onions, rice, maize, livestock and other agricultural goods to Nigeria, and imports sugar, cement, textile and electronics.

“Tight border security and checks are making business impossible for some of us. This was worsened by the kidnapping of [the French] tourists. Today all the goods must be checked before entry, and taxes are so high,” said Doudou Yaouba, a trader in Maroua, the regional capital.

Yaouba, who exports groundnuts to Nigeria’s Borno State and returns with sugar and textiles, said he was thinking of starting another business due to the security restrictions.

The region also depends on inferior quality petrol locally known as `zua-zua’ which is smuggled in from Nigeria. Strict border controls have caused its price to rise.

“There are so many border checkpoints and it is very difficult for `zua-zua’ suppliers to get through. Petrol now sells at 600 [CFA] francs a litre compared to 400 francs before the crisis,” said Joel Alim, a petrol trader in Maroua.

Fertilizer imports have also ceased after the Nigerian authorities banned production and distribution over fears that BH was using fertilizer to make bombs, Mahamat Abakar, an official at Cameroon’s Ministry of External Relations, told IRIN. 

The cross-border cattle trade has also taken a hit owing to the tightened security. “More than 1,000 cattle are traded into Nigeria weekly from Cameroon but the movement of herds has been very slow and is even blocked at certain points by Nigerian security,” said Maroua cattle trader Ousmanou Mamadou.

“Less than half the normal cattle supply into Nigeria is possible, and only through very difficult terrain. Recently more than 800 cattle were blocked from crossing the Nigerian border in Kotokol,” he added.

Abakar said the government had to negotiate the reopening of the border following pleas by locals.

“People living near the border requested the Cameroon government to intervene in the decision by Nigeria to close the border because they were facing a very severe impact from the closure,” said Abakar.

“The border was reopened in February 2012 after negotiations with Nigeria. Cameroon assured Nigeria that its own side of the border is secure after 600 soldiers were deployed to the region.”

Cameroon wary

Cameroonian authorities are wary of BH’s infiltration into local communities and mosques. There are cultural and religious similarities between Cameroon’s Far North Region and neighbouring northeastern Nigeria. One of the worst explosions of religious violence [ https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/africa_today/v057/57.4.adesoji.html ] in northern Nigeria in the 1980s was triggered by a Cameroonian religious scholar, Mohammed Marwa, who led the “Maitatsine” movement.

Cameroon’s north and Nigeria’s north share similar deep-seated Muslim political grievances and BH’s ideology could trigger political problems in Cameroon, say some analysts. 

“Cameroon should worry about BH. We have a civilized Islamic practice in Cameroon. However, we are not sure that we won’t have radicals one day. BH’s fight is due to the economic and political context of northern Nigeria, with disputes over the equal sharing of national resources. Cameroon finds itself in a similar context and so measures must be taken,” said Alain Didier Olinga, political analyst and lecturer in international law at the International Relations Institute of Cameroon.

“The government’s strategy to dissuade BH is basically military, but governments must understand that the absence of true knowledge of what Islam is can only encourage Islamism,” Olinga said.

Despite the deployment of troops to the northern region, it is not easy to police the 1,690km border with Nigeria. 

“The borders are vast and to ensure full security along the whole territory is practically impossible. Checkpoints are mounted at cross-border routes and patrols are being enforced around the regions, most especially on Waza National Park where the French family was kidnapped,” a senior Defence Ministry official told IRIN on condition of anonymity.

Abakar from Cameroon’s External Relations Ministry said the government was also closely monitoring suspected BH militants, Koranic schools, preachers and sermons in mosques as well as collaborating with religious leaders.

Hayatou Muhamadou, head of Islamic studies at Yaoundé Central Mosque, said: “We don’t permit unidentified preachers in mosques and the Islamic community in Cameroon has been strongly warned against such practices… What we cannot guarantee is avoiding unknown worshippers in our local mosques. It is difficult to point out extremists in worship.”

For some residents of Cameroon’s Far North Region, the troop deployments and increased security measures seem to be causing more fear than BH: “This period is very difficult for us. Our fear is not exactly BH, but the soldiers’ presence. Everyone here is presumed to be suspect by the soldiers,” said a local resident who gave his name only as Yousouf, adding: “But we have been collaborating with the security forces by giving information and reporting suspected persons.”

mn/ob/cb

 ]]></body><pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97942/Boko-Haram-threat-chokes-trade-with-Cameroon</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201304291759290784t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">YAOUNDE 29 April 2013 (IRIN) - Tighter security in Cameroon’s Far North Region due to the widening threat posed by Nigeria-based radical Islamist militia Boko Haram is stifling cross-border trade, hurting livelihoods and raising fear among civilians.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Economy grows, but how many benefit?</title><pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201207270841090813t.jpg" />]]>BAGHDAD/DUBAI 24 April 2013 (IRIN) - After a decade of sanctions, Iraq’s GDP has been growing consistently since 2003, and poverty rates have more than halved since 1990. But observers say billions of dollars in oil revenues have not translated into adequate gains in Iraqi well-being.</description><body><![CDATA[BAGHDAD/DUBAI 24 April 2013 (IRIN) - Iraq’s development has historically been linked to its ability to sell and produce oil, and to world oil prices. Yet oil-related measures of economic growth may obscure some of the economic conditions facing ordinary Iraqis.

In 1980, after the oil crisis of the mid-1970s led to higher oil prices, Iraq’s GDP per capita was higher than any other country in the region (except Israel and the Gulf states), at US$3,453, according to the World Bank [ http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD/countries?page=6 ]. But this number plummeted in the 1990s, during the Iran-Iraq war and years of sanctions, hitting a low of $455 in 1997. After rising slightly in 2000, it dipped again, to $742 in 2000. By 2011, it had returned to $3,501, though these figures are not adjusted for inflation.  

Iraq is now the second-largest producer of crude oil and has the fifth-largest proven crude oil reserves in the world. With an expected annual growth of 9.4 percent through 2016, Iraq has the region’s fastest growing economy, according to the government.

Rising oil prices brought in revenues of $94 billion in 2012 and are projected to bring in more than $100 billion in 2013, according to the Middle East Economic Survey. The International Monetary Fund projects Iraq’s GDP will grow by nine percent in 2013.

Public sector growth

As a result of its increased ability to sell oil post-sanctions, the public sector has expanded, and salaries of public sector workers have increased significantly, giving rise to a strengthened middle class.

“Before 2003,” said government employee Sa’ad al-Shimary, “[former President Saddam Hussein’s] Baath Party was everywhere. It was hard to work in such an environment. I feared they might write a report against me, as they always did, if we tried to criticize their work for any reason. I feared I might go to work and not return home.”

Back then, he told IRIN, he had to work extra hours as a taxi driver to pay the bills. “Now my salary is enough for me and my family. I have no fear in the ministry. My life has changed for the better; I have more money, and I have a new car.”

Year-on-year, Iraq’s recent economic growth (“real GDP” adjusted for inflation) has been more modest than nominal GDP growth, though still healthy. The economy retracted by 28.3 percent in 2003, according to Business Monitor International, but it rebounded by 39.6 percent the year after. Between 2005 and 2011, the economy grew by an average of 6.5 percent per year, even during the worst years of violence.

Still, Bassam Yousif, a professor of economics at Indiana State University, describes Iraq’s economic growth in the last decade as “anemic” given its weak starting point - an economy depressed by sanctions and a government restricted in trade, unable to spend any money domestically - and the sudden influx of cash when it was able to resume oil exports [ http://costsofwar.org/sites/default/files/articles/32/attachments/Yousif_Iraq_Economy_08-19-2012.pdf ].

“What you would have thought Iraq could do with this windfall money 10 years ago is very different than what actually happened,” he said.

Waiting to see benefits

Economists and aid workers say much of the newfound wealth has not trickled down, largely due to Iraq’s economic dependence on oil, government corruption, a lack of capacity to execute budgets and a failure to develop the private sector.

“Even though GDP is going up, the average Iraqi doesn’t see that because the ability to spend that money is constrained,” Yousif said.

In 2012, Transparency International classified Iraq’s public-sector corruption as among the highest in the world; the country was ranked 169 out of 176 countries on its Corruption Perceptions Index [ http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/results ].

“Macro-economic growth has not translated into commensurate improvements in people’s well-being,” Sudipto Mukerjee, who leads the economic recovery and poverty alleviation team at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Iraq, told IRIN.

Iraq has always been dependent on imports, and its agricultural and industrial sectors - already small - stagnated under the American push for import liberalization, which brought in a flood of cheaper goods. The oil sector has also failed to produce many jobs. The sector represented about half of Iraqi GDP in the 2000s, but employed less than one percent of the economically active.

After a massive jump in unemployment from 1990 to 2004, according to government statistics [ http://cosit.gov.iq/english/AAS2012/section_19/15.htm ], the unemployment rate fell from 28.1 percent [ http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/arpro/beirut/downloads/publ/publ_10_eng.pdf ] in 2003 to 11.7 percent in 2007, rising again to 15.3 percent in 2008.

Today, the rate is eight percent, according to the Iraq Knowledge Network (IKN) survey [ http://www.japuiraq.org/documents/1582/LB%20Factsheet-English.pdf ], based on the narrowest definition of unemployment (people who did not work at all in the seven days preceding the interview and were available for work and actively seeking a job that week), and 11 percent using the more relaxed definition (those who are not “productively” or “usefully” occupied, and are not actively seeking work but would do so if conditions in the labour market improved). Government numbers, which use an even broader definition, are higher. Women, youth and people living in rural areas have higher-than-average unemployment rates.  

A survey [ http://www.ndi.org/files/NDI-Iraq%20-%20April%202012%20National%20Survey%20-%20Report.pdf ] by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) late last year found that more than half of Iraqis - 55 percent - named unemployment as one of their top two concerns for the government to address.

For those who do have jobs - mostly with the public sector - larger salaries have not necessarily meant more purchasing power because inflation has risen. At its height over the last decade, consumer price inflation surpassed 50 percent (some sources put it as high as 76.5 percent) in 2006. As of January 2013, it was down to 2.2 percent, according to the Central Bank of Iraq.

Mustafa Ahmed, a father of two from Baghdad, complains that everything is more expensive now: “I used to buy a sandwich for 500 Iraqi dinars. Now it costs 5,000. I used to fill the car with gas with 6,000 dinars, and now [it costs me] 30,000.”

Measuring poverty

Still, the picture has vastly improved since the years spent under sanctions. Of all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) [ http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ ], Iraq has made the most progress on the first, already achieving the target of halving the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty by 2015. The percentage of people living on less than US$2.50 (adjusted for purchasing power parity) dropped from 28 percent in 1990 to 13.9 in 2007, then to 11.5 in 2011.

“With the end of the economic embargo in 2003 and the wage and salary hike of 2007, the standard of living of [Iraqi] households witnessed a significant improvement,” the Central Statistics Organization wrote, explaining the statistics. “Income of people working in the public sector (which constitutes 45 percent of the total household income) went up, leading to a significant decrease in the proportion of people living on  less than dollar a day compared to the1990 level.”

However, the World Bank deems the national poverty line - 76,896 Iraqi dinars per month - a “far more useful” [ http://siteresources.worldbank.org/MENAEXT/Resources/Confronting_Poverty_In_Iraq_E_Chapter_3.pdf ] gauge of economic well-being. By that measure, 23 percent of the population lived in poverty in 2007, according to a survey by the government and the Bank [ http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/MENAEXT/IRAQEXTN/0,,contentMDK:22032522~menuPK:313111~pagePK:2865066~piPK:2865079~theSitePK:313105,00.html ].

“While unemployment has declined substantially, poverty rates have remained stubbornly high since 2004,” Yousif said.

Research to be released later this year by the government and the UN examines levels of multi-dimensional poverty - the absence of access to certain basic needs - which could reveal even higher levels of deprivation.

“In a middle-income country which has seen significant economic growth,” said Mukerjee, “should we still have so much unemployment? Should we still have so many people below the poverty line?”

He and others are quick to point out that national averages are skewed by relatively faster progress in the autonomous, more peaceful Kurdish region in the north, obscuring deprivations in other governorates such as Qadissiya, Muthanna and Diyala.

The silver lining, perhaps, is that poverty in Iraq is not very deep: the poverty gap index, which measures the average gap between how much the poor spend as a percentage of the poverty line, has fallen from 5.0 percent in 2006 to 2.6 percent in 2011, according to government statistics - much lower than most other countries. As such, while there are many people at the edge of the threshold, who could easily fall into poverty, there are also many in poverty who could easily could be brought out of it with a bit of support.

For more, check out Confronting Poverty in Iraq, a 2011 book by the World Bank [ https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/2253 ] analysing the findings of its 2007 household socio-economy survey [ http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/MENAEXT/IRAQEXTN/0,,contentMDK:22032522~menuPK:313111~pagePK:2865066~piPK:2865079~theSitePK:313105,00.html ]. Bassam Yousif’s work, both for the Costs of War [ http://costsofwar.org/sites/default/files/articles/32/attachments/Yousif_Iraq_Economy_08-19-2012.pdf ] project and the Middle East Report magazine [ http://www.merip.org/mer/mer266/aspiration-reality-iraqs-post-sanctions-economy ], is also useful. You can find all sorts of government statistics, including financial and oil-related, here [ http://cosit.gov.iq/english/sections2010-2011.php ] and a UN fact-sheet on the labour force here [ http://www.japuiraq.org/documents/1582/LB%20Factsheet-English.pdf ]. The government’s National Report on the Status of Human Development of 2008 lays out the government’s vision for addressing the imbalance between oil revenues and poor living standards [ http://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/iraq-national-report-status-human-development-2008 ].

af/da/ha/rz

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A decade after US-led forced toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, IRIN examines the progress in basic living standards.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

]]></body><pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97909/Economy-grows-but-how-many-benefit</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201207270841090813t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BAGHDAD/DUBAI 24 April 2013 (IRIN) - After a decade of sanctions, Iraq’s GDP has been growing consistently since 2003, and poverty rates have more than halved since 1990. But observers say billions of dollars in oil revenues have not translated into adequate gains in Iraqi well-being.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A unified approach to climate change and hunger</title><pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2005896t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 24 April 2013 (IRIN) - Studies out of Ethiopia, India, Kenya and Niger show that children born during natural hazards, like droughts or floods, are more likely to be malnourished. Yet as the climate changes, it is poor countries - already struggling with hunger and food insecurity - that are increasingly likely to face these natural hazards.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 24 April 2013 (IRIN) - Studies out of Ethiopia, India [ http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/1/2/e000109.full ], Kenya and Niger show that children born during natural hazards, like droughts or floods, are more likely to be malnourished. Yet as the climate changes, it is poor countries - already struggling with hunger and food insecurity - that are increasingly likely to face these natural hazards. 

A recent conference considered this issue from the perspective of “climate justice” - an approach to climate change focusing on the rights of vulnerable people who are the least responsible for causing climate change but among the most affected. 

The Hunger-Nutrition-Climate Justice (HNCJ) conference, held in Dublin, Ireland, was organized by Irish Aid, the Mary Robinson Foundation, CGIAR and the World Food Programme (WFP). Among the topics explored were “joined-up approaches” - also known as the “nexus” approach. 

The nexus approach seeks to find solutions based on the interconnections between various sectors or disciplines. For instance, addressing interconnected malnutrition and climate change problems would involve working across health, agriculture, environment, water and land management sectors. 

“No one level, sector or stakeholder group alone can identify and implement sustainable solutions to complex societal challenges such as hunger and climate change,” said one of the papers at the conference. 

IRIN spoke to experts about how joined-up approaches and "climate justice" can help improve nutrition for the most vulnerable and shape sustainable development efforts in the future. 

Joined-up approaches 

Experts say the nexus approach is a way to advance the social, environmental and economic aspects of sustainable development simultaneously. 

Oscar Ekdahl, WFP policy officer, says using joined-up approaches to address hunger, nutrition and climate justice should come naturally. 

“People’s needs, as well as opportunities, are by nature multi-sectoral,” he said. “More often than not, multiple sectors or service providers - for example ministries of agriculture, social planning, and environment - are required to effectively address issues such as hunger and undernutrition.” 

Building resilience among vulnerable populations - entailing support from both humanitarian and development actors [ http://www.irinnews.org/report/97584/Understanding-resilience ] - can also help address nutrition and climate change problems simultaneously, says José Luis Vivero Pol, an anti-hunger activist with Université Catholique de Louvain. “Well-nourished people and children will better cope with climate change vagaries (either floods or droughts) than malnourished children,” he explained via email. 

FAO’s Richard China said the future of the nexus approach will be determined by how countries choose to allocate resources to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - a set of goals the UN is formulating to guide development after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) end in 2015. 

One of the criticisms levelled against the MDGs is that they have encouraged countries to ensure funds flow through sectors, or to adopt strategies with narrow sector-based approaches. Experts hope the SDGs will instead promote inter-related interventions by the various sectors. 

China says the UN Secretary-General's Zero Hunger Challenge [ http://www.un.org/en/zerohunger/ ], which aims to end hunger “in our lifetime”, underlines this inter-related approach. Achieving the goals - “100 percent access to adequate food; zero stunted children less than two [years old]; all food systems are sustainable; 100 percent increase in smallholder productivity and income; and zero loss and waste of food” - will require interventions across multiple sectors, including agriculture, health, nutrition and climatology. 

Overcoming status quo 

IRIN has explored the nexus between hunger, nutrition and health [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/91907/FOOD-Is-it-easy-to-grow-what-is-good-for-you ] and the connections between water, energy and food [ http://www.irinnews.org/report/95080/GLOBAL-Joined-up-thinking-on-water-energy-and-food ], and has found that rigidly organized governments are often the biggest deterrents to accepting joined-up approaches. 

Lawrence Haddad, director of the Institute for Development Studies, says people already live in a joined-up world, and that “it is governments, donors and researchers who have the luxury of fragmenting” the world into sectors. 

To address this, he suggests introducing more problem-based training at the university level, which would encourage officials to think across sectors. He also recommends funding projects that link sectors, and ensuring government ministries are organized around problems rather than sectors. 

“None of these are easy, as they all will require disruption of the status quo and all the vested interests aligned with them,” he said. 

Even so, WFP’s Ekdahl says governments have begun “to budget time and finance required for this type of collaboration, but more is required.” 

Climate justice 

Climate change disproportionately threatens the food supplies of the most vulnerable, an issue campaigners for climate justice at the UN talks on climate change [ http://www.irinnews.org/In-Depth/96956/73/ ] have been raising. 

Many advocates see a rights-based approach as essential to both sustainable development and climate justice. The UN, for instance, has been pushing countries to enact laws recognizing the right to affordable food [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/80549/GLOBAL-Govts-urged-to-recognise-the-right-to-affordable-food ], which would compel governments to act in times of food insecurity. 

In a joint paper for the HNCJ conference, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food Olivier De Schutter, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, and Tara Shine, the head of research and development at the Mary Robinson Foundation, say ensuring the rights to food, life, health, water and housing must be the foundation of any approach to sustainable development. 

But some are sceptical that this can be achieved. 

Pol, the anti-hunger activist, says climate justice is a “fancy word” and will only mean something if it "is implemented through binding legal frameworks and mounting public budgets”, with more restraints on the privatization of natural resources and common goods. 

He adds that appealing for climate justice seems meaningless when countries have failed to implement the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change. 

“The money you own cannot exclusively determine the food you get, as food is a basic human need,” Pol continued. “If we keep on thinking along those lines, within 50 years we'll have to pay for breathing...another human need." 

He advocates the polycentric approach developed by Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom [ http://www.irinnews.org/report/95355/GLOBAL-Interview-with-Nobel-prize-winner-Elinor-Ostrom-on-climate-change ]. This approach encourages natural resource management at multiple levels, including within communities. Individuals, communities, local governments and local NGOs should decide to take steps to address climate change rather than waiting for a global agreement between governments, according to Ostrom. 

Getting it in writing 

Haddad points to another inequality inherent in the relationship between malnutrition and climate change: "There is another type of injustice that affects everyone in the world - the injustice being the legacy that this generation is leaving the next one - wherever they live. This has some parallels with nutrition, because nutrition is also about what we as adults can do to prevent stunting in the first 1,000 days after conception - a legacy that plays out throughout the child's life... So there is a kindred spirit between the two issues of climate change and undernutrition... I think we could find ways to exploit it - perhaps in the context of the rising interest in resilience." 

WFP’s Ekdahl says that there is recognition of the importance of nutrition and food security among officials negotiating a UN treaty to prevent further global warming and to protect people from the effects of climate change. 

"However, there is less progress in terms of getting specific nutrition language into the actual text" of the treaty, he said. 

jk/rz 

]]></body><pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97913/A-unified-approach-to-climate-change-and-hunger</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2005896t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 24 April 2013 (IRIN) - Studies out of Ethiopia, India, Kenya and Niger show that children born during natural hazards, like droughts or floods, are more likely to be malnourished. Yet as the climate changes, it is poor countries - already struggling with hunger and food insecurity - that are increasingly likely to face these natural hazards.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Iraq 10 years on: the humanitarian impact</title><pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201209041322550503t.jpg" />]]>BAGHDAD/DUBAI 23 April 2013 (IRIN) - Ten years after the toppling of Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein, human development statistics – flawed as they are – paint a complex portrait of a country that has seen improvement over the last decade, but is still largely struggling.</description><body><![CDATA[BAGHDAD/DUBAI 23 April 2013 (IRIN) - The humanitarian legacy

Ten years after the toppling of Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein, human development statistics – flawed as they are – paint a complex portrait of a country that has seen improvement over the last decade, but is still largely struggling [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97895/Iraq-10-years-on-The-humanitarian-legacy ]

Water and Sanitation: Are the taps flowing? [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97894/Are-the-taps-flowing ]

Electricity: Blistering black-outs [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97896/Blistering-black-outs ]

The forgotten displacement crisis [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97905/The-forgotten-displacement-crisis ]

Economy grows, but how many benefit? [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97909/Economy-grows-but-how-many-benefit ]

Education: Schools try to play catch-up [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97928/Schools-try-to-play-catch-up ]

Human Security: More freedom but less security? [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97937/More-freedom-but-less-security ]

Aid work: From restrictions to access challenges [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97952/From-aid-restrictions-to-access-challenges ]

War leaves lasting impact on healthcare [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97964/War-leaves-lasting-impact-on-healthcare ]

Gender: Women yet to regain their place [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97976/Women-yet-to-regain-their-place ]

Food security: Less dependent on food rations [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97991/Less-dependent-on-food-rations ]

]]></body><pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97897/Iraq-10-years-on-the-humanitarian-impact</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201209041322550503t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BAGHDAD/DUBAI 23 April 2013 (IRIN) - Ten years after the toppling of Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein, human development statistics – flawed as they are – paint a complex portrait of a country that has seen improvement over the last decade, but is still largely struggling.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Humanitarian overview</title><pubDate>Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2010/201011280721150248t.jpg" />]]>BAGHDAD/DUBAI 22 April 2013 (IRIN) - Ten years after the toppling of Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein, human development statistics – flawed as they are – paint a complex portrait of a country that has seen improvement over the last decade, but is still largely struggling.</description><body><![CDATA[BAGHDAD/DUBAI 22 April 2013 (IRIN) - Ten years after US forces took over Iraq, opinions on the progress made are as polarized as ever.

On one side, the Iraqi and American governments argue, the gains have been significant.

“Despite all the problems of the past decade, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis agree that we are better off today than under Saddam’s brutal dictatorship,” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki wrote in a 9 April opinion piece in the Washington Post, marking 10 years after the fall of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nouri-al-maliki-the-us-has-a-foreign-policy-partner-in-iraq/2013/04/08/dcb9f8a6-a05e-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html ].

Paul Wolfowitz, who served as the US Deputy Secretary of Defence between 2001 and 2005, wrote the same day in Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that given the hardships under Hussein, “it is remarkable that Iraq has done as well as it has thus far.”

Others are more circumspect in evaluating these gains, looking to the 1980s - under Hussein’s rule - as a time when Iraqi society was much further ahead.

“By all measures and standards, there has been a deterioration in the quality of life of Iraqis as compared to 25 years ago,” said Khalid Khalid, who tracks Iraq’s progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the UN Development Programme (UNDP). “The invasion comes on top of sanctions that came before it and the Iran-Iraq war. It’s one continuous chain of events that led to the situation Iraqis are facing now.”

Mixed blessings

In the early 1980s, Iraq was regarded by many as the most developed state in the Arab world. The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the Gulf War of 1991 and subsequent years of sanctions took a heavy toll on developmental indicators, yet Iraq continued to have strong state institutions, even if they were used repressively to maintain Hussein’s power. For example, even after 10 years of an international embargo, the system of food ration distribution operated effectively.

The US invasion and subsequent civil conflict changed this, said Maria Fantappie, Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group, as violence and de-Baathification drove away the human resources needed to run effective institutions. In many ways, the country has yet to recover.

“In 2003, that heritage of an efficient Iraqi state was completely lost,” Fantappie said. “We have the consequences of this until today… We are not yet at the level of state institutions that can deliver services equally to all citizens."

Iraq is the only country in the Middle East where living standards have not improved compared to 25 years ago, the World Bank says. In areas such as secondary school enrolment and child immunization, Iraq now ranks lower than some of the poorest countries in the world.

“The war is just such a series of mixed blessings,” said Ned Parker, a former fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and long-time Iraq correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. “For every positive development, there’s a negative development that counters it.”

Looking at the data

IRIN has taken a look development and humanitarian indicators [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97897/Iraq-ten-years-on-the-humanitarian-impact ] for Iraq, which show a decade of fits and starts, with progress in one area met by stagnation in another.

Of course, statistics in Iraq are often “wrong, simply not available or politically misused,” as one researcher put it. While a wealth of information and data exists, it comes from a multitude of sources using different methodologies, and much of it is based on relatively small sample sizes. The UN’s Information and Analysis Unit said in a 2008 report: “As is typical in volatile working environments, data reliability in some instances is questionable, contradictory figures exist, and geographic coverage of the indicators is often compromised for either security or political reasons.” [ http://www.japuiraq.org/documents/491/Stocktaking%20of%20existing%20indicators%20and%20information%2013%20March%202008.pdf ]

There are also huge discrepancies when national statistics are broken down by region, with the capital Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdish region in the north often the only governorates ranking above national average in measures of development. As Médecins sans Frontières wrote in a recent article in the Lancet journal [ http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2813%2960664-9/fulltext#aff1 ], “Much more attention needs to be given to remote areas, where the reality for Iraqis has not substantially improved over the past 10 years.”

What is more, much of the progress is seen in indicators tracking inputs, like how many children enrol in school, rather than outcomes, such as how much they actually learn, said Sudipto Mukerjee, deputy head of UNDP in Iraq.

But even with these caveats, the best available data offer a complex portrait of a country that has seen improvement over the last decade, but is still largely struggling. For example, a recent overview of Iraq’s headway towards the Millennium Development Goals [ http://unami.unmissions.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=bgHcDIXr8-s%3D&tabid=2790&language=en-US ] found great strides in the eradication of poverty over 1990 levels, but slower progress on primary education enrolment, which still lags behind 1990 levels.

A million Iraqis remain refugees, and over a million are internally displaced; sectarianism holds sway over political institutions; and healthcare is undermined by a lack of medical personnel, unreliable utilities and fragile national security. Women and girls, who once enjoyed more rights than other women in the region, now regularly find themselves excluded from school and work opportunities, though great progress has been made towards gender equality in recent years. While living conditions, clean water access, poverty rates and education levels are all disappointing compared to historical highs in the 1980s, they are greatly improved from the years Iraq spent under sanctions. And increased decentralization of power has offered some hope for the future.

No easy narrative can be accurately applied to the country’s experiences over the past 10 years, and in many ways, the direction the country has taken may only become clear over the decade to come.

In the coming days, we will bring you our findings on each of the following indicators. Check back regularly!

Water and Sanitation [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97894/Are-the-taps-flowing ]
Electricity [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97896/Blistering-black-outs ]
Displacement [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97905/The-forgotten-displacement-crisis ]
Education [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97928/Schools-try-to-play-catch-up ]
Poverty/Economic Growth [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97909/Economy-grows-but-how-many-benefit ]
Health [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97964/Iraq-10-years-on-War-leaves-lasting-impact-on-healthcare ]
Food Security/Malnutrition [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97991/Iraq-10-years-on-Less-dependent-on-food-rations ]
Governance/Human Security [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97937/More-freedom-but-less-security ]
Gender [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97976/Women-yet-to-regain-their-place ]
Aid work [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97952/From-aid-restrictions-to-access-challenges ]

In the process of our research, we’ve come across some interesting bits and pieces. For more, check out:

A recent Op-Ed by Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, where he makes the case that Iraq has progressed
[ http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nouri-al-maliki-the-us-has-a-foreign-policy-partner-in-iraq/2013/04/08/dcb9f8a6-a05e-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html ]

The case for why the US intervention was necessary and successful - by Paul Wolfowitz 
[ http://www.aawsat.net/2013/04/article55298231 ]

An entire issue of the Middle East Research and Information Project dedicated to the 10-year mark of Hussein’s toppling 
[ http://www.merip.org/mer/latest ]

The Guardian newspaper also has a special section on its website dedicated to articles on Iraq 10 years on from the invasion
[ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/iraq-war-10-years-on ]

A pioneering project to track the costs of American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: Costs of War
[ http://costsofwar.org/ ]

The National Democratic Institute has done a series of public opinion polls in Iraq since 2010. Here is the latest
[ http://www.ndi.org/Iraq-survey-growing-optimism ].

The UN’s Joint Analysis and Policy Unit [ http://www.japuiraq.org/ ] for Iraq is a wealth of detailed, statistical information, including the Iraq Knowledge Network [ http://www.japuiraq.org/ikn ] survey the UN helped conduct in 2011.

Over the years, a number of other household surveys have been conducted by the government in collaboration with various UN agencies, including the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) [ https://www.yousendit.com/download/UVJneFlUY1M1bmo1SE1UQw ], supported by UNICEF; the Iraq Household Socio-Economic Survey (IHSES), [ http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/MENAEXT/IRAQEXTN/0,,contentMDK:22032522~menuPK:313111~pagePK:2865066~piPK:2865079~theSitePK:313105,00.html ] supported by the World Bank; the Iraq Living Conditions Survey [ http://cosit.gov.iq/english/pdf/english_tabulation.pdf ], supported by UNDP; and the Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis [ http://www.japuiraq.org/documents/227/WFP_VAMSurvey_2007_CFSVA%20final.pdf ], supported by WFP.

The government Central Statistics Organization has assembled statistics on human development indicators from various sources, from 1990 onwards, which you can find here [ http://cosit.gov.iq/english/section_19.php ].

The World Bank also allows you to download full sets of comparative statistics [ http://data.worldbank.org/country/iraq ] and the World Health Organization keeps year-by-year statistics since 1999 on each of the health-related Millennium Development Goals [ http://rho.emro.who.int/rhodata/?theme=country&vid=10702 ].

If you want to crunch numbers, check out the UN Human Development Reports over the years [ http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2013/ ].

The UN recently took stock of Iraq’s progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, with less than 1,000 days to go before the deadline [ http://unami.unmissions.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=bgHcDIXr8-s%3D&tabid=2790&language=en-US ].

IRIN has covered many of these issues over the years. Our Iraq archives are here [ http://www.irinnews.org/AdvancedSearchResults.aspx?DoAdvanced=true&Country=IQ&PageNo=4_20 ].

An interesting debate in Foreign Affairs magazine about whether Iraq is on track [ http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137700/antony-j-blinken-norman-ricklefs-ned-parker/is-iraq-on-track ].

The US auditor on Iraq reconstruction’s latest and final report that says $60 billion invested in Iraq’s reconstruction had “limited positive effects” [ http://www.sigir.mil/learningfromiraq/ ]

And on that theme, check out this cynical, almost satirical, book (and subsequent blog) by Peter Van Buren: We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People [ http://wemeantwell.com/ ]

af/ha/rz

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A decade after US-led forced toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, IRIN examines the progress in basic living standards.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

]]></body><pubDate>Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97895/Humanitarian-overview</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2010/201011280721150248t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BAGHDAD/DUBAI 22 April 2013 (IRIN) - Ten years after the toppling of Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein, human development statistics – flawed as they are – paint a complex portrait of a country that has seen improvement over the last decade, but is still largely struggling.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Java residents protest iron mine</title><pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201304181039450391t.jpg" />]]>KULON PROGO 18 April 2013 (IRIN) - “I want to return to being a farmer and to feeding my family, but I will continue to oppose the mine project,” said Tukijo, 47, speaking to IRIN from the main prison in Yogyakarta City, in central Java, Indonesia.</description><body><![CDATA[KULON PROGO 18 April 2013 (IRIN) - “I want to return to being a farmer and to feeding my family, but I will continue to oppose the mine project,” said Tukijo, 47, speaking to IRIN from the main prison in Yogyakarta City, in central Java, Indonesia.

Tukijo, who, like many Indonesians, goes by only one name, was given a three-year jail sentence in March 2012, after allegedly abducting an employee of a mining company - a charge he denies.

His arrest comes after several years of escalating opposition by residents of Kulon Progo, a coastal farming community in Yogyakarta Region, to a project to mine iron deposits in the sand beneath their farms.

“We want to preserve our environment, and we want to exercise our right as citizens to stay on our land,” he said.

He and other community members say he was jailed in an effort to silence the community’s opposition.

National problem

According to Indonesia’s Central Bureau of Statistics [ http://www.bps.go.id/eng/ ], mining accounts for 12 percent of Indonesia’s GDP; the country is one of the world’s largest producers of tin, copper and coal.

But the push to exploit natural resources is increasingly being matched by resistance from affected communities, who often feel these projects lack regulation and that they benefit little.

“There are many conflicts linked to land disputes in a number of areas, and these usually involve the local communities and plantation owners, mining concession holders or other institutions,” a parliamentarian told the Jakarta Globe [ http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/indonesia-pushes-for-amendment-addressing-land-disputes/571540 ].

Twenty-five farmers were shot, resulting in three deaths, during conflicts related to land disputes last year, according to the Consortium for Agrarian Reform.

In 2012, there were 7,196 land disputes, up from 2,791 in 2012, the National Land Agency, a government office, recorded. Of these, only 60 percent were resolved, said Kurnia Toha, a spokeman for the office.

Indonesia’s parliament is reviewing an amendment the 1960 Agrarian Law intended to curb disputes related to land concessions.

In January, the governor of East Kalimantan Province announced a one-year ban on new permits for forestry, mining and plantation concessions, citing the need to reduce land disputes between companies and local communities, media reports say.

“People now believe these projects are always damaging to the environment and don’t benefit local communities, so there is more and more opposition to them,” says Tommy Apriando, a Yogyakarta-based researcher for Mongabay-Indonesia, a local environmental publication [ http://www.mongabay.co.id/ ].

Kulon Progo’s iron sand mining project, a joint venture between Australia’s Indo Mines Limited and Indonesia’s Jogja Magasa Mining, began in 2007 on a sliver of land owned by the Sultan of Yogyakarta [ http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2012/09/yogyakartas-sultans ].

But many local residents opposed this first pilot phase of the project. Their concern, said Suparlan, the director of the Yogyakarta office of Walhi, an environmental NGO, is that extracting iron from the beach’s sand could weaken the barrier against salt intrusion from the ocean into coastal farms.

The mining venture has since proposed expanding its operation to cover a 1.8km by 22km area. The area is currently home to some 20,000 people.

Residents of Kulon Progo have refused to discuss land sales with either the government or mining conglomerate.

Distrust

Local residents say the project has progressed with little transparency.

Isyanti, a local resident, said the company began exploring the project without engaging local residents. She interpreted the silence as a sign that “the company would only speak with us when it felt it had to”.

She said that in 2010, the government held an event in Kulon Progo billed as a “public meeting” for community members to engage in dialogue with the government and air questions and grievances. The hitch, she said, was that members of the local community were barred from attending.

“The government says they are representatives of the community and speak on our behalf, but their actions suggest to us that they only serve private interests in this case,” she said.

However, according to Junianto, head of government’s Kulon Progo mining department, the situation on the ground has changed.

“There was some initial opposition, but we have conducted a series of discussions with the community to make them understand that the project is for their own benefit and will not damage the environment. Members of the community have been involved in the reclamation, and the company has set up a pilot plant to give the public an idea of what the plant will look like."

Stand-off

Meanwhile, 34-year-old Toto Widodo, a local chili farmer, predicts tensions between residents and local authorities will continue. Another farmer, Prapto Utomo, 53, said he would resist “at any cost” pressure to sell his land.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, an Indonesian academic in Yogyakarta, who worked with the government as it assessed Kulong Progo’s mining potential, said public attitudes about the project had become so negative that he and his colleagues have been forced to distance themselves from it.

bb/ds/rz

]]></body><pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97869/Java-residents-protest-iron-mine</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2013/201304181039450391t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">KULON PROGO 18 April 2013 (IRIN) - “I want to return to being a farmer and to feeding my family, but I will continue to oppose the mine project,” said Tukijo, 47, speaking to IRIN from the main prison in Yogyakarta City, in central Java, Indonesia.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>