Africa – All Points of View

Category: Africa

worker | July 27, 2016 | 9:20 pm | Africa, political struggle | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin
July 26, 2016 (160626)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

At the 21st International AIDS Conference in South Africa last week,
“optimism faded as delegates arrived to news that donor countries
had reduced global HIV funding by more than $1 billion from 2014 to
2015. … Nearly 20 million people are [still] in need of
antiretroviral therapy. [and] nearly half of the $44 billion cost
could be unfunded between 2016 and 2020.” – Washington Post, July
25, 2016

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/hiv1607.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/hiv1607.php

Overshadowed by the U.S. presidential campaign and by acts of
terrorism around the world, the 21st International AIDS Conference
was held in Durban, South Africa earlier this month. Sixteen years
after the previous International AIDS conference in Durban in 2000,
which marked a turning point in international action on AIDS, there
were successes to celebrate. In 2000, the only people receiving life
securing antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in Africa and other
developing countries were accessing medicines through clinical
trials. The few that were rich enough purchased life through private
healthcare. Sixteen years later, 17 million people across the world
receive ARVs, mostly through public health care systems. This
accomplishment is unprecedented, and UNAIDS has laid out the goal of
putting “an end to AIDS.”

But there were also dire warnings of the danger of reduced
international commitment to confront the continued death toll.
Africa, and in particular South Africa and neighboring countries in
Southern Africa, continue to be the epicenter of the pandemic.
Worldwide, the reality is that only 51 percent of people know their
status and of the 37 million people living with HIV, only 17 million
are on treatment. Almost one in five South African adults are living
with HIV, and the percentages are even higher in Botswana, Lesotho,
and Swaziland. And, noted International AIDS Society president
Linda-Gail Bekker, “there is a horrible funding gap we have to
address. We had so much money when we didn’t have the tools. Now we
have the tools and we don’t have the money.”

This AfricaFocusÂ Bulletin contains one essay by South African AIDS
activist Mark Heywood, and interviews with UNAIDS executive director
Michel SidibÃ© and International AIDS Society president Linda-Gail
Bekker.

For an excellent series of maps, tables, and charts on the current
status of HIV/AIDS in Africa, visit
http://www.afri-dev.info/ – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/hhzaln9

For coverage of the Durban conference by South Africa’s Daily Vox,
visit http://tinyurl.com/hfnjmns

For the Washington Post article quoted above, go to
http://tinyurl.com/hjr4vf2

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on health issues, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-health.php

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

AfricaFocus Break from Publication

AfricaFocus Bulletin will be taking a break from publication for the
next six weeks. Automated news feeds on the website (
http://www.africafocus.org) will continue to be updated regularly.
AfricaFocus social media will also be updated occasionally during
this period.

Many thanks to those subscribers who have sent in a voluntary
subscription payment this year to support AfricaFocus Bulletin. Your
continued support is needed to continue publication and to expand
AfricaFocus outreach. Send in a check or pay on-line with Paypal.
See http://www.africafocus.org/support.php for details.

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

The response to AIDS has shown another world is possible

Mark Heywood

Daily Maverick, July 19, 2016

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za – Direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/hk6kosx

[Mark Heywood is Executive Direction of Section27 and an executive
member of the Treatment Action Campaign]

We live in a nasty, fragmented, divided world, where hatred is more
and more ruling the roost. Glorious bastards who have been pushed
beyond the pale of civilised behaviour are on a killing spree. Their
intention is to provoke new wars and civil wars where person fights
person on the basis of differences based on race, or religion or
ethnicity.

A gleeful arms industry has found a new market for drones with
bombs. The indiscriminate ‘fightback’ against terror frequently make
matters worse. Ironically groups like ISIS are aiming to push people
into the hands of bigots like Trump, Marie Le Pen and Nigel Farage.
They want more violence against marginalised people. They want
racial and religious civil wars.

It’s a zero-sum war game.

While reports of these horrors washed across our TV screens, the
21st International AIDS Conference began in Durban. Sadly, the
energy and idealism that is evident here risks being eclipsed by
global instability. Yet, in the AIDS activist movement and the 30-
year response to AIDS, we have seen glimpses of another world;
another way of living and loving, dying and doing business.

It is extraordinary.

Sixteen years ago the International AIDS conference first came to
Durban. At that point, the only people receiving life securing
antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in Africa and other developing
countries were accessing medicines through clinical trials. The few
that were rich enough purchased life through private healthcare.

Sixteen years later, 17-million people across the world receive
ARVs, mostly through public health care systems. This accomplishment
is unprecedented in the history of any medicine. Seventeen million
deaths have been averted. Although activists are rightly critical of
UNAIDS’ (http://www.unaids.org) talk of the end of AIDS, the fact
that an end can even be discussed â€“ and that it is theoretically
possible â€“ indicates just how far we have come.

How did we come so far?

People who stood up for their human rights achieved this. Activists
achieved this.

In the 1980s AIDS began its deadly rampage as an epidemic of
recrimination and prejudice. Stigma is by no means over. Yet, the
way in which people with HIV have stood up for each other has gone a
long way towards breaking the stigma. Solidarity with people most at
risk has won greater acceptance and recognition of sex workers,
understanding of difference in gender and sexual orientation and the
rights of drug users, prisoners, migrants.

Where once AIDS was marked by total hatred, there are now
significant pockets of respect for love and diversity, solidarity
and empathy, in every country in the world. A long way to go, yes,
but a start.

Other profoundly important things have happened. Once upon a time
almost every poor person with HIV was denied life by pharmaceutical
companies intent on amassing vast profits from essential medicines.
Activists shamed drug companies, challenged them in court, exposed
their corrupt practices. Prices tumbled. As a result different
business models began to emerge, ones that could make smaller
profits from meeting the needs of larger numbers of people. Prices
tumbled and tumbled.

Activists confronted the whole model of intellectual property
‘rights’ and by doing so were able to push back the WTO Agreement on
Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property, an ‘agreement’ that
had been forced on developing countries in 1995 at the height of
capitalist triumphalism. As a result a massive market opened for
generic companies based in India in particular. If similar
challenges were mounted around drugs for cancer or other causes of
illness millions more lives are there to be saved.

Learning how to make a market out of genuinely meeting needs and
human rights is something other corporates must learn, including for
decent food, housing and a hundred other of life’s necessities. That
battle must still be joined by other advocates, that wisdom still
acquired by a short-sighted business community.

So, AIDS is about AIDS. But it’s also about so much more than AIDS.
It’s about justice and social justice. In the words of Edwin
Cameron: “AIDS has taken us on a journey of light.”

In the weeks before this conference I warned that the job is only
half done.

The global statistics remain frightening. According to UNAIDS:

* There are 1.1-million deaths due to AIDS a year;

* There are 5,700 new HIV infections a day;

* Epidemics of TB and MDR-TB run largely unchecked.

My fears were not unfounded. As we sit in our padded seats, or
rather as we march, sing, argue, meet, learn from each other,
debate, shout, advocate, commiserate and occasionally cry, it’s
becoming clear that this glimmer of hope risks being snuffed out.
Conferences like this that refocus human rights activism, where
politicians come to account to people, might be the last kick of a
dying horse.

In activist meetings a very different picture is emerging to the
optimistic one that government officials, ours included, wanted to
make the AIDS story. There are medicine stock-outs in many
countries. Sex workers and drugs users are humiliated, imprisoned
and sometimes murdered. Poor people in rich countries are being left
behind by the artificial segmentation dreamed up by some bright
spark in the World Bank that declares certain developing countries
‘middle income’, ignoring the local context of inequality,
corruption and severe deprivation.

Try telling the 12-million hungry people in SA or 25% unemployed
that ours is a middle income country. “Dream on”, they will reply,
“we would be happy if it was a ‘some-income’ country, rather than a
no-income country.”

Human rights respecting countries like South Africa are silent on
the human rights abuses by our economic allies in countries like
China, India and Russia. Attacks on civil society organisations and
activists are growing. In India, the Lawyers Collective â€“ an
organisation that has shone a light for human rights for 35 years â€“
and 15,000 other NGOs are under attack.

Finally donor funding from developed countries for preventing and
treating HIV and TB is declining fast. As right wing governments
rise in the West and as the unwinnable ‘war on terrorism’ consumes
ever greater resources, the appetite for matters-just is declining.
If we are to meet the target of universal access to ARV treatment
UNAIDS has announce that there is a funding gap of $7 billion a
year. But apparently taxpayers in developed countries feel that they
have done enough now.

My answer to that, dear US Ambassador Gaspard and others, is to
appeal to you that your governments try a little harder to talk to
your taxpayers. Show your citizens how their investments in others’
lives have brought us half way across the river to the “end of
AIDS”. Appeal to them to continue their largesse. Explain to them
why their investment in AIDS is something they should take proud
ownership of, how it has been an investment in humanity, health
systems and social fabric. It has saved millions of lives. Tell them
the job’s not done. Tell them the world will be safer for it.

Try also to persuade them that today’s way to win the war on
tomorrow’s terrorism is in large part with love and respect for
human rights, solidarity and empathy, inclusion rather than
exclusion.

If we do not arrest these developments the response to HIV risks
evolving once more into one based on market calculations about
profit and investment frameworks rather than fundamental human
rights. We will never come back to Durban to celebrate.

The question we have to ask, the question you have to ask, is
whether we will allow this recession?

There are 18,000 people at this AIDS conference. We are
0.00000000000000000000001% of the world’s population. We are
0.000000001% of the 37-million people still alive with HIV in the
world. We have a huge burden on our shoulders. But we also have the
power of human rights law, of advances medicine and scientists, of
morality, of love. In the words of the Deputy President Cyril
Ramaphosa, who opened the conference, “We must throw ideas at each
other, not stones. It is through human action that we will end this
epidemic.”

So, will this conference be the last kick of a dying horse?

It depends on you.

**************************************************************

Step by step: The road to ending the AIDS epidemic

By Sophie Cousins

Devex, 18 July 2016

http://www.devex.com – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/jrfz3p8

Michel SidibÃ© has a big job ahead of him. By 2020, the executive
director of UNAIDS wants 90 percent of people living with HIV to
know their status, 90 percent of people who know their status to
access antiretroviral treatment, and 90 percent of people on
treatment to have suppressed viral loads.

While achieving these 90-90-90 goals would set the world on course
to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030–in line with the Sustainable
Development Goals–the reality is that only 51 percent of people
know their status and of the 37 million people living with HIV, 17
million are on ART. As the 21st International AIDS Conference opens
this week in Durban, South Africa, activists are calling for
treatment for all.

Meanwhile, HIV infections among adults are not on the decline. In
fact, infections are on the rise across some regions.

While there are promising new prevention tools such as pre-exposure
prophylaxis (PrEP), it’s not yet widely available in many settings,
particularly for key populations.

And all this is happening while funding for response is on the
decline, with more emphasis on countries most affected by HIV to
finance their own responses, as many transition to middle-income
country status.

Devex sat down with SidibÃ© at AIDS2016 to discuss the road ahead.
Here are some highlights from that conversation:

Q: UNAIDS has set the very ambitious 90-90-90 targets to be achieved
by 2020. There’s 17 million people out of 37 million living with HIV
on ART. What needs to be done to scale up people’s access to ART?

A: We have been ambitious because during the last five years we’ve
been able to double the number of people put on treatment, which
means that countries were not overwhelmed by the problem and they
were able to define their strategy, to reach people and make sure
that treatment was available. The biggest challenge I personally
feel will be this one: the health systems. The huge number of people
[receiving] treatment is [shedding] light on the inefficiencies of
our health systems and the capacity of the health system to absorb
and to be able to scale up quickly, more than they have been able to
do.

If we don’t have a shift in the service delivery approach–to think
about strengthening the community, reinforcing the interface between
the last service provider and the community, and bringing civil
society and others to become providers of services–it will be very
difficult for us. That’s why I’m calling for 1 million community
health workers to be implemented really quickly.

[Secondly], financing will be critical. What I’m seeing right now
has scared me, if we continue to harbor the flattening and reduction
of funding. We cannot lie to each other. I cannot see how Malawi,
Zambia, even South Africa can get to 6 million people on treatment
without any financial support. We need to continue to call for
global solidarity. I think financing will be a key issue.

[Thirdly], how we will reach hard-to-reach people–those key
populations who are today representing 35 percent of new infections?
If we don’t have a strategy that can really quicken the pace and
reach them and get them treatment services, then our ambitious goals
will not be achieved.

Q: A recent UNAIDS report found that new HIV infections among adults
have stalled, failing to decline for at least five years. In eastern
Europe and central Asia, new HIV infections rose by 57 percent
between 2010 and 2015. What role do you think PrEP can play in HIV
prevention and how can you expand its use among countries that are
against it?

A: We are completely supportive of PrEP. We are working with
countries to try and introduce PrEP in countries such as South
Africa among sex workers. We are [also] trying to see how in Eastern
Europe and Central Asia we can start pushing to make sure they can
have the appropriate policy reform which can help them to target
people who inject drugs so it can reduce infections. I think they
are not closed to that [idea], even though we face the dilemma that
we continue to believe that harm reduction programs should be put in
place, that people should not be criminalized, and that people
should not be facing prejudice and exclusion.

Even if with PrEP, if you cannot come for services, you cannot get
the pill â€¦ that is the trade-off we need to manage properly–not
just making sure that a pill becomes the magic response but
restoring the dignity of people, making sure they are not hiding and
not discriminated against. There’s a tendency to think that with
PrEP pills will help us to resolve issues of infection. That’s true,
but if you don’t reach people, if you have a series of bad laws that
are not removed, it will be impossible for us to implement because
the impact will be little.

Q: There’s insufficient coverage of harm reduction programs across
the globe and policies that criminalize people who inject drugs. The
United Nations’ target to reduce HIV transmission among people who
inject drugs by 50 percent by last year was missed. How can UNAIDS
better advocate for harm reduction programs?

A: A good example is China: It was [previously] zero tolerance for
people who inject drugs previously. What we did, was really bring
the leadership of China to really understand the evidence–the
science and the strategy information–coming from other countries.
China today has the biggest harm reduction program in Asia. I think
groups that are put on those programs are close to zero new
infections. So it means that the pragmatic approach of China helped
to completely change the face of the epidemic among drug users.

And there’s a lot of uncertainty around funding for AIDS response in
the future. How will UNAIDS advocate for funding for key
populations?

We are working closely with PEPFAR who in New York announced $100
million for key populations. I think it’s a catalytic fund and, for
me, that’s what we need, to have the courage to say “these are
targeted funds” [that] will help us to see how to better reach those
people with a community network. I think it will certainly bring
different modalities in the future–how to finance those groups and
how to support them–because until now they were part of a package
of financing.

Having the courage to say that we have $100 million behind you and
want to succeed, that really could completely change the way we can
leverage [the funding] to scale up. We will see a lot of community
groups who will start to be more vocal because they can get small
amounts that help them to demonstrate that they can have an impact
if they are given more resources.

Q: Given that only 51 percent of people know their status, what role
do think self-testing is going to play in the future? How can we
increase its outreach?

A: I think we need to completely change our approach to testing.
It’s good to go for routine testing and make sure that we make
testing more convenient. Self-testing can therefore play a very
important role, on one condition: we need to think about our service
delivery approach. It’s not possible to have self-testing when you
don’t have a different health system, which can be really big not on
just the health system per se but a system for health. We need to
think about systems for health–the community approach, so we have
community health workers, a subsystem of health, which will be able
to really deal with this self-testing [and] go door-to-door because
they are trusted, have the capacity and are close. But, if not, we
cannot tell people to go self-test … It will fail completely
because again we’ll have a lot of people who will test positive but
will not have the ability to access services–they will be scared
and they will not trust anyone.

What we need to think about in this period is how we electrify a
different type of communication approach. Most young people are
complacent. They don’t see people dying of AIDS. So we have a bulk
of young people that need not just to be protected, but becoming
actors of transformation in terms of prevention. That is, for me, a
future challenge.

*****************************************************

Aids Conference 2016 – the Gains, the Gaps, the Next Global Steps

The Conversation (Johannesburg), July 22, 2016

http://allafrica.com/stories/201607220830.html

Interview

By Linda-Gail Bekker, University of Cape Town

As the 21st International AIDS Conference wraps up in Durban, South
Africa, Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, incoming International AIDS
Society President, talks to The Conversation Africa health and
medicine editor Candice Bailey about what was achieved and what
still needs to be done.

Q: What are the three interventions or innovations that stand out at
the conference in terms of taking the fight against HIV
forward?

A: There has been exciting work about how we do treatment better to
make sure we get to the 34 million who are infected. And that’s
absolutely critical. We have to reach those 34 million people but we
know that health systems, particularly in the sub-Saharan region,
are struggling. So there was some wonderful work on differentiated
models of care, how we can do business more effectively and
efficiently and ways we can do the steps in the cascade more
efficiently.

And I’ve loved some of the testing innovations. Addressing all the
steps from testing is critical.

Secondly I’m passionate about primary prevention but I think we’ve
got some gaps on how we can do it. I’m a great proponent of daily
pre-exposure prophylaxis and I really think we should roll it out
because it works. But I’m very excited about the prospect of what’s
coming down the road in terms of less frequent dosing for pre-
exposure prophylaxis.

Number three is a fresh approach to adolescents. This conference has
reinvigorated the notion that we have to get adolescents to the
table. We have done well, I think, in getting adolescents to be
really well represented. And it works. You feel their voice.

The message I have heard here is that we need to have an integrated
approach. We can’t just talk HIV treatment or just HIV prevention.
It has to take into consideration structural issues, behavioural
issues, rights, access — a lot of issues. And I think it becomes a
model of how we really look after our adolescents around the world
and HIV is a great catalyst within that.

Q: Based on the discussions at the conference where are the gaps in
the global HIV response?

A: At the moment it’s money. There is a horrible funding gap that we
have to address. We had so much money when we didn’t have the tools.
Now we have the tools and we don’t have the money. I feel desperate
about that.

In 2000 we missed opportunities because we didn’t have our systems
and our thinking right. I’m taking collective responsibility but
there was a leadership gap and we lost lives because of that. Here
we stand now and if we don’t act in the way that we should, we will
have lots of lost lives and infections that we don’t have to. And I
don’t want that on my record.

When we get help from Sir Elton John, Prince Harry, Princess Mabel
from The Netherlands and Charlize Theron to shine a focus on this we
are eternally grateful. We need help from everyone to carry the
message that the job isn’t done. Otherwise we will miss the moment
and we will have regrets. And I don’t want to be in that camp.

I am very pleased that the Replenishment of the Global Fund
Conference is being held in Canada because I think the Prime
Minister of Canada is really showing that he can get the job done.
Justin Trudeau’s a great example of moving forward when he needs to
move forward and doing uncomfortable things when they have to be
done because it’s right. I have a sense that he does what’s right.
So I’m excited about that because I think that’s important.

We have to keep showing people that it’s not only the right thing
and the compassionate thing and the humane thing but that it makes
good financial sense. We are bleeding where we don’t need to bleed
in terms of finance. And if we can shut it down earlier we will do
the world a favour.

Q: What is the message that is coming out of this conference?

A: The job is not done. We have tools that can be deployed; we have
a lot of work to do. We have the energy but this is not the time to
not have the resources. It’s a collective global effort. And we’re
excited. Durban has reÂenergised the whole sense of community and
engagement. Now we need the rest of the world to get on board. And I
think we can do it. The optimism that I have felt here is real. But
the reality is that if we don’t move forward from today that
trajectory will
flatten out.

…

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

Zimbabwe: #ThisFlag

worker | July 17, 2016 | 9:02 pm | Africa, Analysis, political struggle | Comments closed

Zimbabwe: #ThisFlag

AfricaFocus Bulletin
July 15, 2016 (160715)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“The Zimbabwean regime did not expect Pastor Evan Mawarire to be set
free on Wednesday night. But unprecedented public pressure forced
the magistrate’s hand, with a little help from blundering police.
Look away now, Comrade Bob, because Zimbabwe will never be the same
again.” – Daily Maverick, July 14, 2016

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/zim1607a.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/zim1607a.php

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a short news report on the
release of Pastor Evan Mawarire, who sparked the #ThisFlag citizens’
protest movement in Zimbabwe, and excerpts from a longer analytical
article by Zimbabwean political analyst Alex Magaisa.

For short powerful statements by Pastor Mawarire, from AprilÂ and
earlier this week, just before his arrest see

and

Another AfricaFocus Bulletin released today, not sent out by email
but available on the web at http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/zim1607b.php, includes a press
release and excerpts on a report released today in Harare: “Working
without Pay: Wage Theft in Zimbabwe.” This study, by the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ) and the
Solidarity Center, documents the failure of both government and the
private sector in Zimbabwe to pay wages to ordinary workers, despite
lavish pay and benefits for top executives.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Zimbabwe, go to
http://www.africafocus.org/country/zimbabwe.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Zimbabwe: Power to the pastor, power to the people as Mawarire walks

Simon Allison

Daily Maverick, July 14, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/zsebl3k

The Zimbabwean regime did not expect Pastor Evan Mawarire to be set
free on Wednesday night. But unprecedented public pressure forced
the magistrate’s hand, with a little help from blundering police.
Look away now, Comrade Bob, because Zimbabwe will never be the same
again.

Harare Magistrate’s Court may once have been an impressive building,
but no longer. The walls are cracked. The paint is peeling. The
windows of Court Six, where Pastor Evan Mawarire’s remand hearing
was held on Wednesday, are caked with dirt. Only half the ceiling
lights work, and the wall clock is stuck at a little after seven
o’clock.

As a symbol for everything that’s wrong with Zimbabwe, it’s a
writer’s dream, as is the court’s location on the inauspiciously
named Rotten Row.

Except that something unexpected happened. The usual show trial
script called for Mawarire’s charges to be upheld, and bail denied,
to make sure that the state keeps him where they like to keep the
troublemakers: behind bars.

But no one followed the script. On Wednesday, rising above the
symbolism of these shabby surroundings, something went right in
Zimbabwe.

The first to break ranks were the lawyers, nearly 200 of them, who
volunteered to represent Mawarire en masse. Not all of them could
fit into the jam-packed courtroom – strictly standing room only –
but those who did were conspicuous in their sharp suits and business
attire.

They became even more conspicuous when Magistrate Vakayi Chikwekwe
asked who was representing the accused. As one, the lawyers in the
room raised their Law Society cards, an extraordinary image of
solidarity that gave goose bumps to everyone else watching – except,
perhaps, the none-too-undercover intelligence operatives, who
appeared to be carefully noting down faces and names. That the
lawyers present were undeterred by this danger underscores their
bravery.

“There are times when we have to shed our status as lawyers and push
for justice as citizens. It does not require a lawyer to see that
there is injustice going on here,” said Belvin Bopato, an attorney.

The hundreds, and at times thousands, of people gathered outside
were doing something equally unprecedented. They were protesting. In
Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, protesting is a dangerous, even fatal, activity.
Which is why it doesn’t happen very often, and never in these
numbers. But here they were on Wednesday, draped in the national
flag which has become such a subversive symbol of resistance,
chanting and singing and praying all through the day and early
evening as they waited for the magistrate to deliver his verdict.

“It’s been a while since Zimbabwe last had a voice, but now it has
found a voice. I’m here to stand in solidarity with Pastor Evan,”
said activist Mlambo Garikai.

The most unexpected plot twist, however, was delivered courtesy of
Magistrate Chikwekwe himself. It was possible to feel some sympathy
for the magistrate, who found himself in a classic Catch-22: flout
the law but keep his political bosses happy; or follow the law but
anger his superiors, who have the power to make him very
uncomfortable indeed.

It was obviously a difficult decision. Even after starting
proceedings six hours late, Chikwekwe called several long
adjournments, and only delivered his verdict full 90 minutes after
it was due.

As they waited, the audience inside the courtroom sang and danced,
while the large crowd outside began to get impatient. Had Mawarire
not been released, a confrontation between riot police and
protesters would probably have been unavoidable.

But the law won. After lecturing the police and prosecutors about
their mistakes – most notably in substituting the original charges
with a much more serious treason charge just minutes before the
hearing began – Chikwekwe told Mawarire he was free to go.

The courtroom erupted into cheers and ululations, as did the
thousands of people waiting outside, who by now were holding
candles. “I feel ecstatic. We have shown that if we can come
together we can push the system to work normally. What happened here
today gives us hope,” said Elton Kapfunde, one of the pastor’s many
supporters.

Ngonidzashe Marera, a friend of Mawarire’s, said that the verdict
showed the strength of the pastor’s faith. “I’m over the moon. God
is there for us. Good has prevailed. Man’s arms are too short to box
with God, clearly.”

If Robert Mugabe’s regime falls – and that day is considerably
closer today than it was yesterday – then historians will look back
and pinpoint this as the moment when the tide began to turn. There’s
no doubt that the sheer scale of the solidarity movement frightened
the ruling party’s decision-makers, who never intended to let
Mawarire walk, and may even have forced Magistrate Chikwekwe’s hand.

On Wednesday, Zimbabweans in their thousands took on the regime, and
won. And now that they’ve done it once, they can and will do it
again.

************************************************

Citizens’ movement and the resurgence of the repressive state in
Zimbabwe

Alex T. Magaisa

July 8, 2016

http://alexmagaisa.com – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/jxx32ed

[Excerpts only. Full text available at links above]

[Alex Magaisa lectures at Kent Law School, University of Kent and
can be contacted at wamagaisa@gmail.com Twitter: @wamagaisa]

In one incident, a young man is dragged out of his room, his pair of
trousers half down and without shoes. He tries desperately to raise
his trousers and pleads with them. But they don’t listen and they
don’t care. They pummel him with baton sticks as if they are beating
an unwelcome intruder. He falls to the ground, perhaps the self-
preservation instinct to make himself small, but they respond by
beating him up with even greater intensity. He yelps in pain and
tries to cover his head to minimise further damage but this does not
deter them. They yank him up and continue to beat him as if they
were beating a drum.

It’s not fiction. … These are the images of Zimbabwe which the
world has been seeing this week – a reminder of the dark days when
the Zimbabwean state has typically turned upon its citizens with
intense brutality. The beating happened after commuter omnibus
drivers went on strike, protesting against too many roadblocks by
police, at which members of the police force extort bribes from them
on a daily basis.

Then on Wednesday [July 6], Zimbabwe witnessed the #ZimShutDown2016,
following a call for a mass stay-away from work. Harare and most
cities were deserted. People had heeded the call. There was a heavy
police and army presence in towns around the country as well as
rural centres like Jerera, where pictures showed scores of police
roaming the centre. Social media was down for a while, with people
unable to access WhatsApp and most suspected the state had a hand in
the breakdown.

Efforts by government spin-doctors to downplay the mass stay-away
failed. Schools were closed and unpaid for the month of June, civil
servants in the health and education sectors led the way and stayed
away from work. Government had to deploy the military in public
health institutions to provide cover. Apart from the violent
clampdown, the state issued several warnings to the public. The
instruments of repression were being mobilised. This typical of the
Zimbabwean state, reacting like a bully who suddenly panics at the
sight of a challenge from an unexpected and unfamiliar source and
whose first instinct is to flex muscles and bare teeth in order to
frighten with a generous amount of threats.

Historic moment

When the story of this week’s events is told to future generations,
its place and significance in the trajectory of Zimbabwean political
history will not be lost on historians and keen observers of
Zimbabwean politics. … I believe the events of last week,
beginning with the protests in Beitbridge are a seminal moment in
the sense that they demonstrate for the first time in a long period,
a re-awakening of the citizens and a demonstration of their capacity
to assert themselves in their capacity as citizens, not as followers
of political parties or organised civil society. …

The #ZimShutDown of this week was, in some ways, unique in its
galvanising and mobilising effect without the aid or leadership of
traditional actors on the political and civil society landscape. For
the first time in a long time, the traditional political actors,
both in the ruling establishment and the opposition were by-standers
in an historic moment championed largely by ordinary citizens. I am
careful to say for the first time in a long time principally because
it is not the first time this has happened in our polity. The events
of 1998 spring to older minds, when Zimbabweans came together in a
huge flood of dissent against deteriorating economic conditions.
Taking the lead was the then vibrant labour movement, with the ZCTU
at the apex, led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Many young Zimbabweans have
only known him as an opposition politicians, but at the time, he was
a leader of the labour unions. Civil society movement was still then
in its nascent stages but those were the moments when organisations
such as the National Constitutional Assembly began to assume a
leading role in campaigning for political reform under the flagship
call for constitutional reforms. For the first time since
independence, the people of Zimbabwe heeded the call for a mass
stay-away. It was also unique in that many employers backed the
call, signalling an interesting milieu ideologies in one moment; a
strange mixture of capitalists and socialists.

Lessons from the past

This is not the place to narrate and analyse the historic events of
the late 1990s. … I also make reference to 1998 so that the
present generation of leaders and activists in the citizens’
movement has a wider appreciation of the context within which
#ZimShutDown2016 and related activities are taking place. While
there are key aspects that distinguish the current citizens’
movement, such as the role and influence of social media, it is by
no means an invention of the current generation. It is important to
locate it neither as the beginning of history of activism nor the
end of it, but as part of an incremental process that has been in
motion for a long time and has manifested in various forms and has
been prosecuted by various actors at each stage. … Zimbabwe’s
post-independence struggle for democratic reform is against a well-
established and deeply-entrenched electoral authoritarian regime,
this citizens’ movement must be seen in this context as the latest
of waves chipping away at a wall which is backed by the military.

While the older generation should be more receptive to the new wave
of activism and its leaders and not view them with suspicion, the
new generation of activists must also be mindful of and respect
history and those who have already been in the trenches.

There might be lessons to be learned from that era, which the
present generation can use to avoid old mistakes. This is because I
have noticed a tendency on social media, where people demand instant
results and sometimes end up utterly deflated and defeated when
things don’t happen as quickly as anticipated. Yet if one
understands the bigger picture, knowing the origins of this
struggle, including its highs and lows, they might have a better
appreciation of the incremental nature of the process; indeed, a
better appreciation of the fact that the struggle is a slow-cooked
dish, not the pre-cooked instant microwave variety.

Catching traditional actors by surprise

An interesting feature of the current citizens’ movement is that it
seems to have caught the ruling party, the opposition and
traditional civil society by surprise and consequently, none of them
have been quite sure of how to react to it. …

The problem is that the leadership of traditional political parties
and organised civil society has not evolved over the same period,
while society has changed and its demands and expectations have also
changed. Like ZANU PF, opposition parties and organised civil
society have not confronted and dealt with succession issues and the
culture of entitlement of those in leadership positions. This has
resulted in a traffic jam in the leadership of parties and
organisations the civil and political spaces, with those in front
unwilling and unable to move or give way to new generations or
ideas. Traditional political parties and civil society organisations
are notoriously hierarchical and exclusionary in the selection of
leadership. …

The traditional opposition and organised civil society appear to
have struggled to come to terms with this new phenomenon. Do they
embrace it? Do they join it? Are they leading it? Are they
followers? How exactly do they accommodate this phenomenon which has
not emerged from their usual programmes at traditional work-shops.
… Both the opposition and civil society groups need to self-
introspect thoroughly and reflect on the new phenomenon of the
citizens’ movement and consider their role in the changing political
and civil landscape.

New challenge for ZANU PF

This unconventional citizens’ movement has also caught ZANU PF by
surprise, presenting a new challenge on an unfamiliar front. The old
party is used to dealing with the traditional political opposition
or organised civil society, which they invariably bundle together as
Western-sponsored opposition or regime change agents. The state and
ZANU PF have developed a wide array of tools to deal with these
traditional opposition in civil and political spaces – through
infiltration of political organisations, banning political
gatherings and meetings, deploying laws meant for political
organisations, propaganda through state media, etc. However, they
have not had to deal with a citizens’ movement of this kind, with a
large base in social media. …

It is clear that the regime is currently unsure about the nature of
the latest challenge. The term they have settled on for now is that
the dissent and activism is being orchestrated by a “Third Force”,
even though no-one has given substance to this term to clarify who
or what exactly constitutes this force. For the government, there is
a sinister force beyond the traditional opposition which they are
not equipped to handle. They can’t quite define what it is. They
cannot believe that citizens can consolidate and find expression in
non-traditional political and civil spaces.

In all this, of course, is a typically stubborn refusal by ZANU PF
to acknowledge that the people of Zimbabwe can think for themselves
and make their own decisions. For the ZANU PF regime, any resistance
to its policies and style of governance cannot be from and by the
people of Zimbabwe making independent decisions. Rather, it has to
be instigated and influenced by foreign elements, usually the West.
This is a very condescending mindset against fellow Zimbabweans. It
shows the character of the state, where citizens are like children
who need guardians to think and decide for them and if it’s not the
government, it has to be another sinister third party doing it on
their behalf. Individuals within the state are not regarded as
rational beings capable of making their own decisions. The irony is
that a government which claims independence and sovereignty of the
nation does not believe that the people from whom that sovereignty
and authority to govern are derived can make independent decisions
to express grievances unless they are influenced by the West. …

Social media

One key factor that distinguishes the current citizens’ movement
from similar movements in the past is the availability and popular
use of social media. When #This Flag movement started through social
media messages by Pastor Evans Mawarire a couple of months ago, it
was initially dismissed as “a passing fad”. It was dismissed as
nothing more than social media chatter, which would dissipate
quickly as people moved on to the next internet fad. There was
little appreciation of its capacity to galvanise sentiment and
passion among people both in cyber and physical spaces.

Soon however, representatives of #ThisFlag movement were engaging
directly with authority, one example being a public meeting held
with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor, Dr John Mangundya over
concerns around the issue of bond notes. That in itself was an
indication of a so-called social media-based movement transcending
cyberspace and finding recognition and accommodation in physical
spaces.

After seemingly dismissing the social media as irrelevant within
Zimbabwean political spaces, the government has reacted with panic
to the real potential of social media. The Minister of Information,
Chris Mushowe, on 7 July 2016 issued a long statement in which he
warned what he called “misguided malcontents” who are allegedly
misleading people into protests against government. …

However, by contrast one of the key things which social media has
done in the Zimbabwean struggle is to empower citizens to fight
against such government manipulation though information-sharing
networks which have reduced barriers in time and space between
citizens across the world. This way, a person in Tsholotsho is
communicating with his fellow citizens in Mutare, at Sadza, in
London, Sydney or New York and Cape Town, sharing valuable data,
information, tools and advice. The propaganda machinery has faced
serious challenges from social media because citizens are able to
instantly scrutinise, challenge, and dismiss the lies and
fabrications in the state media. Each morning, Zimbabweans scour the
papers, pick stories from all media and dissect them, showing
absurdities and exposing weaknesses and contradictions in propaganda
to a wider audience. Citizens no longer have to rely on what the
papers tell them. They also listen to what fellow citizens are
saying through social media. Citizens no longer have to wait for the
media to share information, as there has been an upsurge in citizen
journalism with social media users sharing videos and uploading them
by the second. By the time the traditional media shows its images
and videos, they would have long circulated among the people through
social media. It is truly amazing to see the way information is
passed and spread across wider field on via Twitter, Facebook and
WhatsApp messages. Oft-times I have been amazed as I have received
my own work which I would have shared: it will be coming from
multiple sources with the hour, itself a demonstration of the power
of social media, which the Zimbabwean state and opposition have
until now underestimated as they have focused on the traditional
spaces. Hence when the government misrepresents the law, lawyers
instantly challenge it and respond through social media, providing a
counter-view and in the process empowering other users.

…

The likelihood is that Zimbabwe will follow Russia’s path and enact
laws which specifically target social media users. The template for
such laws already exists in Putin’s Russia …

It is fair to predict that the Zimbabwean government will be fast-
tracking a law on social media usage based on the Russian template
and there will be a number of quick convictions and jail sentences
against users designed as examples to the rest of the population.
…

Exclusion

The government has also resorted to typical strategies of exclusion.
… It’s the politics of exclusion where those deemed to be citizens
are protected, while the excluded are deserving of no protection –
they are dehumanised. This dehumanisation makes it easier for those
charged with the job of getting rid of them. …

Within the Zimbabwean political context, the Homo Sacer [person
excluded] is a person who opposes or dissents from ZANU PF.
Zimbabwe’s Homo Sacer is identified by the labels ascribed to them
and by far the most common label of exclusion is “sell-out”. To be a
“sell-out” is to be defined as the worst form of being within the
Zimbabwean political space. You are banished to the margins and are
deemed worthy of the death sentence. …

In more recent years, a term that is close to “sell-out” is to be
labelled a “regime change agent”. This term has been used liberally
against any person who opposes or is deemed to oppose ZANU PF. Like
a “sell-out” a “regime change agent” is regarded with contempt in
ZANU PF circles and deserves the worst treatment and punishment.
Another term of exclusion is “dissident”. …

These terms of exclusion are dangerous and reckless as they are
often a prelude to atrocities against perceived opponents, as the
Rwandan Genocide showed, where targeted communities were
continuously labelled “cockroaches” by the media, itself a label of
dehumanisation which fuelled the rampant killings. It is therefore
important to monitor how this language of exclusion and banishment
evolves in the coming weeks. These are labels of dehumanisation
intended to demonstrate that a life is not worthy of any protection
or recognition. It is the kind of hate speech which is prohibited by
the Constitution for good reason because it fuels atrocities. It is
therefore irresponsible for government, Ministers and state media to
employ these labels of exclusion and dehumanisation.

Apart from these labels, the most common form of banishment and
exclusion is through criminalisation of behaviour and sending people
to jail. …

The rural frontier

One issue that remains critical in the Zimbabwean political and
civil society landscape is the rural frontier. For a long time, it
has been ZANU PF’s stronghold. The 2012 census showed that 67% of
the population is rural, which means urban areas host only 33% of
the population. Since electoral politics is a numbers game, ZANU
PF’s political strategies are centred on retaining control of the
rural constituency. Traditional opposition parties and organised
civil society have always done very well in urban areas, as shown by
the MDC’s success in Harare, Bulawayo and other urban areas. The new
citizens’ movement which has made waves in recent weeks has been
concentrated in the urban areas. In this regard therefore, it is not
very different from the traditional political opposition and
organised civil society. The civil and political spaces they are
occupying are well-trodden paths. The novelty is in the use of
social media and cross-party appeal arising from the issues around
which the citizens’ movement is built. However, like the traditional
actors in politics and organised civil society, they are yet to
crack the rural constituency. There is a chance that social media
platforms like WhatsApp might make in-roads in the rural
constituency, but the response of the state machinery, through
criminalisation, warnings, threats and false claims that they can
see what social media users are doing are likely to affect the
impact of social media. ZANU PF only has to trigger its rural
machinery of intimidation and the ever-fearful and vulnerable
population will be cowed into submission.

Resurgence of the repressive state

…

It is clear that the current state is a mirror image of the colonial
state. The same methods and strategies are being deployed against
citizens. When Welshman Ncube analysed the continuities between the
colonial and post-independence state, he found that there had been
no effort whatsoever to dismantle the repressive state. Ncube wrote:
“the culture of the Rhodesian legal system was one of extreme
brutality in both content and methods of law enforcement”. This was
echoed by Jonathan Moyo, who wrote at the time: “At independence,
the Zimbabwean nationalist leadership wittingly or unwittingly
failed to broaden democracy but embraced the oppressive institutions
and legal instruments such as the Rhodesian-imposed state of
emergency which took ten years to be lifted.” This was in the late
1980s at a time when ZANU PF was trying to impose the one-party
state but the same arguments remain applicable today and if anything
the repressive state has become stronger and more ruthless. The
current reaction of the Zimbabwean government to the citizens’
protests has attracted the same reaction which is characterized by
intolerance, violence and repression.

During the first ten years of independence, the government
maintained a state of emergency, again inherited from the Rhodesian
state. …

Going forward, we are likely to see more arrests of activists in the
citizens’ movement. Ordinary members of the public will also be
arrested and prosecuted as examples to others. There will also be
new laws to criminalise conduct on social media and other similar
spaces. There will be further statements and warnings from the
coercive elements of the state, all designed to deter and scare
people from using social media to challenge government. In this
regard, the citizens’ movement will find that its struggle is really
not very different from the struggle which the traditional
opposition parties and organized civil society have faced in the
past. The question is whether this new citizens’ movement has
devised new tools to overcome or get around these impediments. In
other words, are the citizens prepared to defend their leaders and
their rights in a manner that is different from how traditional
opposition parties and organised civil society have done in the
past?

…

*****************************************************

Africa/Global: Air Pollution Threats & Solutions

worker | June 30, 2016 | 7:19 pm | Africa, Analysis, political struggle | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin
June 30, 2016 (160630)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“Around 6.5 million deaths are attributed each year to poor air
quality, making this the worldâ€™s fourth-largest threat to human
health, behind high blood pressure, dietary risks and smoking.
Without changes to the way that the world produces and uses energy,
the ruinous toll from air pollution on human life is set to rise.
… Household air pollution, closely linked to a lack of access to
modern energy services, causes around half a million premature
deaths annually in sub-Saharan Africa, where four-fifths of the
population rely on the traditional use of solid biomass for cooking,
and candles and kerosene lamps are extensively used for indoor
lighting.” – International Energy Agency (IEA)

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/air1606.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/air1606.php

In a scenario based on current and anticipated trends and policies,
the IEA estimates that deaths due to household air pollution in
Africa may decrease by 110,000 by 2040. However, due to economic
growth, urbanization, and automobile emissions, outdoor air
pollution may rise from 300,000 to 450,000 over the same period.
Overall, there will be a deterioration in air quality, unless alternative new policies are
adopted for a “Clean Air Scenario”.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts taken from the executive
summary of the new report, as well as Chapter 2 on the Clean Air
Scenario and Chapter 10 on the situation in sub-Saharan Africa.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on climate change and the
environment, and a set of talking points, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Energy and Air Pollution

World Energy Outlook Special Report

International Energy Agency, June 2016

http://www.iea.org / Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/jgrzd3j

Executive Summary (excerpts)

Air pollution is a major public health crisis, with many of its root
causes and cures to be found in the energy sector. Around 6.5
million deaths are attributed each year to poor air quality, making
this the worldâ€™s fourth-largest threat to human health, behind high
blood pressure, dietary risks and smoking. Without changes to the
way that the world produces and uses energy, the ruinous toll from
air pollution on human life is set to rise.

That is why this World Energy Outlook (WEO) Special Report is
dedicated, for the first time, to the links between energy, air
pollution and health. It sets out in detail the scale, causes and
effects of the problem and the ways in which the energy sector can
contribute to a solution. Energy production and use, mostly from
unregulated, poorly regulated or inefficient fuel combustion, are
the single most important man-made sources of air pollutant
emissions: 85% of particulate matter and almost all of the sulfur
oxides and nitrogen oxides. These three pollutants are responsible
for the most widespread impacts of air pollution, either directly or
once transformed into other pollutants via chemical reactions in the
atmosphere. They are emitted mainly as a result of:

* Poverty: the wood and other solid fuels that more than 2.7 billion
people use for cooking, and kerosene used for lighting (and in some
countries also for cooking), create smoky environments that are
associated with around 3.5 million premature deaths each year. These
effects are felt mostly in developing Asia and sub-Saharan Africa,
where incomplete burning of biomass accounts for more than half of
emissions of particulate matter. Finer particles, whether inhaled
indoors or outdoors, are particularly harmful to health as they can
penetrate deep into the lungs.

* Fossil fuel-intensive development and urbanisation: coal and oil
have powered economic growth in many countries, but their unabated
combustion in power plants, industrial facilities and vehicles is
the main cause of the outdoor pollution linked to around 3 million
premature deaths each year. Coal is responsible for around 60% of
global combustion-related sulfur dioxide emissions â€“ a cause of
respiratory illnesses and a precursor of acid rain. Fuels used for
transport, first and foremost diesel, generate more than half the
nitrogen oxides emitted globally, which can trigger respiratory
problems and the formation of other hazardous particles and
pollutants, including ozone. Cities can easily become pollution
hotspots, as they concentrate people, energy use, construction
activity and traffic. The impact of urban vehicle emissions is
heightened by the fact that they are discharged not from the top of
tall chimneys but directly into the street-level air that
pedestrians breathe.

*****************************************************

Chapter 2

Outlook for air pollution : Towards blue skies?

Highlights

* The IEA has undertaken a first-of-a-kind assessment of the impact
of energy and air pollution policies on air pollutant emissions
through 2040. This World Energy Outlook Special Report finds that
despite a global decline in emissions, existing and planned energy
sector policies are not sufficient to improve air quality: in our
central scenario, premature deaths attributable to outdoor air
pollution increase to 4.5 million in 2040 (from around 3 million
today), while premature deaths due to household air pollution fall
to 2.9 million (from 3.5 million today).

* The global results mask strong regional differences, which stem
from the energy mix and the rigour of energy and air quality
policies. In our central scenario, emissions continue to fall in
industrialised countries, while in China, recent signs of decline
are consolidated. Emissions generally rise in India, Southeast Asia
and Africa, as expected growth in energy demand dwarfs policy
efforts related to air quality. Poor air quality continues to affect
the poorest most adversely: by 2040, 1.8 billion people still have
no access to clean cooking devices (from 2.7 billion today),
exposing mostly women and children to harmful household air
pollution. The policies with the most impact on reducing emissions
include those that increase access to modern energy services in
developing countries, improve energy efficiency, promote fuel
diversification and control air pollutant emissions.

* The outlook for air quality is a policy choice to be made: new
energy and air quality policies can deliver cleaner air. This is why
the IEA proposes the Clean Air Scenario that builds on proven and
pragmatic energy and air quality policies and uses only existing
technologies. Their implementation provides citizens with cleaner
air and better health. In the Clean Air Scenario, premature deaths
from outdoor air pollution fall to 2.8 million in 2040 and from
household air pollution to 1.3 million. The benefits are largest in
developing countries: the share of Indiaâ€™s population exposed to PM
2.5 concentrations above the least stringent WHO target falls to 18%
in 2040 (from 62% today), while in China, it shrinks to 23% (from
56% today) and to almost zero in Indonesia and South Africa.

* Achieving the benefits of the Clean Air Scenario depends upon
implementation of a range of policies: access to clean cooking for
all is essential to reduce the use of inefficient biomass cookstoves
and associated PM 2.5 emissions. Emissions standards â€“ strictly
enforced â€“ in road transport are central to reducing NO X emissions,
in particular in cities. SO 2 emissions are brought down by
controlling emissions and switching fuels in the power sector, and
increasing energy efficiency in the industry sector. The additional
investment needs are not insurmountable: cumulative investment in
the Clean Air Scenario is 7% (or $4.8 trillion) higher than in the
New Policies Scenario. The value of the resultant benefits is
typically many times higher.

******************************************************

Chapter 10: Africa (excerpts)

Highlights

* Africa faces multiple developmental and environmental challenges,
which are rooted in poverty and the source of a grave health burden
on the population. Air pollution from the energy sector is
increasingly a leading risk factor. Household air pollution, closely
linked to a lack of access to modern energy services, causes around
half a million premature deaths annually in sub-Saharan Africa,
where four-fifths of the population rely on the traditional use of
solid biomass for cooking, and candles and kerosene lamps are
extensively used for indoor lighting. Cities are becoming
increasingly choked with vehicles which are unregulated by emission
standards, by the use of back-up generators to mitigate the often
absent or unreliable electricity supply, and the widespread burning
of waste.

* The outlook to 2040 for Africa in the New Policies Scenario
[predicted on the basis of current & anticipated policies] is mixed.
Even though there is a general absence of current policy measures to
mitigate the adverse effects of air quality associated with the
projected 75% rise in energy demand, which means that PM 2.5
emissions in Africa grow by almost a fifth by 2040, improvements in
access to modern energy cause the annual number of premature deaths
attributable to household pollution to decrease by 110 000.

The share of the population relying on traditional cooking methods
falls from 68% today to one-third by 2040, and the share of people
without electricity access falls from 57% to 25%, bringing power to
over one billion more people. Power generation is projected to
almost triple over the period, with renewables (excluding biomass)
providing one-third of generation by 2040, twice todayâ€™s share.
Despite some improvements, however, strong population growth leaves
655 million people still without access to clean cooking, and half a
billion people without electricity access, and as a result over 360
000 premature deaths are still attributable to household air
pollution in 2040.

* In the Clean Air Scenario, PM 2.5 emissions fall by more than 80%
in 2040 relative to the New Policies Scenario, largely as a result
of achieving universal access to energy. SO 2 is more than halved
and NO X falls by three quarters relative to the New Policies
Scenario because emission standards in transport, industry and power
generation are introduced.

This means that by 2040, 220 000 deaths are prevented annually from
household air pollution compared with the New Policies Scenario.
Overall primary energy demand decreases by one-quarter compared with
the New Policies Scenario: energy is used more efficiently and the
consumption of all fossil fuels is reduced, and as a result, CO 2
emissions in 2040 fall from 1.8 Gt in the New Policies Scenario to
1.5 Gt in 2040.

The energy and air quality context

Parts of Africa are experiencing relatively strong economic growth.
The economic output of sub-Saharan Africa has doubled since 2000,
but remains below that of Germany, despite the population being more
than ten-times larger. Across the continent as a whole, gross
domestic product per capita has increased by more than one-quarter
over the past decade.

The population of the continent is rapidly growing and urbanising.
Africa is expected to be home to around 22% of the global population
by 2040, compared with 10% in 1971 and 16% today. Africa is today
the worldâ€™s most rural continent (with only around 40% of the
population living in urban areas), but it is one of the fastest-
urbanizing world regions â€“ more than half of the population is
expected to live in urban areas by 2040.

Energy demand in Africa has risen by half since 2000 though per-
capita energy demand remains low at about one-third of the global
average. The energy mix is dominated by biomass, which accounts for
almost half of energy demand across Africa and has a share as high
as three-quarters of the total in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding
South Africa). Only one- third of the population of the continent
has access to modern cooking fuels â€“ a low level matched only in
India â€“ with biomass used extensively as a cooking fuel.

Electricity access is also the lowest in the world: around 635
million people, 57% of the population, do not have access to
electricity today. Per-capita electricity consumption in Africa is
one-fifth of the global average, with wide variations by country:
while almost all North Africans have access to electricity, only
one-third has access in sub-Saharan Africa, and this falls to just
17% when looking at the rural population. Nigeria alone has 96
million people without access to electricity. Those who do have
access to electricity experience frequent blackouts â€“ Nigeria
experiences on average 33 power outages every month and rationing
due to inadequate supply and ageing infrastructure (World Bank,
2016).

Demand outstrips electricity supply, resulting in the cost of
electricity generation being significantly higher in many African
countries than in other world regions (AfDB, 2013). Industrial
activities are also compromised as a result of high prices. The many
positive efforts to provide electricity access across the continent
have not been sufficient to decrease the number of people without
access to electricity; Africa is the only world region where the
number of people without access to electricity has actually
increased since 2000, despite a significant decrease in numbers in
North African countries and some sub-Saharan countries, including
South Africa, Gabon, Botswana and Ghana.

Fossil fuels dominate the production of electricity, accounting for
more than 80% of total power supply. South Africa, which generates
almost 60% of all the power generated in sub-Saharan Africa, derives
94% of its power from coal. South Africa also accounts for around
25% of total oil consumption in sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria for
more than 20%, meaning that the remaining 40-plus countries
collectively consume less oil than the Netherlands.

While there has been increasing international focus on delivering
universal clean energy access, such as through the African
Development Bankâ€™s New Deal on Energy for Africa, it is clear from
the UN SE4All tracking that progress falls substantially short of
what is required to attain clean energy access by 2030 (IEA and
World Bank, 2015).

These characteristics â€“ rising energy consumption, concentrating
urban populations and persistent lack of energy access â€“ have
contributed to ever-increasing air pollution, household as well as
outdoor. Around half a million premature deaths can be attributed to
household air pollution in Africa today, a health problem which is
closely related to the lack of access to modern forms of energy. The
traditional use of biomass for cooking causes severe emissions of
particulate matter (PM 2.5 ), as does the use of candles and
kerosene for lighting. Kerosene, used by many households that do not
have access to reliable electricity or alternative solutions, is the
primary lighting fuel in around half of African countries and is
also a grave source of fires and casualties in households (World
Health Organisation, 2016); programmes such as SolarAid, GOGLA and
Lighting Africa are promoting the use of solar lamps to help phase
out the use of these lighting fuels.

Indeed, 7.5 million tonnes (Mt) of PM 2.5 are emitted annually in
Africa today, of which almost three-quarters is from the burning of
biomass indoors. Damage to air quality from these sources affects
mostly the poorest population of Africa: while there is almost no
dependence on the traditional use of solid biomass for cooking in
North Africa, only one-fifth of sub-Saharan Africans have access to
modern cooking fuels, leaving 755 million people to cook with solid
biomass, typically with inefficient stoves in poorly ventilated
spaces without chimneys.

In more than four-fifths of sub-Saharan countries, more than half of
the population relies on solid biomass for cooking, and in half of
these, the share is above 90%. Several countries have implemented
programmes to promote the use of cleaner and more efficient
cookstoves, the prime objective being to reduce the health effects
of pollution from indoor smoke. Kenya aims to eliminate kerosene use
in households by 2022 and improved biomass cookstoves are already
relatively available in urban areas. Kenya has also passed a law
that requires new buildings to be fitted with solar water heating
systems. Strong policies in Senegal have supported a switch to
liquified petroleum gas (LPG) and less than 30% of the urban
population now use solid biomass. Other countries, including Ghana
and Cameroon, have also made commitments to increase the share of
LPG for cooking and are developing related policy measures.

It has to be acknowledged, however, that in general rising incomes
alone have not been sufficient to result in increasing access to
clean cooking fuels and concentrating populations will likely
exacerbate this urgent problem (see Chapter 3 Spotlight), and
moreover, many improved biomass cookstoves on the market today,
though a great improvement on traditional cooking, still produce
enough PM 2.5 to be considered a health hazard.

Deaths in Africa attributed to outdoor pollution, at more than
210,000 per year in 2012 (WHO, 2016a, forthcoming), are less than
half of those attributable to household air pollution. As a result
of limited economic activity, concentrations of outdoor pollution is
low in most areas relative to other world regions, but the emissions
intensity of new economic activity is high. Today the major sources
of outdoor air pollution include old and unregulated vehicles, smoke
from indoor and outdoor cooking with biomass, the unregulated
burning of wood and waste (including the burning of toxic materials,
such as electronics), dust from dirt roads, and coal-fired power
generation, particularly in South Africa. The use of back-up diesel
generators (including an unknown but large number of small
generators in and around residences/apartments) to supplement
inadequate grid- based electricity supply is also a cause of noxious
emissions (IEA, 2014)

Measuring overall outdoor pollution is a major challenge: air
quality monitoring does not exist in most African countries. For
those cities in Africa that are monitored, the annual mean PM 10 and
PM 2.5 emissions exceeded the World Health Organization (WHO) Air
Quality Guidelines levels in almost all cases (WHO, 2016b). A
satellite study suggests that between 2010 and 2012, 32% of West
Africans and 28% of the North African and Middle Eastern populations
are exposed to levels of PM 2.5 exceeding the WHO interim target-1
of 35 Âµg/m 3 , compared with none of the population of high-income
countries (Donkelaaer van, et al., 2015).

Nitrogen oxides (NO X) emissions in Africa were around 6.4 Mt in
2015, around half from vehicle tailpipe emissions and a quarter from
industry. Sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) emissions were 5.8 Mt in 2015, 42%
from the industry and transformation sectors and 45% from power
generation, largely as a result of coal combustion in South Africa.
Some efforts have been made across the continent to reduce PM 2.5
emissions mainly through incentivising the use of modern cooking
fuels, such as LPG and natural gas, though pollutant emissions have
risen, as has the number of people without access to clean cooking.

However, South Africa, through the National Environmental Management
Air Quality Act of 2004, is one of the only African countries
comprehensively regulating air quality and setting emissions
standards, imposing limits on new and existing power plants and
industrial installations. Effectively securing compliance remains an
issue in South Africa (as in many parts of the world).

Transport is a major contributor to outdoor air pollution in Africa.
An old and growing vehicle fleet, poor fuel quality and rapid
unplanned urban growth all contribute to increasingly choked cities.
Proper urban planning as well as improving public transport systems
could reduce the number of vehicles on the road. Improving fuel
quality, particularly removing sulfur, is a necessary step towards
the use of improved vehicle technologies that reduce tailpipe
pollution. Leaded gasoline was largely phased out in the 2000s, but
fuel quality remains variable. Despite some regulation, the sulfur
content of diesel remains very high in many countries: in Egypt,
diesel sulfur content is up to 7 000 ppm, over 700 times the level
in Europe.

Only a small number of African refineries have the capacity to
produce low-sulfur fuels and, even though the value of the health
benefits derived from upgrading refineries may far outweigh the
costs, sufficient incentive for investment is lacking. Low quality
fuels not only contribute to tailpipe emissions, but prevent the
adoption of higher vehicle exhaust emissions standards. Such
standards are implemented to a very limited extent: only Nigeria and
South Africa have emissions standards reaching the level of Euro 2
(introduced in Europe in 1996) or beyond. Many countries ban or
place tariffs on the import of older vehicles to discourage the
dumping of outdated and inefficient vehicles, but their low price
remains an attraction. The age and lack of maintenance of vehicles,
weak enforcement of laws in place and variable fuel quality often
means that the gap between test-standards (where they exist) and
real-world operation can be particularly large.

*****************************************************

Africa/Global: “Stop the Bleeding” Updates

worker | June 22, 2016 | 6:00 pm | Africa, Analysis, Climate Change, Economy, environmental crisis, political struggle | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin
June 22, 2016 (160622 )
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“A new report by Tax Justice Network-Africa and ActionAid says that
East African countries (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda) are
losing approximately $2 billion a year of revenue each year by
granting tax incentives to multinational companies. … According to
Yaekob Metena, ActionAid Tanzania’s country director, ‘Though there
have been improvements in recent years in addressing the issue,
governments in East Africa continue to give away domestic resources
in tax incentives, funds that could pay for the regions’ education
and health needs and meeting the development objectives.'”

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/stb1606.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/stb1606.php

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a press release on this new
report from two of the organizations actively involved in the
Panafrican civil society campaign to stop illicit financial flow
from the African continent, which has been endorsed by the African
Union and is gaining worldwide momentum from a series of reports
from the Panama Papers and other investigative journalism.

The first report, on tax incentives, concentrates on the legal but
illicit policies that enable bleeding of resources from Africa to
multinational corporations through tax breaks. The second, from the
UN Environment Programme and Interpol, highlights the rapid increase
is losses due to black-market environmental crimes such as ivory
smuggling, illegal logging, and toxic waste disposal. Such crimes
are now the 4th largest illicit enterprise sector worldwide,
following drug smuggling, counterfeiting, and human trafficking,

For brief talking points and previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on
illicit financial flows and the Stop the Bleeding Africa campaign,
visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

For a database of articles and reports on illicit financial flows,
provided by the Stop the Bleeding Campaign but including data from
many sources, visit http://iffoadatabase.trustafrica.org/

For another hard-to-excerpt but revealing expose released today, see
Finance Uncovered’s investigative report on the shady financial
dealings holding up the renovation of the Rift Valley Railway (RVR).
The report is entitled “Trouble on the Lunatic Express,” and results
from a collaborative investigation by Kenyan, Belgian, and British
journalists. See http://www.financeuncovered.org/ – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/zz5v77d

“We have discovered that the fabled RVR modernisation programme has
not resulted in the purchase of new trains as claimed by the owners
of the railway, Qalaa Holdings.

We have trawled accounts which show that Qalaa has created an
offshore structure of shell companies which has extracted millions
in advisory fees from RVR, despite the railway suffering losses in
recent years.”

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

East Africa losing up to 2 billion dollars to unproductive tax
incentives

Governments have taken few positive steps to curb loss of revenue

http://www.taxjusticeafrica.net / direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/gmrmhde

http://www.actionaid.org / direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/hthr9dj

Dodoma, 18 June 2016 – A new report by Tax Justice Network-Africa
and ActionAid says that East African countries (Tanzania, Kenya,
Uganda and Rwanda) are losing approximately $2 billion a year of
revenue each year by granting tax incentives to multinational
companies. The report follows the EAC report series produced by the
two organizations in April 2012, examining the impact of tax
incentives on the region and giving recommendations to the EAC on
how to end a race to the bottom. This follow up report assesses what
has changed since 2012.

The report, entitled ‘Still Racing towards the Bottom? Corporate tax
incentives in East Africa’, states that while statements indicating
commitments to revise tax incentive policies have been made by
policymakers of the region, many questions abound on how eliminating
tax incentives will be realized. It is unclear how these tax
incentives will be revised, costed and phased out in practice and
what resources and expertise are at the disposal of the governments
to carry out this work.

According to Yaekob Metena, ActionAid Tanzania’s country director,
“Though there have been improvements in recent years in addressing
the issue, governments in East Africa continue to give away domestic
resources in tax incentives, funds that could pay for the regions’
education and health needs and meeting the development objectives.”

East African governments have taken some positive steps to reduce
tax incentives, especially those related to VAT, which are
increasing tax collection and providing vital extra revenue that
could be spent on providing critical services. However, they are
still failing to eliminate all unnecessary tax incentives. Countries
are still providing generous tax breaks in the form of tax holidays,
capital-gains tax allowances and royalty exemptions and these East
African countries continue to lose colossal amounts of revenue
through unnecessary tax exemptions and incentives given to
corporations.

“There is need to shift the policy environment in the region on the
issue of incentives as; political and financial national and
institutional authorities have admitted that tax incentives are in
fact harmful to domestic revenue mobilization and need to be
revised, costed and in most cases eliminated. In fact, as our report
shows that giving tax incentives is still fueling competition at
1the EAC level, and derailing any meaningful progress towards
regional harmonization of tax policies. Regional competition for
investors through providing tax incentives is still alive and is
undermining integration,” said Metena.

The report follows the EAC report series produced by the two
organizations in April 2012, examining the impact of tax incentives
on the region and giving recommendations to the EAC on how to end a
race to the bottom. This follow up report assesses what has changed
since 2012. “Many leaders are promising to take greater measures
towards progress on this in the region but there is a need for
tangible actions to be taken towards that end,” said Tax Justice
Network-Africa’s Deputy Executive Director, Jason Braganza.

Evidence gathered suggests that collectively, the four East African
countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda) could still be losing
around $1.5 billion and possibly up to $2 billion a year. The report
calls for East African governments to review the tax incentives they
are granting with a view to abolishing all unproductive incentives.
Any incentives that are determined to be effective should be
targeted at achieving specific social and economic objectives that
benefit East African citizens.

“The East Africa Community (EAC) must accelerate the harmonization
of its tax legislation with the EAC Agenda by ratifying the East
African Code of Conduct on Harmful Tax Competition and implementing
at national levels, the recommendations of the African Union High
Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows that was adopted at the AU
Summit in January 2015,” added Braganza.

ENDS

Paulina Teveli
Communications Coordinator – ActionAid Tanzania
Tel: +255 (0) 22 2700596 | Mob: +255 755 706322
Email: Paulina.Teveli@actionaid.org.

Michelle Mbuthia
Assistant Communications Officer – Tax Justice Network-Africa
Tel: +254 724 994796
Email: mmbuthia@taxjusticeafrica.net

Editors’ Notes:

Four countries alone – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda – could
still be losing around $1.5 billion and possibly up to $2 billion a
year through the granting of corporate tax incentives to foreign
companies. Uganda loses around US$370 million, Kenya around US$1.1
billion, and Rwanda up to US$176 million. This amounts to, total
revenue losses that would amount to up to $2 billion a year.

The 2 billion a year figure (less than the 2.8 billion a year figure
from our 2012 report) reflects a welcomed commitment by the EAC
government’s. Governments have taken some positive steps to reduce
tax incentives, especially those related to VAT, which are
increasing tax collections and providing vital extra revenues that
could be spent on providing critical services. However, the figure
is exceedingly estimated and may well be short of reality as
accurate reliable data in most cases does not exist for all
incentives given to foreign firms.

While welcome statements indicating commitments to revise tax
incentives have been uttered by politicians of the region, many
questions arise how eliminating tax incentives will be realised. It
is unclear how these tax incentives will be revised, costed and
phased out in practice and what resources and expertise are at the
disposal of governments to carry out this work.

For Burundi, determining the revenue losses due to tax incentives
was particularly challenging in this case owing to an almost
complete lack of data. However, Burundi’s President Pierre
Nkurunziza, recently indicated that at least 81 billion Burundian
Francs ($52 million) has been lost to companies or officials who
have been given tax exemptions to import goods to build
infrastructure and instead sold on the materials.

In Tanzania, revenue losses from tax incentives given in 2014/15
were likely to be around US$790 million; although this figure
predates the new VAT law which is claimed will result in extra
revenues of US$500 million.

Kenya, the amount of revenue lost through tax incentives is likely
to be near the KShs100 billion (US$1.1 billion) a year level.

In Uganda, it remains unclear how much Uganda is losing to tax
incentives since government figures do not appear to provide full
figures, but the amount is likely be around US$370 million.

In Rwanda, estimates suggest that Rwanda is losing between Rwf 87
billion (US$115 million) and Rwf123 billion (US$176 million) a year.

ActionAid is a global movement of people working together to achieve
greater human rights for all and defeat poverty. We believe people
in poverty have the power within them to create change for
themselves, their families and communities. ActionAid is a catalyst
for that change.

Tax Justice Network-Africa (TJN-A) is a Pan-African initiative
established in 2007 and a member of the Global Alliance for Tax
Justice. It is a network of 29 members in 16 African countries.
Through its Nairobi Secretariat, TJN-A collaborates closely with
these member organisations in tax justice activities at the
national, regional and global level. TJN-A seeks to promote socially
just and progressive taxation systems in Africa, advocating for pro-
poor tax policies and the strengthening of tax systems to promote
domestic resource mobilisation. TJN-A aims to challenge harmful tax
policies and practices that favour the wealthy and aggravate and
perpetuate inequality.

*******************************************************

Environmental crime now the world’s fourth largest illicit
enterprise, says new report

June 13, 2016

http://www.africaeconews.co.ke/ – Direct URL –
http://tinyurl.com/jnjo59x

Environmental crime is now the world’s fourth largest illicit
enterprise after drug smuggling, counterfeiting and human
trafficking.

According to a joint report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
and Interpol (see full report at
http://unep.org/documents/itw/environmental_crimes.pdf), it is
estimated that the value of the black market industry behind crimes
such as ivory smuggling, illegal logging and toxic waste dumping has
jumped by 26 per cent from 2014 to between US$91 billion and US$258
billion annually depriving countries of future revenues and
development opportunities.

“Environmental crime has impacts beyond those posed by regular
criminality. It increases the fragility of an already brittle
planet,” observed Mr Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and
Unep Executive Director.

Interpol Secretary General JÃ¼rgen Stock says an enhanced law
enforcement can help address this worrying trend.

“There are significant examples worldwide of cross-sectoral efforts
working to crack down on environmental crime and successfully
restore wildlife, forests and ecosystems. Such collaboration,
sharing and joining of efforts within and across borders, whether
formal or informal, is our strongest weapon in fighting
environmental crime,” says Mr Stock.

Environmental crimes cover not only the illegal trade in wildlife,
but also forestry and fishery crimes. It includes illegal dumping of
waste including chemicals and use of ozone-depleting substances.

Destruction of natural flora and fauna, pollution, landscape
degradation and radiation hazards, with negative impacts on arable
land, crops and trees adds to the list.

The debate on environmental crimes also includes exploitation of
natural resources such as minerals, oil, timber and marine
resources.

In recent years, the joint report says, the debate has reached the
global stage due to its serious and deleterious impact on the
environment and ecosystems, as well as on peace, security and
development.

Environmental Crimes makes simpler for Illicit Financial Outflows

Illegal exploitation of natural resources, including ITW, has
negative consequence on potential revenues from tourism, timber,
mining, gold, diamonds, fisheries and even oil and charcoal.

These natural resources could have produced revenue for development
needs in health care, infrastructure, schools and sustainable
business development.

Indeed, the illegal trade especially in natural resources like fish,
timber and minerals undermine legal and sustainable businesses
through unfair competition and non-payment of legitimate taxes for
social benefits.

Currently, the scale of different forms of environmental crime is
likely in the range of USD 91â€“259 billion or twice the size of
global official development assistance (ODA).

This total amount of USD 91â€“259 billion is a loss to society because
the commercial activity takes place as an illegitimate enterprise.
It undermines governance, legal tax-influenced price levels, and
particularly legitimate business. An unknown proportion will
nonetheless be re-introduced into the legitimate economy through
money laundering.

A research by Development Initiatives (DI) on foreign aid and
stimulating domestic revenue mobilisation in Kenya and Uganda
revealed that tax revenue makes up the largest proportion of total
revenue, which is over 85 per cent for Kenya in the last three years
(and over 80 per cent in Uganda). It also found that ODA to domestic
revenue mobilisation in Kenya and Uganda amounted to close to US$
21.5 million in 2014 (with more funding to Uganda than Kenya).

DI suggests in order for the country’s efforts to mobilise domestic
revenue to bear more fruit, there is need to develop approaches that
increase tax revenue without necessarily increasing the tax burden.
However, broadening the tax base to mobilise more domestic revenue
might be undermined if attention is not given to leakages including
illicit financial flows.

Meanwhile, the Panama Papers showed that illicit financial flows are
not only an Africa problem, and that there is a need for global
collaboration to track them.

“Countries such as Kenya and Uganda should target job-creating
economic growth, and shift away from growth based solely on
extractive industries â€“ oil and gas â€“ and services that require the
employment of fewer people,” says the joint report. About 10 per
cent of the total amount is estimated loss of revenue to
governments. The number is based on two assumptions: That the
criminal activity generates an average profit of 30 per cent, and
that government tax revenues could be 30 per cent of the profits, if
the environmental crime activities had been legal and legitimate.

For an approximate comparison the average world total tax rate
percentage of commercial profits was 40.8 in 2015 according to the
World Bank. For the USD 91â€“259 billion range, with a profit of USD
27â€“78 billion, the tax income, which is loss for government revenue,
would be 8â€“23 billion, or 8.8 per cent of the total amount, giving
an average loss of government revenue of USD 9â€“26 billion.

The report points out an escalating species extinction due to wanton
wildlife poaching and trafficking. Illegal logging and trade results
in climate change emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation.

The reports adds that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing
has resulted into fish stocks depletion, loss of revenues for local
fishmongers and states. Most targeted fish species are Tuna,
Toothfish and Sharks.

Criminals exploit the lack of international consensus and the
divergence of approaches taken by countries. What may constitute a
crime in one country, is not in another. This effectively enables
criminals to go “forum shopping” and use one country to conduct
poaching, and another to prepare merchandise, and export via a third
transit country.

According to UNODC, corruption is the most important enabling factor
behind illegal wildlife and timber trade. Identifying the optimal
legal framework for preventing, combating and prosecuting
environmental crimes requires careful consideration.

There are proposals, according to the UN report on environmental
crime; firstly, designating any violation of wildlife or
environmental laws and regulations to be designated as “serious
crimes”. Another proposal is to designate illicit trafficking in
protected species of wild fauna and flora involving organised
criminal groups” as serious crimes.

In as much as the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime
(UNTOC) defines organised criminal groups, the new report recommends
a broader applicability of the convention on new and emerging forms
of crime.

In 2014, the Interpol General Assembly passed a Resolution on
Interpol’s response to emerging threats in Environmental Security
(Resolution AG-2014-RES-03). In that resolution, instead of defining
environmental crime, Interpol instead focused on “environmental
security” by recognising the impact that environmental crime and
violations can have on a nation’s political stability, environmental
quality, its natural resources, biodiversity, economy and human
life.

Interpol also recognises that criminal networks engaged in financial
crime, fraud, corruption, illicit trade and human trafficking are
also engaged in or facilitating environmental crime.

Experts say the approach by both Interpol and the Commission on
Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) in regarding
environmental crimes more as a collective term, makes the
criminalities fall under already established laws on serious crimes,
including, but not limited to, serious financial and corporate
crimes, forgery, fraud including tax fraud, terrorist finance. Such
an approach provides prosecutors with far more powerful tools for
prosecution and prevention and importantly â€“ proportionality between
offense, intent and punishment.

UN Security Council Resolution S/RES/2195 (2014), recognised that;
natural resources are increasingly driving conflicts.

Three conventions control the international trade and movement of
hazardous waste and dangerous chemical substances by setting
procedures and standards for import and export. Both the environment
and human health are exposed to hazardous waste and chemicals
through the cycle these products go through from production,
transport, use to disposal.

There are three interlinked conventions: the Basel Convention on the
Control of Trans-boundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their
Disposal, which primarily covers wastes trade; the Rotterdam
Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain
Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade and The
Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants which
primarily covers chemicals, including restrictions on production.

The consensus based on Montreal Protocol of 1987, which controls
ozone depleting gasses (ODS), has been ratified by 197 parties,
making it universal. Projects worth USD 3.2 billion have been
approved by its executive committee to phase out over 450,000 tonnes
of substances with ozone depletion potential including the
implementation of Project Sky Hole Patching by the Regional
Intelligence Liaison Office of the World Customs Organisation in the
2000s. Unep, Unido, UNDP and the World Bank are the implementing
agencies of the protocol.

Unep Governing Council’s Decision 27/9 is the first internationally-
negotiated document to establish the term “environmental rule of
law”.

The decision emphasised the role of organised criminal groups in
trafficking hazardous waste, wildlife and illegal timber. The
Council recognised that environmental crime undermines sustainable
development, the successful implementation of environmental goals
and objectives, the rule of law, and effective governance.

The council also noted that these issues have been recognised in UN
General Assembly resolution A/RES/67/1 (2012) and A/RES/67/97 (2013)
which urged member states to address transnational organised crime’s
impact on the environment.

United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) reaffirms the need to
making illicit trafficking in protected species and forest products
into a serious crime as defined by UNTOC.

World Environmental Law Congress in Rio in April 2016, where the
Chief Justices, Heads of Jurisdictions, Attorneys Generals, Auditors
General, Chief Prosecutors and other high-ranking representatives
were gathered, agreed on a list of seven core principles to
strengthen the environmental rule of law.

The congress passed recommendations not limited to linking
environmental crimes to other crimes such as money laundering, and
strengthening courts’ capacity as guarantors of the environmental
rule of law.

*****************************************************

Africa/Global: Don’t Be a Fossil Fool

worker | June 13, 2016 | 9:33 pm | Africa, Analysis, Economy, political struggle | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin
June 13, 2016 (160613)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

From solar TVs in rural Kenya to modular concrete for windmills in
Iowa, the pace of technological advance continues to accelerate,
making renewable fuels more and more competitive with fossil fuels.
Technology alone will not be sufficient, of course. But these
trends, combined with worldwide climate activism and increasing
awareness among the public and government policy-makers, are leading
even establishment analysts to conclude that, in the words of the
Financial Times, “fossil fuel producers face a future of slow and
steady decline.”

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/clim1606.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/clim1606.php

The extent of damage already being felt and determined by current
emissions levels means that “slow and steady” decline is by no means
enough. Resistance by policy-makers and businesses to the transition
is still formidable. Although South African activists, for example,
headline their campaign “Don’t Be a Fossil Fool,” the South African
government (and many others) continue to pursue such destructive and
outdated policies. Fracking is still being advanced in the United
States, the UK, and Canada as a legitimate “transition.” But it is
telling that such enterprises are no longer good bets for the
rational business or investor.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains several articles relevant to
these developments, including news reports from Kenya, Iowa, and
South Africa, plus an analytical review from Jeremy Leggett, who
provides a monthly update in his blog on “The Great Transition.”

Also of interest: a recent report by the International Energy Agency
concludes that price trends are not yet enough for renewable energy
to advance: investors also need policy support from governments to
insure that projects can be funded with adequate capital. See Green
Tech Media for June 7: http://tinyurl.com/z2dzkza

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Climate and related issues,
see http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

This solar-powered TV brings global news to rural Africa

By Sophie Morlin-Yron

CNN, June 3, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/hd7njc8

CNN)In rural Kenya, people walk for miles in the blistering sun
after work just to watch television in the nearest town.

At 7pm, in the village restaurants, the music turns off, and the
news turns on.

In this nation of 45 million people — where many live without
electricity — only 30% of Kenyans have their own television.

Now a start-up has developed a 16-inch TV which runs on the sun’s
rays, bringing communication to the masses.

“There are some 5 million homes in Kenya that don’t have
electricity,” says Jesse Moore, founder of M-KOPA Solar.
“And the product most people living off-the-grid want to get is a
television.”

Staying current

The M-KOPA Solar TV connects to Kenya’s digital television network
of about 30 free channels, screening soap operas, premier league
football games and marathons.

But culturally Kenyans are very engaged in politics and business,
and it is news broadcasts that attracts the most viewers, Moore
says.

“If you travel around Kenya, you see people veraciously reading the
newspapers … People want to consume information about their
society and about their government.”
M-KOPA has sold around 5,000 sets since the launch in February, and
Moore says they are struggling to keep up with the growing demand.

“It’s feeling of, ‘Hey, I can live in a rural area, but I’m not cut
off’.”

How it works

The new kit adds a 16″ TV to the original package.

The Solar TV is an extension of a more basic solar panel kit to
power lights, radios and mobile phones, which the company has sold
to 340,000 households in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Now it can also power a TV.

Users simply fix the solar panel to a sunny area outside their home
and connect it to their television via a power cord.

Power on loan

M stands for “mobile” and KOPA is Swahili for “to borrow” — the
business is tailored to people in less affluent areas who are unable
to buy solar panels, or a TV, up front.

“Most of our customers live at, or below, $2 per day per capita,”
says Moore.

Using a mobile payment system provided by partner company,
Safaricom, customers pay between 50 cents and $1.25 a day over 1 to
2 years, depending on their payment plan.

The TV and solar panel cost $500 in total — once that is paid, the
kit is no longer on loan, and all power is free for as long as the
sun shines.

Mobile payment paved the way

Moore, a former aid worker from Canada, says mobile payment systems
like M-PESA are crucial to business in Africa.

“It allows everybody in this country to move money seamlessly
through their mobile phones in a way that’s almost to the envy of
the UK or Canada.”

Moore saw an opportunity to bring social change to remote
communities with affordable solar power kits — and started M-KOPA
Solar in 2011 together with Nick Hughes, Chief Product Officer, and
Chad Larson, Chief Credit Officer.

Today, the company has 2,000 employees and offices in five
countries.

*********************************************

Don’t be a fossil fool: how South Africa’s coal addiction is costing
us

Daily Vox, May 11, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/zg24uef

For videos and photos from demonstrations, visit
http://southafrica.breakfree2016.org.

For the May BreakFree demonstrations world-wide, including
disruptions of fossil-fuel facilities in Australia, Germany, Brazil,
UK, Turkey, and USA, see http://breakfree16.org

Ahead of their three-day long campaign against fossil fuels and its
impact on people’s livelihood, climate change organisation, 350.org
held a press briefing to detail the structure of the campaign, Break
Free from Fossil Fuels. 350.org, together with other organisations
presented a mouthful at the briefing and THE DAILY VOX sums up the
nitty-gritty.

Mzansi’s [South Africa’s] addiction to coal has resulted in the
doubling of CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions in the past 56 years. We
are ranked the 12th largest CO2 emitter worldwide and the
environmental impacts of the coal sector are huge. 350.org is
calling on South African government to stop clinging to volatile
fossil fuels and consider a cleaner and fairer renewable energy.

From May 12 – 14, a series of events is planned by 350.org to keep
coal under the ground and lead the fight against coal mining and the
sector’s corruption. The events, under the umbrella Break Free from
Fossil Fuels will include protests and a visit to South Africa’s
coal mining hub, Emalahleni in Mpumalanga to raise awareness. The
campaign will speak out against fossil fuels, climate change, and
their impact of drought and hunger.

Yes fossil fuels, climate change, drought and food crisis are
connected. Here’s how:

Climate crisis and fossil fuels

Coal-fired power plants are the biggest source of man-made CO2
emissions, making coal energy the greatest threat facing our
climate. People are already living the impacts of the climate
crisis, with 2014 and 2015 recorded as the hottest years. South
Africa’s El NiÃ±o-induced drought is exposing weaknesses in the
state’s response. 2015 was the driest year on record for SA. Harsher
and longer droughts, heat waves and extreme rainfall can’t be
separated from the causal impact of climate change.

Climate change, drought and hunger

South Africa’s drought is affecting millions of people and
increasing starvation. Climate change is further exposing the
problems with a corporate-controlled food system. All measures of
food prices are showing a dramatic increase in food inflation, with
year on year increase of staples particularly. The biggest increases
have been in mealie meal, samp, cooking oil and potatoes. Food
profiteering denies us the right to food under the constitution.

The hunger crisis and high food prices

Food price inflation has increased by 13.4 % since November 2015. In
January 2016, food prices had increased by 6.9%. Bread companies are
taking advantage of the drought and artificially increasing their
prices. A brown loaf now costs 5.73% more than it did last year.

While the state is responding to commercial farmers, it is not doing
enough for smaller scale farmers and poor communities. Moreover,
food inflation has eroded the value of social grants. According to
PACSA (Pietermaritzburg Agency for Community Social Action, the
total of old age pension (R1, 510 in April/October 2016) cannot
actually cover the cost of a food basket (R1,879.24 in February
2016). Moreover, a minimum food basket for a household of four costs
R2, 420.77 in February 2016. In South Africa, 27 million people earn
less than R3, 000 per month. With food price increases, particularly
of staples, hunger is going to worsen. Already, one in five children
suffers from malnutrition and learning disabilities.

**********************************************

The tallest wind power tower in the US, assembled in one hypnotizing
video

Vox, June 1, 2016

Watch the video at
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/1/11820920/concrete-wind-turbine

Wind power engineering is governed by a simple fact: The higher you
go, the stronger and steadier the wind gets and the more power you
can generate. So the evolution of wind power over the years has
largely been a process of building bigger and bigger blades and
perching them atop higher and higher towers.
The turbine being assembled in this video, by MidAmerican Energy,
will be the tallest land-based wind turbine ever built in the US,
with a hub height (ground to center of blades) of 115.5 meters (379
feet) and a capacity of 2,415 kW. It’s not quite up to the level of
the best turbines in Europe, but it’s mainly meant as an experiment.
Wind towers in Europe now routinely reach 120 to 140 meters (over
500 feet).

US wind towers are catching up with Europe’s

The US has not quite caught up. Since 2011, average hub height in
the US has stalled out at about 80 meters (or 262 feet):

What explains this? Part of it is the fact that US wind resources
are generally stronger, especially in the upper Midwest, which
somewhat reduces the incentive to build higher. Some of it is cost
and regulations. But a surprisingly big piece is transport.

The taller a wind tower gets, the bigger the diameter of the base.
But at this point, those giant cross sections of steel tower are
getting so big that they can’t be transported via interstate. …

Tower sections bigger than the standard (80-meter) kind have to be
transported via special trucks, and only on certain highways. It’s a
huge bottleneck.

(Another reason EU turbines are taller is that more of them are in
the ocean, where transport can be done by boat.)

Concrete turbine towers can get around transport restrictions

So engineers and designers have begun looking to concrete. The
advantage of concrete towers, besides the fact that concrete is an
extremely well-understood material with a well-developed industry
behind it, is that they are modular. They come in smaller pieces,
which can be transported via regular trucking and safely assembled
on site.

(Theoretically, steel could be cut in smaller pieces too, but
assembling steel pieces, i.e., welding, on site is much more
difficult and technical than snapping concrete Legos together.)

It’s still a fairly new idea â€” only a few concrete wind towers are
currently in operation â€” but as the drive to push turbines ever
higher continues, it could take off.

The MidAmerican Energy turbine in Iowa is testing the concrete
model. If it succeeds, there is little limit to how tall towers
could get, though at a certain point land use considerations come
into play. Concrete is extremely carbon-intensive at present, but
there’s lots of work underway to make it lighter, stronger, and
greener. (There’s also work being done to develop hybrid
concrete/steel towers.)

It would be somewhat ironic if concrete, one of the oldest and most
boring elements of industry, were the future of wind.

**********************************************

“State of the Transition, May 2016: Talk of Twilight

http://www.jeremyleggett.net/2016/06/

Jeremy Leggett, June 5, 2016

World records tumbled in renewable energy this month. Utilities,
facing short-term existential threat in the face of clean-energy
growth, continued to wrestle with the imperative of escaping the
energy incumbency. Oil and gas companies, facing longer term threat
to business-model viability, read dire assessments of their
prospects in places they could not have imagined possible until
recently. Investors continued to awaken to climate risk, and a
critical mass of governments stayed broadly on course for the
current and future action that the Paris Agreement requires of them.
None of this, however, happened as fast as the recent run of world-
record monthly average temperatures merits. Unprecedented wildfires
and die offs of coral reefs were harsh reminders this month of the
race against time that civilisation is running.

The latest solar auction, in Dubai, saw a power plant proposal come
in below 3 cents a kilowatt hour for the first time: cheaper than
any other form of power today. It remains to be seen if such a plant
can be built at a profit, but this world-first shows that the solar
industry has a cost-down roadmap with yet more mileage in it. The
cost-down megatrends of solar and wind are driving solid growth in
grid penetration by renewables. Germany generated almost all its
power from renewables one day in May. Portugal managed four straight
days of 100% renewable power. UK energy from coal hit zero for first
time in over 100 years â€¦several times in a week.

Growth in jobs reflects the energy transition unfolding. We learned
in May that more than 8 million people now work in renewables. Solar
photovoltaics is the biggest employer with 2.8 million, while 1.1
million work in wind. In the USA the 769,000-plus people employed in
renewablesÂ – on an upward trend of 20% in 2015 – dwarf the 187,000
in oil and gas and the 68,000 in coal mining, sectors that are both
on strong downward trends.

Storage continues to race into the frame. Figures for 2015 showed
fully half the small solar PV plants installed in Germany were built
with storage. This story involves far more than the headlines
generated in April by Tesla. For example, Nissan announced a
residential battery product for Europe, scheduled for a September
launch.

Eon and RWE, the two giant German utilities who have admitted their
old business model is dead, continue to pursue radical
restructurings. Analysts are questioning whether they will have
strong enough balance sheets to execute their u-turns. In the US, a
study for the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute
showed that the top 25 investor-owned electric utilities spent over
$400 million lobbying against clean energy in the past four years.
Had they deployed that capital embracing the future rather than
defending the past, they could have accelerated the revolution
considerably. For example, had they used the cash underwriting loans
to ratepayers, they could have doubled the nation’s solar capacity.

The utilities’ wasteful defence of a failing status quo is as
nothing compared to that of the oil and gas industry’s. But the oil
and gas giants are coming under increasing pressure, and nowhere
more so than on the risk that they are heading for stranded assets.
The latest report from Carbon Tracker calculated that the oil majors
would be worth more if they adapted their business models to reflect
a world in which governments actually succeed in their treaty
commitments to keep global warming below 2Â°C.

ExxonMobil and Chevron faced torrid times at their AGMs in May
staving off shareholder resolutions around stranded-asset risk. They
won majorities, but for how much longer can they? A BBC headline
suggested Exxon Mobil faces a “change or die” moment on climate. The
Royal Institution for International Affairs published an analysis
suggesting that the oil companies have ten years in which to change
strategy, or face a “short, brutish end”. “Not-so-Big Oil”, read the
headline of an Economist article focussing on the evaporation of
profits. The problems are not just around climate and the debt
mountain they are building. Oil discoveries slumped to a 60-year low
in 2015. The Financial Times summed up in an editorial at the end of
May under the headline: “The long twilight of the big oil
companies.” “Fossil fuel producers face a future of slow and steady
decline”, the leader writer argued.

Investors are reacting, albeit slowly. A report by the Asset Owners
Disclosure Project showed that 246 of the world’s 500 biggest
investors, worth $14 trillion, are still ignoring climate risk
completely. The AODP rates investor behaviour in the manner of
ratings agencies, in this case assessing engagement on climate risk,
risk management, and low-carbon investment. They distinguish classes
from Leaders (A to AAA grade) through to Bystanders (D grade) and
Laggards (ungradeable). The percentage of Leaders is growing slowly,
but does not come close to matching the urgency implicit in the work
of regulators concerned about stranded assets. That said, the very
fact that ratings are now being applied should help unlock the
floodgates. So should the work of the G20’s Taskforce on Climate-
related Financial Disclosure when it reports later this year. My
prediction: expect a stampede at some point soon. The capital
markets are well known for herd behaviour.

Total is one oil and gas company that is making an effort, at least
to hedge bets. Total aims to have a fifth of its assets in low-
carbon by 2036. Its latest move is a billion euro acquisition of a
battery company, Saft Group. During May, Total and the solar company
it majority owns, SunPower, announced a project to power Santiago’s
metro with a 100 megawatt solar plant. Serving 2.2 million
passengers every day, this would be the first public transportation
system in the world to run mostly on solar energy. On a personal
note, I have often been assured by defenders of the energy
incumbency in London that “renewables can never run the tube
(metro).”

ExxonMobil, meanwhile, dug further into their defence of the status
quo. Their CEO told his AGM that ending oil production was “not
acceptable for humanity”. Calpers, holding $1bn of ExxonMobil
shares, was among the many who took a different view: “This is their
Kodak moment”, said Anne Simpson, representing the giant Californian
pension fund. “If they want to still be in business in 30 years,
they have to understand the changes that are taking place.”

In the UK, fracking of shale for gas won a council go-ahead for
first time since 2011. Here too scorn descended on the industry, not
least because – unmentioned by many UK press reports – bankruptcies
among US shale frackers have now rising to more than 70 in the face
of a debt mountain that is raising fears in some quarters of a new
sub-prime crisis. The FT’s Lex Column won first prize for imagery:
“The idea of the undead fascinates people”, Lex’s analyst wrote.
“The cult following still believes that fracking in the UK could be
profitable. Investors should allow market forces to finally kill it
off.”

A session of climate talks in Bonn was covered by less than 100
journalists, compared to the 3,500 who attended the Paris Climate
Summit. Almost unnoticed, governments kept their climate show on the
road, teeing up processes for implementing the Paris Agreement that
make success at this year’s climate summit, in Marrakesh in
December, more likely.Â At this point it looks possible that the
treaty will actually come into force earlier than negotiators agreed
in Paris.

There can be little doubt that all players, governmental and non-
governmental, will have to move faster than they expected in Paris.
The global average temperature for April broke yet another world
record. Terrifyingly, twelve months in a row have now done so.
Unprecedented impacts accompanied the unprecedented heat, most
notably a uniquely ferocious wildfire in Canada that required the
evacuation of Fort MacMurray, a city that owes its existence to the
tar sands. More than half the coral on the northern Great Barrier
Reef appears to have been killed by bleaching in unsurvivably hot
water.

For those still resistant to the idea that the world is warming
dangerously because of greenhouse gas emissions, despite such
evidence, there should be another reason to worry now. The largest
coral reef in the continental US, off Florida, is dissolving into
the ocean in some areas. The acid doing the damage comes from carbon
dioxide from fossil fuel burning. Then there should be worries about
air pollution, from the same source. The World Health Organisation
announced it is up 8% in last 5 years, and is now the single biggest
killer in world.

*****************************************************

Liberia/Global: Financial Secrecy at Work

worker | June 2, 2016 | 7:50 pm | Africa, Economy, political struggle | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin
Jun 2, 2016 (160602)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“Finance Uncovered, working with an anonymous Liberian journalist,
has exposed a little-known offshore business registry that has
created tens of thousands of anonymous companies and registered them
to a non-existent address in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital city.
Although these companies are technically a creation of Liberian law,
management of the registry is based in the United States and appears
to have the support of the US government. … Our investigation has
discovered over half a billion pounds of high-value London property
registered to Liberian offshore companies.”

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/iff1606.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/iff1606.php

In the wake of the Panama Papers leak of an extraordinary array of
data from one prominent law firm, the revelations continue of the
tangled web formed by international networks involved in concealing
their assets through financial secrecy. This AfricaFocus Bulletin
contains a report on one such case, by investigative journalists
working as part of the Finance Uncovered network, including the
AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism in South Africa.

This revelation came in the wake of an evolving scandal based on a
report from Global Witness, revealing how two British businessmen
used scams and bribery to deceive investors, used a London-based
registry (the Alternative Investment Market),Â along with bribery of
Liberian government officials, to pitch fake investments. Earlier
this week, Liberian judicial authorities indicted Sable Mining
Company and Sable’s Liberian lawyer Varney Sherman, Speaker of
Liberia’s House of Representatives. See Global Witness press
releases at https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/liberia/

Sorting out the details in cases such as these is complex, while
some press reports cite an wider set of claims of corruption
involving Liberian officials and large multinational corporations
involved in the country. The move by the Liberian government to
indict the alleged culprits in the Sable mining case is positive.
But there can be more doubt that there is much more to uncover, both
in Liberia and in the international networks of those outside the
country who are using the country for their own illicit enrichment.

For additional recent news on these development from the Liberian
and international press, visit http://allafrica.com

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on illicit financial flows and
related issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Liberia, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/liberia.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Liberia: America’s outpost of financial secrecy

Finance Uncovered, 26 May 2016

By George Turner and a Liberian journalist

http://www.financeuncovered.org, http://amabhungane.co.za/ – direct
URL: http://tinyurl.com/hbw7vq7

[This investigation was supported by the Thomson Reuters Foundation,
who funded a trip by Finance Uncovered’s Investigations Director to
Liberia. It forms part of their Wealth of Nations Programme. In
Liberia our director worked with a local journalist to try to
understand the workings of Liberia’s little spoken about corporate
registry, a factory for anonymous companies. The name of the
Liberian journalist has been withheld to prevent reprisals against
his publication.]

After the Panama Papers, attention focused on the UK’s role at the
heart of a tax haven empire. But the UK isn’t the only country which
has created a web of offshore secrecy. In our latest investigation
published today in South Africa’s Daily Maverick in cooperation with
AmaBhungane, we probe Liberia – America’s offshore outpost in
Africa.

Finance Uncovered, working with an anonymous Liberian journalist,
has exposed a little-known offshore business registry that has
created tens of thousands of anonymous companies and registered them
to a non-existent address in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital city.

Although these companies are technically a creation of Liberian law,
management of the registry is based in the United States and appears
to have the support of the US government.

The companies, which can be purchased online, offer near-total
anonymity to their clients, allowing them to hide assets without
fear of being caught by law enforcement or revenue authorities.

Our investigation has discovered over half a billion pounds of high-
value London property registered to Liberian offshore companies. And
there have been allegations that revenues from the registry were
used to fund arms purchases during Liberia’s violent civil war.

Liberia’s secret companies

Non-resident corporations are a particular form of corporate entity
offered by the Liberian government to foreigners. They cannot do
business in Liberia, and anyone in the world can set up such a
corporation online within 24 hours through a corporate service
provider.

Registered with the ministry of foreign affairs, they have no
liability to pay taxes in Liberia, and no obligation to declare who
owns them or file annual accounts.

They can also issue “bearer shares”, a legal instrument banned in
most countries because of the ease with which they can be used for
tax evasion and money laundering.

Bearer shares are unregistered certificates of ownership which can
be physically transferred, changing ownership of a company without
any record being kept. They are companies in cash form.

This means that no one, including tax and law enforcement
authorities and the directors of the company itself, can find out
who the owners are.

It is unclear exactly how many offshore companies Liberia has
established. The Liberian government does not publish official
figures, and Liberian officials repeatedly stonewalled requests for
information, citing “commercial confidentiality”.

The registry is apparently a sensitive issue for the foreign
ministry. The ministry’s then-deputy minister for legal affairs,
Boakai Kanneh, became visibly enraged when we raised the issue
during a brief meeting and ordered us out of his office.

Binyah Kesselly, former commissioner of the Liberia Maritime
Authority (LMA), which has oversight of the corporate registry, said
in answer to e-mailed questions that the number of companies
registered is kept confidential because of competition in the
maritime industry.

The Liberian International Shipping and Corporate Registry (LISCR),
a private company that manages the registry on the government’s
behalf, also cited commercial confidentiality in response to
questions.

Outside LISCR, the LMA, the ministry of foreign a airs and the
president’s office, few Liberians seem aware that the offshore
companies registry exists.

The minister in charge of the Liberian domestic business registry
until his death earlier this year, deputy minister of commerce and
trade services Cyril Allen, told us in December 2015 he was unaware
that Liberia had any other system of registering companies.

Some of the tax advisers who use the registry also seemed strangely
unwilling to discuss it. Price Waterhouse Coopers is the only member
of the “big four” accountancy rms with an office in Liberia, and is
listed as a “certified service provider” on the LISCR’s website.

To qualify for this programme PwC must actively promote the use of
Liberian companies. When we contacted them, the company said it
would only respond to a letter delivered to its Monrovia office.

A letter was delivered, but no reply was forthcoming.

Liberia’s former auditor-general, John Morlu, slammed what he called
secrecy surrounding the registry and the Maritime Programme of which
it forms part.

He told us in an email: “The Presidency has managed to conceal the
corporate registry in the infamous maritime registry with 99% of the
Cabinet, 99% of the legislature, and 99% of the Liberian people
having no clue what a corporate registry is.

“Many Liberians know that the Maritime Programme is lucrative, and
since it has always been the prerogative of the presidency no one
dares bother to poke into it.” However, Finance Uncovered located an
OECD report from 2013 on Liberia’s tax and transparency laws which
states that 55 000 companies are registered in that country. Most
are understood to be non-resident corporations.

In 2009 the trial of former Liberian president and convicted war
criminal Charles Taylor heard that the offshore corporate registry
had registered 40 000 companies.

Asked for comment, the Liberian government claimed that the maritime
programme and the registry are not secret and that President Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf usually reports on the activities of the registry in
her annual State of the Union address.

No mention of the registry could be found in the previous twoffstate
of the Union addresses. We asked when Sirleaf last updated the
Liberian legislature on the programme, her spokesperson, Jerolinmek
Matthew Piah did not respond.

In search of 80 Broad Street

To receive mail, all Liberian non-resident corporations must have an
address in Liberia and a registered agent.

Under Liberian law the LISCR Trust Company, a private entity with
the address of 80 Broad Street, is the exclusive agent for all
Liberian non-resident corporations. This means that all such
corporations have the same mailing address – 80 Broad Street,
Monrovia.

Broad Street is the commercial heart of downtown Monrovia. But 80
Broad Street does not exist, and when we visited the area none of
the businesses in the street had heard of it.

At the ministry of post and telecommunications, no one would say who
was assigned to that address.

Finally, a DHL agent we interviewed found that mail for 80 Broad
Street is diverted to LISCR, on 5th Street in Sinkor, a few
kilometres away.

At the LISCR offices, we-were told that the managing director,
Joseph Keller, was on long-term sick leave in the US and no one had
replaced him.

Asked whether anyone at LISCR’s Monrovia office could explain what
happened there, we were told “no”.

LISCR’s Monrovia office appears to be little more than a mail room,
receiving correspondence for the thousands of companies registered
there, which is scanned into computers and e-mailed to LISCR’s US
headquarters.

The US connection

Liberia’s offshore registry would not have been possible without US
patronage . A LISCR spokesperson said the foundation of the registry
“resulted from an initiative of the United States government at the
end of World War 2 to set up, in effect, an offshore ship register
for the United States.”

Liberia was chosen because of the “strong historical connections
between the US and Liberia”.

The Liberian shipping registry was founded in 1948 by former US
secretary of state Edward Stettinius, who persuaded the Liberian
government to contract out its shipping register to a private US
company.

Today LISCR, the register’s current manager, is based in Vienna,
Virginia, at the heart of the US military-industrial complex close
to Washington DC. It has offices across the world.

The fees collected by LISCR are transferred to the Liberian
government through a special account at the US Federal Reserve.

Liberian law continues to require that LISCR is owned and managed by
US nationals. Its owner is Yoram Cohen, whose investment rm YCF
Group owns agriculture, shipping and telecommunication companies
operating in 18 countries, according to its website.

Cohen was also the president of Cellcom, a Liberian cell phone
company, before it was sold to Orange earlier this year.

LISCR itself is registered in the tax haven and secrecy jurisdiction
of Delaware in the US -prompting criticism in 2003 from the United
Nations, which said it would have preferred the company to publicly
declare its shareholders.

LISCR said the UN has never accused it of wrongdoing and that it has
always co-operated with Security Council investigations into
Liberia.

Throughout the history of the registry, LISCR and its predecessor
have been staffed by retired US generals and former employees of the
US coast guard.

In return for hosting this outpost of financial secrecy, the
Liberian government gets to keep 67% of the net revenues collected
by LISCR on its behalf. Funds raised by the company accounted for
75% of the government’s annual revenues during Charles Taylor’s
rule, according to Taylor’s head of maritime a airs, Benoni Urey.
During the first Liberian Civil War, revenues from the registry
accounted for 90% of government revenue.

The receipts are far less significant now, but there are still
concerns about where they end up. Under the Taylor administration
the Bureau of Maritime Affairs (BMA), a Liberian government agency
that oversees the work of LISCR, took 10% of the revenue from the
maritime programme for its running costs. This was off the
government’s balance sheet, and the UN alleged that Urey used the
agency to make off-budget arms purchases during the civil war in
violation of UN sanctions.

In a recent interview, Urey claimed that the money granted to the
BMA was used for legitimate running costs. He said his agency was
audited four times and on each occasion he was cleared of
wrongdoing.

According to news reports, an agreement signed earlier this year
between LISCR and the Liberian government grants the Liberian
Maritime Authority, which has taken over from the BMA, 25% of
revenues to meet its running costs. There appears to be little
scrutiny of where the money goes, although there is no evidence that
it is used for inappropriate expenditure.

In 2009, LISCR’s contract with the government came up for renewal,
and the negotiations led to a political storm known as “Knuckles-
gate”.

Willis Knuckles was President Sirleaf’s former chief of staff. In
2009, he was chairperson of Cellcom, LISCR’s sister company, when
emails emerged purporting to show that Knuckles tried to bribe
members of the government, including Sirleaf herself, during the
negotiations to extend LISCR’s contract.

An independent commission was set up to investigate the allegations
led by Dr Elwood Dunn, a respected academic. The Dunn Commission,
whose report can still be found on the Liberian president’s website,
states that their findings were in part based on interviews with
Yoram Cohen and other sta ff at LISCR and Cellcom. The commission’s
report cleared Sirleaf of corruption but criticised Knuckles for
offering a $200 top-up card to the president’s brother-in-Law.

The commission found evidence of some “unclear payments” by LISCR
that should be probed further, including a $600 000 “pre-payment”
referred to in an email on a hard drive in Sirleaf’s mansion.

In its response to Finance Uncovered, LISCR issued a stinging attack
on the Dunn Commission, claiming that the commission never contacted
the company in the course of its inquiries. LISCR added that the
alleged payments from it referenced on the hard drive in the
president’s mansion never took place and that the company was
subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing in a letter from the Liberian
justice ministry.

Liberia blacklisted

The offshore registry has prompted a growing number of countries to
place Liberia on tax haven blacklists, with potentially far-
reaching consequences.

In June 2015 the European Union released a consolidated list of tax
havens drawn from its member states – and Liberia was included by
Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal,
Slovenia and Spain.

Now, the EU is threatening to create a new list compiled by the
European Commission, and may impose sanctions on states that do not
meet international tax and transparency

Brazil lists Liberia as a “privileged tax regime”. Argentina has
produced a white list of countries that are not tax havens, and
Liberia is one of the few that is not included.

Several US states, including Montana and Oregon, have drawn up tax
haven lists, and companies in these states doing business in listed
countries have greater tax obligations. Again, Liberia features.

Asked to comment, Sirleaf’s office and LISCR emphasised that the
registry complies with international norms and standards on tax and
transparency.

Said the president’s office: “Liberia does not conform to the
definition of tax haven and in fact is not considered such by
leading OECD countries such as France and the USA.” It added, “Over
the past years, the government of Liberia has … taken measures to
improve upon the transparency and management of the programme to
meet all of the OECD requirements. Liberia is in fact an OECD
â€˜white-listed’ jurisdiction.”

On its website and in its statement to Finance Uncovered, LISCR
echoed the claim that Liberia is an OECD “white-listed
jurisdiction”.

However, the OECD ceased to publish a white list in 2009.
Responsibility for international coordination of policy in this area
has passed to the OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of
Information for Tax Purposes. A spokesperson confirmed that the
forum does not publish white lists.

The forum, which has 131 members, including Liberia, conducts phased
reviews of whether governments meet agreed standards on tax and
transparency.

Last reviewed in 2012, Liberia has yet to pass phase one. And this
is because of lack of access to ownership and accounting information
from Liberian non-resident corporations.

In response, the government said: “There is no bad stigma attached
to this designation, as many other countries have been in the same
position. The reason for this is very simple. Liberia has not been
able to compete with the larger countries, such as in Europe, as it
does not have the infrastructure and manpower in place to assist
with the implementation of the rigorous standards required by the
OECD.”

Only eight states – Liberia, Vanuatu, Trinidad and Tobago, Nauru,
Lebanon, Micronesia, Guatemala and Kazakhstan – have failed to make
it past phase one of the OECD Global Forum. Even tiny well-known tax
havens such as the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands,
Mauritius and Panama have moved to phase two.

This month Liberia passed new legislation on corporations, after the
country was given a deadline by the OECD, which is conducting its
latest review.

This reiterates companies’ obligation to keep internal accounting
and ownership records but does not oblige them to file those records
with the corporate registry.

LISCR emphasised that the provisions are similar to those of many
other countries.

For the first time the law gives the Liberian authorities power to
request documents from the companies themselves.

A failure to comply results in a minimum fine of $1 000, while the
ne for not keeping records is capped at $5 000. Liberian companies
also continue to be allowed to issue bearer shares, which can make
attempts to discover the ownership of companies extremely difficult.

‘Unimaginable damage’

After the European Union published its tax haven blacklist,
officials at LISCR’s US headquarters started to email campaign
groups in Europe to ask for help in lobbying to get Liberia removed
from the list.

In one e-mail seen by Finance Uncovered, a senior LISCR official
writes: “The harm this blacklisting will do to reputation and
commercial enterprise is unimaginable.”

It is a fear echoed by banking representatives in Liberia. In the
Liberian Observer, local banks said it was difficult for them to
establish correspondent banking relations because of Liberia’s
reputation as a money-laundering centre.

Asked about the effect on a country such as Liberia of being added
to a blacklist, Melissa Dejong, a tax policy analyst for the OECD,
said they are aware of financial institutions moving out of
countries that do not comply with the Global Forum recommendations,
and that blacklisting deters investment.

“In some cases, jurisdictions may impose rules with respect to
jurisdictions that do not meet the Global Forum standards,” Dejong
said.

“For example, a jurisdiction may impose tax consequences on their
own taxpayers who engage in transactions with a person in a
jurisdiction that does not meet the Global Forum standards, such as
higher withholding taxes, increased likelihood of audit, denial of
tax benefits, increased information reporting requirements. These
create a disincentive to investment.”

A national resource

Kesselly, the former chief executive of the Liberian Maritime
Authority, said the characterisation of Liberia as a tax haven is a
“misconception”. Kesselly said Liberia is not listed as a “high-
risk” jurisdiction by the Financial Action Task Force, and that
diplomatic correspondence with the EU suggests the country will be
taken off the European list of tax havens later this year.

Calling the registry “a national resource”, he said that every non
resident Liberian corporation must have an agent and an address in
Liberia where official documents and mail can be served, regardless
of whether anything else happens there.

In addition, non-resident corporations pay fees to the Liberian
government on incorporation and every year thereafter, as well as
when they file documents.

“The government views these programmes as national resources and is
committed to protecting these resources by modernising them to both
meet the needs of clients, and maintain compliant ratings from our
international peers,” Kesselly said. “This synergy ultimately
benefits the people of Liberia.”

However, Morlu, Liberia’s former auditor-general, said the small
income the registry generates for the government – between $9-
million and $15-million in most years – does not justify the
tremendous risk.

“There are better ways to make money and since Liberia does not have
the means, the desire and the political will to create a stronger
regulatory and enforcement regime, we are better off not adding to
the world’s problem of terrorist financing, drug financing and
illicit fkow of funds from other poor countries,” Morlu said in an
email.

He would like to see the registry reserved only for legitimate
shipping companies. With the OECD report due on its progress in
meeting transparency standards, and the EU threatening sanctions
against countries on its blacklist, this summer will be a key moment
for Liberia.

Scrutiny by international institutions is bound to grow in the wake
of the Panama Papers. If Liberia is once again found to be lacking,
the consequences for this fragile economy, still recovering from
Ebola, could be devastating.

*****************************************************

Africa/Global: Migrants’ Rights Roundup

worker | May 26, 2016 | 9:29 pm | Africa, Analysis, political struggle | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin
May 26, 2016 (160526)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

At the World Humanitarian Summit (https://www.worldhumanitariansummit.org/) in Istanbul on May 23-24,
the informal consensus was that the system of humanitarian response
to today’s crises is “broken.” The calls to “leave no one behind”
highlighted the particular vulnerability of the displaced. But it is
clear that such non-binding resolutions will only be implemented by
extensive mobilization on many fronts, including both those most
affected and their allies.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/migr1605.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/migr1605.php

Each issue of AfricaFocus requires selection from a wide array of
sources. Normally this is for reposting of excerpts from a small
number of sources, with a few additional links to additional
resources. Sometimes, as for this Bulletin, that choice is just
overwhelming, and I have opted for a roundup of links or very short
excerpts, to include a much wider set of sources that have been
called to my intention.

I hope this will serve as a resource for readers who can pick and
choose what to followup. I particularly urge readers to view the
multimedia resources highlighted at the beginning, and to pass them
on to others who may be interested, by email and through social
media links.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a roundup of links on migration
issues, particularly related to protection of rights of refugees,
other international migrants, and internally displaced people.
Although it is far from comprehensive, the range of sources included
show increasing recognition, in Africa and globally, that migration
and forced migration creating extreme vulnerability is a complex
phenomenon, closely linked to other economic, social, and political
and to fundamental human rights of all people.

In addition to the wide range of sources below, previous AfricaFocus
Bulletins on migration are available at
http://www.africafocus.org/migrexp.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Multimedia Perspectives on Migration

Rosebell Kagumire at World Economic Forum for Africa, Kigali, May
13, 2016
http://wef.ch/1rG1lhL

20 minute video. Good questions from audience & good thoughtful
nuanced answers about African ?#?migration? from this leading
Ugandan journalist, who formerly worked at International
Organization for Migration in Geneva. Migration is not just to
Europe but also within Africa and with Middle East and Asia as well.
Fortunately most of the time with questions and actions. Goes far
beyond the stereotypes.

“New York Immigrant Advocates Launch Black Immigrant Engagement
Initiative,” May 11, 2016

15 minutes interview on BRIC TV, the first 24/7 television channel
created by, for, and about Brooklyn. Hadiyah Harrison, Project
Manager at the New York Immigration Coalition, and Carl Lipscombe,
Policy & Legal Manager at Black Alliance for Just Immigration
(BAJI).

[For additional recent articles from BAJI, visit
http://blackalliance.org/category/blog/

Op-ed by Opal Tometi of BAJI in Time magazine
Black Lives Matter Co-Founder: The Immigration Challenge No One Is Talking About

Grassroots call to decriminalize the U.S. immigration system, #Fix96
on-line petition -Â http://tinyurl.com/h2lfbyx]

Laeila Adjovi, “The Town of Women,” BBC, 2 December 2015
http://tinyurl.com/zwmc539 – photo essay on the town of Beguedo in
Burkina Faso and migration to Italy. For more on the photographer,
see http://laeila-adjovi.com/

Anne Paq, “Migrant domestic workers take to the streets in Beirut.
Demonstrators called for basic rights, including a minimum wage and
at least one day off per week.”, photo essay, Al Jazeera, 7 May 2016
http://tinyurl.com/j2vk7b3

New Blog and Facebook Page

AfricaMoves: A Pan African Migration Platform

http://www.africamoves.org/
On Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/h22qj3u

Organizations contributing to the establishment of Africa Moves
include: Priority Africa Network; Black Immigration Network;
PanAfrican Network in Defense of Migrants’ Rights; Consortium for
Refugees & Migrants in South Africa; Africa Speaks 4 Africa. Edited
by Nunu Kidane.

Kenya’s Refugees in Kenya & Beyond

Samar Al-Bulushi, “Kenya’s Refugee ‘Problem'”
Africa Is a Country, May 25, 2016

Kenya’s Refugee “Problem”

“Integrally tied to this pending humanitarian crisis is the global
architecture of counter-terrorism. The Kenyan government is but one
actor among many who produce, and profit from, the specter of
terrorist threat, which allows for the discursive slippage from
civilian, to potential Al-Shabaab sympathizer, to potential
terrorist.”

Chico Harlan, “For many Somali refugees, this industry offers hope
— then takes it away,” Washington Post, May 25, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/jdnq4a4

Feature article: “Though meatpacking plants have long relied on
labor by immigrants, particularly Hispanics, major companies have
moved to hire Somalis, who have the dual advantage for employers of
being legal and relatively cheap. In one slice of a changing low-
wage America, these are the new ideal workers.”
Lucy Hovil, “Why is the cost of hosting refugees falling on the
world’s poorest states?,” The Guardian, May 13, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zs9wdeh

“The government of Kenya says it plans to close Dadaab, the worldâ€™s
largest refugee camp, which hosts approximately 330,000 people, as
well as shutting the Department of Refugee Affairs (DRA). The
announcement, on Friday 6 May, was no doubt a pre-election stunt of
Trump-like proportions that plays to an electorate’s fear of
generating instability and outsiders taking jobs, playing to the
same xenophobic narrative that has become commonplace in election
campaigns across the world. [but] As long as rich nations pay lip
service to meeting the needs of the worldâ€™s displaced, they cannot
blame Kenya for closing refugee camps like Dadaab”

Jina Moore, “Kenya Is Trying To Close The Worldâ€™s Biggest Refugee
Camp And This Is Why,” Buzzfeed, May 13, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/huyof93

“Kenya says the camps are a security threat, but the move comes at a
time when refugees are big business. … When Europe began panicking
over its growing refugee population, Kenya took notice. A very
noticeable feature of that crisis is that Europe is willing to spend
cash — lots of cash — to end its refugee problems. … This is not
the first time Kenya has said it will close the camps. Last time it
issued this threat, it got $45 million more in U.S. aid.”

Amnesty International, “New ‘Refugees Welcome Index’ shows Kenyan
government out of touch with public on refugees,” 19 May 2016
http://tinyurl.com/jrdmc7v

“The new Refugees Welcome Index, based on a global survey of more
than 27,000 people carried out by the strategy consultancy
GlobeScan, found that 65% of Kenyans would personally welcome
refugees and that 62% thought their government had not yet done
everything in its power to help refugees. ‘This report, coming at a
time of heightened anti-refugee rhetoric from the Kenyan government,
shows that Kenyans are not as unaccepting as their government would
make the world believe,’ said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty
International’s Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the
Great Lakes. ‘It shows that a majority of Kenyans would welcome
refugees into their country and that the governmentâ€™s decision to
shut down Dadaab refugee camp is not backed by popular opinion.'”

Stephanie Schwartz, “Why Kenya’s threat to close its refugee camps
is even worse than you think,” Washington Post, May 11, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/z8vy8q7

“Many observers are already questioning whether Kenya will really
follow through on the closure, whether the camps really are a haven
for terrorists, and whether this action violates international law.

An equally important question is: Do these refugees have homes to
which they could return? Probably not. And the reasons aren’t just
that Somalia and South Sudan won’t magically become peaceful.

Why else canâ€™t they return? Let me explain by telling you what I’ve
found among Burundian refugees in Tanzania.”

New International Reports

Amnesty International, “Refugees Welcome Index shows government
refugee policies out of touch with public opinion, 19 May 2016
http://tinyurl.com/hbp5nhy

“The vast majority of people (80%) would welcome refugees with open
arms, with many even prepared to take them into their own homes,
according to a global survey commissioned by Amnesty International.

The new Refugees Welcome Index, based on a global survey of more
than 27,000 people carried out by the internationally renowned
strategy consultancy GlobeScan, ranks 27 countries across all
continents based on people’s willingness to let refugees live in
their countries, towns, neighbourhoods and homes.

The survey shows people say they are willing to go to astonishing
lengths to make refugees welcome. It also shows how anti-refugee
political rhetoric is out of kilter with public opinion.”

Bronwen Manby, “Who Belongs? Statelessness and Nationality in West
Africa,” Migration Policy Institute, April 7, 2016
http://www.migrationpolicy.org – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/htzplps

[Full article contains extensive background and analysis. Brief
excerpt below by permission of Migration Policy Institute.]

“At least 10 million people around the world are stateless,
according to estimates from the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), but the real number may be much higher.
Statelessness severely limits a personâ€™s human rights, including
access to basic services such as health care and education. Often
deemed to be illegally present in their country of birth and
residence–even if their parents were also born there–stateless
individuals may be unable to work in the formal economy, open a bank
account, or buy land. A person without identity documents, usually
dependent on nationality, is unable to cross international borders
through regular channels. …

Although those lacking documents are generally among the poorest and
most marginalized, an undocumented person who is a member of the
dominant ethnic or religious group and comes from a settled
community and stable family is far less likely to be refused when
applying for a nationality document. Those most at risk of
statelessness are members of social groups facing discrimination,
migrants (especially irregular migrants) and their descendants,
refugees, and children born out of wedlock, separated from their
parents, or vulnerable in other ways. They are left stateless not
only by discrimination in practice and weak administrative systems,
but also by laws that provide very limited rights based on birth in
the territory and that restrict transmission of nationality from
parent to child on the basis of gender or other grounds.

…

At the regional level, West Africa has moved furthest to address
statelessness, as a result of advocacy from UNHCR and the existing
policies and institutional frameworks of the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS). In February 2015, the 15 ECOWAS Member
States adopted the Abidjan Declaration on the Eradication of
Statelessness, agreeing “to prevent and reduce statelessness by
reforming constitutional, legislative and institutional regimes
related to nationality in order to include appropriate safeguards
against statelessness, in particular to ensure that every child
acquires a nationality at birth and that all foundlings are
considered nationals of the State in which they are found.” Of
course, the declaration is just that–a declaration–and does not
necessarily mean the promised action will take place. Nonetheless,
it is a remarkable recognition at the regional level that the
question of nationality in Africa needs to be addressed.

Based on a study commissioned by UNHCR and the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) and presented at the February 2015
Abidjan conference, this article explores the factors contributing
to statelessness in West Africa, including the region’s colonial and
migration history and nationality laws, as well as the social groups
particularly at risk. The article then examines the ECOWAS
framework, steps taken to implement the Abidjan Declaration, and the
way forward to eradicating statelessness in West Africa.”

Marie-Laurence Flahaux and Bruno Schoumaker, “Democratic Republic of
the Congo: A Migration History Marked by Crises and Restrictions,”
Migration Policy Institute, April 20, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/j58yztj

Article provides historical overview as well as analysis of current
situation.

“DR Congo has long had both economic and humanitarian migration
exchanges. African countries host the vast majority of Congolese
migrants and refugees, whose numbers have increased significantly
over the last four decades, particularly since the wars of the late
1990s and early 2000s. The lack of recent censuses in several
destination countries (such as Angola) makes it difficult to
precisely evaluate the distribution of Congolese migrants and
changing patterns. Data from the United Nations Population Division
nevertheless show significant changes over the last 25 years. In
1990, an estimated 300,000 Congolese migrants and refugees resided
in one of the nine neighboring countries (Angola, Burundi, Central
African Republic, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sudan [now South
Sudan], Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia), representing three-quarters
of all migrants from DR Congo worldwide (see Table 1). Their number
had more than doubled by 2000 (to approximately 700,000), and by
mid-2015, had risen to more than 1 million in the neighboring
countries (1.2 million for Africa as a whole; see Table 1).

…

While Belgium was the main Western destination of Congolese migrants
prior to the 1980s, destinations have increasingly diversified.
France has become the preferred end point since the late 1990s
(Figure 2), possibly as a result of greater ease getting visas and
of obtaining asylum, and better labor market opportunities. Recent
estimates indicate that France and Belgium together host more than
100,000 Congolese migrants, and that more than 50,000 others live
elsewhere in Europe (including Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and
the United Kingdom; see Figure 2).

Outside Europe, the United States and Canada have also become
increasingly popular destinations since the 1990s (see Figure 2),
each now hosting nearly 30,000 Congolese immigrants. This growing
interest is also found among would-be migrants in surveys conducted
in Kinshasa. Congolese migration to the United States has taken off
since 2005, making the United States the second most popular
Congolese destination outside Africa.”

Additional recent international reports and sources

[Thanks to Evalyn Tennant, of Global Migration Policy Associates
(GMPA), for identifying these links and sharing them with me. As
with other global issues, the outcomes for Africa are closely
related to policies set at a global level. As the number of
refugees, migrants, and internally displaced people grows world-
wide, affecting countries in all regions, the global response is
more and more obviously falling short. The policy debates, both in
intergovernmental and non-governmental forums, are becoming more and
more intense.]

UN Summit Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants
Upcoming September 19, 2016
http://refugeesmigrants.un.org/high-level-meeting
http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusRel.asp?infocusID=90

Official UN pages. Second link above has multimedia resources as
well as news.

Secretary General’s Report for the Summit: “In Safety and Dignity:
Addressing large movements of refugees and migrants”
http://refugeesmigrants.un.org/reports-and-documents

Report includes assessment of current issues facing refugees and
migrants and the countries hosting them, as well as calls for global
compacts, one on “Responsibility-Sharing for Refugees” and the other
for “Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration.”

Migrants in Countries in Crisis (MICIC), International Organization
for Migration (IOM)
http://micicinitiative.iom.int

Global Coalition Migration page on MICIC
http://gcmigration.org/micic/

Civil society coalition page related to MICIC, includes reports on
civil society consultations in West and Central Africa, North Africa
and Middle East, and Central and Southern Africa.

MICIC West and Central Africa regional consultation
http://tinyurl.com/zq6ejgw

MICIC North Africa and Middle East consultation
http://tinyurl.com/je4wzqz

MICIC East and Southern Africa consultation
http://tinyurl.com/hzlpltx

Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat for the Horn of Africa and
Yemen
http://www.regionalmms.org/index0b30.html?id=2.

Forced Migration Review
http://www.fmreview.org

This journal has a wealth of resources, including Africa-specific
resources. For example, the latest issue (
http://www.fmreview.org/solutions/contents.html) has articles
relating to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Uganda, Somalia-Yemen
relations, Burundi, and Tanzania.

Joint Labour Migration Program for Africa
http://tinyurl.com/zsdjyxk

The African Union Commission (AUC), the ILO, the IOM and the UNECA
are implementing the Joint Labour MigrationÂ Program (JLMP) for
Africa formally adopted in January 2015 by African Heads of State
and Government as a comprehensive programme on
labour migration governance for the region.

Global Detention Project
http://www.globaldetentionproject.org

Includes special reports on detention of migrants and asylum seekers
in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Gulf states, as well as in the
Americas. See http://tinyurl.com/z8rpb64 for reports.

Caritas Europa, “Migrants and Refugees Have Rights: Impact of EU
Policies on Accessing Protection,” February 2016
http://tinyurl.com/z6clnxj

Comprehensive 74-page report with background, policy analysis,
personal stories, photographs, and recommendations.

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) GRID 2016: Global
Report on Internal Displacement, May 2016
http://www.internal-displacement.org/globalreport2016/

This is a fundamental report for understanding displacement,
whatever the cause. Brief excerpt from the foreword by Jan Egeland,
Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council:

“Much focus has been placed on the hundredsÂ of thousands of
refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who have put their lives at
risk to reach European shores. Their bravery and despair has drawn
much attention to the phenomenon of displacement. In reality though,
they represent only the tip of an iceberg.

There are now twice as many internally displaced people (IDPs) as
refugees worldwide. In some ways, the distinction between internal
and cross-border flight is unhelpful in a globalised world.

…

When displacement becomes inevitable, humanitarians attend to more
immediate needs, but they must work with the development sector if
sustainable solutions are to be achieved. There is a clear trend of
displacement becoming more protracted and more of a development
challenge.

To take some of these considerations into account, we are presenting
our estimates of internal displacement in 2015 in a radically new
way, with figures on people displaced by conflict, by violence and
by disasters in a single report.

The Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) aims to provide a
more holistic picture of the phenomenon, regardless of cause. … It
also discusses types of displacement that receive too little
attention, such as that associated with generalised criminal
violence, gradually-evolving crises such as drought, and development
projects.”

Additional articles of interest

African Film Festival (in Tarifa, Spain and Tangiers, Morocco)begins
today, May 26, and runs through June 4.
http://www.fcat.es/en/home-en-2/

Building links across the Mediterranean, this film festival is in
its 13th year.

Thomas Friedman, “Out of Africa,” New York Times, Apr 13,20,27, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zzycjvq, http://tinyurl.com/hzjy6ck, and
http://tinyurl.com/gq8zx3m

Better than the usual from this New York Times columnist, reporting
from Niger and Senegal on African migration to Europe.

Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Briefing on “Fortress Europe,”
20 October 2015
https://www.odi.org/comment/9995-migration-policy-fortress-europe

Ugandan domestic workers in Saudi Arabia
http://allafrica.com/stories/201601280823.html

Detention centers in Libya
http://tinyurl.com/zl62eoe

Sudan crackdown on Eritrean migrants
http://tinyurl.com/hgsgtm3

*****************************************************