By Winnie Byanyima
GENEVA, Sep 15 2022 – Next week, taking place alongside the UN General Assembly, President Biden hosts a financing summit in New York of such importance that it will determine if millions of people live, will shape the world around us for years to come and will set the future direction of global health. At least $18 billion is needed to fund the work of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

A successful replenishment of the Global Fund will help strengthen the fight against three of today’s deadliest diseases and build more resilient national health systems capable of withstanding tomorrow’s shocks.

The funding needs are particularly urgent in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic which caused such severe disruption to the delivery of essential healthcare, including HIV treatment, prevention and care services.

The latest data from UNAIDS has revealed a global faltering response to HIV, compounded by a continued decline in resources. Around 650 000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses last year, with tuberculosis remaining a major cause of death among people living with HIV.

There were also 1.5 million new HIV infections—over one million more than the global target set. New infections fell by only 3.6% between 2020-2021, the smallest annual decline since 2016. New infections increased in 38 countries.

Infections continue to occur disproportionately among young women and adolescent girls aged 15—24, with a new infection every two minutes. The gendered HIV impact, particularly for young African women and girls, has taken place amidst severe disruption to HIV treatment and prevention services, millions of girls forced out of school, and spikes in teenage pregnancies and gender-based violence.

In sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls and young women are three times as likely to acquire HIV as adolescent boys and young men. Vulnerable groups of people worldwide such as gay men and other men who have sex with men have also been disproportionately affected during service interruptions.

If we don’t more effectively prevent young people from getting HIV now, especially young women and adolescent girls, there will be millions more infections and deaths and the resources needed to end AIDS will increase further.

Stigma and discrimination that drives the epidemic among marginalized and criminalized groups of people must be tackled, including through law reform. And there must be bolder action to ensure that children living with HIV receive antiretroviral therapy as a matter of course—currently just half of HIV positive children are on life-saving treatment.

Giving young people the chance to live requires investment. But international solidarity in the fight against HIV and other global health threats has been fraying. At a time when global leadership and an increase of funding is most needed, too many high-income countries are cutting back aid, and resources for global health are under serious threat.

In 2021, international resources available for HIV were 6% lower than in 2010. Overseas development assistance for HIV from bilateral donors other than the United States of America has plummeted by 57% over the last decade. The HIV response in low- and middle-income countries is US$8 billion short of the amount needed by 2025.

Furthermore, global trade rules are obstructing low- and middle-income countries’ production of pandemic-ending medicines, including new and emerging long-acting HIV medicines, and keeping prices unaffordably high.

The United States has already pledged $6 billion to the 7th Global Fund Replenishment but this is contingent on other donors stepping up to fully achieve the $18 billion target. Since it was created in 2001, the Global Fund has saved millions of lives by reducing the impact of HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. It must be fully funded to carry out its work—and its partners too.

Recognizing the complementarity between the work of the Global Fund and UNAIDS, the US has also raised its contribution to UNAIDS by $5 million for 2022. UNAIDS is on the ground in countries collecting the data that shapes the HIV response, helping advance the removal of harmful laws and policies and the end of HIV-related stigma and discrimination, and generating an enabling environment where investments can be most effective. Its work is key to maximizing the effectiveness of national programmes financed by the Global Fund.

Member States of the United Nations have made a commitment to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda to deliver health and well-being for all, to achieve universal health coverage, and to build a more prosperous, equitable and sustainable world.

We can end AIDS. If we succeed – and the data is clear that we can – it will save millions of lives, be a pivotal moment for a healthier, more secure planet, and be a triumph of international cooperation.

But the investment is needed today. Let’s fight for what counts.

Winnie Byanyima is Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Footnote: US President Joe Biden will host the Global Fund’s Seventh Replenishment Conference on September 21 in New York City. Founded in 2002, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is described as a unique financing mechanism that relies on a dynamic partnership among governments, the private sector, and civil society to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria in ways that contribute to strengthening health systems.

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By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Sep 15 2022 – While women in rich societies are paid around 25% less than men for equal jobs, those living in impoverished countries receive by far much lower salaries, if any at all.

Here are some facts. In its report: Why the majority of the world’s poor are women, a global movement of people fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice: OXFAM, says that gender inequality is one of the oldest and ‘most pervasive’ forms of inequality in the world.

Women do at least twice as much unpaid care work, such as childcare and housework, as men – sometimes 10 times as much, often on top of their paid work. The value of this work each year is estimated at least $10.8 trillion

It denies women their voices, devalues their work and makes women’s position unequal to men’s, from the household to the national and global levels, says OXFAM, adding that “in no country have women achieved economic equality with men.”

Lower-paid, unpaid, undervalued

Now see these facts OXFAM has provided:

Low wages. Across the world, women are in the lowest-paid work. Globally, they earn 24% less than men and at the current rate of progress, it will take 170 years to close the gap. 700 million fewer women than men are in paid work.

Lack of decent work. 75% of women in developing regions are in the informal economy – where they are less likely to have employment contracts, legal rights or social protection, and are often not paid enough to escape poverty. 600 million are in the most insecure and precarious forms of work.

Unpaid care work. Women do at least twice as much unpaid care work, such as childcare and housework, as men – sometimes 10 times as much, often on top of their paid work. The value of this work each year is estimated at least $10.8 trillion – more than three times the size of the global tech industry.

Longer workdays. Women work longer days than men when paid and unpaid work is counted together. That means globally, a young woman today will work on average the equivalent of four years more than a man over her lifetime.

Rural women

Now take the specific case of rural women. They represent as many as a quarter of the world’s entire population. However, most women are concentrated in both unpaid care and household work and their role in subsistence farming is often unremunerated.

And less than 20% of landholders worldwide are women.

On average, women make up more than 40% of the agricultural labour force in developing countries, ranging from 20% in Latin America to 50% or more in parts of Africa and Asia, according to the United Nations.

Across the world, food systems depend on the daily work of rural women, reminds the UN Women, the United Nations’ organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women.

They play a variety of essential roles, from raising crops and processing their harvest, to preparing food and distributing their products, ensuring that both their families and communities are nourished.

“Yet paradoxically those same women often have less access to food and a higher risk of hunger, malnutrition, undernutrition and food insecurity than their male counterparts.”

The reasons for this disconnection from their right to food include “unequal power relations and discriminatory gender norms, for example, resulting in women eating last and least in the household, as well as their disproportionate responsibility for unpaid caregiving and domestic work.”

70% of women, in poverty

“Seventy percent of women live in poverty. As we chip away at the natural world, daily tasks like securing water, food, and fuel, often done by women and girls, take longer and become harder, stated Inger Andersen UN Under-secretary-general and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on 8 September.

They are the farmers for the world

And we all know that women are the farmers for the world but often don’t have rights to land or land titles, Anderson underlined. “Women own less than 10 percent of the land and here in Africa, four in five women lack access to a bank account or formal financial institution.”

At the current rate of progress, it may take close to 300 years to achieve full gender equality, the UN “Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): The Gender Snapshot 2022” report shows.

The report estimates that it will take up to 286 years to close gaps in legal protection and remove discriminatory laws, 140 years for women to be represented equally in positions of power and leadership in the workplace, and at least 40 years to achieve equal representation in national parliaments.

Sima Bahous, UN Women Executive Director, said: “The data show undeniable regressions in their lives made worse by the global crises—in incomes, safety, education, and health. The longer we take to reverse this trend, the more it will cost us all.”

Some 400 million women in “extreme poverty”

At the current rate of progress, the report estimates that it will take up to 286 years to close gaps in legal protection and remove discriminatory laws, 140 years for women to be represented equally in positions of power and leadership in the workplace, and at least 40 years to achieve equal representation in national parliaments.

The report also points to a worrisome reversal on the reduction of poverty, and rising prices are likely to exacerbate this trend. By the end of 2022, around 383 million women and girls will live in extreme poverty (on less than USD 1.90 a day) compared to 368 million men and boys.

The 2022 International Equal Pay Day, on 18 September, just confirms such a shocking reality facing women: They earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn for work of equal value – with an even wider wage gap for women with children.

And women are concentrated in lower-paid, lower-skill work with greater job insecurity and under-represented in decision-making roles, “while carrying out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men.”

Add to the above another scourge: a third of all women are subjected to violence.

In fact, over 30% of women and girls have suffered physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, most frequently by an intimate partner. And more than 70% of all sold, bought and enslaved victims of human smuggling and trafficking are women and girls — 3 out of 4 of them are sexually exploited.

By Juliet Morrison
Toronto, Sep 15 2022 – A UN panel held underlined the impact of South-South Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) projects as vital tools for enabling sustainable development and peace in developing countries.

Organized by the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (UNDPPA) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the joint virtual side event explored how to strengthen cooperation among developing countries and discussed various SSTC projects. The panel was part of the annual Global South-South Development (GSSD) Expo occurring from Sept. 12 to 14 in Bangkok, Thailand.

SSTC refers to a collaboration whereby traditional donor countries and multilateral organizations help create initiatives between two or more Global South nations. Support is typically given in the form of funding, training, and/or management.

In her opening remarks, Elizabeth Spehar, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support, emphasized the importance of these collaborations. She pointed to the role that organizations like the Group of Seven Plus—a collective of 20 conflict-affected countries that promotes stability through peer learning and advocacy—can play in helping vulnerable countries tackle their most pressing problems.

Only 18 percent of conflict-affected countries are currently on track to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals, she noted.

“The resource and capacity limitations that many fragile and conflict-affected countries face can be enormous. Solidarity and peer-to-peer support through cooperation spearheaded by entities like the group of seven plus today, are more important than ever.”

The need to bolster South-South initiatives became especially clear during the pandemic, Ruchira Kamboj, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, asserted during the event’s panel.

“As we witnessed, the COVID pandemic has tested the resilience of multilateral institutions, and the global south has been largely fending for itself. In realizing that, […] South-South cooperation has become even more crucial.”

Kamboj gave several examples of contributions India has made in recent years to bolster the capacity of other developing countries, including launching the first single country UN Development Partnership Fund (India-UN Fund) and offering its open source COVID-19 vaccine delivery software to interested nations.

She also emphasized the power of knowledge sharing among developing nations.

“Sharing valuable capacities, experience and knowledge amongst developing countries can be a catalyst for development as opportunities have improved for sharing the fruits of knowledge, technology, and growth.”

The panel also discussed how cooperation could help countries during conflict resolution.

Alhaji Fanday Turay, Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations, commented on how SSTCs were crucial to resolving his country’s civil war.

“Sierra Leone was plagued with 11 years of civil war that led to not only the loss of lives and properties but a breakdown in institutions and a retardation of development in all forms. However, through regional and cross-regional interventions and cooperation, Sierra Leone was reinstated as a democratic and peaceful state.”

Turay cited key examples that showcased how Sierra Leone had benefitted from SSTC collaboration around ensuring peace. This included the deployment of a Western African peacekeeping mission to implement the Lomé peace agreement and the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in Sierra Leone—a step set out in the peace accord, which was overseen by the UN.

“It is very clear that the civil war in Sierra Leone ended as a result of collaborative efforts from member states of the global south and other development partners.”

SSTCs have also been used to boost the capacity of women’s participation in peace negotiations.

Panelist Juanita Millan Hernandez, UN Senior Mediation Adviser from Colombia, detailed her experience leading an intensive ceasefire training course for women in conflict areas, whereby training one group led to a ripple effect; the newly trained officers shared their expertise with others.

This sharing created important networks in areas where before, there were very few women equipped to participate in negotiations. Hernandez noted that establishing these networks was especially important given the peacekeeping field is dominated by older men, with specific views of security and peace.

By making the training comprehensive, the course also ensured trainees were able to tackle various types of conflict, significantly bolstering their ability to meaningfully participate.

“The idea is for them to not only be part of one attack, one negotiation, but also [to be] the face of security arrangements that can go to a very local situation in which all of these techniques, tools, and technical knowledge will be useful for them to solve and to participate in the more technical part of these processes. […] We are trying to build the capacity of each course around 25 women, but they will [be able to] replicate the knowledge to two more women in the locality.

In closing the event, Haoliang Xu, Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Director of Bureau for Policy and Programme Support underscored the need for developing countries to lean on each other’s expertise and collaborate in tackling tough issues.

“There is no international system in which the national governments have to transfer resources to support less developed areas […] To ensure that the level of development meets certain standards internationally, the best tool we have is solidarity and development cooperation.”

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By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Sep 15 2022 – Can a pitiless, offensive war waged against a sovereign state be justified? In my opinion the answer is an unequivocal “No!”. Ukraine has the right to defend itself against Russia’s reckless and extremely destructive invasion and EU’s support to a neighbouring country attacked by a superior enemy is definitely correct. However, several Latin American intellectuals and leaders are willing to accept Putin’s narrative, instead of Zelensky’s, namely that the war in Ukraine is actually a war between Russia and USA, which by stalling Russia’s and China’s ambitions intends to maintain its supremacy as a superpower, while using Ukraine as a pawn in its power game.

Image courtesy: National Museum of American History

A common Latin American discourse is that even if Europeans have considered themselves to be a potential counterweight to USA’s, China’s and Russia’s attempts to dominate the world, they are now discarding that conviction by joining the US economic war on Russia. The European Union has given in to USA’s intent to obtain world supremacy. However, Europeans were not prepared for this kind of war and threatened by a harsh winter without Russian gas, EU’s unity and steadfastness are dwindling.

Many Latin Americans call attention to a Western narrative, which fuelled by US media for decades has avowed that USA, Great Britain and the EU are constituting a democratic bloc opposed to the authoritarian regimes of Russia and China. However, many Latin Americans state that this is “speaking with a forked tongue”, considering USA’s support to bloodthirsty and corrupt dictators in South American countries and several other nations around the world. Neither China, nor Russia, have in Latin America acted with such brutal self-interest as the US, which has crushed democratically elected governments, promoted coups d’états, as well as imposing commercial blockades and economic embargoes on regimes they have judged as “unfriendly”. However, such a view fails to notice that most of the countries subjected to the arbitrary will and open aggression of the United States seldom could count upon the support of other nations, like the one Ukraine now obtains from EU.

It is a fact that several Latin American countries suffered from US aggression and involvement in their domestic affairs, though this cannot be a reason for exonerating Russia from behaving in a similar manner. For many Europeans, Russian actions are worrying and it cannot be denied that for them Russia, and not the US, has for a long time constituted a menacing presence. While Great Britain, France, Spain, and later the US subjugated and exploited people by distending their empires across land and sea, Russia/Soviet Union did the same, though it was almost exclusively done across land. Its armies attacked and defeated several Tatarian Khanites, Siberian indigenous peoples, Georgia, Livonia, Estonia, Ingria, Finland, Crimea, Zaporizhzhia, Dagestan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, incorporating their territories with their growing Empire. Territory was also gained through warfare with the Ottoman Empire, Persia, Mongolia, China, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Sweden.

After World War II, the Soviet Union annexed Western Belarus, the Baltic states. Moldova, Karelia, Ruthenia, Tuva, East Prussia and the Kuril Islands. Furthermore, Soviet Union controlled so called “satellite states”, which even if they were formally independent had their politics, military, foreign and domestic policies almost entirely dominated by the arbitrariness of the Soviet Union – the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the German Democratic Republic, the Hungarian People’s Republic, the Polish People’s Republic, as well as, until 1961, the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, and until 1967, the Republic of Romania. In East Germany (1953), Hungary (1954) and Czechoslovakia (1968) popular uprisings were quenched by Soviet military. In all of these European nations local Soviet minions implemented repression, surveillance and censorship. Considering this history it is not surprising that most East Europeans, after getting rid of their Communist regimes and dependence on Russia joined NATO as soon as they could.

While considering the US aggressive behaviour in Latin America (and other places as well), direct military interventions and thinly masked military co-operation, it might be overlooked that Soviet/Russian behaviour has not been much better. Wars, military interventions and support to warring factions have after World War II continued to be part of Soviet foreign relations – the First Indochina war (1946-1954), Korean war (1950-1954), Vietnam war (1955-1975), border conflict with China (1969), “War of Attrition” with Israel (1969-1979), Ethiopian-Eritrea war (1974-1991), Angolan civil war (1975-1991), Ethio-Somali war (1977-1978), Soviet-Afghan war (1979-1989). It might be claimed that these interventions occurred before the end of the Soviet empire on 25 December 1991. However, the trend continued with the Russian Federation – Georgian civil war (1991-1993), Trasnistra war (1992), East Prigorodny Conflict (1992), Tajikistan civil war (1992-1997), First and Second Chechen wars (1994-1996 and 1999-2009), Russo-Georgian war (2008), insurgency in North Caucasus (2009-2017) and the Syrian civil war (2015 –).

Like in USA, Russian “military operations” have been supported by various ideologists. The Communist International (Comintern) was in 1919 established by Lenin to spread revolution abroad. Before that, and up until now, jingoist ideas have been present in Russia and the Soviet Union. One example is the Euroasean Movement, stating that Russian culture is unique and admirable and ought to be the base for a national identity reflecting the particular geopolitical character of Great Russia, the origin of global civilization. This is an ideology that more recently has been asserted by ideologists like Aleksandr Dugin. A similar ideological strain is Russian Irredentism, claiming that all parts of former Russian and Soviet Empires ought to be incorporated with the current Russian state.

The US has its equivalents to Russia’s Euroasianism and Irredentism. One of them is the Neoconservative Movement. A political movement connected with the University of Chicago and established in the 1960:s by liberals disenchanted with pacifist, foreign policies and a growing New Left. Leading star was originally Leo Strauss (1899-1973), a professor of political science who declared that his academic topic could never be “objective”, it had to be based on a “value judgement”. According to him, “universal freedom” foments relativism, resulting either in brutal Fascist – and Communist dictatorships, or in its milder form “liberal democracy”. This concept Strauss described as a “permissive egalitarianism”, descendant of the 18th century Enlightenment, which eventually had destroyed traditions, history, ethics and moral standards, replacing them with an indulgent, lax and thoughtless hedonism. Several followers and colleagues of Leo Strauss have had, and still have, a great influence on US global policies and above all – militarism. Some examples:

The journalist Irving Kristol (1920 – 2009), who during the 1950:s and 1960:s was affiliated with the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), a CIA-funded undercover organization promoting US culture all over the world. Fiercely opposed to the Soviet Union, CCF did in several countries finance cultural events and magazines. Kristol was the founder, editor, and contributor to some of these periodicals. According to him, Neoconservatism was not an ideology but a “persuasion”, a way of thinking inspired by supply-side economics, a prerequisite for the “survival of modern democracy”. The idea is that economic growth fostered by low taxes, decreasing regulations and free trade breed and support political and moral philosophy.

Another Strauss associate was Donald Kagan (1932-2021), a classicist who applied his knowledge of Ancient Greece to contemporary US foreign policy. Quoting Thucydides ( 460 – 400 BCE) Strauss demanded that Americans had to pay better attention to the concept of honour, which he equalled with prestige:

“Why do people go to war? Out of fear, honor, and interest.” Well, everybody knows interest, and fear is very credible. However, nobody takes honor seriously.

Kagan´s two sons, Robert and Frederick have become influential in US foreign policy and militarisation. Frederick W. Kagan is former professor of military history at the Military Academy at West Point, making an impact on powerful generals like David Petreaus, John Allen and Stanley McChrystal. Kagan insists that US foreign policies have to concentrate on military force, instead of diplomacy.

Under Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, Frederick Kagan served on the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, while declaring that Russia and China are the greatest “challenge liberalism faces today”. He is married to Victoria Nuland, who was Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney and currently serves as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the Biden administration. She is noted for her criticism of Russian policies and for being a strong believer in applying “US moralism” to the world stage. She asserts USA’s right to act alone to promote American-style democracy around the world. Furthermore, she often demonstrates a confidence in US military power and a certain distrust of international institutions.

Another influential Neocon is Paul Wolfowitz, Ph.D in political science from the University of Chicago. He served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defence and President of the World Bank. In 2002, he wrote a Defence Policy Guidance, calling for an extension of the “U.S.-led security network to Central and Eastern Europe,” including NATO, this in spite of promises given to Gorbachev.

While condemning Russia’s belligerent attempts at global hegemony it might be valid to consider US ideologies and intents in the same direction, resulting in the US having military bases in 85 countries, while Russia has military bases in 9 countries (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Moldova/Trasnistra, Georgia/Ossetia and Abkhazia, Ukraine/Crimea, and the Khmeimim base in Syria).

Accordingly, in spite of their ideological differences, Russia and the US have demonstrated a worrisome penchant for aggressive military actions and an apparent disdain for diplomatic solutions. It might appear as absurd that these two nations are disputing world domination, considering that they only a fraction of the world – USA has 4.2 percent of the world population and 16 percent of global GDP, while Russia’s population is 1.87 percent of the world population and 1.54 percent of global GDP. Could it be so hard for their leaders to realize that it is diplomacy, not military escalation and human suffering, which is the true path to global security?

Main sources: Sachs, Jeffrey (2022) “The West’s False Narrative about Russia and China,” Other News, August 22. Santana, Isidoro (2022) “Desencuentros de la Unión Europea con América Latina”, in Diario Libre, August 31. Vaïsse, Justin (2011) Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement. Harvard University Press.

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By Mario Osava
FORTALEZA, Brazil , Sep 15 2022 – Brazil could become a world leader in the production of green hydrogen, and the northeastern state of Ceará has anticipated this future role by making the port of Pecém, with its export processing zone, a hub for this energy source.

The government of Ceará has already signed 22 memorandums of understanding with companies interested in participating in the so-called “green hydrogen hub,” which promises to attract a flood of investment to the Pecém Industrial and Port Complex.

“If 30 to 50 percent of these projects are effectively implemented, it will be a success and will transform the economy of Ceará,” predicted engineer and administrator Francisco Maia Júnior, secretary of Economic Development and Labor (Sedet) in the government of this state in Brazil’s Northeast region.

The lever will be demand from “countries lacking clean energy,” especially the European Union, pressured by its climate targets and now by reduced supplies of Russian oil and gas, in reaction to Western economic sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Ceará has special advantages because of its huge wind energy potential, both onshore and offshore, in addition to abundant solar energy.

Hydrogen is produced as a fuel through the process of electrolysis, which consumes a large amount of electricity, and in order for it to be green, the electricity generation must be clean.

The state also has Pecém, a port built in 1995 with an industrial zone and an export zone, which is the closest to Europe of all of Brazil’s Atlantic ports.

Water, the key input from which the hydrogen in oxygen is broken down, will be reused treated wastewater from the metropolitan region of Fortaleza, capital of Ceará, 55 kilometers from the port. “It is cheaper than desalinating seawater,” Maia told IPS in his office at the regional government headquarters.

Fortaleza has the first large-scale desalination plant in Brazil, which is the source of 12 percent of the water consumed in this city of 2.7 million people.

Francisco Maia Júnior, Secretary of Economic Development and Labor of the Ceará state government, sits in his office in Fortaleza, the state capital. He believes that demand from the European Union will fuel the production of green hydrogen in Pecém, an industrial and port complex in this northeastern state of Brazil, which has great clean energy potential to produce it. CREDIT: Sedet Communication

Wind and solar potential

“Ceará is extremely privileged in renewable energies,” electrical engineer Jurandir Picanço Júnior, an experienced energy consultant for the Federation of Industries of Ceará (Fiec) and former president of the state-owned Ceará Energy Company, which was later privatized and acquired by Enel, the Italian electricity consortium, told IPS.

Wind and solar generation potential in the state was double the electricity supply in 2018, according to the Wind and Solar Atlas of Ceará, prepared in 2019 by Fiec together with the governmental Ceará Development Agency and the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service.

Moreover, the two sources complement each other, with wind power growing at night and dropping in the hours around midday, exactly when solar power is most productive, said Picanço at Fiec headquarters, showing superimposed graphs of the daily generation of both sources.

The Northeast is the Brazilian region where wind power plants have multiplied the most, and their supply sometimes exceeds regional consumption. The local winds “are uniform, they do not blow in gusts” that affect other areas in the world where they can be stronger, said Maia. They are also “unidirectional,” said Picanço.

“The International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) has recognized the Northeast as the most competitive region for green hydrogen,” said Picanço, forecasting Brazil’s leadership in production of the fuel by 2050. “Brazil is still hesitating in this area, but Ceará is not,” he said.

Duna Uribe is commercial director of the Industrial and Port Complex of Pecém, in northeastern Brazil. She studied in the Netherlands and negotiated the participation of the port of Rotterdam as a partner in Pecém, with 30 percent of the capital. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Having Pecém, a port through which 22 million tons a year pass, and its neighboring special economic zone (SEZ), with benefits such as tax reductions, enhances the competitiveness of Brazil’s hydrogen.

The port will have structures for storing hydrogen in the form of ammonia, which requires very low temperatures, with companies specialized in its transport and electrical installations with plugs for refrigerated containers, all factors that save investments, said Duna Uribe, commercial director of the Pecém Complex.

Link with Rotterdam

In addition, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Europe’s largest port, has been a partner in Pecém, a state-owned company of Ceará, since 2018, with 30 percent of the shares. That brings credibility and attracts investments to the Brazilian port, Maia said.

This partnership is due in particular to Uribe, a young administrator with a master’s degree in Maritime Economics and Logistics from Erasmus University in the Netherlands, who worked at the Port of Rotterdam.

The complex currently generates about 55,000 direct and indirect jobs, 7,000 of which are in the port, where some 3,000 people work directly in port activities and in companies that operate there.

These wind blades were manufactured in the industrial zone of the Pecém Complex, in northeastern Brazil. Local production of green hydrogen will require a great deal of electricity to be generated by wind and solar plants. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Pecém was born in 1995 with an initial focus on maritime transportation and two basic projects: a private steel industry to be installed in the SEZ and a state-owned oil refinery, which did not work out.

But the complex has always had an energy vocation, with four thermoelectric power plants, two coal-fired and two natural gas-fired, as well as a wind blade factory and two cement plants.

Social effects

“The port was good because it gave jobs to many people here who used to grow beans, sugarcane, bananas, and today they no longer have land to farm,” Zefinha Bezerra de Souza, 76, who has lived in the town of Pecém since 1961, told IPS.

One of her sons is still fishing. The port did not affect fishing, which is done far out at sea, she said.

One of the first to start working at the port was Terezinha Ferreira da Silva, 54. She started working for the Andrade Gutierrez construction company in 1997, in charge of the port’s initial works, and was later hired by the Complex’s administrator, where she is in charge of receiving documents and is a telephone operator.

Zefinha Bezerra de Souza (right) recognizes the good jobs offered by the Pecém Industrial and Port Complex for the residents of the small town of Pecém. They have stopped growing beans and sugarcane because the land has become more expensive, but the fishermen continue to fish, like her son, married to Marcia da Silva, seated to her left. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

“I was earning very well, I was able to build my house” in the town of Pecém, she said. The town, a few kilometers from the port, had 2,700 inhabitants according to the official 2010 census and twice as many people living in the surrounding rural area.

The “hydrogen hub” will start to become a reality in December, when the private company Energias de Portugal, from that European country, inaugurates a pilot hydrogen plant in the SEZ.

The wealth generated by the hub will initially be concentrated in Pecém, but will then radiate throughout the Northeast, because it will require numerous wind and solar energy plants to be installed in the region’s interior, Uribe told IPS in Fortaleza.

The installation of offshore wind farms is planned, but in the future. This activity has not yet been regulated and there will be a need for power transmission lines and training of technicians, she explained.

Brazil could lead in the production of green hydrogen in a few decades, due to the possibility of generating high volumes of wind and solar energy at low cost and because it has the port of Pecém, with the best conditions for exporting to Europe, according to Jurandir Picanço, energy consultant for the Federation of Industries of Ceará, the northeastern state of the country where it is located. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Hydrogen culture

Adaptations in local education, with changes at the university, are picking up speed. Since 2018, the state-owned Federal University of Ceará has had a Technological Park (Partec).

A hotel that was built on the university campus to host fans for the 2014 World Cup has been transformed from a white elephant into a green hydrogen research center, said Fernando Nunes, director-president of Partec.

Encouraging practical research and the emergence of new technology companies is one of its tasks, which are gaining new horizons with hydrogen.

It is necessary to train technicians even in the interior, because in the future hydrogen, initially intended for export, will be disseminated in the domestic market, “with mini-plants, when the cost comes down to reasonable levels,” Nunes told IPS.

“Energy will be the redemption of the Northeast, especially Ceará, where we already generate more electricity than we consume,” he said.

The promotion of hydrogen in Ceará is being carried out in a unique way, by a Working Group made up of the state government, represented by Sedet and the Secretariat of Environment, the Federation of Industries, the Federal University and the Pecém Complex.