Category Archives: Global development

Living without water: the crisis pushing people out of El Salvador

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El Salvador will run out of water within 80 years unless radical action is taken, a study found, while corporate interests, corruption and gangs worsen the problem

Just after 6am, Victor Funez fills a three-gallon plastic pitcher with water from a tap in the cemetery, balances it on his head and trudges home, where his wife waits to soak maize kernels so she can make tortillas for breakfast.

Funez, 38, stops briefly to help his daughter with some homework before heading back to the cemetery with the pink urn. This load fills large plastic milk and juice bottles used for drinking throughout the day.

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The Fairtrade mark is still trustworthy | Letter

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Joy and Richard Webb respond to recent negative coverage about the fair trade movement

As committed and hardworking supporters of fair trade for almost 30 years, we feel your correspondents (Letters, 27 July) missed the point of “The death of fair trade?” (The long read, 23 July) which showed how large corporations are trying to circumvent fair trade and undermine the highly successful Fairtrade mark with their own “fairly traded” and the like. Rest assured, the Fairtrade mark remains an absolutely trustworthy guarantee of internationally agreed standards.

Tim Gossling blames the EU for “not allowing” the production of Divine chocolate in Ghana. This is not true. The EU is primarily a trading bloc, it imposes tariffs on products from outside that bloc. That’s what trading blocs do. It benefits UK manufacturers and farmers, too. No wonder the TUC, CBI and NFU are all appalled at the thought of similar tariffs being slapped on our products after Brexit.

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India’s strongman PM: Modi to appear on Bear Grylls’ Man vs Wild

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Narendra Modi claims the programme will showcase India’s ‘beautiful mountains and mighty rivers’, in the latest in a string of choreographed media appearances

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, will appear with Bear Grylls in a wilderness survival television programme, the latest in a series of Putin-style media appearances in which the 68-year-old leader projects himself as a man of action and a champion of the environment.

A trailer for the programme, Man vs Wild, which will air in India on 12 August, shows the two men cutting through forests, sniffing animal dung and floating down a river on a makeshift raft. In one scene, Modi holds an improvised spear and tells Grylls: “I’ll hold this for you.”

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‘People are dying’: how the climate crisis has sparked an exodus to the US

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As part of the Running Dry series, the Guardian looks at how drought and famine are forcing Guatemalan families to choose between starvation and migration

At sunrise, the misty fields around the village of Guior are already dotted with men, women and children sowing maize after an overnight rainstorm.

After several years of drought, the downpour brought some hope of relief to the subsistence farmers in this part of eastern Guatemala.

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Power play: reclaiming the story of Canada’s missing and murdered

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Tara Beagan’s drama about a Blackfoot woman seeking to avenge her sister’s murder confronts the violence suffered by Indigenous women from the standpoint of those affected

“You think we’re not at war here? As a Blackfoot woman I can tell you it sure as fuck feels like we are.” So begins Tara Beagan’s one-woman play Deer Woman, about an ex-soldier avenging the murder of her sister – and the 4,000 other Indigenous women and girls who have gone missing or been killed in Canada since the 1970s.

The show, set deep in the woods with nothing but a cooler, holdall and bundled-up tarpaulin as props, is delivered as a mesmerising, shocking, and at times terrifying confession to a smartphone on a tripod. Lila, whose primary goal in life has been to protect her sister Hammy, is eventually deployed with the army overseas – only to discover that something horrible has happened while she was away.

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Unsavoury truths about fair trade | Letters

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Tim Gossling and Bob Caldwell advise checking the smallprint and question how trustworthy the movement is

The death of fair trade (Journal, 23 July) can partly be laid at the door of the EU. Its treatment of former colonies, restricting tariff-free trade to “primary produce” so that the profitable part of the businesses, manufacture, is protected, means that they may be independent in terms of politics, but are economically still the same colonies.

Take Ghana, which Samanth Subramanian mentions. Go and buy your bar of “Fairtrade” Divine chocolate. On the back it waxes lyrical about Kuapa Kokoo, the cocoa farmers’ organisation that tries to guarantee fair and stable prices for cocoa beans, with a bit extra for the social premium. Read to the end of the small print where it says: “Made in Germany”. Ghana has a perfectly good chocolate factory, at the port town of Tema, but workers only make chocolate for the local market, because that is all they are allowed to do. Ghana would be a lot richer if it could sell the manufactured product over here, but that would be in direct competition with the German manufacturer, which the EU is formed to protect. That is why I voted leave in the referendum – though I probably would not do so again, as Brexit is unlikely to improve the situation.
Tim Gossling
Cambridge

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We should all be shamed by the shocking death of a sick woman in UAE custody

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Alia Abdulnoor’s case reveals the grim reality of human rights during the ‘year of tolerance’ in the United Arab Emirates

When I learned of Alia Abdulnoor’s death and the conditions of her detention, I was both saddened and outraged. Unjustly detained in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Alia was denied her dignity along with a fair trial.

This death in custody should shame us all. Riddled with cancer, osteoporosis and liver fibrosis, she spent her final weeks chained to a bed, denied adequate care and made to sign a document stating that she didn’t want treatment, according to reports by human rights monitors.

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Moves to improve press freedom in Malaysia met with cautious optimism

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Proposal to replace restrictive legislation with independent media council could end closures of outlets but campaigners remain wary

The Malaysian government is considering repealing a restrictive media law and creating an independent watchdog to regulate the industry.

In a move that activists hope will become the first of many to improve press freedom in the country, the government is discussing the abolition of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA).

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The play’s the thing: the university using drama to bridge ethnic divides

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Ethiopia’s conflicts are reflected at universities but, by walking in each other’s shoes on stage, students learn to do so in life

Rainy season has begun in Ethiopia’s south. On a stormy morning at a university in the town of Wolkite, students are using drama to break down entrenched ethnic barriers.

Understanding between groups is a rarity in a country where violent conflict is common. Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has promised greater stability, but tensions remain high in various regions and the education system is no more immune to deep-rooted tribal differences than anywhere else.

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EU moves to tackle deforestation caused by chocolate and other products

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Campaigners hail scheme to protect and restore forests around the world as ‘pivotal step’ towards ensuring goods remain untainted

The EU has taken a “pivotal step” towards addressing the deforestation caused by its consumption of soy, chocolate, meat and other products, environmental campaigners have said.

The EU said this week it had set out a new plan to protect and restore the world’s forests, which involves working with governments to promote better use of land and resources, managing supply chains, and carrying out research. A possible new regulation to “minimise the impact of EU consumption on deforestation and forest degradation” will also be assessed under the plan.

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Make environmental damage a war crime, say scientists

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Call for new Geneva convention to protect wildlife and nature reserves in conflict regions

International lawmakers should adopt a fifth Geneva convention that recognises damage to nature alongside other war crimes, according to an open letter by 24 prominent scientists.

The legal instrument should incorporate wildlife safeguards in conflict regions, including protections for nature reserves, controls on the spread of guns used for hunting and measures to hold military forces to account for damage to the environment, say the signatories to the letter, published in the journal Nature.

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Trade and foreign aid: will Boris Johnson bring an end to DfID?

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Johnson’s wish that aid should serve the UK’s political and commercial interests could mean a merger for the Department of International Development

In his victory speech, Boris Johnson spoke of the “jostling sets of instincts in the human heart” – the instinct to earn money and look after your own family, set against that of looking after the poorest and neediest, and promoting the good of society as a whole. The Tory party has the “best instincts” to balance these desires, he said.

This balancing act will be tested soon after he moves into No 10. How will he ensure the UK, which has the third largest aid budget in the world, retains its reputation as a “development superpower”, in the words of former international development secretary Penny Mordaunt, with the competing trade, diplomacy and defence requirements of post-Brexit Britain?

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How should we cope with climate crisis? Ask survivors to take the lead | Nanette Antequisa

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As well as investing billions in reinforcing cities against climate disasters, we should support those feeling its impact right now

It was my birthday recently, and it was sad to “celebrate” with another climate disaster here in the Philippines.

Heavy flooding destroyed the work of farmers in Kapatagan Valley, the rice-growing area of Lanao del Norte province on the island of Mindanao. I know the area well – it is where I started my aid work in the early 1990s.

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Cameroonian forces in anglophone region accused of killing four people

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Victims include male civilian, 20, with mental health disability and elderly disabled man

Cameroonian forces have killed at least four civilians during security operations in one of the country’s anglophone regions in the past month, according to a human rights organisation, including two men with disabilities.

An uprising by separatists that began two years ago and the response by security forces have caused intense suffering in the anglophone regions of the former German colony, which was carved up by France and Britain during the first world war.

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How Hong Kong maids became caught in a ‘humanitarian tsunami’

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Migrant workers who become pregnant by their employers face dismissal, homelessness and a swift return home

The sun had not yet risen in Hong Kong when Sally*, a domestic worker, was woken and told she needed to leave immediately. As she lay on the sofa, confused, Sally saw her employer standing over her with a piece of paper he wanted her to sign. It was a resignation letter he had written for her. She was being let go because she was pregnant. Her employer, a German man in his 50s, is the father of the child.

Sally, 39, from Manilla in the Philippines, is one of the 390,000 domestic workers – mainly from poorer Asian countries – who keep Hong Kong functioning. One in every 20 employees in Hong Kong is a migrant worker, and most of these are women of child bearing age.

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Gorillas, charcoal and the fight for survival in Congo’s rainforest | Peter Beaumont

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A deadly conflict simmers between the autochthon people forced out of Kahuzi-Biéga national park, and the rangers protecting the land

On a scarred hillside on the edge of the Kahuzi-Biéga national park, smoke rises from the once-forested slope as men cut down trees and burn them for charcoal. Suddenly, warning cries echo across the landscape. Park rangers are arriving. More men come running to the scene, some carrying machetes in anticipation of a confrontation. A tense stand-off follows.

This corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a frontline of a simmering and sometimes deadly conflict between two largely impoverished groups: the autochthon people, forced out of the forest as part of conservation efforts, and the rangers, who are tasked with protecting the land.

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Cost of global push to prevent women dying in childbirth to increase sixfold

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As Trump funding drought continues, UN figures show billions more will be needed to meet global target on maternal mortality

The cost of preventing women from dying in childbirth is projected to increase sixfold by 2030, requiring billions of dollars to achieve global targets, according to the UN.

The estimate was released by the UN population fund (UNFPA) on Thursday, offering a snapshot of the scale of the challenge the agency has set itself to end preventable maternal deaths by 2030.

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Bangladesh prepares to move Rohingya to island at risk of floods and cyclones

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Foreign affairs minister defends controversial proposal as ‘only solution’ despite misgivings of human rights campaigners

The first Rohingya refugees could be relocated to an island in the next few months under controversial plans drawn up by the Bangladesh government, the country’s state minister of foreign affairs has said.

Some of the nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar and are now living in camps in Cox’s Bazar will be relocated to the silt island of Bhasan Char in the estuary of Bangladesh’s Meghna river, accessible only by boat.

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Awkward exchanges as Trump meets religious persecution survivors – video

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Donald Trump has had some awkward exchanges with survivors of religious persecution during a meeting with them in the Oval Office on Wednesday. When the Nobel laureate and Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad requested aid for the Yazidis, the president replied: ‘And you had the Nobel prize? That's incredible. They gave it to you for what reason?’ When asked by a Rohingya refugee about the plan to help his people, Trump replied: ‘Where is that exactly?’

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More of the same won’t solve Congo’s Ebola crisis – let locals lead

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As the World Health Organization declares a public health emergency in DRC, frontline responders must be allowed a greater role in response efforts

The Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is already the second deadliest outbreak in history. More than 2,500 cases have been confirmed in DRC and 1,600 deaths have been recorded. The situation is escalating rapidly, with a new case in the transit hub of Goma reported on Sunday.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the crisis a public health emergency of international concern. This raises the stakes and must lead to fundamental changes in the response. The WHO wants more funding to extend and reinforce outbreak control measures, but simply expanding the current approach is unlikely to result in a more effective response.

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