27-11-2021

SaTurday, noveMber 27, 2021
5
Women must be heard on climate
FIona Harvey
Women must be enabled to play a
greater role at the Cop26 summit, as
the needs of women and girls are
being overlooked amid the global
climate crisis, a coalition of feminist
groups has said.
The Global Women's Assembly for
Climate Justice has laid out a call for
action at the UN general assembly,
including demands that world leaders
meeting at Cop26, in Glasgow this
November, must end fossil fuel
expansion and move to 100%
renewable energy.
More than 120 groups have signed
the call, to be presented at a six-day
online forum starting on Saturday,
which also includes demands to
promote women's leadership and
equity, protect the rights of
indigenous peoples, improve food
security, recognise a human right to
water, and to protect forests, oceans
and other ecosystems.
Osprey Orielle Lake, of the
Women's Earth and Climate Action
Network, and convener of the
assembly, said: "Every day, we can see
for ourselves forest fires burning,
massive flooding, extreme droughts,
people losing their livelihoods and
lives- - we are in a global climate
emergency.
"As the world prepares for one of
the most important climate talks
since the Paris agreement, we know
solutions exist, and that women are
leading the way." She said Cop26
must deliver a pathway to limiting
global heating to 1.5C, and help
people around the world - particularly
women and children, who are often
the worst affected - build resilience to
the impacts of the climate crisis.
"We need systemic change," she
added. "It's not going to work if we
just barrel through another Cop and
nothing happens." As women are
responsible in many countries for
gathering fuel, water and food, they
often suffer the most when shortages
are caused or made worse by the
climate crisis. As they are usually
lacking land rights, they are also more
likely to be displaced in climate
disasters. Studies have also found the
climate crisis exacerbates genderbased
violence against women.
Neema Namadamu, founder of the
Synergy of Congolese Women's
Associations, from the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, said: "I was
born in the forest, my whole being is
from the forest. Women are on the
frontline, working for climate justice
and affected by climate change. We
are planting trees - without trees there
is no life. We cook with fires and have
fires for light at night. We really need
to start working together."
Many of the remedies to the climate
crisis would also benefit women. For
instance, replacing cooking fires with
solar stoves would reduce indoor air
pollution that affects women and
children more as they spend more
time at home. Bringing clean
renewable energy to low-income
countries would enable more women
and girls to gain access to education,
as without electricity they often lack
the means to study after nightfall.
Mary Robinson, former UN high
commissioner for human rights,
former president of Ireland and chair
of the Elders group of world leaders,
has long been a critic of the lack of
women's representation at Cops, the
"conference of the parties".
She said: "We need to centre
women and girls in the climate
context - women need to be included
at the table. The UK promised the
most inclusive Cop, but it is not. The
Covid crisis has exacerbated and
cemented gender inequality, and we
need to build on the gender action
plan [agreed at the last Cop, in
Madrid, in 2019]."
The Guardian revealed last year that
the UK as host country was fielding an
all-male top team for Glasgow,
headed by the cabinet minister and
Cop president Alok Sharma, with 10
ministers, civil servants and other
officials who were all male. The
government came under heavy
criticism after the revelation, and
appointed Anne-Marie Trevelyan,
now trade secretary, as a "champion"
to focus on climate adaptation and
resilience. About 45% of the Cop26
unit are now women, but almost all of
the most senior public-facing roles are
taken by men.
During the two-week Cop26
summit, there will be a day devoted to
gender issues, which will include a
discussion of the gender action plan.
A Cop26 spokesperson said:
"Women and girls have a critical role
to play in the fight against the climate
crisis - as decision-makers, educators
and advocates at all levels. Progress is
being made, with women among
some of the most influential figures in
international climate diplomacy
today, but there is more to be done.
"The UK is committed to
championing diversity and inclusivity
throughout our Cop26 presidency
and advancing gender equality in
The words of the suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett adapted
into an environmental call to action at Parliament Square in
London.
Photo: Hannah McKay
climate action and finance." Dipti
Bhatnagar, of Friends of the Earth
International, said there were
concerns that women from lowincome
countries would face
obstacles coming to Glasgow, as
arrivals from red list countries must
quarantine in the UK.
The UK government is running a pre-
Cop vaccination programme for
delegates and has pledged to fund the
required quarantine stays for registered
attenders, including party delegates,
observers and media from the global
south who would otherwise find it
difficult to attend the conference.
However, Bhatnagar said: "Cop26
going ahead in person is very unsafe
and inequitable now. Many
organisations have demanded the UK
government postpone."
Community-led upgrade to a Nairobi
slum could be a model for Africa
PeTer MuIrurI
The people who live in
Mukuru, one of the vast,
sprawling "informal
settlements" in Nairobi,
used to dread the rains,
when the slum's mudpacked
lanes would dissolve
into a soggy quagmire of
sewage, stagnant water and
slimy rubbish.
But a few years ago, things
began to change. On a newly
paved road Benedetta
Kasendi is selling sugar cane
from a cart. It gives her a
clean platform, somewhere
she can keep her wares tidy.
Her biggest challenge now is
what to do with the sugarcane
waste as she does not
want to clog up Mukuru's
revamped sewers.
"You can have a piece of
sugar cane here. The place is
clean now," Kasendi tells
Patrick Njoroge,
programme officer at the
Akiba Mashinani Trust
(AMT), a fund that raises
capital for slum
improvement projects.
Njoroge has been working
for the past 10 years on a
masterplan for Mukuru, and
he knows how filthy the
place used to be.
"This road was more of an
open sewer. It is not a place
you could have wished to
spend an extra second.
Walking was dangerous as
one risked falling into the
sewer. This lady set up here
after the road was
rehabilitated - slum
upgrading spurs new
businesses, however small,"
says Njoroge.
A few metres away, Diana
Mwende lines up jerrycans
at a kiosk where free fresh
water is available. "I used to
walk 30 minutes to fetch
water. Today, that walk has
been reduced to two
minutes since these water
points were installed in our
Mukuru in 2010, before the upgrade to the slum began. Photo: Tony Karumba
neighbourhood," she says.
The improvements save
her more than time: "I used
to pay 400 shillings [£2.70]
for water every month and
1,000 shillings to access the
communal toilet. Now I
have a clean toilet by my
house."
Kasendi and Mwende are
among thousands who have
benefited from a
community-based
programme to upgrade one
of Africa's biggest informal
settlements and whose
success will be used to
transform similar slums in
Kenya and beyond.
The ambitious project
follows consultations with
more than 40 organisations
led by the Muungano
Alliance, an umbrella body
driving reforms in Kenya's
informal settlements, and
including universities, civil
societies, the private sector
and Nairobi county
government. The goal is to
make the slum a "healthy,
functional
city
neighbourhood".
Community involvement
in improving the sprawling
243-hectare (600 acre)
slum was the key. A resident
was chosen to represent
groups of households and
thousands of people were
asked for their views; 250
community mobilisers were
engaged to raise awareness
of the project. Residents
were trained to collect data -
a huge task given the size of
Mukuru, which has a
population generally
estimated to be at least
400,000. Every latrine,
water tap and electricity
pole in the settlement was
mapped.
One of the most urgent
issues was toilets, and there
were many requests to
replace the 3,800 filthy pit
latrines. Now, 1,000
households have access to
flushing toilets and running
water.
Kennedy odede
The UK's cut to its aid budget comes to
about £4bn a year. Such a dramatic
reduction is a blow to many, but most of
all to the local organisations who
perpetually find themselves last in line
for funding.
New research by the Vodafone
Foundation reveals that, too often, only a
small proportion of philanthropic
funding earmarked for African
development reaches local, African-led
civil society organisations. Instead, most
development funding favours
intermediaries in the global north and
international organisations.
Funding that does reach Africa is
typically distributed among locally
registered international NGO
counterparts and then allocated to
African-led organisations on a project
basis. This limits the scope and flexibility
of activities on the ground and promotes
aid reliance, instead of durable,
transformative change.
It's been a year since the racial
reckoning that erupted after George
Floyd's murder. At the time, I wrote that
calls for racial justice on the streets, in
government offices and boardrooms
must extend to the international
development sector.
A year on, the report on funding is a
sobering reminder that the racial bias
and microaggressions I have experienced
as an African leader and CEO are deeper,
more pernicious and prevalent than even
I, someone who lives this every day,
understood. To respond and rebuild,
racial bias needs to be replaced with trust,
redistribution of power,
acknowledgment of a global anti-black
bias, and flexible funding.
During Covid-19, we have seen the
power of local actors to effectively
respond to the pandemic and protect
marginalised communities, where topdown
institutions have failed. In some
ways, Covid-19 has erased the
boundaries between humanitarian aid,
as it is traditionally known, and longterm
development work.
For example, my organisation, Shining
Hope for Communities (Shofco), was
Feny nuroKTavIanI
Indonesia's population has
increased by 32.56 million
people over a decade with an
average population growth
rate of 3.26% per year. The
increasing human population
creates a predicament
regarding the availability of
land because the existing
lands must be utilized for the
increasing housing needs.
Meanwhile, lands are also
vital for food needs and
agricultural development.
Indonesia is experiencing a
speed loss of agricultural land
around 140,000 - 187,000
hectares per year, due to the
increase in residential and
industrial areas. The gap
between food demand, food
production, and land
availability need to be
resolved.
There is a hope to create
new agricultural lands from
such areas which people
rarely glimpse, namely the
suboptimal land. Suboptimal
land, often known as
marginal land or idle land, is
low-quality land that lacks
economic value and refers to
land that is not used due to
poor natural conditions, but
is capable of producing crops,
including agricultural
production.
Suboptimal land is rarely
used as land for agriculture
because it is considered to
have low productivity - it is
often infertile, marginal, low
potential, poor in resources,
degraded and difficult to
cultivate for productive
agricultural land.
However, limited and
decreasing fertile land forces
us to develop innovations in
meeting future food needs by
utilizing suboptimal land.
Around 157.2 million ha of
land in Indonesia is
suboptimal, consisting of
123.1 million ha of dry land
and 34.1 million ha of
wetlands, including
peatlands.
The sustainable use of
abandoned or degraded land
can be a solution to secure
food supplies. This is because
the harvest produced on
suboptimal land will increase
the availability and
accessibility of food,
Anti-black bias in funding
should be addressed
Children learn how to wash hands to prevent the spread of Covid at
Kibera slum in nairobi, March 2020. Photo: yasuyoshi Chiba
found by independent researchers to be
the most recognised responder to the
pandemic in Kenya's informal
settlements in 2020. Despite the fact that
Shofco is not a humanitarian agency, we
had boots on the ground and worked
with community leaders to mobilise a
rapid response to Covid-19, reaching 2.4
million urban slum dwellers with health
screenings, food relief, clean water, cash
support and more. Perhaps the deep
community trust that organisations like
mine have built is the true enabler for
long-term change. We need the sector to
put real funding behind the idea that
proximate leaders best understand
problems and therefore the solutions.
During Covid, we are seeing the walls
come down in the sector. Going forward,
all development actors will be expected to
know how to respond to crisis situations.
For this reason, it has never been more
important for development funders to
loosen restrictions and increase flexible
especially for the
surrounding area.
Imagine if population
growth is not balanced with
an increase in food supply
due to limited land
availability. A country with
too much dependence on
imports to meet its food
needs might disrupt its
stability.
The solution to this
problem is by utilizing
suboptimal land. Suboptimal
land can strengthen the
construction of local food
barns - which can overcome
three main issues: inequality
in food production centers,
long and ineffective food
distribution, and farmers'
welfare. In addition, local
food barns can meet food
security in an unexpected
disaster such as the current
pandemic.
Strengthening the use of
these marginal lands which
are accessible to locals to
produce food commodity
production can increase the
availability, consumption,
and sales of food
commodities and help
improve community
nutrition.
To maintain food security
by making use of suboptimal
land, we can apply "think
globally, act locally" to picture
broadly and take action
locally adapted to regional
conditions.
Thinking globally is
important when the market
cannot adequately serve the
(global) community's food
needs due to the interruption
of physical access caused by
disaster or disruption of
economic access due to price
spikes, or like during this
pandemic. Then, we can take
action locally by increasing
local food productivity by
utilizing suboptimal land
used as gardens or fields as
an alternative that is always
ready to be harvested.
Several studies have
identified effective ways to
convert suboptimal land into
productive lands, such as the
suitability of wetlands for
growing chilies and rubber
corn intercropping. At the
same time, agriculture on dry
land is suitable for rainfed
crops that depend on rainfall.
Agriculture on suboptimal
land can be done well by
paying attention to suitable
soil characteristics, effective
water management, and
appropriate planting
methods to optimally
produce
various
commodities, including
secondary crops, vegetables,
and fruits.
With the support of
knowledge and technology,
we can experiment on which
method is the most effective
for regulating the land. We
can combine traditional
techniques and modern
technology in overcoming
funding to local partners. It is imperative
that we reshape the development sector,
putting local actors at the centre, where
they are best placed to respond. As my
mother has always told me: "Those who
wear the shoes, know where it pinches."
As the pandemic rages on and deepens
the wedge of inequality worldwide, local
practitioners and marginalised
communities on the ground have run out
of patience for platitudes, debates or
lengthy strategic planning processes.
We are also out of patience for empty
promises to "do better" or "examine bias"
without significant shifts in funding and
donor accountability.
International donors and policymakers
must make immediate and
demonstrable efforts to shift power,
resources, and decision-making to local
organisations that are in tune with
community-level realities and alliances,
and are able to act in real-time, towards
change that is community-driven.
Use of unconventional
land for food security
Indonesia has a vast tract of suboptimal land that is rarely used. Photo: Collected
agricultural constraints on
suboptimal land.
The success of suboptimal
land in agricultural
development can be seen in
farm practices in South
Sumatra Province. Around
15% or 1.4 million ha of land
in South Sumatra Province
are dominated by swamp and
peatland, and 89.7% of the
wetlands are plant rice,
accounting for 73.7% of the
total harvested area. Wetland
cultivation has contributed to
local food security by
delivering the expected
results and sustainability.
As an alternative to
economic revitalization and
meeting the community's
food needs, farmers in South
Sumatra also use peatlands to
cultivate secondary crops and
horticulture such as rice,
corn, cassava, beans, and
various other vegetables.
Plantation practices on
peatlands are carried out in
an environmentally friendly
and sustainable manner.
Therefore, the suboptimal
land has potency significant
to be used as a strategic
choice for developing
agricultural production areas
in the future and as a source
of supporting national food
security. Especially to
compensate for the shrinking
of arable land and increased
production for food security
and
agribusiness
development.