Showing posts from category *Blog Columns.
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Conflict and Peacebuilding in Africa
›“Political Marginalization, Climate Change, and Conflict in African Sahel States,” authored by Clionadh Raleigh and appearing in the March 2010 issue of International Studies Review, examines the relationship between political status, economic status, and conflict among African communities threatened by climate change. “[T]he risk of conflict depends largely on the size and political importance of ethnic groups,” Raleigh finds. “Small, politically insignificant ethnic groups experience most conflicts related to environmental pressures.” The work is geared toward helping practitioners predict where high levels of vulnerability and conflict may occur in the face of climate change. (SUBSCRIPTION ONLY)
The Initiative for Peacebuilding and Adelphi Research‘s Peacebuilding Across Lake Albert: Reinforcing Environmental Cooperation Between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo uses the case study of Lake Albert to explore the possibilities for, and limits of, peacebuilding initiatives around natural resources and the environment. Looking specifically at protected areas, water and fisheries, and energy and oil, the study finds that resources can serve as “entry points for improving trust-building between and within countries,” even amidst heightened competition. Peacebuilding Across Lake Albert concludes that local stakeholder participation is integral to success and recommends that donor efforts focus on strengthening communal ties, creating opportunities for “benefits-sharing from sustainable resource management,” and increasing inclusiveness throughout the development process. -
On the Air With Arab Demographics
›A recent radio interview on the “Demographics of the Arab World” should be a must listen for those in the World Bank, where discussions of the Arab youth bulge are largely off the table.
The interview with Magda Abu-Fadil of the American University of Beirut and Bernard Haykel of Princeton University suggests that scholars of the Arab world are not so timid, as also evidenced by UNDP’s 2009 Arab Human Development Report.
However, during the interview with Abu-Fadil and Haykel, Worldfocus’ Martin Savidge falls victim to two significant misconceptions that are worth mentioning for their pervasiveness among political science and economics communities:- Savidge believes that countries tend to risk political violence when their percentage of young adults is above 35 percent. This is close, but not quite correct. It’s the proportion of young adults in the adult population – i.e., the working-age population, as opposed to the population in general – that indicates a risk of fractious politics. Children (those below the age of 14) should not be counted in this indicator, yet in much of the literature they mistakenly are.
- Savidge believes that large numbers of youth are an economic “good deal.” Here, Abu-Fadil and Haykel set him straight, noting that a bulge among the young adult population produces a demographic bonus only when fertility has significantly declined; the childhood cohorts are small and the subject of increased investment; and the youth moving into adulthood are educated.
Big changes could occur along the edges of the Arab world in the coming decade. Fertility decline, more recently, has made its way to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, although they still need a champion for women’s rights. Turkey had Ataturk, Iran had Reza Shah, and Tunisia had Habib Bourguiba. It’s no accident that these countries were the first to experience fertility decline and age structural changes—their leaders laid the groundwork decades ago.
Can a leader, however, with that amount of political guts and conviction emerge from the Saudi royal family? I’m doubtful.
Richard Cincotta is demographer-in-residence at the H.L. Stimson Center in Washington, DC.
Photo: Yemeni children courtesy Flickr user kebnekaise. -
Guerrillas vs. Gorillas in the Congo Basin
›Gorillas could disappear from the Congo basin in the next 10-15 years, according to a new report issued by the United Nations and Interpol. The Last Stand of the Gorilla – Environmental Crime and Conflict in the Congo Basin places responsibility for the decline of gorilla populations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its surrounding region squarely on the shoulders of resource-hungry militants, who poach gorilla bushmeat to feed hungry soldiers and mine workers and sell in local markets. Militants extract timber, charcoal, diamonds, and other resources to raise funds for arms, reducing gorilla territory.
Yet another rationale is retaliation against park rangers who attempt to limit their illegal activities within national parks. In the process, park rangers have found themselves, their parks, and their endangered charges targets of militant groups seeking to plunder and traffic goods through protected areas. “In Virunga Park alone, 190 park rangers have been killed in the last 15 years,” notes the report, which is also available in an interactive e-book edition.
Conflict with local communities also frequently leads to the slaughter of the gorillas and loss of their habitats. Displaced people and refugees also compete with gorillas for land. In several cases, gorillas facing shrinking natural domains have satisfied their appetites in banana plantations, and local farmers have struck back.Strengthening Law Enforcement
Not all, however, is dire. The report finds several success stories stemming out of transboundary law enforcement collaboration and recommends increased training and support for local and international law enforcement groups. “The gorillas are yet another victim of the contempt shown by organized criminal gangs for national and international laws aimed at defending wildlife,” said David Higgins, Interpol’s Environmental Crime Programme Manager. “The law enforcement response must be internationally coordinated, strong, and united, and Interpol is uniquely placed to facilitate this.”
Law enforcement in the Congo Basin faces an uphill battle, in part due to conditions present in peace agreements between guerillas and the Congolese government. Removing vehicle checkpoints from important border crossings was key to the insurgents agreeing to peace. While these agreements reduced violence, they have created a highway for illegal exports. This trade props up the militant groups and undercuts the chances for peace on a regional scale. It is an example of how large remaining quantities of automatic weapons and turns to poaching by ex-militants can render post-conflict environments even more damaging to local wildlife than war itself.
Toward Coexistence
In some locations, conflicts between gorillas and local farmers are disappearing with the construction of natural barriers and as local populations realize the potential of ecotourism to generate greater revenue from thriving gorilla populations than collapsing ones. Greater international coordination and local commitment, however, are necessary. Turning threatening competition into beneficial cooperation is possible.
Tara Innes is a PhD student at the University of Maryland, studying conflict-environment linkages.
Photos: Gorilla, courtesy Flickr user mrflip; Gorilla Territory Affected by War, Mining, and Logging courtesy UNEP/GRID-Arendal. -
The Plight of Urban Refugees in Nairobi
›“The Traditional image of life in tented sprawling camps no longer tells the full refugee story.”– Hidden and Exposed: Urban Refugees in Nairobi, Kenya
Coinciding with the end of UN-HABITAT’s 5th World Urban Forum, a new report and associated video, Hidden and Exposed: Urban Refugees in Nairobi, Kenya, have been released by the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
Hidden and Exposed removes the cloak of migration stereotypes and provides an unfiltered look at urban migrants’ struggle for daily survival. Focusing on seven neighborhoods with high refugee concentrations in Nairobi, the authors — through qualitative interviews and secondary data — found a unique, challenging urban environment for thousands of refugees. Aid and development groups often overlook these urban refugees, instead favoring work with traditional established camps on the urban periphery.
The HPG found that Nairobi’s 46,000 registered refugees represent a diverse mix of ethnic groups and nationalities, all trying to secure economic independence and security. While much research has been devoted to the traditional concept of displaced migrants in centralized ex-urban camps, such as Dadaab in Eastern Kenya, urban dwellers are just as vulnerable to insecurity, poverty, and harassment. With nebulous legal rights, facing discrimination and protected by only fragile support systems, the refugee community in Nairobi finds itself in a precarious situation.
In light of the challenges, the research team at HPG offered three basic recommendations as initial steps:
1. Protection:
2. Livelihoods:- Address confusion over legal rights to prevent issues of police harassment and community violence.
- Target a subset of donor funds for training local police forces and government agencies.
- Establish partnerships between the UNHCR and the Kenyan government to improve the latter’s Refugee Status Determination System.
- Funnel humanitarian and development aid toward legal aid services while also using innovative strategies to increase dialogue between urban refugees and the surrounding Kenyan communities.
3. Service Delivery:- Carry out surveys to better understand the Nairobi urban economy, including the informal sector.
- Support the government of Kenya in their efforts to help urban refugees to become self-reliant.
- Recognize the transition of refugees from sequestered camps to urban areas and develop an effective response.
- Secure Kenyan government permission for the issuance of work permits for refugees.
Fleeing conflict and attracted by the possibility of better jobs, services, or security, thousands of refugees have sought new lives in Nairobi. Yet the reality for many urban migrants is an existence burdened with inadequate assistance, a precarious legal status, and economic and physical insecurity. Through the implementation of these recommendations, HPG hopes to draw attention to these hidden refugees, and offer them the hope of improved livelihoods and effective security.- Design aid models to address the unique challenges faced by urban refugees in Nairobi.
- Ensure coordinated and comprehensive services, in conjunction with the Kenyan government and international organizations, to address the needs of the urban refugees and the surrounding communities, with particular attention granted to refugee women and girls.
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Maintaining the Momentum: Highlights From the Uganda International Conference on Family Planning
›“Family planning is to maternal survival what a vaccination is to child survival,” said Johns Hopkins professor Amy Tsui, quoting Khama Rogo of the World Bank, at the Woodrow Wilson Center event Maintaining the Momentum: Highlights From the Uganda International Conference on Family Planning on March 16. Rogo made the strong statement during the landmark November 2009 conference in Kampala, which has renewed interest in family planning and reproductive health among African leaders and development partners. Rhonda Smith of the Population Reference Bureau and Sahlu Haile of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation joined Tsui, the director of The Bill & Melinda Gates Institute of Population & Reproductive Health, to discuss their impressions of the Kampala conference and what it means for the future of family planning in Africa.
“An event that happened at the right time”
“Kampala was the work of a community,” said Tsui. More than 50 organizations—the U.S. Agency for International Development, the UN Population Fund, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Gates and Packard Foundations—convened in Uganda, which was chosen not only for its central location, but also to highlight the country’s soaring unmet need for contraception—41 per cent—and rapid 3.1 percent population growth rate.Panels focused on key issues in family planning, including:- Integrating family planning into HIV/AIDS care
- Integrating family planning in post-abortion, postpartum, child, and other primary health care
- Expanding contraception delivery services by community health workers
- Increasing outreach to youth and men
- Capitalizing on private and public innovations in service delivery and financing
- The United States announced its foreign assistance budget will increase support for family planning from $450 million to $715 million for the next fiscal year.
- The Global Health Initiative identified maternal/child health and family planning as one of its main priority themes.
- Secretary of State Clinton positively discussed girls’ education, family planning, and reproductive health at the ICPD + 15 anniversary.
- The Women Deliver 2010 Conference, to be held in June, has identified family planning as a third pillar of maternal health.
Uganda on the MoveRhonda Smith’s presentation “Uganda on the Move”—which she also presented in Uganda—is a prototype of the Population Reference Bureau’s new ENGAGE (Eliminating National Gaps—Advancing Global Equity) project, which is designed to “engage policy audiences and promote policy dialogue around issues of high fertility and high unmet need for family planning and their costs, consequences, and solutions,” she said. By using stunning, innovative graphics and avoiding confounding technical terms, ENGAGE’s products are designed to reach non-technical policy audiences and influential decision-makers.
As one of the Uganda conference’s most talked about presentations, “Uganda on the Move” wows audiences with visuals created using Hans Rosling’s Trendalyzer software. The presentation shows that although Ugandans are increasingly healthier, have a higher life expectancy, and are more educated, maternal health remains in jeopardy. Tellingly, 46 percent of pregnancies in the country are unplanned, 6,000 women die each year from complications related to pregnancy, and 1,200 women die each year from undergoing unsafe abortions.
Maternal deaths, however, do not tell the whole story: For every one woman dying, Smith said, 20-30 women suffer from short-term disability, which places a major strain on economic growth. From 2004 to 2013, maternal death will cost Uganda US$350 million in lost productivity; and disability will cost and additional US$750 million.
What Next? The African Perspective“After 10 years of virtual clandestine work, [family planning] is just coming out of the closet,” said Sahlu Haile. Over the last few decades, family planning advocates have been struggling to: 1) keep family planning alive—without it being affected by political considerations 2) make family planning a health priority, without any associations with rights violations; and 3) be in solidarity with pioneering organizations of the family planning movement, like the International Planned Parenthood Federation, that were victims of discriminatory funding decisions.
The Uganda conference changed all that, said Haile. In Uganda, conference attendees were “talking about family planning…not reproductive health, not maternal/child health.” This, he said, was “probably the single most important lesson…that I took from the Kampala conference.”
Following the conference, Haile said that African government officials stressed family planning as a priority at meetings in Ethiopia and Nigeria—the first time he had witnessed such high-level attention to family planning from those countries in his 30-year career.
In Ethiopia, African leaders pledged to:- Prioritize family planning, since family planning is one of the most cost-effective development investments;
- Ensure access to contraception, as 40 percent of maternal deaths are associated with unwanted pregnancies; and
- Integrate MDG 5b, universal access to reproductive health, into their international development plans and budgets.
Haile credited the Kampala conference for spurring these efforts. In December, he joined a task force of 14 Ethiopian organizations to plan the next steps. They will jointly develop research capacities, generate evidence, and strengthen monitoring and evaluation practices, especially with regard to integrating population, health, and environment efforts. In addition, they will engage with wider audiences via new tools such as the blog RH RealityCheck and Gapminder Foundation’s Trendalyzer program.
Haile believes we need to “work together to encourage national-level efforts…to make sure family planning stays where it is now and make sure it is not abandoned.”
To be a part of the new online family planning community, join the Kampala Conversation.
Photo 1: A women and her children in Jinja, Uganda. Courtesy Flickr user cyclopsr. Photos of Amy Tsui, Rhonda Smith, and Sahlu Haile courtesy of Dave Hawxhurst, Woodrow Wilson Center. -
Demographic Trends
›Worldfocus recently featured two pieces on the Arab world’s burgeoning population. “Demographics of the Arab World,” a radio broadcast, brings together Magda Abu-Fadil of the American University in Beirut and Bernard Haykel of Princeton University for a look at the region’s demographic trends. Despite possessing different political systems and being at different levels of economic development, demographic challenges of youth bulges, emigration, and gender gaps are common to countries across the Arab world. “Arab World Experiences Rapid Population Explosion,” a written interview with demographer Patrick Gerland of the United Nations Population Division, tackles similar issues. Topics of discussion include demographic variations between Middle Eastern nations, fertility rates, the consequences of the region’s youth bulge, and best- and worst-case scenarios for the Arab world’s future.
State of the World’s Cities 2010/2011: Bridging the Urban Divide is the most recent edition of UN-HABITAT’s biennial outlook into global population centers. Analyzing the “the complex social, political, economic, and cultural dynamics of urban environments,” the report explores the “ways in which many urban dwellers are excluded from the advantages of city life.” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon draws a connection between cities and climate change in the report’s preface, writing, “With over half the world’s population now living in cities, and cities making a disproportionate contribution to climate change, urbanization is one of the ‘crucial agendas’ of our time.” -
Maternal and Newborn Health as a Priority for Strengthening Health Systems
›Among the many initiatives that have recently been launched to strengthen health systems in the developing world, there is little consensus on execution. Traditional strategies for improving the health system, such as the vertical approach, which prioritizes communicable diseases, or the horizontal approach, which prioritizes non-communicable diseases, are limited in scope and fail to include a comprehensive gender lens.
To overcome the shortcomings of these two health financing approaches, the “diagonal” strategy combines them by “clearly defining priorities and utilizing these priorities to drive general improvements of the health system,” said Julio Frenk, dean of the Harvard University School of Public Health, at the Global Health Initiative’s third event in the “Advancing Policy Dialogue on Maternal Health” series.
Along with panelists Helen de Pinho of Columbia University, and Agnes Soucat of the World Bank, Frenk discussed how prioritizing key maternal health indicators can improve health systems and support the implementation of evidence-based interventions.Putting Women and Health First
Drawing on his experience as Mexico’s minister of health, Frenk said that clearly defining a set of priorities grounded in “women and health” drove the improvement of Mexico’s health system. “Picture three concentric circles. The core of these concentric circles is the prevention of maternal mortality and disability; the second circle [includes] other aspects of sexual and reproductive health in addition to pregnancy and delivery; the third circle includes other fundamental areas of women’s health and the intersection of women with the health system,” said Frenk.
Mexico used maternal mortality rates to measure quality of care and rectify weaknesses in the health system. “Every maternal death triggered an audit that could lead to a hospital losing its license to operate,” said Frenk. Additionally, these audits helped to identify gaps and prioritize investments in “equipment and supply of drugs…and networks [for] obstetric emergencies,” he added.
“This illustrates how you can take a specific set of priorities and drive them through,” argued Frenk. “Global health needs to get out of the traditional confines that have split the community between vertical and horizontal and adopt more integrated frameworks like the notion of women and health,” he said, which “will leave behind a better health system to deal with the next challenge.”
Measuring Maternal Health
The maternal health community agrees that to reduce maternal mortality rates, access to emergency obstetric care (EmOC) must be improved. “A simple assessment of an emergency obstetric care facility combines a number of aspects that are core to strong health systems,” said de Pinho. To reduce maternal mortality, a strong health system must be able to positively answer these key questions:
These questions monitor the availability, utilization, and quality of care, which signals whether “the health system is actually responding to the woman’s needs when they need it,” said de Pinho. These maternal health indicators “paint a picture for where next steps need to be taken,” she said.- Are there enough facilities providing EmOC and are they well distributed?
- Are women with obstetric complications using these facilities?
- Is the quality of the EmOC services adequate?
Rwanda’s Innovations in Health Financing
“When we talk to ministries of health we ask them what are the low-hanging fruits we can reach in the six years” until the deadline for meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), said Soucat. To implement methods with proven results, additional research data, monetary support, and political will are all necessary. Rwanda’s ministry of health used the health-related MDGs—particularly MDG 5 to reduce maternal deaths by 75 percent—to reform the health system and hold institutional and individual actors accountable.
Rwanda’s health system was reformed through five key pillars:
“The heart of the reform is to increase accountability to its citizens,” said Soucat. Rwanda’s results-based financing offered “incentives and salary supplements to workers who saw more patients and provided higher quality of care,” she said. Impact assessments demonstrate that all income groups in Rwanda benefited from this health care scheme; in three years family planning tripled and assisted deliveries increased by 13 percent –“something that has never been observed in Africa,” she said.- Fiscal decentralization increased community participation and allocated funds to district governments
- Performance contracts were established between the president and district mayors
- A performance-based financing system distributed money to health facilities based on results
- Community health insurance increased access and reduced out-of-pocket expenditures
- Autonomous health facilities were allowed to hire and fire personnel
Rwanda’s Ministry of Health conducted rigorous assessments to ensure quality services and demonstrate impact to the Ministry of Finance. “When talking about maternal health a strong dialogue between the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance is needed more than ever and centered around the production of results,” argued Soucat. Scaling up the results-based finance scheme in other African countries is possible, she said, but additional research is needed to better understand this scheme at the decentralized level. -
Imagine There Are No Countries: Conservation Beyond Borders in the Balkans
›International peace parks have captured the imagination of visionaries like Nelson Mandela, who called them a “concept that can be embraced by all.” Such parks—also known as transboundary protected areas—span national boundaries, testifying to the peaceful collaborative relationship between neighboring countries and to the co-existence of humans and nature.
Peace parks seek to simultaneously promote regional peace and stability, conserve biodiversity, and stimulate job creation. How can they accomplish such ambitious goals?- Biodiversity: The political borders and physical barriers within the park are removed, allowing animals and humans to migrate freely. In addition, surveys of the area’s biodiversity don’t stop at sovereign borders, but are instead conducted on an ecosystem basis.
- Job creation: Developing eco-tourism—one of the fastest-growing industries in the world—provides people living near peace parks an incentivized alternative to exhausting the very resource base on which their survival depends.
- Peace and stability: To jointly manage natural resources successfully requires countries to collaborate through cross-boundary committees on conservation, safety and security, finance, human resources, legislation, and tourism.
My organization, International Peace Park Expeditions, uses experiential peacebuilding, academic programs, and professional trainings in international peace parks to integrate theory with practice. We seek to develop leadership and collaboration among three distinct, but complementary, groups: students and professors, transboundary protected area professionals, and youth from the peace park countries.
Our Summer 2010 programs focus on the proposed peace park in the Western Balkans’ Prokletije/Bjeshket e Namuna mountains, between Albania and the newly independent countries of Montenegro (2006) and Kosovo (2008), which were formerly part of Yugoslavia. The Balkans Peace Park Project, a UK charity and their local network of partner organizations and individuals, first conceptualized the Balkans Peace Park, an area of approximately 4000 square km, in 2001.
This summer, participants in our professional training symposium will collaboratively develop a more precise and dynamic map. Students and young leaders in our other two programs will learn about peace parks while trekking together across the borders into all three countries.
Experiential Peacebuilding (July 19-25, 2010)
Experiential Peacebuilding programs combine outdoor experiential education and practical skills training in peacebuilding to foster the development of a community of young leaders capable of catalyzing positive peaceful changes in their communities. This summer’s program is being developed in conjunction with our local partner organizations (ERA and Marimangut in Kosovo; Outdoor Albania and High Albania in Albania; and PSD Prokletija in Montenegro). The primary goals of these programs are to unite youth from conflict-affected communities to develop relationships across borders; transform negative attitudes and stereotypes; and create a core group of young leaders with the skills, tools, and motivation to generate and direct changes in their communities.
Academic Expedition (June 7-26 and August 2-21, 2010)This three-week, three-credit course, “Conservation Beyond Borders,” will combine traditional academic teaching with proven experiential learning methodologies to create a unique, dynamic expedition that will provide students with a strong understanding of the theory and practice of international peace parks. Course readings and lectures will provide the academic base, and guest lectures from subject-matter experts working in the field will create the bridge; both will address sustainable forestry management, biodiversity surveys, eco-tourism plans, development and infrastructure planning, environmental conservation, water resource management, peacebuilding initiatives, and cross-border projects. First-hand experience trekking through the proposed Balkans Peace Park, crossing the borders of Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro, and living among the local people will bring theory to life.
Professional Training Symposium (July 8-9, 2010)
This year’s Professional Field Training Symposium, “Critical Transboundary Environmental Linkages,” will bring together experts, policymakers, and stakeholders from the Prokletije/Bjeshket e Namuna region to discuss cross-border ecotourism, biodiversity mapping, and sustainable forestry management. The symposium seeks to build trust through cross-border collaboration, and to improve environmental management in the peace park region. Participants will create a Google Earth map to house shared environmental data and visit two project sites in the proposed peace park.Todd Walters is the founder and executive director of International Peace Park Expeditions. He holds a master’s degree in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University’s School of International Service, and is a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) certified wilderness guide. While at AU, he worked as an intern for the Environmental Change and Security Program.
Photos courtesy IPPE/Cory Wilson.
Putting Women and Health First
