LATE BREAKER: For a thought-provoking critical analysis of what the Bhutto assassination on December 27 means for Pakistan and the "war on terror", see the new addition in our sidebar.
PREAMBLE: This issue also completes our first full year of blogging. Drawing from topics covered during the year, we offer below: overviews views on three major issues for humankind, followed by paraphrases from our monthly themes in 2007.
THREE LEADING ISSUES FROM 2007: Flowers or Fertilizer?
1. GLOBAL STEWARDSHIP: In our view, the lead issue here is Climate Change (May, October), which is already displacing some of the world’s vulnerable populations, and ultimately threatening life on this planet. This is followed closely by global food security (February) and displacement by rich countries of grain for use as automotive fuel, thereby creating pressure on its use in food in developing countries, and even the price of food in developed ones, impacting on access and affordability. Flowers: to the European Community for its global leadership on climate. Fertilizer: To Canada’s Conservative government which has set the world’s worst example of procrastination on climate.
Note: At the recently concluded UN Climate Summit in Bali, Canada received a “Fossil Award” for its dismal performance on addressing climate change, while the tactics adopted by our Conservative government to undermine the developing global consensus on the need for binding targets now were described by numerous observers as "hypocritical" and “deceitful”.
2. INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Viewed broadly, we consider the leading issue here to be Maternal & Child Health (April, November). The determinants include gender inequality, global poverty, and insufficient policy and program development at all levels. Even in developed western countries this is an issue: taking our own country Canada as an example, the “new” Conservative government’s reneged on the Kelowna Accord to improve conditions for aboriginals, and failed to ensure an adequate child care platform (March, April). Further, with the exception of the Nordic nations, official development assistance from wealthy developed countries is still far less than targets agreed decades ago. Flowers: Norway, whose 4.7 million people already contribute almost $4 billion a year to aid developing countries ($850 for each Norwegan man, woman and child). Fertilizer: The powerful G7 nations for allocating proportionally less Gross National Income (GNI) for international development: 0.30%, compared with .50% for non-G7 nations.
3. HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: Still topping the list continues to be the War in Iraq (January, August). Primary responsibility is shared between the Bush and Blair regimes (not equally) for promoting false rumours of weapons of mass destruction, unsupported by UN inspections led by Hans Blix. While insurgents share responsibility for the mayhem and catastrophe, the end results include over half a million Iraqis killed (a genocide?), massive numbers of refugees, and the undermining of Geneva Conventions that were born out of the worst excesses of World War 2. Flowers: Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892-1984). Fertilizer: George Bush (most dangerous US President in history).
Historical Notes:
1) For a revealing 2003 interview of Hans Blix, visit: http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/041203A.shtml
2) For an October 2006 update on JHU estimates of Iraqi deaths: http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2006/burnham_iraq_2006.html
2007 AS WE RECORDED IT:
January: PEACE, SECURITY, HEALTH & HUMAN RIGHTS: In our first issue of 2007, we took note of the incoming UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, acknowledging the immense contribution of former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, focused on war and peace in the Middle East, and completed the transfer of reports and commentaries from our News & Reports site (as announced in our December 2006 posting).
February: GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY – A MATTER OF SURVIVAL: In 1996, the World Food Summit set a target to halve the number of undernourished people by 2015. However, in 2007, it appears unlikely that this target will be met. This issue focused on the conflict between grain for fuel or for food, the stalled Doha round, and food security.
March: COLONIZED MINORITIES IN DEVELOPED COUNTRIES: Colonized racial, cultural or religious minorities exist throughout the world, within powerful societies eg., Tibet in China, Japan's Ainu, India's Dalits, Amerindian enclaves in the Caribbean, tribal minorities in Africa, Boznian Muslims, the Kurds of Iraq, others in all continents and among the Pacific islands. The issues apply to several economically advanced western countries where it is sometimes said that one may find “3rd world conditions in 1st world settings”. Because these countries claim leadership for human rights, they also must live up to these principles.
April: EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT – POLICY SHIFTS, GLOBAL VIEWPOINTS, AND THE EVIDENCE BASE: This issue focused on Canadian policy shifts of global interest. Sadly, Canada’s reputation for enlightened social policy is being undermined by a neo-conservative ideology. Over a million Canadian children live in poverty and cannot access child care. In support of child-friendly interventions, we included evidence reviewed by the US-based RAND Corporation showing that childhood intervention programs yield benefits in behavior, educational progression and attainment, delinquency and crime, and labor market success, among other domains.
May: CLIMATE CHANGE, KYOTO ACCORD, EUROPE RESPONDS & CANADA REMAINS CHALLENGED: The European Community (EU) takes Climate Change seriously, and is making progress towards its Kyoto targets. On April 26, 2007, Canada’s Conservative government released its first “climate-change plan”. Despite Canada leading the world in reducing ozone destroying chlorofluoro-carbons (Montreal Protocol 1987), signing the Kyoto Protocol (1997), and hosting its ratification (2005), this plan is incapable of meeting Canada’s Kyoto targets. Ranked 27th of 29 by the OECD on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, Canada remains among the most environmentally delinquent industrialized countries.
June: OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE & GLOBAL HEALTH TRENDS: This issue reviews the vexing issue of development assistance from wealthy developed countries such as Canada, references a report on global social and economic trends, then selects reports from a discipline essential to understanding global health trends: Health Situation Analysis. Selected examples included Africa, the State of the World Children, and Projections of Mortality and Burden of Disease to 2030.
July: CELEBRATING THE AFRICAN MEDICAL AND RESEARCH FOUNDATION: In 1957, three surgeons in Kenya had a vision that could revolutionize health care in Africa. They launched a Flying Doctor Service (FDS). Over the next 5 decades, men set foot on the moon, satellites explored our solar system, the universe was probed with powerful orbital telescopes, robots explored the surface of Mars, and shuttles began servicing an international space station. In the meantime, with poverty and ill-health still pervading the planet, FDS became Africa’s largest indigenous health organization: the African Medical and Research Foundation.
August: FIRST THEY CAME... VIGNETTES IN THE DISMANTLING OF DEMOCRATIC MYTHS: In this issue we offered a selection of extracts from reputable sources that focus on the disastrous trajectory of the current US administration in undermining the beliefs that underpin western democracies. We dedicate the issue to Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892–1984), whose famous poem “First they came…” about the inactivity of German intellectuals during the Nazi rise to power and the subsequent purging of their chosen targets, group by group, most devastatingly to German Jews.
September: THIRD WORLD AID TO FIRST WORLD COUNTRIES: This issue featured the "brain drain" from sub-Saharan Africa, citing a report from Juan Ramos of ProCOR (website listed in sidebar). Practical responses re examined: striving for better compensation for indigenous health professionals, attention to policies that determine recruitment and retention of health professions in low income countries, fixing the ethics of western firms that raid poor countries to meet the service demands of rich ones, and finding ways to compensate third world "donor" countries for their loss of human resources. Through official inaction, "first world" countries benefit from a massive subsidy from the "third world", equal to the direct and indirect costs of their investment in this health human resource, and the opportunity costs entailed by its loss.
October: IS CLIMATE CHANGE AN ACT OF AGRESSION?: In this issue we abstracted an article carried by The Economist (on-line Sept 24th, 2007) that reported on Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni's declaration that climate change is an act of aggression by the rich world against the world’s poor. We also noted a statement from the Church World Service (CWS): "The issue... is how climate change frames development and justice", said Rajyashri Waghray, CWS director, education & advocacy.
For stark contrast we noted Canada’s uncertain posture, quoting from a Globe and Mail Editorial (September 26): “Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s progress from a climate-change skeptic to an environmental convert has been a perplexing odyssey. After a half-hearted attempt to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions late last year, his Conservative government hurriedly introduced new regulations and incentives, which made a good start in fostering reductions. Earlier…(in September), in Australia, he even announced his personal commitment to ‘careful environmental stewardship’. That seemed heartfelt. Now it is fair to question the sincerity of that conversion. On… (Sept 24), at a UN climate change conference aimed at saving the Kyoto Protocol, Mr Harper announced that Canada had asked to join a rival climate-change pact, the Asia-Pacific Partnership. The six members of that pact include nations that have refused to ratify the protocol, such as the United States, and others among the world’s worst polluters, such as India and China. Together they account for nearly half of all greenhouse gas emissions”.
November: MATERNAL MORTALITY: WHAT DO SOUTH ASIA, THE UNITED STATES, AND AFRICA SHARE?: Maternal Mortality represents the largest rich-poor disparity tracked by the World Health Organization. On the heels of a study released by the United Nations (UN), the Women Deliver Global Conference in London, 18-20 October, assessed high levels of maternal mortality round the world. Little progress has been made in reducing maternal deaths in many countries. Areas of major focus were South Asia, parts of Africa, and even the United States, as it lags the developed world in its maternal health performance. The conference was supported by non-governmental, intergovernmental and development agencies as well as private sector and philanthropic entities aiming to create the political will to improve the health of pregnant mothers and their children, and to strengthen health systems around the world to prevent the deaths during pregnancy or childbirth of "one woman every minute of every day ".
“The eradication of poverty and hunger… cannot be achieved if questions of population and reproductive health are not addressed”. Kofi Annan
HOLIDAY GREETINGS: We extend to readers our best wishes for the holiday season and the New Year. We hope you found our selections during 2007 thought provoking and factually informative, and that you will continue to monitor this report.
Saturday 15 December 2007
Thursday 1 November 2007
MATERNAL MORTALITY: What do South Asia, the United States and Africa share?
PREAMBLE: Maternal Mortality represents the largest rich-poor disparity tracked by the World Health Organization. On the heels of a study recently released by the United Nations (UN), the Women Deliver Global Conference in London, 18-20 October, assessed high levels of maternal mortality round the world. Delegates learned that little progress has been made in reducing maternal deaths in many countries. Areas of major focus were South Asia, parts of Africa, and even the United States came under scrutiny, as it lags the developed world in its maternal health performance. The conference was supported by non-governmental, intergovernmental and development agencies as well as private sector and philanthropic entities aiming to create the political will to improve the health of pregnant mothers and their children, and to strengthen health systems around the world to prevent the deaths during pregnancy or childbirth of "one woman every minute of every day ".
Visit Our Sidebar, with reference to the topic: "BEYOND THOSE HEALH CARE NUMBERS - commentary on a vacuous analysis", for our views on the US need to improve its health system.
SOUTH ASIA
Status of Women reflected in Preventable Deaths: "Maternal mortality levels are a key indicator of the status of women in society. They show how well a country's health service is performing and what cultural position women hold in society," says UNICEF spokesperson Katey Grusovin. South Asia's high maternal mortality rates account for almost half of all maternal deaths globally. UNICEF says that the lack of adequate resources and knowledge not only results in preventable maternal deaths, but it severely impacts on children who are left motherless. Some studies suggest that these children are 10 times more likely than their peers to die within two years of their mothers' deaths. "In South Asia, every year around 188,000 women die from complications in pregnancy and childbirth." Several countries in South Asia are responsible for the bulk of these mostly preventable deaths: India with 117,000 annual maternal deaths, Afghanistan 26,000, Bangladesh 21,000, and Pakistan 15,000. In many countries, the majority of births occur at home in rural areas without qualified medical help.
Poor Transportation and Inadequate Service Provisions: In the region if a woman does not survive the often long and perilous journey to hospital, there is every chance there will be no doctor, nurse or anaesthetist on duty to help her, nor any drug or blood supplies available with which to treat her. "And if there are - payment for these services may be well beyond the means of the women and her family," says Grusovin.
Gender Insensitivity: South Asia has been described as the most "gender insensitive region in the world". UNICEF says that from birth women are given a smaller share of food (60% of women in their childbearing years suffer from malnutrition), a larger share of work and little or no say in their own healthcare. They are likely to marry earlier and have had little or no education and live on or below the poverty line.
The Face of Huge Economic Disparities: "Throughout the region there is a huge disparity between its desolate performance on most indicators of human development on the one hand, and the stunning economic growth and prosperity experienced in several countries on the other," a UNICEF report says. "The fact that these positive developments have failed to trickle down to the poorest sectors of society is due to a host of factors, including religious and cultural practices, political and economic exclusion and gender bias." UNICEF says that steps to tackle the problem should be simple to implement. For example, 2.3 million South Asian infants who die annually could be saved along with their mothers if obstetric care was improved.
Is a Woman’s Life Worth Saving? The experience of Kalama, a 26-year-old Nepalese woman, is typical of many. She was brought to a District Hospital with labour complications. The hospital is a 3-hour walk from her village, so she had to be carried on a stretcher. She was admitted with full dilation of the cervix. The labour was prolonged, and she did not have energy to synchronise her efforts with labour contractions. The baby had to be vacuum delivered, asphyxiated and died. UNICEF says in many hospitals of the region there are no facilities to help mothers who lose their babies at birth. Says Grusovin "These women are dying not because we don't have the means to save them, but because we (the world) have not determined whether they are worth saving."
Poverty: The continual loss of millions of women from every generation has devastating implications for surviving family members, affecting infant survival rates and forcing young girls to leave school to care for siblings. Families then sink deeper into poverty. In short, the health of the mother is critical not only to her family, but to her nation.
Sources: 1. BBC News on-line: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/07/south_asia_fighting_maternal_mortality/html/4.stm
2. Women Deliver Global Conference: http://www.womendeliver.org/overview/index.htm
UNITED STATES
Oct 13 (IPS) - Despite its enormous wealth and advanced technology, the United States (US) lags far behind other industrialized countries, and even some developing ones, in providing health care to women during pregnancy and childbirth. The US. ranks 41st in a new analysis of maternal mortality rates in 171 countries released by the UN.
The survey shows that even a developing country like South Korea is ahead of the US. "Women are unnecessarily dying from pregnancy and childbirth complications because the U.S. is moving in a wrong direction," said Beneva Schulte of Women Deliver, a Washington-based group campaigning for women's reproductive rights and access to health care.
Based on 2005 estimates, the UN analysis suggests that one in 4,800 women inthe US carry a lifetime risk of death from pregnancy. By contrast, among the 10 top-ranked industrialized countries, fewer than one in 16,400 are facing a similar situation. The reason? According to experts, in many European countries and Japan in the industrialized world, women are guaranteed good-quality health and family planning services that minimize their lifetime risk.
Many independent experts and sympathetic legislators hold the current US public health policy responsible for its dismal record because some 47 million US citizens have no access to health insurance, most of them African Americans and other minorities. According to Congresswoman Lois Capps, a California Democrat, "Even if we have the best technology, not everyone has the access to health care."
Responding to inquiries by IPS, a US public health official identified "racial disparity" as the most significant factor underlying the high U.S. maternal mortality rate. "Black women are 4 times more vulnerable than whites," Eve Lackritz, chief of the Maternal and Infant Health branch of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), told IPS. In Lackritz's view, obesity and hypertension are two leading causes of pregnancy-related risks in the US.
Source: Maternal Mortality Shames Superpower U.S.By Haider Rizvi http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39642
AFRICA & the MILLENNIUM DEVLOPMENT GOALS:
There are 10 countries, all in Africa (except Afghanistan), where high fertility and shattered health care systems cause extreme risks for pregnant women. In Somalia, Mali, Chad, and Niger, more than one in every 15 women is likely to die of pregnancy-related causes. In Niger, one in 7 women is vulnerable to death during pregnancy.
This analysis comes at a time when many development agencies and UN officials are trying to evaluate how far the world has progressed in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed upon by the world leaders 7 years ago. When the leaders attended a summit in New York in September 2000, they agreed that the MDGs must be achieved by 2015, a commitment that included initiatives to reduce maternal mortality by 75%.
Many experts believe that nothing much has changed since then for millions of poor women with regard to economic wellbeing and access to health care. As reported by the Lancet medical journal, at the current pace, there is almost no hope that the world will be able to achieve the 75% target. Annually, about 20 million women undergo unsafe abortions, which, according to the journal, is a major factor in maternal deaths and illness.
Reproductive rights activists say that governments must take drastic steps to reverse the situation if they are serious in meeting the MDGs on reducing the maternal mortality rates in the next seven years. "We still have the situation we had 20 years ago," said Ann Starrs of the independent group Family Care International in a statement. "Half a million women die every year from the complications of childbirth."
A recent study by Harvard University professor Ken Hill found that between 1990 and 2005, maternal deaths did fall, but by less than one percent a year. Hill and many other researchers estimate that at least 10 to 20 million women suffer injuries from the complications of childbirth every year. Experts say this suffering could be easily avoided if international donors contributed just $ 6.1 billion over the next seven years. (Editorial Comment: To place this global amount in local perspective, Canada's conservative government just anounced a reduction of 1% in its Goods and Services Tax, a cut of $34 billion annually).
Sources: 1. Haider Rizvi http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39642
2. The Lancet Blog. Oct 18, 2007. http://blogs.thelancet.com/archive/2007/10/12/women-deliver
Visit Our Sidebar, with reference to the topic: "BEYOND THOSE HEALH CARE NUMBERS - commentary on a vacuous analysis", for our views on the US need to improve its health system.
SOUTH ASIA
Status of Women reflected in Preventable Deaths: "Maternal mortality levels are a key indicator of the status of women in society. They show how well a country's health service is performing and what cultural position women hold in society," says UNICEF spokesperson Katey Grusovin. South Asia's high maternal mortality rates account for almost half of all maternal deaths globally. UNICEF says that the lack of adequate resources and knowledge not only results in preventable maternal deaths, but it severely impacts on children who are left motherless. Some studies suggest that these children are 10 times more likely than their peers to die within two years of their mothers' deaths. "In South Asia, every year around 188,000 women die from complications in pregnancy and childbirth." Several countries in South Asia are responsible for the bulk of these mostly preventable deaths: India with 117,000 annual maternal deaths, Afghanistan 26,000, Bangladesh 21,000, and Pakistan 15,000. In many countries, the majority of births occur at home in rural areas without qualified medical help.
Poor Transportation and Inadequate Service Provisions: In the region if a woman does not survive the often long and perilous journey to hospital, there is every chance there will be no doctor, nurse or anaesthetist on duty to help her, nor any drug or blood supplies available with which to treat her. "And if there are - payment for these services may be well beyond the means of the women and her family," says Grusovin.
Gender Insensitivity: South Asia has been described as the most "gender insensitive region in the world". UNICEF says that from birth women are given a smaller share of food (60% of women in their childbearing years suffer from malnutrition), a larger share of work and little or no say in their own healthcare. They are likely to marry earlier and have had little or no education and live on or below the poverty line.
The Face of Huge Economic Disparities: "Throughout the region there is a huge disparity between its desolate performance on most indicators of human development on the one hand, and the stunning economic growth and prosperity experienced in several countries on the other," a UNICEF report says. "The fact that these positive developments have failed to trickle down to the poorest sectors of society is due to a host of factors, including religious and cultural practices, political and economic exclusion and gender bias." UNICEF says that steps to tackle the problem should be simple to implement. For example, 2.3 million South Asian infants who die annually could be saved along with their mothers if obstetric care was improved.
Is a Woman’s Life Worth Saving? The experience of Kalama, a 26-year-old Nepalese woman, is typical of many. She was brought to a District Hospital with labour complications. The hospital is a 3-hour walk from her village, so she had to be carried on a stretcher. She was admitted with full dilation of the cervix. The labour was prolonged, and she did not have energy to synchronise her efforts with labour contractions. The baby had to be vacuum delivered, asphyxiated and died. UNICEF says in many hospitals of the region there are no facilities to help mothers who lose their babies at birth. Says Grusovin "These women are dying not because we don't have the means to save them, but because we (the world) have not determined whether they are worth saving."
Poverty: The continual loss of millions of women from every generation has devastating implications for surviving family members, affecting infant survival rates and forcing young girls to leave school to care for siblings. Families then sink deeper into poverty. In short, the health of the mother is critical not only to her family, but to her nation.
Sources: 1. BBC News on-line: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/07/south_asia_fighting_maternal_mortality/html/4.stm
2. Women Deliver Global Conference: http://www.womendeliver.org/overview/index.htm
UNITED STATES
Oct 13 (IPS) - Despite its enormous wealth and advanced technology, the United States (US) lags far behind other industrialized countries, and even some developing ones, in providing health care to women during pregnancy and childbirth. The US. ranks 41st in a new analysis of maternal mortality rates in 171 countries released by the UN.
The survey shows that even a developing country like South Korea is ahead of the US. "Women are unnecessarily dying from pregnancy and childbirth complications because the U.S. is moving in a wrong direction," said Beneva Schulte of Women Deliver, a Washington-based group campaigning for women's reproductive rights and access to health care.
Based on 2005 estimates, the UN analysis suggests that one in 4,800 women inthe US carry a lifetime risk of death from pregnancy. By contrast, among the 10 top-ranked industrialized countries, fewer than one in 16,400 are facing a similar situation. The reason? According to experts, in many European countries and Japan in the industrialized world, women are guaranteed good-quality health and family planning services that minimize their lifetime risk.
Many independent experts and sympathetic legislators hold the current US public health policy responsible for its dismal record because some 47 million US citizens have no access to health insurance, most of them African Americans and other minorities. According to Congresswoman Lois Capps, a California Democrat, "Even if we have the best technology, not everyone has the access to health care."
Responding to inquiries by IPS, a US public health official identified "racial disparity" as the most significant factor underlying the high U.S. maternal mortality rate. "Black women are 4 times more vulnerable than whites," Eve Lackritz, chief of the Maternal and Infant Health branch of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), told IPS. In Lackritz's view, obesity and hypertension are two leading causes of pregnancy-related risks in the US.
Source: Maternal Mortality Shames Superpower U.S.By Haider Rizvi http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39642
AFRICA & the MILLENNIUM DEVLOPMENT GOALS:
There are 10 countries, all in Africa (except Afghanistan), where high fertility and shattered health care systems cause extreme risks for pregnant women. In Somalia, Mali, Chad, and Niger, more than one in every 15 women is likely to die of pregnancy-related causes. In Niger, one in 7 women is vulnerable to death during pregnancy.
This analysis comes at a time when many development agencies and UN officials are trying to evaluate how far the world has progressed in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed upon by the world leaders 7 years ago. When the leaders attended a summit in New York in September 2000, they agreed that the MDGs must be achieved by 2015, a commitment that included initiatives to reduce maternal mortality by 75%.
Many experts believe that nothing much has changed since then for millions of poor women with regard to economic wellbeing and access to health care. As reported by the Lancet medical journal, at the current pace, there is almost no hope that the world will be able to achieve the 75% target. Annually, about 20 million women undergo unsafe abortions, which, according to the journal, is a major factor in maternal deaths and illness.
Reproductive rights activists say that governments must take drastic steps to reverse the situation if they are serious in meeting the MDGs on reducing the maternal mortality rates in the next seven years. "We still have the situation we had 20 years ago," said Ann Starrs of the independent group Family Care International in a statement. "Half a million women die every year from the complications of childbirth."
A recent study by Harvard University professor Ken Hill found that between 1990 and 2005, maternal deaths did fall, but by less than one percent a year. Hill and many other researchers estimate that at least 10 to 20 million women suffer injuries from the complications of childbirth every year. Experts say this suffering could be easily avoided if international donors contributed just $ 6.1 billion over the next seven years. (Editorial Comment: To place this global amount in local perspective, Canada's conservative government just anounced a reduction of 1% in its Goods and Services Tax, a cut of $34 billion annually).
Sources: 1. Haider Rizvi http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39642
2. The Lancet Blog. Oct 18, 2007. http://blogs.thelancet.com/archive/2007/10/12/women-deliver
Monday 1 October 2007
IS CLIMATE CHANGE AN ACT OF AGRESSION?
PREAMBLE: In this issue we abstract an article carried by The Economist (on-line edition Sept 24th, 2007). The article reported on Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni's declaration that climate change is an act of aggression by the rich world against the world’s poor. We also note, on the same topic, the following statement from the Church World Service (CWS): "The issue for CWS is how climate change frames development and justice", said Rajyashri Waghray, who directs education and advocacy for the CWS.
For stark contrast we note Canada’s uncertain posture, now quoted from a Globe and Mail Editorial of September 26: “Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s progress from a climate-change skeptic to an environmental convert has been a perplexing odyssey. After a half-hearted attempt to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions late last year, his Conservative government hurriedly introduced new regulations and incentives, which made a good start in fostering reductions. Earlier…(in September), in Australia, he even announced his personal commitment to ‘careful environmental stewardship’. That seemed heartfelt. Now it is fair to question the sincerity of that conversion. On… (Sept 24), at a UN climate change conference aimed at saving the Kyoto Protocol, Mr Harper announced that Canada had asked to join a rival climate-change pact, the Asia-Pacific Partnership. The six members of that pact include nations that have refused to ratify the protocol, such as the United States, and others among the world’s worst polluters, such as India and China. Together they account for nearly half of all greenhouse gas emissions”.
And now The Economist’s discussion of the Ugandan Prime Minister’s proposition, and their assessment of the situation and implications in Africa...
CLIMATE CHANGE AS AN ACT OF AGGRESSION
At a recent African Union summit, Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, declared climate change an act of aggression by the rich world against the world’s poor. Indeed, if predictions of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) hold true, climate change may have a graver effect on Africa than on any other continent. One may well ask…Why should the poorest die for the continued excesses of the richest?
According to The Economist, the IPCC's most recent regional report raises the spectre of rising mortality. It predicts a minimum 2.5°C increase in temperature in Africa by 2030; drylands bordering deserts may get drier, wetlands bordering rainforests may get wetter. The panel suggests the supply of food in Africa will be “severely compromised” by climate change, with crop yields in danger of collapsing in some countries.
In the drylands, water may become a critical issue. Soaring temperatures and erratic rainfall may dry up surface water. Between 75m and 250m Africans, out of the 800m or so now living in sub-Saharan Africa, may be short of water. The soil will hold less moisture, bore-holes will become contaminated, and women and girls will have to walk ever greater distances to fetch water. Vegetative cover will recede. The IPCC guesses that 600,000 square kilometres (232,000 square miles) of cultivable land may be ruined.
Warming may also hurt animal habitats and biodiversity. More algae in freshwater lakes will hit fishing. The glaciers of Uganda's Rwenzori mountains, of Tanzania's Kilimanjaro and of Kenya's eponymous mountain may disappear; only 7 of the 18 glaciers recorded on Mount Kenya in 1900 still remain. At the same time, a likely rise in sea levels may threaten the coastal infrastructure of northern Egypt, the Gambia, the Gulf of Guinea and Senegal.
There are two caveats to this gloomy scenario: 1) some parts of Africa may benefit from climate change. Increased rainfall in highland areas in eastern Africa could, for example, be beneficial. 2) though climate-change models have improved, they have been unreliable in Africa; the detail is guesswork.
Still, states The Economist, some scientists think that climate change may be even crueler to parts of Africa than the IPCC predicts. The important point, they say, is not the degree of warming but the continent's vulnerability to it. A University of Pretoria study estimates that Africa might lose $25 billion in crop failure due to rising temperatures and another $4 billion from less rain. The already impoverished drylands would suffer most. Some cite the war in Sudan's Darfur region as proof of the damage done by climate change, soil erosion and overpopulation.
Unfortunately, in the opinion of The Economist, few African leaders have grasped the scale of the challenge... Most oil-producers have squandered their bonanza. Nigeria has failed to plan for how to stem the dreadful pollution in its oil-producing Delta region or to prevent desertification tearing at the fabric of its dry Muslim north. South Africa is only just beginning to own up to its coal addiction. Uganda's Mr Museveni is fighting off a rare insurrection from his supporters against plans to turn a piece of Ugandan rainforest over to farming. The World Meteorological Organisation says that weather-data collection in Africa has recently got worse, just as the need for accurate figures has grown; many of the automatic weather stations it helped set up have fallen into disrepair. The African Union has done little to sound the climate-change alarm.
Kenya's president, Mwai Kibaki, says that Africa should “join hands” with its friends in the rich world over climate change. He wants more carbon-trading projects to come to Africa; so far, most have gone to Asia. His advisers admit that Mr Kibaki's ambitious plan to turn Kenya into an industrial country by 2020 worries environmentalists, but say that reforestation, thermal power and better management of water and grazing would, if they materialized, offset the damage.
Africa emits far less carbon than other continents, so its recently faster-growing economies do not gravely menace its environment. Some rich-country consumers, however, want to punish African countries for air freighting northwards some of their produce, from flowers to wine.
Hardier new varieties of staple crops, drip irrigation schemes and technologies such as solar power should help Africa adapt to climate change. But so can simple shifts in policy. For instance, a government decision in Burkina Faso to let farmers own the trees on their land has increased the country's tree cover.
The Economist’s conclusion: As the G8 rich countries are failing so far to fulfill the promises they made in 2005 to boost aid to Africa, the continent should not expect much new money to protect the environment. In the short run, Africa's own politicians need to take a lead, even if the people most culpable for the damage done by climate change live elsewhere.
Sources:
. Church World Service and partners prepare to act on climate change. May 2, 2007. http://www.churchworldservice.org/Educ_Advo/news/2007/climatechange.html
. Globe and Mail. Lead Editorial. Sept 26, 2007.
. Economist.com. Global Warming in Africa – drying up and flooding out. Sept 24, 2007. http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9163426
COMMENT: What is important about the contrasting viewpoints presented, from those of President Museveni, to the Church World Service, The Economist, to the anti-Kyoto stance of Prime Minister Harper and the Asian-Pacific partnership, is that ultimately they highlight climate change as an ethical issue that almost inevitably will come up as a focus for discussion at the UN negotiations on climate change scheduled for Bali in December.
For stark contrast we note Canada’s uncertain posture, now quoted from a Globe and Mail Editorial of September 26: “Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s progress from a climate-change skeptic to an environmental convert has been a perplexing odyssey. After a half-hearted attempt to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions late last year, his Conservative government hurriedly introduced new regulations and incentives, which made a good start in fostering reductions. Earlier…(in September), in Australia, he even announced his personal commitment to ‘careful environmental stewardship’. That seemed heartfelt. Now it is fair to question the sincerity of that conversion. On… (Sept 24), at a UN climate change conference aimed at saving the Kyoto Protocol, Mr Harper announced that Canada had asked to join a rival climate-change pact, the Asia-Pacific Partnership. The six members of that pact include nations that have refused to ratify the protocol, such as the United States, and others among the world’s worst polluters, such as India and China. Together they account for nearly half of all greenhouse gas emissions”.
And now The Economist’s discussion of the Ugandan Prime Minister’s proposition, and their assessment of the situation and implications in Africa...
CLIMATE CHANGE AS AN ACT OF AGGRESSION
At a recent African Union summit, Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, declared climate change an act of aggression by the rich world against the world’s poor. Indeed, if predictions of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) hold true, climate change may have a graver effect on Africa than on any other continent. One may well ask…Why should the poorest die for the continued excesses of the richest?
According to The Economist, the IPCC's most recent regional report raises the spectre of rising mortality. It predicts a minimum 2.5°C increase in temperature in Africa by 2030; drylands bordering deserts may get drier, wetlands bordering rainforests may get wetter. The panel suggests the supply of food in Africa will be “severely compromised” by climate change, with crop yields in danger of collapsing in some countries.
In the drylands, water may become a critical issue. Soaring temperatures and erratic rainfall may dry up surface water. Between 75m and 250m Africans, out of the 800m or so now living in sub-Saharan Africa, may be short of water. The soil will hold less moisture, bore-holes will become contaminated, and women and girls will have to walk ever greater distances to fetch water. Vegetative cover will recede. The IPCC guesses that 600,000 square kilometres (232,000 square miles) of cultivable land may be ruined.
Warming may also hurt animal habitats and biodiversity. More algae in freshwater lakes will hit fishing. The glaciers of Uganda's Rwenzori mountains, of Tanzania's Kilimanjaro and of Kenya's eponymous mountain may disappear; only 7 of the 18 glaciers recorded on Mount Kenya in 1900 still remain. At the same time, a likely rise in sea levels may threaten the coastal infrastructure of northern Egypt, the Gambia, the Gulf of Guinea and Senegal.
There are two caveats to this gloomy scenario: 1) some parts of Africa may benefit from climate change. Increased rainfall in highland areas in eastern Africa could, for example, be beneficial. 2) though climate-change models have improved, they have been unreliable in Africa; the detail is guesswork.
Still, states The Economist, some scientists think that climate change may be even crueler to parts of Africa than the IPCC predicts. The important point, they say, is not the degree of warming but the continent's vulnerability to it. A University of Pretoria study estimates that Africa might lose $25 billion in crop failure due to rising temperatures and another $4 billion from less rain. The already impoverished drylands would suffer most. Some cite the war in Sudan's Darfur region as proof of the damage done by climate change, soil erosion and overpopulation.
Unfortunately, in the opinion of The Economist, few African leaders have grasped the scale of the challenge... Most oil-producers have squandered their bonanza. Nigeria has failed to plan for how to stem the dreadful pollution in its oil-producing Delta region or to prevent desertification tearing at the fabric of its dry Muslim north. South Africa is only just beginning to own up to its coal addiction. Uganda's Mr Museveni is fighting off a rare insurrection from his supporters against plans to turn a piece of Ugandan rainforest over to farming. The World Meteorological Organisation says that weather-data collection in Africa has recently got worse, just as the need for accurate figures has grown; many of the automatic weather stations it helped set up have fallen into disrepair. The African Union has done little to sound the climate-change alarm.
Kenya's president, Mwai Kibaki, says that Africa should “join hands” with its friends in the rich world over climate change. He wants more carbon-trading projects to come to Africa; so far, most have gone to Asia. His advisers admit that Mr Kibaki's ambitious plan to turn Kenya into an industrial country by 2020 worries environmentalists, but say that reforestation, thermal power and better management of water and grazing would, if they materialized, offset the damage.
Africa emits far less carbon than other continents, so its recently faster-growing economies do not gravely menace its environment. Some rich-country consumers, however, want to punish African countries for air freighting northwards some of their produce, from flowers to wine.
Hardier new varieties of staple crops, drip irrigation schemes and technologies such as solar power should help Africa adapt to climate change. But so can simple shifts in policy. For instance, a government decision in Burkina Faso to let farmers own the trees on their land has increased the country's tree cover.
The Economist’s conclusion: As the G8 rich countries are failing so far to fulfill the promises they made in 2005 to boost aid to Africa, the continent should not expect much new money to protect the environment. In the short run, Africa's own politicians need to take a lead, even if the people most culpable for the damage done by climate change live elsewhere.
Sources:
. Church World Service and partners prepare to act on climate change. May 2, 2007. http://www.churchworldservice.org/Educ_Advo/news/2007/climatechange.html
. Globe and Mail. Lead Editorial. Sept 26, 2007.
. Economist.com. Global Warming in Africa – drying up and flooding out. Sept 24, 2007. http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9163426
COMMENT: What is important about the contrasting viewpoints presented, from those of President Museveni, to the Church World Service, The Economist, to the anti-Kyoto stance of Prime Minister Harper and the Asian-Pacific partnership, is that ultimately they highlight climate change as an ethical issue that almost inevitably will come up as a focus for discussion at the UN negotiations on climate change scheduled for Bali in December.
Saturday 1 September 2007
THIRD WORLD AID TO FIRST WORLD COUNTRIES... The “Brain Drain”
PREAMBLE: In this issue we feature the "brain drain" (migration of professionals from low-resource settings to more developed ones) from sub-Saharan Africa. The report was developed by Juan Ramos, Program Coordinator of ProCOR, a web community focusing on cardiovascular disease problems in the developing world, that offers free-ranging debate on a range of related health and social issues (SEE: Recommended Links in sidebar, adjacent to June 1 blog below). The crisis is enormous, and some potential solutions are outlined in the report. It is to be hoped that there will be some practical response to these, such as striving for better compensation for indigenous health professionals, attention to policies that determine recruitment and retention of health professions in low income countries, fixing the ethics of western firms that raid poor countries to meet the service demands of rich ones, and finding ways to compensate third world "donor" countries for their loss of human resources. Through official inaction, "first world" countries benefit from a massive subsidy from the "third world", equal to the direct and indirect costs of their investment in this health human resource, and the opportunity costs entailed by its loss.
Also in the main section below we elevate an item previously presented in our sidebar: on "Corporate Hybrids". Your host, Pacific Health & Development Sciences Inc. (PacificSci), is an example of such an organization, now in its 4th year of operation.
In our sidebar: Once again we focus on Canada's political scene, with a brief capsule on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s limited popularity, as revealed in a recent poll. We then focus on a troubling police action that may have been politically directed. Whether or not one agrees or disagrees with opposition on any given policy issue, the legal and democratic right to protest is supposed to be protected in our society. However, the recent undermining of a legal protest in a designated area adjacent to the “Security and Prosperity Summit” (involving the leadership of Canada, Mexico and the US) through use of agents provocateurs has alarmed our civil society. That Canada’s police forces were used to discredit the use of this right is cause for serious concern, and it is disturbing that the Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister for Public Security is ignoring calls for a public inquiry, issuing statements designed to diminish political accountability.
BRAIN DRAIN FROM SUBSAHARAN AFRICA
Significant numbers of African-trained health workers migrate every year to developed regions, leaving severely crippled health systems in countries where life expectancy is only age 50 and 16% of children die before age five. However, the critical shortage of health care workers in many parts of the world is beginning to receive attention from donors and international agencies. Donors are increasingly realizing that without enough trained workers to deliver drugs, vaccines and care, funding projects will not have the desired effects.
The population of sub-Saharan Africa totals over 660 million, with a ratio of fewer than 13 physicians per 100,000. The continent bears 24% of the global burden of disease but has only 3% of the health care workforce and 1% of the world's financial resources. Africa suffers more from brain drain due to economic conditions, wage differentials, rapid population growth among young people and conflict than any other continent.The worker shortage derives from a combination of underproduction, internal maldistribution and emigration of trained workers. Sub-Saharan Africa needs approximately 700,000 physicians to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Many African countries cannot meet widely accepted basic standards for health care coverage by physicians, nurses and midwives. An additional 2.4 million physicians, nurses and midwives are needed, along with an additional 1.9 million pharmacists, health aides, technicians and other auxiliary personnel.
Fewer health professionals from African countries than from other countries work in the US, according to the Least Developed Countries Report 2007. Data from the report demonstrate that the percentage of doctors practicing in the US relative to the total number of doctors back home range from 43% in Liberia to 10% in Zambia. This would not be a problem if the number of doctors remaining in their country of origin was sufficient to meet the needs of the population, but this is not the case. For example, Zambia has only seven doctors per 100,000 people, compared with the US level, which is close to 300. Even though the absolute number of professionals from the poorest countries working abroad may be small, the impact on professional services back home can be severe.
Efforts to retain workers focus on health care systems. For example, Swaziland provides HIV/AIDS services for health care workers who, practicing in high-prevalence areas with minimal resources for safety measures, are at an increased risk for occupational exposure. Other efforts build on the belief that providing workers with needed resources for care motivates them to stay and work in their home countries.Improved wages are also a key to retention. Salary support can help motivate health care workers to remain in their countries, even if it means working with fewer resources. Other types of inducements have been offered, such as lunch allowances, care loans and affordable housing.Some countries have begun to recruit trainees from rural areas. In South Africa, local students can receive scholarships for health care training on the condition they agree to return to their home district to practice. A study of the program found that trainees from rural areas were three to eight times as likely as those from urban areas to practice in rural regions after graduation.
The documented shortage of health care workers has inspired the American Public Health Association to pass a policy statement on "Ethical Restrictions on International Recruitment of Health Professionals to the United States." The policy addresses the role of the US in exacerbating the international crisis, calling on employers to adopt voluntary codes for ethical recruitment and on the government to contract only with employers who have done so. The future of global health and development in the 21st century lies in the management of the crisis in human resources for health.
More information is available from these resources on brain drain:
* "Providing the providers-remedying Africa's shortage of health care workers." N Engl J Med 2007; 356(25): 2564-67.http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/356/25/2564
* The Brain Drain of Health Professionals from Sub-Saharan Africa to Canada (3.5 MB):http://www.queensu.ca/samp/sampresources/samppublications/mad/MAD_2.pdf
* The Least Developed Countries Report 2007 (2.54 MB):http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/ldc2007_en.pdf
Source: Juan Ramos. ProCOR. Aug 9, 2007 Jramos3@partners.org
NOTE: To visit ProCOR, scan column at right to locate URL under “Recommended Links”.
CORPORATE HYBRIDS
“… organizations driven by both social purpose and financial promise that fall somewhere between traditional companies and charities…distinct from those operating in the government, business and non-profit sectors…Whatever participants call it, the fourth sector faces challenges. Current legal and tax structures draw strict lines between for-profits and non-profits… The social benefits that fourth-sector firm seek to unlock are not easily quantified and often take decades, not quarters, to attain.”
Reference: Stephanie Strom. The New York Times. May 6, 2007.
COMMENT: By definition, PacificSci is a hybrid or "fourth sector" organization. Ineligible for grants available to non-profits, nor driven by the bottom line as a purely business enterprise, nor financially underwritten by the tax payer as are universities, government bodies and international agencies, yet our contractual work, advocacy efforts and pro bono activities are all guided by our secular humanist mission: seeking solutions to the health and social impacts of development. Now in its 4th year, our philosophical model is proving operationally viable and productive.
Also in the main section below we elevate an item previously presented in our sidebar: on "Corporate Hybrids". Your host, Pacific Health & Development Sciences Inc. (PacificSci), is an example of such an organization, now in its 4th year of operation.
In our sidebar: Once again we focus on Canada's political scene, with a brief capsule on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s limited popularity, as revealed in a recent poll. We then focus on a troubling police action that may have been politically directed. Whether or not one agrees or disagrees with opposition on any given policy issue, the legal and democratic right to protest is supposed to be protected in our society. However, the recent undermining of a legal protest in a designated area adjacent to the “Security and Prosperity Summit” (involving the leadership of Canada, Mexico and the US) through use of agents provocateurs has alarmed our civil society. That Canada’s police forces were used to discredit the use of this right is cause for serious concern, and it is disturbing that the Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister for Public Security is ignoring calls for a public inquiry, issuing statements designed to diminish political accountability.
BRAIN DRAIN FROM SUBSAHARAN AFRICA
Significant numbers of African-trained health workers migrate every year to developed regions, leaving severely crippled health systems in countries where life expectancy is only age 50 and 16% of children die before age five. However, the critical shortage of health care workers in many parts of the world is beginning to receive attention from donors and international agencies. Donors are increasingly realizing that without enough trained workers to deliver drugs, vaccines and care, funding projects will not have the desired effects.
The population of sub-Saharan Africa totals over 660 million, with a ratio of fewer than 13 physicians per 100,000. The continent bears 24% of the global burden of disease but has only 3% of the health care workforce and 1% of the world's financial resources. Africa suffers more from brain drain due to economic conditions, wage differentials, rapid population growth among young people and conflict than any other continent.The worker shortage derives from a combination of underproduction, internal maldistribution and emigration of trained workers. Sub-Saharan Africa needs approximately 700,000 physicians to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Many African countries cannot meet widely accepted basic standards for health care coverage by physicians, nurses and midwives. An additional 2.4 million physicians, nurses and midwives are needed, along with an additional 1.9 million pharmacists, health aides, technicians and other auxiliary personnel.
Fewer health professionals from African countries than from other countries work in the US, according to the Least Developed Countries Report 2007. Data from the report demonstrate that the percentage of doctors practicing in the US relative to the total number of doctors back home range from 43% in Liberia to 10% in Zambia. This would not be a problem if the number of doctors remaining in their country of origin was sufficient to meet the needs of the population, but this is not the case. For example, Zambia has only seven doctors per 100,000 people, compared with the US level, which is close to 300. Even though the absolute number of professionals from the poorest countries working abroad may be small, the impact on professional services back home can be severe.
Efforts to retain workers focus on health care systems. For example, Swaziland provides HIV/AIDS services for health care workers who, practicing in high-prevalence areas with minimal resources for safety measures, are at an increased risk for occupational exposure. Other efforts build on the belief that providing workers with needed resources for care motivates them to stay and work in their home countries.Improved wages are also a key to retention. Salary support can help motivate health care workers to remain in their countries, even if it means working with fewer resources. Other types of inducements have been offered, such as lunch allowances, care loans and affordable housing.Some countries have begun to recruit trainees from rural areas. In South Africa, local students can receive scholarships for health care training on the condition they agree to return to their home district to practice. A study of the program found that trainees from rural areas were three to eight times as likely as those from urban areas to practice in rural regions after graduation.
The documented shortage of health care workers has inspired the American Public Health Association to pass a policy statement on "Ethical Restrictions on International Recruitment of Health Professionals to the United States." The policy addresses the role of the US in exacerbating the international crisis, calling on employers to adopt voluntary codes for ethical recruitment and on the government to contract only with employers who have done so. The future of global health and development in the 21st century lies in the management of the crisis in human resources for health.
More information is available from these resources on brain drain:
* "Providing the providers-remedying Africa's shortage of health care workers." N Engl J Med 2007; 356(25): 2564-67.http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/356/25/2564
* The Brain Drain of Health Professionals from Sub-Saharan Africa to Canada (3.5 MB):http://www.queensu.ca/samp/sampresources/samppublications/mad/MAD_2.pdf
* The Least Developed Countries Report 2007 (2.54 MB):http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/ldc2007_en.pdf
Source: Juan Ramos. ProCOR. Aug 9, 2007 Jramos3@partners.org
NOTE: To visit ProCOR, scan column at right to locate URL under “Recommended Links”.
CORPORATE HYBRIDS
“… organizations driven by both social purpose and financial promise that fall somewhere between traditional companies and charities…distinct from those operating in the government, business and non-profit sectors…Whatever participants call it, the fourth sector faces challenges. Current legal and tax structures draw strict lines between for-profits and non-profits… The social benefits that fourth-sector firm seek to unlock are not easily quantified and often take decades, not quarters, to attain.”
Reference: Stephanie Strom. The New York Times. May 6, 2007.
COMMENT: By definition, PacificSci is a hybrid or "fourth sector" organization. Ineligible for grants available to non-profits, nor driven by the bottom line as a purely business enterprise, nor financially underwritten by the tax payer as are universities, government bodies and international agencies, yet our contractual work, advocacy efforts and pro bono activities are all guided by our secular humanist mission: seeking solutions to the health and social impacts of development. Now in its 4th year, our philosophical model is proving operationally viable and productive.
Wednesday 1 August 2007
FIRST THEY CAME… VIGNETTES IN THE DISMANTLING OF DEMOCRATIC MYTHS
PREAMBLE: In this issue we offer a selection of extracts from reputable sources that focus on the disastrous trajectory of the current US administration in undermining the beliefs that underpin western democracies. We dedicate the issue to Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892–1984), whose famous poem “First they came…” about the inactivity of German intellectuals during the Nazi rise to power and the subsequent purging of their chosen targets, group by group, most devastatingly to German Jews.
For historical perspective on this poem visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...
The Sidebar addresses Canada’s posture on US Foreign Policy, and related vignettes.
SUPPORT BUILDING FOR IMPEACHMENT
Impeachment is the first step under the US Constitution for removing a president from office, a process by which possible crimes may be investigated and charges laid. In a Gallup survey recently released by USA Today, 36% of respondents believe there is justification for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush. [1] Since 2006, Democratic lawmakers have openly discussed Bush’s impeachment, either for not telling the truth about his reasons for going to war in Iraq, and/or for authorizing wiretapping of Americans. [2] State and local governments can also play a major role in the impeachment process by sending charges to the Congress for it to act on. Eleven states have initiated Impeachment Resolutions. Vermont has passed its resolution, while numerous cities and counties have also passed such resolutions. Efforts are now underway in several other states to initiate impeachment. [3]
Sources: 1. Angus Reid Global Monitor. July 12, 2007. http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/16461 2. Atlanta Progressive News, Global Research. March 11, 2006 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060311&articleId=2085 3. Editorials and information on how to impeach Bush and Cheney. http://www.impeachbush.tv/impeach/bystate.html
THE TRAGIC CASE OF THE STATELESS UIGHARS
Tirana, Albania: Ahktar Qassim Basit says he is not angry about the 4 years he spent incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay. He and fellow Muslims from western China’s Uighar ethnic minority, were living in a hamlet near Tora Bora (Afghanistan), when US Forces bombed the area in 2001.Taken prisoners, then interned at Guantanamo, the men were “freed” after being found to pose no threat to the US. Their captors mumbled a perfunctory apology before flying them to Albania as “refugees” versus repatriation, citing China’s past treatment of the minority. Living for over a year in a squalid government refugee centre under armed guard, they are told that to gain their liberty, they must first learn Albanian to get work permits, and somehow must accomplish this on their own; they are losing hope of seeing their wives and children again.
Source: Tim Golden. New York Times. June 10, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/world/europe/10resettle.html?amp;amp;amp;ei=5088&en=5c446ec162d28fc6&ex=1339128000&partner=rss&pagewanted=print
NOTE: US political influentials such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell are now pressing for closure of the Guanatamo prison camp, surely too long a silence. BBC News June 11, 2007.
WEB OF DECEIT – Book Review
Because of restrictions imposed by the Special Tribunal prosecuting Saddam Hussein, the role of the US and its allies in his crimes was never explored at his trial. This investigative history reveals the full extent of western complicity in Iraq. The deceit described by author Barry Lando, ranges from CIA backed coups to help the Baath Party seize power, to the US encouraging Saddam to invade Iran, to America’s willful ignorance of his chemical weapons use, and the tragic impact of trade sanctions, maintained long after being proven ineffective and despite huge numbers of Iraqi civilians (mainly children) dying as a result. An unrestricted international trial might have divulged these facts, but victor’s justice prevented it. Most media coverage has ignored these facts; Web of Deceit breaks the silence.
Reference: Lando B. Web of Deceit - the History of Western Complicity in Iraq: from Churchill to Kennedy to George W Bush. Doubleday Canada. 2007.
NOTE: Lando is a graduate of Harvard and Columbia universities, and for 25 years was an investigative producer with 60 Minutes.
BELATEDLY UPHOLDING THE RULE OF LAW
For several years, President Bush has claimed that congressional authority to attack Afghanistan after 9/11 was a “declaration of a war on terror” that gave him power to decide who combatants are and incarcerate them in military prisons indefinitely without charges, even foreign nationals living legally within the US. On June 11, 2007 in a 2-1 decision, a 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected this claim, demonstrating how threatening this policy is to the US Constitution and the rule of law. The court said that the Constitution and precedents made it clear that foreigners living legally in the US have the same right to due process as any citizen.
Source: Editorial. International Herald Tribune. June 13, 2007.
IRAQ’s HUMANITARIAN DISASTER
The US-led invasion in March 2003 caused many civilian casualties, but did not immediately create a major humanitarian crisis or set off mass migration. Soon after however, counter-insurgency operations, including attacks on Iraq cities eg., Falluja, led to increased mortality and displacement affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Beginning in 2006, sectarian clashes and communal violence led to rising death and injury, with massive new displacement.[1]
According to OXFAM child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 % before the US-led invasion in 2003 to 28% now, and 8 million people are in need of emergency assistance.[2] This includes:
• 4 million who are ‘food-insecure and in dire need of different types of humanitarian assistance’
• >2 million displaced people inside Iraq
• >2 million Iraqis in neighbouring countries, mainly Syria and Jordan, making this the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world.
According to the United Nations Development Programme, 1/3 of the population now lives in poverty.[1] Education has broken down. Worse, basic needs such as drinking water, food, sanitation and electricity are not being met. Hospitals lack basic supplies and are understaffed. The international relief system is not able to respond to the growing humanitarian challenges.
References:
1. Global Policy Forum. July 11, 2007. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/crisisindex.htm
2. OXFAM Briefing Paper. July 30, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/18_07_07_oxfam_iraq.pdf
JUXTAPOSING MORAL CHOICES
“But what is $1.5 billion in today’s world? That is what we spend every day on the Pentagon. That’s our daily military budget. So here is the calculation, and here is the choice. One day’s Pentagon spending would provide all sleeping sites in Africa with five years of bed-net coverage, to fend off a disease (malaria) which kills millions every year. That’s a choice. We haven’t made it. My suggestion is, the Pentagon take off next Thursday”.
Source: Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University. Convocation Address to Ursinus College. As reported in: New York Times, June 10, 2007.
US DOMESTIC IMPACTS OF THE IRAQ WAR Example: Education
13 Days in Iraq: $3.4 billion = Cut in education budget in President's FY 07 budget from FY 06 funding support for the arts, technology and parent resource centers.
2.5 days in Iraq: $ 664 million = Perkins Loan program cut in president's FY 07 budget (would help 463,000 low-income students attend college).
9 hours in Iraq: $99 million = Even Start (eliminated in President's budget).
Source: Congressman John Murtha (Pennsylvania D). Information Clearing House. July 13, 2006. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13976.htm
THE ASSAULT ON REASON – Book Review
According to former US Vice President Al Gore’s new work “The Assault on Reason”, the Bush administration, in pursuit of its “war on terror”, has violated international laws and norms of conduct, seriously damaged alliances, and thrown away the global goodwill that emerged following 9/11. Gore also addresses global warming, the insidious power of televised control of public discourse, and the role of wealth in US politics, and calls for a rebirth of democracy. Parenthetically, we note that current impacts and consequences of global warming dwarf terrorism, even while noting that the latter has been hyper-stimulated by the war in Iraq.
According to Gore, the Bush Administration’s use of extra-judicial measures at home and abroad has undermined basic principles of law, justice, human rights and democracy. The Geneva Conventions are not being observed (termed “quaint" by the Attorney-General Gonzales), despite the seminal role of the US in their origins. By facilitating torture the Administration has placed its own troops at moral hazard and also physical risk (in the event of their capture). Its practice of “extraordinary rendition” (kidnapping “terror suspects” and forcible relocation to marginal states for interrogation so as to circumvent habeas corpus), has resulted in imprisonment and torture of innocent people (see sidebar on Canadian Mahar Arar). More troubling, it has suppressed its own legal processes in support of what appear to be show trials, in which defence lawyers are unable to gain access to information that would allow them to properly defend their clients. A code of secrecy prevents evidence of human rights abuses from coming to light.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, some 90% of Guantanamo Bay inmates, held without charge, are innocent of any unlawful activity.
Background Source: BBC World. Mystery Flights. June 10, 2007.
Reference: Gore A. The Assault on Reason. The Penguin Press. New York. 2007.
A BREAKDOWN IN TRUST
July 24: “I don't trust you” asserted Sen. Patrick Leahy, Vermont Democrat, and chair of a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight panel, to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's on his handling of the U.S. Attorneys firings and civil liberties abuses by the FBI. He stated doubts about the sincerity of Mr. Gonzales' vow to fix "problems" at the Justice Department, and criticized his promise to better police the use of counter-terrorism information gathering tools as insufficient. "With a history of civil liberties abuses and cover-ups, this administration has squandered our trust," Mr. Leahy said. The criticism is bipartisan: ranking Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania, stated "a very heavy cloud" hangs over the Justice Department, and asked "Is your department functioning?" Mr. Gonzales did not respond to these criticisms in the opening statements, but instead asked the panel to help the Justice Department fight terrorism.
Source: Jon Ward, White House correspondent, The Washington Times. Posted July 24, 2007. http://video1.washingtontimes.com/fishwrap/2007/07/i_dont_trust_you.html
For historical perspective on this poem visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...
The Sidebar addresses Canada’s posture on US Foreign Policy, and related vignettes.
SUPPORT BUILDING FOR IMPEACHMENT
Impeachment is the first step under the US Constitution for removing a president from office, a process by which possible crimes may be investigated and charges laid. In a Gallup survey recently released by USA Today, 36% of respondents believe there is justification for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush. [1] Since 2006, Democratic lawmakers have openly discussed Bush’s impeachment, either for not telling the truth about his reasons for going to war in Iraq, and/or for authorizing wiretapping of Americans. [2] State and local governments can also play a major role in the impeachment process by sending charges to the Congress for it to act on. Eleven states have initiated Impeachment Resolutions. Vermont has passed its resolution, while numerous cities and counties have also passed such resolutions. Efforts are now underway in several other states to initiate impeachment. [3]
Sources: 1. Angus Reid Global Monitor. July 12, 2007. http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/16461 2. Atlanta Progressive News, Global Research. March 11, 2006 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060311&articleId=2085 3. Editorials and information on how to impeach Bush and Cheney. http://www.impeachbush.tv/impeach/bystate.html
THE TRAGIC CASE OF THE STATELESS UIGHARS
Tirana, Albania: Ahktar Qassim Basit says he is not angry about the 4 years he spent incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay. He and fellow Muslims from western China’s Uighar ethnic minority, were living in a hamlet near Tora Bora (Afghanistan), when US Forces bombed the area in 2001.Taken prisoners, then interned at Guantanamo, the men were “freed” after being found to pose no threat to the US. Their captors mumbled a perfunctory apology before flying them to Albania as “refugees” versus repatriation, citing China’s past treatment of the minority. Living for over a year in a squalid government refugee centre under armed guard, they are told that to gain their liberty, they must first learn Albanian to get work permits, and somehow must accomplish this on their own; they are losing hope of seeing their wives and children again.
Source: Tim Golden. New York Times. June 10, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/world/europe/10resettle.html?amp;amp;amp;ei=5088&en=5c446ec162d28fc6&ex=1339128000&partner=rss&pagewanted=print
NOTE: US political influentials such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell are now pressing for closure of the Guanatamo prison camp, surely too long a silence. BBC News June 11, 2007.
WEB OF DECEIT – Book Review
Because of restrictions imposed by the Special Tribunal prosecuting Saddam Hussein, the role of the US and its allies in his crimes was never explored at his trial. This investigative history reveals the full extent of western complicity in Iraq. The deceit described by author Barry Lando, ranges from CIA backed coups to help the Baath Party seize power, to the US encouraging Saddam to invade Iran, to America’s willful ignorance of his chemical weapons use, and the tragic impact of trade sanctions, maintained long after being proven ineffective and despite huge numbers of Iraqi civilians (mainly children) dying as a result. An unrestricted international trial might have divulged these facts, but victor’s justice prevented it. Most media coverage has ignored these facts; Web of Deceit breaks the silence.
Reference: Lando B. Web of Deceit - the History of Western Complicity in Iraq: from Churchill to Kennedy to George W Bush. Doubleday Canada. 2007.
NOTE: Lando is a graduate of Harvard and Columbia universities, and for 25 years was an investigative producer with 60 Minutes.
BELATEDLY UPHOLDING THE RULE OF LAW
For several years, President Bush has claimed that congressional authority to attack Afghanistan after 9/11 was a “declaration of a war on terror” that gave him power to decide who combatants are and incarcerate them in military prisons indefinitely without charges, even foreign nationals living legally within the US. On June 11, 2007 in a 2-1 decision, a 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected this claim, demonstrating how threatening this policy is to the US Constitution and the rule of law. The court said that the Constitution and precedents made it clear that foreigners living legally in the US have the same right to due process as any citizen.
Source: Editorial. International Herald Tribune. June 13, 2007.
IRAQ’s HUMANITARIAN DISASTER
The US-led invasion in March 2003 caused many civilian casualties, but did not immediately create a major humanitarian crisis or set off mass migration. Soon after however, counter-insurgency operations, including attacks on Iraq cities eg., Falluja, led to increased mortality and displacement affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Beginning in 2006, sectarian clashes and communal violence led to rising death and injury, with massive new displacement.[1]
According to OXFAM child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 % before the US-led invasion in 2003 to 28% now, and 8 million people are in need of emergency assistance.[2] This includes:
• 4 million who are ‘food-insecure and in dire need of different types of humanitarian assistance’
• >2 million displaced people inside Iraq
• >2 million Iraqis in neighbouring countries, mainly Syria and Jordan, making this the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world.
According to the United Nations Development Programme, 1/3 of the population now lives in poverty.[1] Education has broken down. Worse, basic needs such as drinking water, food, sanitation and electricity are not being met. Hospitals lack basic supplies and are understaffed. The international relief system is not able to respond to the growing humanitarian challenges.
References:
1. Global Policy Forum. July 11, 2007. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/crisisindex.htm
2. OXFAM Briefing Paper. July 30, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/18_07_07_oxfam_iraq.pdf
JUXTAPOSING MORAL CHOICES
“But what is $1.5 billion in today’s world? That is what we spend every day on the Pentagon. That’s our daily military budget. So here is the calculation, and here is the choice. One day’s Pentagon spending would provide all sleeping sites in Africa with five years of bed-net coverage, to fend off a disease (malaria) which kills millions every year. That’s a choice. We haven’t made it. My suggestion is, the Pentagon take off next Thursday”.
Source: Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University. Convocation Address to Ursinus College. As reported in: New York Times, June 10, 2007.
US DOMESTIC IMPACTS OF THE IRAQ WAR Example: Education
13 Days in Iraq: $3.4 billion = Cut in education budget in President's FY 07 budget from FY 06 funding support for the arts, technology and parent resource centers.
2.5 days in Iraq: $ 664 million = Perkins Loan program cut in president's FY 07 budget (would help 463,000 low-income students attend college).
9 hours in Iraq: $99 million = Even Start (eliminated in President's budget).
Source: Congressman John Murtha (Pennsylvania D). Information Clearing House. July 13, 2006. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13976.htm
THE ASSAULT ON REASON – Book Review
According to former US Vice President Al Gore’s new work “The Assault on Reason”, the Bush administration, in pursuit of its “war on terror”, has violated international laws and norms of conduct, seriously damaged alliances, and thrown away the global goodwill that emerged following 9/11. Gore also addresses global warming, the insidious power of televised control of public discourse, and the role of wealth in US politics, and calls for a rebirth of democracy. Parenthetically, we note that current impacts and consequences of global warming dwarf terrorism, even while noting that the latter has been hyper-stimulated by the war in Iraq.
According to Gore, the Bush Administration’s use of extra-judicial measures at home and abroad has undermined basic principles of law, justice, human rights and democracy. The Geneva Conventions are not being observed (termed “quaint" by the Attorney-General Gonzales), despite the seminal role of the US in their origins. By facilitating torture the Administration has placed its own troops at moral hazard and also physical risk (in the event of their capture). Its practice of “extraordinary rendition” (kidnapping “terror suspects” and forcible relocation to marginal states for interrogation so as to circumvent habeas corpus), has resulted in imprisonment and torture of innocent people (see sidebar on Canadian Mahar Arar). More troubling, it has suppressed its own legal processes in support of what appear to be show trials, in which defence lawyers are unable to gain access to information that would allow them to properly defend their clients. A code of secrecy prevents evidence of human rights abuses from coming to light.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, some 90% of Guantanamo Bay inmates, held without charge, are innocent of any unlawful activity.
Background Source: BBC World. Mystery Flights. June 10, 2007.
Reference: Gore A. The Assault on Reason. The Penguin Press. New York. 2007.
A BREAKDOWN IN TRUST
July 24: “I don't trust you” asserted Sen. Patrick Leahy, Vermont Democrat, and chair of a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight panel, to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's on his handling of the U.S. Attorneys firings and civil liberties abuses by the FBI. He stated doubts about the sincerity of Mr. Gonzales' vow to fix "problems" at the Justice Department, and criticized his promise to better police the use of counter-terrorism information gathering tools as insufficient. "With a history of civil liberties abuses and cover-ups, this administration has squandered our trust," Mr. Leahy said. The criticism is bipartisan: ranking Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania, stated "a very heavy cloud" hangs over the Justice Department, and asked "Is your department functioning?" Mr. Gonzales did not respond to these criticisms in the opening statements, but instead asked the panel to help the Justice Department fight terrorism.
Source: Jon Ward, White House correspondent, The Washington Times. Posted July 24, 2007. http://video1.washingtontimes.com/fishwrap/2007/07/i_dont_trust_you.html
Sunday 1 July 2007
CELEBRATING THE AFRICAN MEDICAL AND RESEARCH FOUNDATION (AMREF)
PREAMBLE: On cloudless nights in 1957, children lay on their backs searching for a small red object traversing the sky: the Soviets had launched “sputnik”, the world’s first satellite. Although this also led to accelerating the “space race” and intensifying the “cold war”, imaginations everywhere were captivated by our common primordial fantasy: reaching for the stars. In the same year, three surgeons in Kenya, Michael Wood, Archibald McIndoe and Thomas Rees had a vision that could revolutionize health care in Africa. Sharing in the romance of Africa, its needs, its potential and sense of destiny, they launched a Flying Doctor Service. Over the next 5 decades, men set foot on the moon, satellites explored our solar system, the universe probed was probed with powerful orbital telescopes, robots explored the surface of Mars, and shuttles began servicing an international space station. In the meantime, what began as the Flying Doctor Service became Africa’s largest indigenous health organization: the African Medical and Research Foundation.
Yet, even as we make progress in solving the riddles of the universe, there remains extreme poverty and ill-health throughout Africa, and injustice throughout the world. In this, its 50th anniversary year, we celebrate the AMREF story which continues to unfold. In doing so we have drawn from our opportunity to view the organization at work during a joint donor evaluation in 2005-6, and from their anniversary book A Very African Journey (URL at foot of this article).
THE AMREF STORY
AMREF’s Vision is to seek “better health for Africa”. Its Mission states… “In creating vibrant networks of informed communities that work with empowered health workers in stronger health systems, we aim to ensure every African has access to the good health which is theirs by right.”
Over the past half century, AMREF has truly evolved. Prior to the 1970s, most of its work was service delivery. Under then-chairman, Dunstan Omari (former secretary to the East African Community), the concept of community-based health care was promoted. Advocated by then-lecturers at Nairobi University, Roy Shaffer and Miram Were (now Chair of AMREF), and implemented by Revi Tuluhungwa, Chris Wood and others, a strategy of working more closely with Ministries of Health took root. Since then, AMREF has trained Africans to staff the organization, relying steadily less on foreigners to carry out its work, just as it has been training community health workers for many African governments. Its Flying Doctor Service is now a self-sustaining entity, while AMREF itself still delivers an outreach programme to support essential care and training to rural hospitals. AMREF initiated and now runs community-based programmes in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and South Africa. Increasingly it has emphasized education, innovation and research, working in partnership with communities, grassroots organizations, governments and donors. It concentrates on finding ways to improve health through projects that address Africa’s unique problems, taking into account: culture, attitudes, economies, politics and environment as critical factors. Based on evidence supported by its operational research, AMREF’s programmes serve as implementation models for Africa, influencing policies and practices by sharing its interventions across the continent.
For decades, AMREF has applied ecosystems principles in the identification of health risks and piloting appropriate health system solutions in rural areas. On the dry plains, trachoma (leading infectious cause of blindness) persists among the Masaai in an environment of little water and swarms of flies; this contrasts with a farming community nestled between two rivers only 15 kilometres away: here trachoma is absent and malaria hyperendemic (where water is plentiful, mosquitoes breed more readily). Clearly, differing environments in conjunction with human behaviour combine to determine health risks. Overlaid on a traditional culture in which each wife shares a one-room home with her children and newborn animals, preparing meals on a contaminated floor, it is in these settings that conditions such as trachoma must be tackled. The WHO “SAFE” protocol was adopted: surgery, antibiotics, face-washing, and environmental improvements. From a primary prevention perspective, the underlying priority is the reverse of this, but one must deal with the most seriously affected first, as this gains immediate attention and promotes the credibility of an integrated approach. Attending to environmental and personal hygiene are also prerequisites to the prevention of a much wider range of conditions. Simple interventions like “leaky tin technology” (a large can of water with a small hole at its base plugged by a thorn), so that clean water can remain uncontaminated and used sparingly, have made the difference in reducing exposure and transmission of such diseases. Two decades ago AMREF realized that episodic clinical teams weres neither effective nor efficient, and that a community approach was needed, emphasizing the role of women. Adopting the WHO “PHASE” campaign (personal hygiene and sanitation education) in 1995, and in partnership with Glaxo Smith Kline, AMREF pioneered this approach in Kenya and Uganda; this has been replicated elsewhere in the world eg., Peru, Tajikistan, Nicaragua, Bangladesh.
AMREF’s operational activities reflect Africa’s disease burdens at the grassroots, including malaria and HIV. For example, the Malaria Partnership Programme in Uganda involves AMREF, Ministries of Health and local NGOs with funding from Glaxo, Smith, Kline. In Kiboga, Kanungu and Kumi districts, AMREF has trained over 1,000 “community medicine distributors” (CMDs) to promote insecticide-treated bednet use and home-based fever management in children who previously would have been treated with ineffective drugs purchased from roadside vendors. Population Services International has underwritten the distribution of nets, using a revolving fund. Within 3 years, 80% of children with malaria in these districts benefited from CMD interventions, supported by AMREF-trained clinical officers, nurses and laboratory technicians, and a marketing effort using radio broadcasts, drama and music, as well as posters in shops, schools and churches. In response to the HIV epidemic, the “Angaza Project” (Swahili: “shed a light”) in Tanzania has implemented 47 counseling and testing sites (more in development), and almost 1,000 counselors trained, supported by a marketing effort using peer educators, music and sports: 0.5 million people have already been tested.
AMREF is intimately involved in health systems development in difficult urban settings. As stated by Director-General Dr Michael Smalley: “If health systems are robust then everything else works”. For example, in the Kibera slum nearby Nairobi, a squatter community of some 850,000 live in extreme poverty and overcrowding, in grossly deficient housing and poor environmental conditions. This situation is found in many cities throughout Africa, due to the rural to urban shift of populations. Such shanty-towns are becoming home to 2nd and 3rd generations, and are virtually a permanent feature of these cities. As migrants come from differing backgrounds and cultures, there is ethnic tension and little community solidarity. Nonetheless, it is precisely in this setting that AMREF has been working in close collaboration with the community-based organization Mradi ya Afya Msingi na Maendeleo (MRAMMA), to develop Primary Health Care (PHC), in a manner that reflects the spirit of the Alma Ata Declaration (1978), the most enduring set of principles for PHC development. In partnership for 11 years, the project has reached 100,000 slum dwellers, including such interventions as community organization and leadership development, stimulation of small enterprises, provision of safe water and sanitation, a core package of PHC interventions emphasizing maternal and child health, and a health centre to deal with a range of conditions responsible for the bulk of the disease burden. This community-based effort has succeeded so well that the City of Nairobi, the Ministry of Health and other partners have now joined to uplift the conditions of Kibera.
Among AMREF’s most important roles is the management of knowledge: building capacity through training, and introducing new learning systems. Since 1987, AMREF has run a 1-year diploma in community health, now offered in affiliation with Kenya’s Moi University. Through this rigorous programme have passed almost 500 students from 35 African countries. Innovative ways have also been found to exercise this role in a distributed manner, eg., almost 10,000 students have taken AMREFs correspondence courses. In 1998 the Maridi National Health Institute was started in southern Sudan with AMREF funding and support: this is a 3 year” clinical officer” course, through which over 130 graduates have been trained to become first line practitioners. New learning methods and technologies are being utilized: increasingly teaching is based on the PBL approach (problem-based learning), and an e-learning initiative has been launched in collaboration with the Nursing Council of Kenya with support (funding and technical) from Accenture: to upgrade 22,000 nurses from certificate to diploma level.
Much more could be told about the work of AMREF than is possible in the space of this short report. In South Africa, where the Ministry of Health accepts traditional practitioners within the formal health system (>60% of South Africans consult sangomas), AMREF is working to help determine “best practices”, and to promote the integration of sangomas within health priorities such as HIV counseling, TB treatment, oral rehydration therapy, and checking on immunization status, while also supporting safe and more effective traditional practices. Elsewhere in Africa eg., Kechene District, Ethiopia, AMREF is supporting microcredit schemes for families, simultaneously addressing poverty and health: helping women to develop economically viable small enterprises and to take care of their familes at the same time. In conflict zones eg., northern Uganda and southern Sudan, AMREF is working “to have health systems and informed communities ready to take control of their own lives and… health, once the fighting is over”.
Conclusion: AMREF recognizes far better than most health organizations around the world that 80% of health is made in households and communities; perhaps only 20% is repaired in hospitals and clinics. Redressing the imbalance in Africa requires empowering communities, teaching preventive measures in a way that can be understood, and narrowing the gap between health systems and communities. Priority must be given to operational and applied research: AMREF’s own priorities are development driven, and a research question embodied within all proposals to donors. From this research comes policy making: AMREF sees itself at the interface in this critical process. AMREF’s current 5 year strategy (2006-11) is to strengthen health systems and to provide the evidence. As stated by AMREF Chair, Professor Miriam Were: “In the past we just assumed that people would see how passionate and experienced we were and follow. Now we know it takes hard-nosed science to persuade others… we are beginning to produce the evidence to influence policy-makers”.
Reference: A Very African Journey is available on-line at: http://64.176.64.243/A%20Very%20African%20Journey.pdf
For more about AMREF, visit their website: http://www.amref.org/
Yet, even as we make progress in solving the riddles of the universe, there remains extreme poverty and ill-health throughout Africa, and injustice throughout the world. In this, its 50th anniversary year, we celebrate the AMREF story which continues to unfold. In doing so we have drawn from our opportunity to view the organization at work during a joint donor evaluation in 2005-6, and from their anniversary book A Very African Journey (URL at foot of this article).
THE AMREF STORY
AMREF’s Vision is to seek “better health for Africa”. Its Mission states… “In creating vibrant networks of informed communities that work with empowered health workers in stronger health systems, we aim to ensure every African has access to the good health which is theirs by right.”
Over the past half century, AMREF has truly evolved. Prior to the 1970s, most of its work was service delivery. Under then-chairman, Dunstan Omari (former secretary to the East African Community), the concept of community-based health care was promoted. Advocated by then-lecturers at Nairobi University, Roy Shaffer and Miram Were (now Chair of AMREF), and implemented by Revi Tuluhungwa, Chris Wood and others, a strategy of working more closely with Ministries of Health took root. Since then, AMREF has trained Africans to staff the organization, relying steadily less on foreigners to carry out its work, just as it has been training community health workers for many African governments. Its Flying Doctor Service is now a self-sustaining entity, while AMREF itself still delivers an outreach programme to support essential care and training to rural hospitals. AMREF initiated and now runs community-based programmes in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and South Africa. Increasingly it has emphasized education, innovation and research, working in partnership with communities, grassroots organizations, governments and donors. It concentrates on finding ways to improve health through projects that address Africa’s unique problems, taking into account: culture, attitudes, economies, politics and environment as critical factors. Based on evidence supported by its operational research, AMREF’s programmes serve as implementation models for Africa, influencing policies and practices by sharing its interventions across the continent.
For decades, AMREF has applied ecosystems principles in the identification of health risks and piloting appropriate health system solutions in rural areas. On the dry plains, trachoma (leading infectious cause of blindness) persists among the Masaai in an environment of little water and swarms of flies; this contrasts with a farming community nestled between two rivers only 15 kilometres away: here trachoma is absent and malaria hyperendemic (where water is plentiful, mosquitoes breed more readily). Clearly, differing environments in conjunction with human behaviour combine to determine health risks. Overlaid on a traditional culture in which each wife shares a one-room home with her children and newborn animals, preparing meals on a contaminated floor, it is in these settings that conditions such as trachoma must be tackled. The WHO “SAFE” protocol was adopted: surgery, antibiotics, face-washing, and environmental improvements. From a primary prevention perspective, the underlying priority is the reverse of this, but one must deal with the most seriously affected first, as this gains immediate attention and promotes the credibility of an integrated approach. Attending to environmental and personal hygiene are also prerequisites to the prevention of a much wider range of conditions. Simple interventions like “leaky tin technology” (a large can of water with a small hole at its base plugged by a thorn), so that clean water can remain uncontaminated and used sparingly, have made the difference in reducing exposure and transmission of such diseases. Two decades ago AMREF realized that episodic clinical teams weres neither effective nor efficient, and that a community approach was needed, emphasizing the role of women. Adopting the WHO “PHASE” campaign (personal hygiene and sanitation education) in 1995, and in partnership with Glaxo Smith Kline, AMREF pioneered this approach in Kenya and Uganda; this has been replicated elsewhere in the world eg., Peru, Tajikistan, Nicaragua, Bangladesh.
AMREF’s operational activities reflect Africa’s disease burdens at the grassroots, including malaria and HIV. For example, the Malaria Partnership Programme in Uganda involves AMREF, Ministries of Health and local NGOs with funding from Glaxo, Smith, Kline. In Kiboga, Kanungu and Kumi districts, AMREF has trained over 1,000 “community medicine distributors” (CMDs) to promote insecticide-treated bednet use and home-based fever management in children who previously would have been treated with ineffective drugs purchased from roadside vendors. Population Services International has underwritten the distribution of nets, using a revolving fund. Within 3 years, 80% of children with malaria in these districts benefited from CMD interventions, supported by AMREF-trained clinical officers, nurses and laboratory technicians, and a marketing effort using radio broadcasts, drama and music, as well as posters in shops, schools and churches. In response to the HIV epidemic, the “Angaza Project” (Swahili: “shed a light”) in Tanzania has implemented 47 counseling and testing sites (more in development), and almost 1,000 counselors trained, supported by a marketing effort using peer educators, music and sports: 0.5 million people have already been tested.
AMREF is intimately involved in health systems development in difficult urban settings. As stated by Director-General Dr Michael Smalley: “If health systems are robust then everything else works”. For example, in the Kibera slum nearby Nairobi, a squatter community of some 850,000 live in extreme poverty and overcrowding, in grossly deficient housing and poor environmental conditions. This situation is found in many cities throughout Africa, due to the rural to urban shift of populations. Such shanty-towns are becoming home to 2nd and 3rd generations, and are virtually a permanent feature of these cities. As migrants come from differing backgrounds and cultures, there is ethnic tension and little community solidarity. Nonetheless, it is precisely in this setting that AMREF has been working in close collaboration with the community-based organization Mradi ya Afya Msingi na Maendeleo (MRAMMA), to develop Primary Health Care (PHC), in a manner that reflects the spirit of the Alma Ata Declaration (1978), the most enduring set of principles for PHC development. In partnership for 11 years, the project has reached 100,000 slum dwellers, including such interventions as community organization and leadership development, stimulation of small enterprises, provision of safe water and sanitation, a core package of PHC interventions emphasizing maternal and child health, and a health centre to deal with a range of conditions responsible for the bulk of the disease burden. This community-based effort has succeeded so well that the City of Nairobi, the Ministry of Health and other partners have now joined to uplift the conditions of Kibera.
Among AMREF’s most important roles is the management of knowledge: building capacity through training, and introducing new learning systems. Since 1987, AMREF has run a 1-year diploma in community health, now offered in affiliation with Kenya’s Moi University. Through this rigorous programme have passed almost 500 students from 35 African countries. Innovative ways have also been found to exercise this role in a distributed manner, eg., almost 10,000 students have taken AMREFs correspondence courses. In 1998 the Maridi National Health Institute was started in southern Sudan with AMREF funding and support: this is a 3 year” clinical officer” course, through which over 130 graduates have been trained to become first line practitioners. New learning methods and technologies are being utilized: increasingly teaching is based on the PBL approach (problem-based learning), and an e-learning initiative has been launched in collaboration with the Nursing Council of Kenya with support (funding and technical) from Accenture: to upgrade 22,000 nurses from certificate to diploma level.
Much more could be told about the work of AMREF than is possible in the space of this short report. In South Africa, where the Ministry of Health accepts traditional practitioners within the formal health system (>60% of South Africans consult sangomas), AMREF is working to help determine “best practices”, and to promote the integration of sangomas within health priorities such as HIV counseling, TB treatment, oral rehydration therapy, and checking on immunization status, while also supporting safe and more effective traditional practices. Elsewhere in Africa eg., Kechene District, Ethiopia, AMREF is supporting microcredit schemes for families, simultaneously addressing poverty and health: helping women to develop economically viable small enterprises and to take care of their familes at the same time. In conflict zones eg., northern Uganda and southern Sudan, AMREF is working “to have health systems and informed communities ready to take control of their own lives and… health, once the fighting is over”.
Conclusion: AMREF recognizes far better than most health organizations around the world that 80% of health is made in households and communities; perhaps only 20% is repaired in hospitals and clinics. Redressing the imbalance in Africa requires empowering communities, teaching preventive measures in a way that can be understood, and narrowing the gap between health systems and communities. Priority must be given to operational and applied research: AMREF’s own priorities are development driven, and a research question embodied within all proposals to donors. From this research comes policy making: AMREF sees itself at the interface in this critical process. AMREF’s current 5 year strategy (2006-11) is to strengthen health systems and to provide the evidence. As stated by AMREF Chair, Professor Miriam Were: “In the past we just assumed that people would see how passionate and experienced we were and follow. Now we know it takes hard-nosed science to persuade others… we are beginning to produce the evidence to influence policy-makers”.
Reference: A Very African Journey is available on-line at: http://64.176.64.243/A%20Very%20African%20Journey.pdf
For more about AMREF, visit their website: http://www.amref.org/
Friday 1 June 2007
OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE AND GLOBAL HEALTH TRENDS
PREAMBLE: During our first 6 months, this report addressed the following global issues: climate change, child development, colonized minorities, food security, human rights, and other news and reviews. In most instances we also addressed the relevance of these issues to Canada, our home base. To locate these issues you may either scan down this issue to earlier issues, or Google search by combining the keywords just noted with the term pacificsci.
This June 2007 issue reviews the vexing issue of official development assistance from wealthy developed countries such as Canada, makes reference to a report on global social and economic trends, then selects reports from a discipline that is essential to understanding global health trends: Health Situation Analysis. This refers to information on health conditions, supported by vital and health statistics critical to strategic and operational development planning. Our selected examples include Africa, the State of the World Children, and Projections of Mortality and Burden of Disease to 2030.
Our sidebar addresses the emergence of “corporate hybrids”, freedom of speech and tolerance for intellectual opinions.
G7 OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE (ODA)
The most recent confirmed OECD data for ODA (2005) reveal that, although absolute amounts are higher, G7 countries allocate proportionally less Gross National Income (GNI) for international development: 0.30%, compared with .50% for non-G7 nations. Of 22 OECD nations only 5 met the UN target of at least 0.7%: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, none of which are G7 countries. The lowest G7 allocation is made by the USA (0.22%; among 15 non- G7 nations, only Portugal and Greece give less than this), while Canada comes in slightly above the G7 mean at 0.34%. Clearly, both individually and collectively, the G7 should show more leadership.
Note: OECD rankings do not include Russia, a G8 country (G7 + 1).
Reference: Final ODA Data for 2005. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/52/18/37790990.pdf
SERIOUS QUESTIONS ABOUT CANADA’s ODA
Questions are being raised about Canada’s ODA priorities eg., $30 million in 2006 to China, an emerging political and economic powerhouse. Parliamentarians urging increased aid to truly poor nations say the government’s refusal to support proposed new legislation to guide ODA reveals lack of commitment. “Canada used to be a leader and is now a… laggard” said Alexa McDonough, NDP foreign affairs critic. According to McDonough, the planned 2006 ODA of just over $3 billion represents 0.32 % of GNI, down from 0.34% last year and far off the 0.7% target that Canada helped set. Josee Verner, Minister for international aid, replied “spending in 2007-08 will increase by 8%, in line with the goal of doubling by 2011 the amount spent on ODA in 2001”.
Source: Sue Bailey. The Canadian Press. March 27, 2007
EDITORIAL: an annual increase in absolute expenditures in the order of 8% will simply maintain the status quo with little movement towards the target of 0.7% GNI
REPORT FROM 8TH GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE, Beijing. For up-to-date social and economic trends, visit the Global Development Network April 2007 newsletter. Topics include: the rise of Asia in the global economy; growth and poverty in Latin America; structural transformation opportunities in Africa and the Middle East. http://www.gdnet.org/pdf2/research_monitor/2007-April_conference%20edition_Research%20Monitor.pdf
HEALTH SITUATION OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
The health situation of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is the least favourable of all regions. Following steady declines until the mid-1990s, adult mortality sharply reversed, with the disease burden increasingly dominated by HIV/AIDS superimposed on already heavy burdens from endemic malaria, water-borne diseases, vaccine-preventable diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and other preventable conditions. In some settings, this was compounded by war and civil strife, with consequent increases in violent death, food shortages, poverty and displacement of people, further fueling a rural to urban migration for economic survival. In parts of SSA, adult mortality rates are at their highest in 3 decades; a rapid drop in life expectancy (LE) is seen in 38 countries (LE age 40 or less in 8 of these). Without HIV/AIDS, LE at birth would have been almost 6.1 years higher in 2002. The slippage is not only due to HIV/AIDS: for example, despite major gains in immunization coverage during the 1980s, these have reversed since, reflecting a loss of capacity to deliver primary health care. In the meantime, the health profiles of Africa and the world are not standing still: the pattern is shifting with a steady increase in Non-Communicable Diseases and injuries. Even given Africa’s preoccupation with infectious diseases, which still dominate the disease burden, planners must now be alert to this emerging and future disease burden.
Source: The foregoing brief report is a paraphrased extract from a health situation analysis carried out by PacificSci for an assignment in East Africa completed in 2006.
THE HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE: THE AFRICAN REGIONAL HEALTH REPORT: A fully comprehensive situation analysis has recently been published by the WHO Regional Office for Africa. http://www.who.int/bulletin/africanhealth/en/index.html
THE STATE OF THE WORLD’s CHILDREN 2007
This UNICEF report focuses on the discrimination and disempowerment experienced by women and girls. It discusses how gender equality will move the UN Millennium Development Goals forward, and how investment in women’s rights will ultimately produce a dual dividend: advancing the rights of women and children. Seven interventions are advocated:
1. Abolish school fees and invest in girls' education
2. Invest government funding in gender equality
3. Enact legislation to create a level playing field for women and to address domestic as well as gender-based violence
4. Ensure women's participation in politics
5. Involve women's grassroots organizations in policy development
6. Engage men and boys on the importance of gender equality
7. Improve research and data on gender issues.
For the full report as a PDF document: http://www.unicef.org/sowc07/report/report.php
PROJECTIONS OF MORTALITY & DISEASE BURDEN TO 2030
Revised global and regional projections of mortality and burden of disease by cause for 2005, 2015 and 2030 are now available from the World Health Organization. Principal investigators (CD Mathers & D Loncar) applied separate projection models for males and females, stratified into 7 age groups. The website below offers online access to the article, a working paper, and references to papers on data sources and methods. Detailed results for projected deaths and DALYs can be downloaded as Excel spreadsheets. The analyses were carried out at country level with aggregation into regional or income groups. The investigators used socio-economic projections to model future mortality and morbidity patterns, assuming slower and faster rates of development and population growth, taking into account independent variables: income, education, time, and tobacco use. The results suggest that, from 2002 to 2030, life expectancy will increase throughout the world, with an upward shift in the age of deaths, with considerably fewer younger children dying, while deaths due to cancer and heart disease will increase. Deaths from infectious diseases will decline overall, while mortality from HIV/AIDS will continue to increase. http://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/bodprojections2030/en/index.html
Acknowledgment: In constructing our summary, a review by Robert Goldberg on ProCOR (Recommended link in sidebar) was helpful, including his note of caution regarding the quality of data used to develop the predictive models and assumptions utilized.
THANKS FOR VISITING PacificSci GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES!
Tuesday 1 May 2007
Climate Change, Kyoto Accord, Europe Responds & Canada Remains Challenged
PREAMBLE: The European Community (EU) takes Climate Change seriously, and is making progress towards its Kyoto targets. On April 26, 2007, Canada’s Conservative government released its first “climate-change plan”. Disappointingly, despite Canada leading the world in reducing ozone destroying chlorofluoro-carbons (Montreal Protocol 1987), signing the Kyoto Protocol (1997), and hosting its ratification (2005), this plan is incapable of meeting Canada’s Kyoto targets. Ranked 27th of 29 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, Canada remains among the most environmentally delinquent industrialized countries (ref: http://www.environmentalindicators.com/htdocs/indicators.htm). In this edition, adapting material from Global Vision (GV), a British NGO not linked to any political party, we examine Europe’s valid experience in reducing Greenhouse Gases (GHG), and close with an editorial advocating that Canada reconsider all options.
THE EU APPROACH TO KYOTO
Commitments: In 1997 the EU15 signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (Kyoto Protocol), agreeing to cut Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, by 8% by the 5-year period 2008-12 (annual average emissions over the period) compared with the base year 1990. Under the "burden sharing" scheme of 2002, different member states were allocated different emissions targets: Germany agreed to a 21% cut (possible because of the collapse of much of east Germany's industry) and the UK agreed to a 12.5% cut; Spain was permitted a 15% increase and Greece a 25% increase. In 2004, new member states took different approaches: six (including the Czech Republic) adopted an 8% cut, Hungary and Poland have a target of 6%, while Cyprus and Malta have no targets.
The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS): EU environment ministers have set up an ETS market to trade pollution permits for CO2, the main GHG. The scheme caps the amount of CO2 that industries can produce and allows companies to trade emissions rights within the EU (a "Cap and Trade" scheme). Firms that exceed their emissions limits can buy "allowances" from firms whose emissions are under target levels. The ETS began operating in January 2005. The first trading period (“phase”) runs from 2005 to 2007, to be followed by subsequent 5-year phases. Under ETS, Member States compile a National Allocation Plan (NAP) for each phase. They decide a "cap" for total emissions allowances and then allocate the capped total (in the form of permits) to individual plants and other "installations" according to predetermined criteria. Permit recipients can use their allowances for their own CO2 emissions, sell surplus allowances to others if they have any or, if short, buy the necessary allowances from others through the EU-wide market.
Performance: 2004 data (table in GV link) indicate that, of the EU15, 4 (UK, France, Germany, Sweden) are on track to meet commitments under the accord; 11 are not: Ireland, Portugal by >20%; Spain by >30%. Seven of 8 new countries are within target - the exception is Slovenia. The EU15 overall, are well off target.
Critique: Emissions Trading Schemes can work successfully but the EU's ETS has attracted criticism. Because national governments were left to choose their own targets, problems arose concerning allocation of emissions permits for 2005-07. The UK set stringent targets, whilst most other Member States did not. As a result, UK firms paid nearly £½bn for extra permits from business rivals in other Member States in 2005, whilst (for example) German firms received nearly £300m. Some UK firms, especially electricity companies, reduced their emissions and hence output because they were short of permits, which led to higher UK electricity prices. Other problems: in 2005, member states issued free permits for 1,830m tonnes, whilst emissions were only 1,785m tonnes. When this was realized in April 2006, a secondary market for emissions permits crashed.
The Future: Planning for the period 2008-12 is now underway. The EU claims that it will be tougher and fairer than the first; the UK has submitted plans with a 3% reduction target for CO2 emissions; Germany's plans again are less stringent.
Source: Global Vision (GV) http://global-vision.net/facts/fact10_3.asp (Feb 2007).
EDITORIAL: The European experience is instructive in many ways, but three lessons for Canada are clear: 1) curbing GHGs requires transformational thinking, not business as usual; 2) realities, commitment and performance vary across jurisdictions; and 3) respect for the Kyoto Accord is globally responsible.
Canada has suffered from Prime Minister Harper’s state of denial regarding the environment generally and Kyoto in particular (eg., in a 2002 letter to his party, Harper ridiculed the accord as “a money-sucking socialist scheme”). His hostility to the treaty while in opposition damaged the potential for consensus then, and carries over to his role now. On January 2007, an opinion poll nonetheless revealed environment to be Canada’s No.1 public concern, which caused the Conservative leadership finally to take the matter seriously, albeit still struggling to come to grips with it. However, Canada’s Green Plan, released April 26, 15 months into the term of the government (no longer “new”), falls so far short of what Canada is capable of doing, that energy stocks abruptly gained in value following its announcement! By contrast, the EU achieved consensus in 2005 and is far ahead in all aspects of the process. While rejecting Kyoto, highlights of the Conservative plan include short (2010) and medium term (2015) emission reduction targets, national emission caps (2012), and a domestic ETS (failure to meet Kyoto targets disqualify Canada from the global ETS). But there are many loopholes: although a technology fund will be financed by industries failing to meet targets, new facilities are exempt from any targets for 3 years, while those that prove unable to reduce emissions with existing technology will be exempt from any requirements to make reductions. Climate change activist Al Gore, invited speaker to a Canadian exhibition on green technologies, described the plan as a “fraud… designed to mislead the Canadian people”.
The debate clearly must not stop there. All policy options deserve ongoing consideration, including a carbon tax: fossil fuels taxed in proportion to carbon content, to represent the environmental cost of doing business. Although little new bureaucracy is required, this option was rejected outright by the “new” Environment Minister John Baird with more bluster than brilliance.[1] Meanwhile, south of the border, a Carbon Tax Center (CTC) was launched in New York in January; its aim is: to educate policymakers, opinion leaders, and the public about the benefits of taxing fossil fuel emissions. CTC advocates a carbon tax system because of "predictability, immediacy, transparency, universality, and equity."[2] This deserves more study in Canada, and the novel idea of educating policy-makers is appealing. Critically important is the need for incentives for operational research into cleaner energy systems. Not least, having nuclear technology, Canada should expand this source of clean energy. Combining approaches will more likely succeed than blind adherence or resistance to any given approach.
References: 1. Carbon tax proposal stirs political debate in Canada. Mar 5, 2007 http://www.corporateknights.ca/info/news/page.asp?name=platts_carbon_tax
2. Carbon Tax Center. Mar 31, 2007 http://www.carbontax.org/
THE EU APPROACH TO KYOTO
Commitments: In 1997 the EU15 signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (Kyoto Protocol), agreeing to cut Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, by 8% by the 5-year period 2008-12 (annual average emissions over the period) compared with the base year 1990. Under the "burden sharing" scheme of 2002, different member states were allocated different emissions targets: Germany agreed to a 21% cut (possible because of the collapse of much of east Germany's industry) and the UK agreed to a 12.5% cut; Spain was permitted a 15% increase and Greece a 25% increase. In 2004, new member states took different approaches: six (including the Czech Republic) adopted an 8% cut, Hungary and Poland have a target of 6%, while Cyprus and Malta have no targets.
The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS): EU environment ministers have set up an ETS market to trade pollution permits for CO2, the main GHG. The scheme caps the amount of CO2 that industries can produce and allows companies to trade emissions rights within the EU (a "Cap and Trade" scheme). Firms that exceed their emissions limits can buy "allowances" from firms whose emissions are under target levels. The ETS began operating in January 2005. The first trading period (“phase”) runs from 2005 to 2007, to be followed by subsequent 5-year phases. Under ETS, Member States compile a National Allocation Plan (NAP) for each phase. They decide a "cap" for total emissions allowances and then allocate the capped total (in the form of permits) to individual plants and other "installations" according to predetermined criteria. Permit recipients can use their allowances for their own CO2 emissions, sell surplus allowances to others if they have any or, if short, buy the necessary allowances from others through the EU-wide market.
Performance: 2004 data (table in GV link) indicate that, of the EU15, 4 (UK, France, Germany, Sweden) are on track to meet commitments under the accord; 11 are not: Ireland, Portugal by >20%; Spain by >30%. Seven of 8 new countries are within target - the exception is Slovenia. The EU15 overall, are well off target.
Critique: Emissions Trading Schemes can work successfully but the EU's ETS has attracted criticism. Because national governments were left to choose their own targets, problems arose concerning allocation of emissions permits for 2005-07. The UK set stringent targets, whilst most other Member States did not. As a result, UK firms paid nearly £½bn for extra permits from business rivals in other Member States in 2005, whilst (for example) German firms received nearly £300m. Some UK firms, especially electricity companies, reduced their emissions and hence output because they were short of permits, which led to higher UK electricity prices. Other problems: in 2005, member states issued free permits for 1,830m tonnes, whilst emissions were only 1,785m tonnes. When this was realized in April 2006, a secondary market for emissions permits crashed.
The Future: Planning for the period 2008-12 is now underway. The EU claims that it will be tougher and fairer than the first; the UK has submitted plans with a 3% reduction target for CO2 emissions; Germany's plans again are less stringent.
Source: Global Vision (GV) http://global-vision.net/facts/fact10_3.asp (Feb 2007).
EDITORIAL: The European experience is instructive in many ways, but three lessons for Canada are clear: 1) curbing GHGs requires transformational thinking, not business as usual; 2) realities, commitment and performance vary across jurisdictions; and 3) respect for the Kyoto Accord is globally responsible.
Canada has suffered from Prime Minister Harper’s state of denial regarding the environment generally and Kyoto in particular (eg., in a 2002 letter to his party, Harper ridiculed the accord as “a money-sucking socialist scheme”). His hostility to the treaty while in opposition damaged the potential for consensus then, and carries over to his role now. On January 2007, an opinion poll nonetheless revealed environment to be Canada’s No.1 public concern, which caused the Conservative leadership finally to take the matter seriously, albeit still struggling to come to grips with it. However, Canada’s Green Plan, released April 26, 15 months into the term of the government (no longer “new”), falls so far short of what Canada is capable of doing, that energy stocks abruptly gained in value following its announcement! By contrast, the EU achieved consensus in 2005 and is far ahead in all aspects of the process. While rejecting Kyoto, highlights of the Conservative plan include short (2010) and medium term (2015) emission reduction targets, national emission caps (2012), and a domestic ETS (failure to meet Kyoto targets disqualify Canada from the global ETS). But there are many loopholes: although a technology fund will be financed by industries failing to meet targets, new facilities are exempt from any targets for 3 years, while those that prove unable to reduce emissions with existing technology will be exempt from any requirements to make reductions. Climate change activist Al Gore, invited speaker to a Canadian exhibition on green technologies, described the plan as a “fraud… designed to mislead the Canadian people”.
The debate clearly must not stop there. All policy options deserve ongoing consideration, including a carbon tax: fossil fuels taxed in proportion to carbon content, to represent the environmental cost of doing business. Although little new bureaucracy is required, this option was rejected outright by the “new” Environment Minister John Baird with more bluster than brilliance.[1] Meanwhile, south of the border, a Carbon Tax Center (CTC) was launched in New York in January; its aim is: to educate policymakers, opinion leaders, and the public about the benefits of taxing fossil fuel emissions. CTC advocates a carbon tax system because of "predictability, immediacy, transparency, universality, and equity."[2] This deserves more study in Canada, and the novel idea of educating policy-makers is appealing. Critically important is the need for incentives for operational research into cleaner energy systems. Not least, having nuclear technology, Canada should expand this source of clean energy. Combining approaches will more likely succeed than blind adherence or resistance to any given approach.
References: 1. Carbon tax proposal stirs political debate in Canada. Mar 5, 2007 http://www.corporateknights.ca/info/news/page.asp?name=platts_carbon_tax
2. Carbon Tax Center. Mar 31, 2007 http://www.carbontax.org/
Sunday 1 April 2007
Early Child Development - Policy Shifts, Global Viewpoints, and the Evidence Base.
PREAMBLE: In this issue we maintain our focus on Canadian policy shifts that are of global interest, assuming Canada’s reputation for enlightened social policy. Unfortunately this reputation is being undermined by a neo-conservative ideology. Over a million Canadian children live in poverty and cannot access child care support. In support of child friendly interventions, we include evidence reviewed by the US-based RAND Corporation showing that childhood intervention programs yield benefits in behavior, educational progression and attainment, delinquency and crime, and labor market success, among other domains. Well-trained caregivers and smaller child-to-staff ratios offer more favorable results. Economic studies have shown that well-designed early childhood interventions generate a favourable economic return on this social investment.
CANADA’s SLIPPAGE ON CHILD CARE PROVISIONS
In 2005, after many years of educational research, advocacy and negotiation, early learning and child care agreements were reached between the Government of Canada and its provinces, laying a foundation for a system to meet the needs of all Canadian families. Canceling them, as the incoming Conservative government did in 2006 in favour of family income supplements only, was a major set-back to the evolution of a national child care program, and represented a net reduction of $4 billion in child care funding. While family income support in itself may be a valid policy goal, it will never substitute for early learning and child care services that are of quality, available and affordable.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Perhaps the most historically surprising feature of this policy shift is that the idea of a national child care programme was first proposed in 1970 by Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives (the “PCs” were an ancestor of the Conservative Party of Canada). Evidently today’s Conservatives are now dominated by the social philosophy of the former far right Alliance Party which cobbled with the former PCs to spawn the party. Unfortunately, the new party seems to lack the capacity to accept a sound initiative launched under the previous Liberal government, even one which originated with the PCs, and that was at its grassroots non-partisan. As noted by the New Democratic Party (Denise Savois MP, personal communication): without child care, many parents (mostly mothers) can’t fully participate in the workforce. This undermines their equality, and many children also lose out on vital early learning opportunities when quality child care is scarce or unavailable.
UPDATE: In response to widespread criticism of it’s lack of coherent policy in this area, in March 2007 the Conservative government announced additional federal-provincial transfers of money ostensibly for child care spaces, and a scheme of tax credits for businesses to create child care; opposition critics note that such transfers can be readily clawed back or reallocated, and reflect a massive cut in the support originally intended for child care, and that such tax credit schemes are an inadequate response to the needs. A private members bill, The Early Learning and Child Care Act, will be studied by a parliamentary committee this month; if not supported in favour of Canada's children, this will become an election issue.
PERSPECTIVE OF THE ORGANIZATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT (OECD)
In October 2004, the OECD described Canada's child-care system as “a chronically under-funded patchwork of programs with no overarching goals”. It found a shortage of available regulated child-care spaces – enough for fewer than 20 % of children 6 years and younger with working parents. By contrast, the following estimates apply to other OECD countries: UK, 60 %; Belgium, 63%; France, 69%; Denmark, 78%. The OECD recommended that Canada double its child-care spending to reach the OECD average.
For more in-depth on Day Care in Canada: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/daycare/
THE EVIDENCE – HOW IMPORTANT IS EARLY CHILDHOOD?
As part of a recent study, RAND researchers synthesized what is known from the scientifically sound research literature about the short- and long-term benefits from early intervention programs, the features that are associated with more-effective programs, and the economic gains (attractive benefit: cost ratios) that accrue from investing additional resources in early childhood. There is increasing recognition that the first few years of a child’s life are a particularly sensitive period in the process of human development, laying a foundation in childhood and beyond for cognitive functioning; behavioral, social, and self-regulatory capacities; and physical health. Yet many children face stressors during these years that can impair their healthy development. Early childhood intervention programs are designed to mitigate the factors that place children at risk of poor outcomes. Such programs provide supports for the parents, the children, or the family as a whole. These supports may be in the form of learning activities or other structured experiences that affect a child directly or that have indirect effects through training parents or otherwise enhancing the care-giving environment.
The research brief linked below describes work documented in Early Childhood Interventions: Proven Results, Future Promise by Lynn A. Karoly, M. Rebecca Kilburn, and Jill S. Cannon, MG-341-PNC, 2005, 200 pp, ISBN: 0-8330-3836-2
Source: RAND Corporation. RAND Research Briefs
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9145/index1.html
Note: We selected RAND for their review in part because we appreciate that this think tank normally enjoys support from across the political spectrum, including Conservatives.
CANADA’s SLIPPAGE ON CHILD CARE PROVISIONS
In 2005, after many years of educational research, advocacy and negotiation, early learning and child care agreements were reached between the Government of Canada and its provinces, laying a foundation for a system to meet the needs of all Canadian families. Canceling them, as the incoming Conservative government did in 2006 in favour of family income supplements only, was a major set-back to the evolution of a national child care program, and represented a net reduction of $4 billion in child care funding. While family income support in itself may be a valid policy goal, it will never substitute for early learning and child care services that are of quality, available and affordable.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Perhaps the most historically surprising feature of this policy shift is that the idea of a national child care programme was first proposed in 1970 by Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives (the “PCs” were an ancestor of the Conservative Party of Canada). Evidently today’s Conservatives are now dominated by the social philosophy of the former far right Alliance Party which cobbled with the former PCs to spawn the party. Unfortunately, the new party seems to lack the capacity to accept a sound initiative launched under the previous Liberal government, even one which originated with the PCs, and that was at its grassroots non-partisan. As noted by the New Democratic Party (Denise Savois MP, personal communication): without child care, many parents (mostly mothers) can’t fully participate in the workforce. This undermines their equality, and many children also lose out on vital early learning opportunities when quality child care is scarce or unavailable.
UPDATE: In response to widespread criticism of it’s lack of coherent policy in this area, in March 2007 the Conservative government announced additional federal-provincial transfers of money ostensibly for child care spaces, and a scheme of tax credits for businesses to create child care; opposition critics note that such transfers can be readily clawed back or reallocated, and reflect a massive cut in the support originally intended for child care, and that such tax credit schemes are an inadequate response to the needs. A private members bill, The Early Learning and Child Care Act, will be studied by a parliamentary committee this month; if not supported in favour of Canada's children, this will become an election issue.
PERSPECTIVE OF THE ORGANIZATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT (OECD)
In October 2004, the OECD described Canada's child-care system as “a chronically under-funded patchwork of programs with no overarching goals”. It found a shortage of available regulated child-care spaces – enough for fewer than 20 % of children 6 years and younger with working parents. By contrast, the following estimates apply to other OECD countries: UK, 60 %; Belgium, 63%; France, 69%; Denmark, 78%. The OECD recommended that Canada double its child-care spending to reach the OECD average.
For more in-depth on Day Care in Canada: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/daycare/
THE EVIDENCE – HOW IMPORTANT IS EARLY CHILDHOOD?
As part of a recent study, RAND researchers synthesized what is known from the scientifically sound research literature about the short- and long-term benefits from early intervention programs, the features that are associated with more-effective programs, and the economic gains (attractive benefit: cost ratios) that accrue from investing additional resources in early childhood. There is increasing recognition that the first few years of a child’s life are a particularly sensitive period in the process of human development, laying a foundation in childhood and beyond for cognitive functioning; behavioral, social, and self-regulatory capacities; and physical health. Yet many children face stressors during these years that can impair their healthy development. Early childhood intervention programs are designed to mitigate the factors that place children at risk of poor outcomes. Such programs provide supports for the parents, the children, or the family as a whole. These supports may be in the form of learning activities or other structured experiences that affect a child directly or that have indirect effects through training parents or otherwise enhancing the care-giving environment.
The research brief linked below describes work documented in Early Childhood Interventions: Proven Results, Future Promise by Lynn A. Karoly, M. Rebecca Kilburn, and Jill S. Cannon, MG-341-PNC, 2005, 200 pp, ISBN: 0-8330-3836-2
Source: RAND Corporation. RAND Research Briefs
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9145/index1.html
Note: We selected RAND for their review in part because we appreciate that this think tank normally enjoys support from across the political spectrum, including Conservatives.
Thursday 1 March 2007
Global and Local Perspectives on Colonized Minorities in Developed Countries
PREAMBLE: Colonized racial, cultural or religious minorities exist throughout the world, and are to be found nested within powerful societies. For examples, consider Tibet now within China, the Ainu of Japan, the Dalits of India, Amerindian enclaves in the Caribbean, tribal minorities in Africa, Boznian Muslims in former Yugoslavia, the Kurds of Iraq, others in all continents and among the Pacific islands. In choosing to highlight the situation of indigenous minorities in western industrialized countries, our example is Canada only because this is our home base. The issues here apply to several economically advanced western countries where it is sometimes said that one may find “3rd world conditions in 1st world settings”. Because these countries claim leadership for human rights, they also must live up to these principles.
[For a flavour of Canadian politics, scan column at right.]
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE ON COLONIZED MINORITIES
“Continuing disparities between the health of indigenous people and the non-indigenous settlers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States … is a matter of major concern within each country. In each country the legacies of colonial dispossession, land alienation, forcible relocation, suppression of indigenous cultural practices, values and beliefs, loss of language, disruption of families, violations of indigenous inherent sovereignty and right to self-determination, treaties, international law and indigenous cultural law, and other factors, have resulted in indigenous peoples experiencing a deplorable health status compared to non-indigenous settlers.”
Source: International Network of Indigenous Health Knowledge and Development http://www.inihkd.org/ Accessed Feb 4, 2007
LOCAL PERSPECTIVES - CANADA’S FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE
Education: 44% of Aboriginal people aged 20-24 lack high school education, compared to 19% for Canada as a whole. Only 23% of Aboriginals aged 18-29 had completed post secondary education, compared to 43% in the rest of Canada.
Health: Infant mortality 20% higher than Canada; Type 2 diabetes 3 times more frequent; Suicide 3 to 11 times more frequent.
Housing: On-reserve, the estimated shortage is 20 to 35,000 units, and growing by 2,200 units per year. Off-reserve, the housing need is 76% higher than non-Aboriginal households. In northern Canada, housing needs are 130% higher.
Economic Opportunities: The unemployment rate among Aboriginal peoples is 19.1%,; the national rate is 7.4%. On reserves, unemployment is about 29%. Median employment income is two-thirds of the average for non-Aboriginal Canadians.
Reference: Government of Canada - Background information for the Kelowna Accord.http://www.pco.gc.ca/default.asp?Language=E&Page=archivemartin&Sub=newscommuniques&Doc=news_release_20051125_661_e.htm
The KELOWNA ACCORD – a 2-Act Play or a 3-Act Play?
“Act 1”– A New Beginning
The Kelowna Accord (Nov 25, 2005) seemingly bound the Canadian government, provincial governments, and Canada’s First Nations to invest $5.1 billion over 5 years to close the gap between Aboriginal and other Canadians in education, health, housing and opportunities.[1] An operational plan contained 5-year targets over 10-years to ensure focused and accountable actions. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin acknowledged the Assembly of First Nations for taking the important step of proposing the establishment of a First Nations Auditor General and an Ombudsman.[2] He stated: "With this plan, we have made an important step forward in honouring our commitment to close the gap in the quality of life that now exists between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians."[1]
“Act 2” - Another Broken Promise
Despite this promising start, on gaining power in January 2006, a new minority federal Conservative government (receiving only 36% of the popular vote) reneged, ostensibly because the Accord had not yet found its way into the federal budget, the election having intervened. Their own budget (despite a big surplus) cut the initiative by 80%, the residue going to a limited number of programs and housing provisions. Reflecting public opinion across the country, mostly favouring the Accord, the BC First Nations Leadership Council released an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Hon. Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance and Hon. Jim Prentice, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.[3] B.C. provincial Premier Gordon Campbell, at an inter-ministerial meeting, stated: "… the least that any Canadian can expect is when a government makes a commitment of resources, that those resources are going to flow."[4]
“Act 3” – Will there be one?
The Harper government will launch a new federal budget on March 19. Although there have been no statements to indicate a change in thinking that would reflect renewed respect for the Accord, this may be the last real opportunity for the “new” government to act in good faith towards it.
References: 1. Privy Council Office. Government of Canada. Press Release Nov 25, 2006http://www.pco.gc.ca/default.asp?Language=E&Page=archivemartin&Sub=newscommuniques&Doc=news_release_20051125_661_e.htm
2. Patterson LL. Aboriginal roundtable to Kelowna Accord: policy negotiations 2004-5. May 2006 http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/prb0604-e.htm
3. Union of BC Indian Chiefs. Open Letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Hon. Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance and Hon. Jim Prentice, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. May 4, 2006. http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/files/PDF/FNLC_NR_2006FedBudget_openletter.pdf
4. Aboriginal leaders seek to revive Kelowna Accord. Canadian Press. July 26 2006 . http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060725/aboriginal_mtg_060725/20060726?hub=Canada&s_name=
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Although our "new" government (when viewed from a politically Conservative perspective) may well have the best interests of Canada at heart, there is no doubt that the initial excuse not to implement the Kelowna Accord is no longer valid. About to launch a new budget in March, with a massive surplus in hand (thanks to a continuing strong economy), if the Conservatives do not now address the intent of the Accord at proper scale, this will confirm a steady drift to the political right, consistent with odd examples of out-dated thinking expressed on behalf of this regime (see: review of Canadian political flavours in column at right). It is therefore both timely and critical for Stephen Harper to show leadership on the situation facing aboriginal Canadians, and to emerge from the current policy fog as a Prime Minister for all Canadians. We will monitor the situation and comment further after the budget.
[For a flavour of Canadian politics, scan column at right.]
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE ON COLONIZED MINORITIES
“Continuing disparities between the health of indigenous people and the non-indigenous settlers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States … is a matter of major concern within each country. In each country the legacies of colonial dispossession, land alienation, forcible relocation, suppression of indigenous cultural practices, values and beliefs, loss of language, disruption of families, violations of indigenous inherent sovereignty and right to self-determination, treaties, international law and indigenous cultural law, and other factors, have resulted in indigenous peoples experiencing a deplorable health status compared to non-indigenous settlers.”
Source: International Network of Indigenous Health Knowledge and Development http://www.inihkd.org/ Accessed Feb 4, 2007
LOCAL PERSPECTIVES - CANADA’S FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE
Education: 44% of Aboriginal people aged 20-24 lack high school education, compared to 19% for Canada as a whole. Only 23% of Aboriginals aged 18-29 had completed post secondary education, compared to 43% in the rest of Canada.
Health: Infant mortality 20% higher than Canada; Type 2 diabetes 3 times more frequent; Suicide 3 to 11 times more frequent.
Housing: On-reserve, the estimated shortage is 20 to 35,000 units, and growing by 2,200 units per year. Off-reserve, the housing need is 76% higher than non-Aboriginal households. In northern Canada, housing needs are 130% higher.
Economic Opportunities: The unemployment rate among Aboriginal peoples is 19.1%,; the national rate is 7.4%. On reserves, unemployment is about 29%. Median employment income is two-thirds of the average for non-Aboriginal Canadians.
Reference: Government of Canada - Background information for the Kelowna Accord.http://www.pco.gc.ca/default.asp?Language=E&Page=archivemartin&Sub=newscommuniques&Doc=news_release_20051125_661_e.htm
The KELOWNA ACCORD – a 2-Act Play or a 3-Act Play?
“Act 1”– A New Beginning
The Kelowna Accord (Nov 25, 2005) seemingly bound the Canadian government, provincial governments, and Canada’s First Nations to invest $5.1 billion over 5 years to close the gap between Aboriginal and other Canadians in education, health, housing and opportunities.[1] An operational plan contained 5-year targets over 10-years to ensure focused and accountable actions. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin acknowledged the Assembly of First Nations for taking the important step of proposing the establishment of a First Nations Auditor General and an Ombudsman.[2] He stated: "With this plan, we have made an important step forward in honouring our commitment to close the gap in the quality of life that now exists between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians."[1]
“Act 2” - Another Broken Promise
Despite this promising start, on gaining power in January 2006, a new minority federal Conservative government (receiving only 36% of the popular vote) reneged, ostensibly because the Accord had not yet found its way into the federal budget, the election having intervened. Their own budget (despite a big surplus) cut the initiative by 80%, the residue going to a limited number of programs and housing provisions. Reflecting public opinion across the country, mostly favouring the Accord, the BC First Nations Leadership Council released an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Hon. Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance and Hon. Jim Prentice, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.[3] B.C. provincial Premier Gordon Campbell, at an inter-ministerial meeting, stated: "… the least that any Canadian can expect is when a government makes a commitment of resources, that those resources are going to flow."[4]
“Act 3” – Will there be one?
The Harper government will launch a new federal budget on March 19. Although there have been no statements to indicate a change in thinking that would reflect renewed respect for the Accord, this may be the last real opportunity for the “new” government to act in good faith towards it.
References: 1. Privy Council Office. Government of Canada. Press Release Nov 25, 2006http://www.pco.gc.ca/default.asp?Language=E&Page=archivemartin&Sub=newscommuniques&Doc=news_release_20051125_661_e.htm
2. Patterson LL. Aboriginal roundtable to Kelowna Accord: policy negotiations 2004-5. May 2006 http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/prb0604-e.htm
3. Union of BC Indian Chiefs. Open Letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Hon. Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance and Hon. Jim Prentice, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. May 4, 2006. http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/files/PDF/FNLC_NR_2006FedBudget_openletter.pdf
4. Aboriginal leaders seek to revive Kelowna Accord. Canadian Press. July 26 2006 . http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060725/aboriginal_mtg_060725/20060726?hub=Canada&s_name=
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Although our "new" government (when viewed from a politically Conservative perspective) may well have the best interests of Canada at heart, there is no doubt that the initial excuse not to implement the Kelowna Accord is no longer valid. About to launch a new budget in March, with a massive surplus in hand (thanks to a continuing strong economy), if the Conservatives do not now address the intent of the Accord at proper scale, this will confirm a steady drift to the political right, consistent with odd examples of out-dated thinking expressed on behalf of this regime (see: review of Canadian political flavours in column at right). It is therefore both timely and critical for Stephen Harper to show leadership on the situation facing aboriginal Canadians, and to emerge from the current policy fog as a Prime Minister for all Canadians. We will monitor the situation and comment further after the budget.
Thursday 1 February 2007
Global Food Security - A Matter of Survival
PREAMBLE: In 1996, the World Food Summit set a target to halve the number of undernourished people by 2015. However, in 2007, it appears unlikely that this target will be met. One key to success is the Doha round of trade negotiations where 1st world priorities conflict with 3rd world needs. In this issue we focus on the conflict between grain for fuel or for food, the stalled Doha round, and examine global food security.
ETHANOL DEMAND MAY DESTABILIZE THE FOOD SUPPLY
Global competition for corn supplies is generating social instability due to soaring prices out of reach in lower income countries that depend on this staple. The rationale of wealthy countries is to reduce dependence on foreign oil, despite ethanol’s low efficiency and corrosive properties. According to the Earth Policy Institute, an epic competition between the world’s 800 million motorists and its 2 billion poor people is emerging (1): the corn needed to fill a 25 gallon tank with ethanol would feed a poor family for a year. The US ethanol boom is sending shockwaves through the food chain: corn for ethanol is now sought-after by petroleum companies, supported by new government subsidies and mandates: even before the price hikes, ethanol production cost the US taxpayer $11 billion from 1979-2000 (US Government Accounting Office (2)), while the soaring cost of corn in the US recently pushed up the cost of tortillas in Mexico by a third. Facing protests, Mexican President Felipe Calderon responded with price controls on corn-based products (3). The projected savings to US and Canadian automotive fuel supplies from adding ethanol could be achieved several times over, at a fraction of the cost, by raising auto fuel efficiency standards by 20%, levels already exceeded in Europe and Asia.
References: 1) Brown L. Distillery demand for grain to fuel cars vastly understated – world may be facing highest grain prices in history. Earth Policy Institute. Jan 4, 2007-1. http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63.htm 2) Reguly E. Lining up at the ethanol trough. Globe and Mail B2. Jan 25, 2007. 3) McKenna B. America’s appetite for ethanol poised to take corn from mouths of the poor. Globe and Mail B11. Jan 23, 2007.
WORLD TRADE NEGOTIATIONS – THE DOHA ROUND
This series of negotiations commenced in 2001 in Doha, Qatar. The aim is to lower trade barriers world-wide, among countries of widely varying economic circumstances. Talks have stalled due to a stand-off between the world’s richest countries and developing ones. Although the round addresses all sectors, the impasse pertains to agriculture. Developing countries need “fair trade” to stimulate rural development and efficiency in production and distribution (1). However, protectionism rampant in developed nations, posing in the guise of other agendas eg., intellectual property rights, the “cultural value” of farming, international labour practices, quality control, professed anxiety about disease importation and even bioterrorism. Lack of progress can be laid at the feet of western agribusiness and the farm lobby. Rich country agricultural subsidies total over $300 billion annually, 6 times the value of development assistance. The average EU cow is subsidized at $2.50 per day; more than most Africans live on (2). Food security is an ethical challenge.
The July 2006 talks in Geneva failed to reach agreement on reducing subsidies and lowering import taxes - negotiations will take months to resume. A successful outcome is increasingly unlikely because the trade authority granted under the Trade Act of 2002 to US President Bush expires in 2007. Any pact will then require approval by an increasingly protectionist US Congress, which in turn discourages the willingness of other countries to participate. As WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy stated in a recent prospective, “If the global trading system is to be relevant, it is the responsibility of all members, in particular the big elephants, to meet this challenge”(3).
References: 1) UNDP. Human Development Report. Millennium Development Goals: a compact among nations to end human poverty. New York: Oxford UP 2003. 2) Williams J. 50 facts that should change the world. Icon Books 2004. 3) Lamy P. Doha’s Final Deadline. The World in 2007. 21st ed. The Economist.
GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY – AN OVERVIEW
Nutrition throughout life determines growth, development and disease susceptibility. Although enough food is produced to feed everyone, maldistribution results in hunger and malnutrition, affecting millions. Most vulnerable are the poor, the marginalized, women, and children. Children are most vulnerable, suffering irreversible growth retardation by stunting and wasting, and impaired cognitive development that impacts throughout life; females are twice as likely as males to experience malnutrition.
Food security would exist if all people, at all times, had physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and preferences. Food insecurity results from unavailability, unstable supplies, insufficient purchasing power, inappropriate distribution, or inadequate household utilization. The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that 852 million people were undernourished in 2000-2, >95% in developing countries.(1) Barriers to food security can be overcome by economically viable and environmentally sustainable means; however, trade practices and policies associated with deregulated markets mitigate against this goal.
Though food and nutrition insecurity is generally declining worldwide, progress in South Asia is sluggish, while the problem is worsening in Africa due to conflicts, droughts, floods, and economic downturns. The number of undernourished African, estimated at 204 million (1999–2001), is double that of two decades earlier. Food shortages are so severe in East and Central Africa that they require regular international intervention.
Reference: Food and Agricultural Organization. The State of Food Security in the World 2004. Rome: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations; 2004.
Book Review: BANKER TO THE POOR - micro-lending and the battle against world poverty. Muhammad Yunus. Founder of Grameen Bank. Public Affairs New York 2003.
We selected this book because of Muhammad Yunus’s recent award of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Peace. Scanning the web, we selected the closing paragraph of a review by Tom McInerny: “What this book cannot show is his quiet, captivating demeanor, which verges on the spiritual To learn the secret of his man’s goodness, one looks for a sign, a indication of how and why he was called. That secret is his ability to ask ‘Why not?’… where others have willingly supported the status quo, embraced stagnation and elevated what is to the level of what must be.” http://www.grameen-info.org/book/hungary.htm
THANKS FOR VISITING PacificSci GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES!
ETHANOL DEMAND MAY DESTABILIZE THE FOOD SUPPLY
Global competition for corn supplies is generating social instability due to soaring prices out of reach in lower income countries that depend on this staple. The rationale of wealthy countries is to reduce dependence on foreign oil, despite ethanol’s low efficiency and corrosive properties. According to the Earth Policy Institute, an epic competition between the world’s 800 million motorists and its 2 billion poor people is emerging (1): the corn needed to fill a 25 gallon tank with ethanol would feed a poor family for a year. The US ethanol boom is sending shockwaves through the food chain: corn for ethanol is now sought-after by petroleum companies, supported by new government subsidies and mandates: even before the price hikes, ethanol production cost the US taxpayer $11 billion from 1979-2000 (US Government Accounting Office (2)), while the soaring cost of corn in the US recently pushed up the cost of tortillas in Mexico by a third. Facing protests, Mexican President Felipe Calderon responded with price controls on corn-based products (3). The projected savings to US and Canadian automotive fuel supplies from adding ethanol could be achieved several times over, at a fraction of the cost, by raising auto fuel efficiency standards by 20%, levels already exceeded in Europe and Asia.
References: 1) Brown L. Distillery demand for grain to fuel cars vastly understated – world may be facing highest grain prices in history. Earth Policy Institute. Jan 4, 2007-1. http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63.htm 2) Reguly E. Lining up at the ethanol trough. Globe and Mail B2. Jan 25, 2007. 3) McKenna B. America’s appetite for ethanol poised to take corn from mouths of the poor. Globe and Mail B11. Jan 23, 2007.
WORLD TRADE NEGOTIATIONS – THE DOHA ROUND
This series of negotiations commenced in 2001 in Doha, Qatar. The aim is to lower trade barriers world-wide, among countries of widely varying economic circumstances. Talks have stalled due to a stand-off between the world’s richest countries and developing ones. Although the round addresses all sectors, the impasse pertains to agriculture. Developing countries need “fair trade” to stimulate rural development and efficiency in production and distribution (1). However, protectionism rampant in developed nations, posing in the guise of other agendas eg., intellectual property rights, the “cultural value” of farming, international labour practices, quality control, professed anxiety about disease importation and even bioterrorism. Lack of progress can be laid at the feet of western agribusiness and the farm lobby. Rich country agricultural subsidies total over $300 billion annually, 6 times the value of development assistance. The average EU cow is subsidized at $2.50 per day; more than most Africans live on (2). Food security is an ethical challenge.
The July 2006 talks in Geneva failed to reach agreement on reducing subsidies and lowering import taxes - negotiations will take months to resume. A successful outcome is increasingly unlikely because the trade authority granted under the Trade Act of 2002 to US President Bush expires in 2007. Any pact will then require approval by an increasingly protectionist US Congress, which in turn discourages the willingness of other countries to participate. As WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy stated in a recent prospective, “If the global trading system is to be relevant, it is the responsibility of all members, in particular the big elephants, to meet this challenge”(3).
References: 1) UNDP. Human Development Report. Millennium Development Goals: a compact among nations to end human poverty. New York: Oxford UP 2003. 2) Williams J. 50 facts that should change the world. Icon Books 2004. 3) Lamy P. Doha’s Final Deadline. The World in 2007. 21st ed. The Economist.
GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY – AN OVERVIEW
Nutrition throughout life determines growth, development and disease susceptibility. Although enough food is produced to feed everyone, maldistribution results in hunger and malnutrition, affecting millions. Most vulnerable are the poor, the marginalized, women, and children. Children are most vulnerable, suffering irreversible growth retardation by stunting and wasting, and impaired cognitive development that impacts throughout life; females are twice as likely as males to experience malnutrition.
Food security would exist if all people, at all times, had physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and preferences. Food insecurity results from unavailability, unstable supplies, insufficient purchasing power, inappropriate distribution, or inadequate household utilization. The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that 852 million people were undernourished in 2000-2, >95% in developing countries.(1) Barriers to food security can be overcome by economically viable and environmentally sustainable means; however, trade practices and policies associated with deregulated markets mitigate against this goal.
Though food and nutrition insecurity is generally declining worldwide, progress in South Asia is sluggish, while the problem is worsening in Africa due to conflicts, droughts, floods, and economic downturns. The number of undernourished African, estimated at 204 million (1999–2001), is double that of two decades earlier. Food shortages are so severe in East and Central Africa that they require regular international intervention.
Reference: Food and Agricultural Organization. The State of Food Security in the World 2004. Rome: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations; 2004.
Book Review: BANKER TO THE POOR - micro-lending and the battle against world poverty. Muhammad Yunus. Founder of Grameen Bank. Public Affairs New York 2003.
We selected this book because of Muhammad Yunus’s recent award of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Peace. Scanning the web, we selected the closing paragraph of a review by Tom McInerny: “What this book cannot show is his quiet, captivating demeanor, which verges on the spiritual To learn the secret of his man’s goodness, one looks for a sign, a indication of how and why he was called. That secret is his ability to ask ‘Why not?’… where others have willingly supported the status quo, embraced stagnation and elevated what is to the level of what must be.” http://www.grameen-info.org/book/hungary.htm
THANKS FOR VISITING PacificSci GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES!
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