By Sonia Al Ali
IDLIB, Syria, Mar 27 2024 – Wael Al-Hassan was returning from work in the Syrian city of Harim when he heard the sound of a baby crying.

He was returning from work on December 10, 2023. He stopped momentarily, turned on his mobile phone flashlight to investigate, and spotted a baby girl, around one month old, wrapped in a white blanket, lying by the roadside.

He felt saddened by the infant’s condition and said, “She was crying loudly, and I saw scratches on her face from cat or dog claws. I then carried her in my arms and took her home, where my wife breastfed her, changed her clothes, and took care of her.”

The phenomenon of abandoning newborns is increasing in northern Syria, where individuals leave their newborns in public parks or alongside roads, then leave the area. Passersby later find the infants, some of them dead from hunger or cold.

Al-Hassan said that the next morning, he handed the baby girl over to the police to search for her family and relatives.

Social Rejection

Social worker Abeer Al-Hamoud from the city of Idlib, located in northern Syria, attributes the primary reason for some families abandoning their children to the widespread poverty and high population density in the province. Additionally, there is fear of the security situation (the area is not in the control of the Syrian regime and is often under attack), the prevalence of divorces, and spouses abandoning their families after traveling abroad.

Al-Hamoud also points out another reason, which is the spread of the phenomenon of early marriage and marrying girls to foreign fighters who came from their countries to Syria to participate in combat. Under pressure from their families, wives often have to abandon their children after their husband’s death, sudden disappearance, or return to their homeland, especially when they are unable to care for them or provide for them financially. Moreover, these children have no proper documentation of parentage.

Furthermore, Al-Hamoud mentions another reason, which is some women are raped, leading them to abandon their newborns out of fear of punishment from their families or societal stigma.

Al-Hamoud warns that the number of abandoned children is increasing and says there is an urgent need to find solutions to protect them from exploitation, oppression, and societal discrimination they may face. She emphasizes that the solutions lie in returning displaced persons to their homes, improving living conditions for families, raising awareness among families about the importance of family planning, and launching campaigns to integrate these children into society.

Alternative Families

It’s preferable for members of the community to accept these children into their families, but they face difficulties in registering the births.

Thirty-nine-year-old Samaheer Al-Khalaf from the city of Sarmada in northern Idlib province, Syria, sponsored a newborn found abandoned at a park gate, and she welcomed him into her family.

She says, “After 11 years of marriage to my cousin, we were not blessed with children, so we decided to raise a child found in the city at the beginning of 2022.”

Al-Khalaf observes that the Islamic religion’s prohibition on “adoption” prevents her from registering the child under her name in the civil registry. Additionally, she cannot go to areas controlled by the Syrian regime to register him due to the presence of security barriers.

She says, “I fear for this child’s future because he will remain of unknown lineage. He will live deprived of his civil rights, such as education and healthcare, and he won’t be able to obtain official documents.”

Children’s House Provides Assistance

With the increasing numbers of children of unknown parentage, volunteers have opened a center to receive and care for the children abandoned by their families.

Younes Abu Amin, the director of Children’s House, says, “A child of unknown parentage is one who was found and whose father is unknown, or children whose parentage has not been proven and who have no provider.”

“The organization ‘Children’s House’ opened a center to care for children separated from their families and children of unknown parentage in the city of Sarmada, north of Idlib,” says Abu Amin. “The number of registered children in the center has reached 267, ranging in age from one day to 18 years. Some have been placed with foster families, while others currently reside in the center, receiving all their needs, including shelter, food, education, and healthcare.”

Upon arrival at the center, Abu Amin notes that the center registers each child in its records, transfers them to the shelter department, and makes efforts to locate their original family or relatives and send them to them or to find a foster family to provide them with a decent life.

Abu Amin explains that the center employs 20 staff members who provide children with care, psychological support, and education. They work to create a suitable environment for the children and support them psychologically to help with emotional support.

He emphasizes that the center survives on individual donations to cover its expenses – which are scarce. There is an urgent need for sufficient support, as the children require long-term care, especially newborns.

A young girl Marah (8) and her brother, Kamal (10), lost their father in the war. Their mother remarried, leaving them to live in a small tent with their grandfather, who forces them to beg and sell tissues, often leaving them without food for days.

Consequently, they decided to escape from home. Kamal says, “We used to sleep outdoors, overwhelmed by fear, cold, and hunger, until someone took us to the child center.”

Upon reaching the center, they returned to their studies, played with other children, and each other, just like children with families.

Kamal expresses his wish, “I hope to continue my education with my sister so we can rely on ourselves and escape from a life of injustice and deprivation.”

These children, innocent of any wrongdoing, are often left to fend for themselves, bearing the brunt of war-induced poverty, insecurity, homelessness, instability, and early marriage.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
ACCRA, Ghana, Mar 27 2024 – The IMF no. 2 recommends non-alignment as the best option for developing countries in the second Cold War as geopolitics threatens already dismal prospects for the world economy and wellbeing.

IMF warning
Ominously, International Monetary Fund (IMF) First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath warns, “With the weakest world growth prospects in decades – and…the pandemic and war slowing income convergence between rich and poor nations – we can little afford another Cold War”.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

While recognising globalisation is over, she appeals to governments to “preserve economic cooperation amid geoeconomic fragmentation” due to the second Cold War.

Growing US-China tensions, the pandemic and war have changed international relations. The US calls for ‘friend-shoring’ while its European allies claim they want to ‘de-risk’. While still pleading for ‘globalisation’, China realistically stresses ‘self-reliance’.

Multilateral rules were rarely designed to address such international conflicts as ostensible ‘national security’ concerns rewrite big powers’ economic policies. Hence, geoeconomic conflicts have few rules and no referee!

Historical perspective
After the Second World War, the US and USSR soon led rival blocs in a new bipolar world. After Bandung (1955) and Belgrade (1961), non-aligned countries have rejected both camps. This era lasted four decades.

World trade-to-GDP rose with post-war recovery and, later, trade liberalisation. With the first Cold War, geopolitical considerations shaped trade and investment flows as economic relations between the blocs shrank.

According to her, such flows increased after the Cold War, “reaching almost a quarter of world trade” during the “hyper-globalization” of the 1990s and 2000s.

However, globalization has stagnated since 2008. Later, about “3,000 trade restricting measures were imposed” in 2022 – nearly thrice those imposed in 2019!

Cold War economics
Gopinath sees “ideological and economic rivalry between two superpowers” as driving both Cold Wars. Now, China – not the Soviet Union – is the US rival, but things are different in other respects too.

In 1950, the two blocs accounted for 85% of world output. Now, the global North, China and Russia have 70% of world output but only a third of its population.

Economic interdependence grew among countries as they became “much more integrated”. International trade-to-output is now 60% compared to 24% during the Cold War. This inevitably raises the costs of what she terms economic ‘fragmentation’ due to geopolitics.

With the Ukraine war, trade between blocs fell from 3% pre-war to -1.9%! Even trade growth within blocs fell to 1.7% – from 2.2% pre-war. Similarly, FDI proposals “between blocs declined more than those within blocs…while FDI to non-aligned countries sharply increased.”

China is no longer the US’s largest trading partner, as “its share of US imports has fallen” from 22% in 2018 to 13% in early 2023. Trade restrictions since 2018 have cut “Chinese imports of tariffed products” as US FDI in China fell sharply.

However, indirect links are replacing direct ties between the US and China. “Countries that have gained the most in US import shares…have also gained more in China’s export shares” and FDI abroad.

A BIS study found “supply chains have lengthened in the last two years”, especially between “Chinese suppliers and US customers”. Hopefully, Gopinath suggests, “despite efforts by the two biggest economies to cut ties, it is not yet clear how effective they will be”.

For Gopinath, trade restrictions “diminish the efficiency gains from specialisation, limit economies of scale due to smaller markets, and reduce competitive pressures.”

She reports IMF research suggesting “the economic costs of fragmentation… could be significant and weigh disproportionately on developing countries”, with losses around 2.5% of world output.

Losses could be as high as 7% of GDP depending on the economy’s resilience: “losses are especially large for lower income and emerging market economies.”

Much will depend on how things unfold. She warns, “Fragmentation would also inhibit our efforts to address other global challenges that demand international cooperation.”

Policy options
Policymakers face difficult trade-offs between minimising the costs of fragmentation and vulnerabilities, and maximising security and resilience.

Gopinath recognises her ‘first best solution’ – to avoid geoeconomic hostilities – is remote at best, given current geopolitical hostilities and likely future trends. Instead, she urges avoiding “the worst-case scenario” and protecting “economic cooperation” despite polarisation.

She wants adversaries to “target only a narrow set of products and technologies that warrant intervention on economic security grounds”. Otherwise, she advocates a “non-discriminatory plurilateral approach” to “deepen integration, diversify, and mitigate resilience risks”.

Despite the odds, Gopinath appeals for a “multilateral approach…for areas of common interest” to “safeguard the global goals of averting climate change devastation, food insecurity and pandemic-related humanitarian disasters”.

Finally, she wants to restrict “unilateral policy actions – such as industrial policies”. They should only address “market failures while preserving market forces”, which she insists always “allocate resources most efficiently”.

Not recognising the double standards involved, she wants policymakers “to carefully evaluate industrial policies in terms of their effectiveness” But, she is less cautious and uncritical in insisting on neoliberal conventional wisdom despite its dubious track record.

Unsurprisingly, two IMF staffers felt compelled to write in 2019 of ‘The Return of the Policy That Shall Not Be Named’. Despite much earlier extensive European and Japanese use and US President Biden’s recent embrace of industrial policy, the Fund seems caught in an ideological trap and time warp of its own making.

While making excessive claims about gains from globalisation, Gopinath acknowledges “economic integration has not benefited everyone”.

Thankfully, she urges developing countries to remain non-aligned and “deploy their economic and diplomatic heft to keep the world integrated” as the new Cold War sets the world further back.

Pragmatically, Gopinath observes, “If some economies remain non-aligned and continue engaging with all partners, they could benefit from the diversion of trade and investment.”

By 2022, “more than half of global trade involved a non-aligned country…They can benefit directly from trade and investment diversion”, reducing the Cold War’s high costs.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Mar 27 2024 – Quechua farmer Felipa Noamesa, who lives in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco, prepares a cream of fava bean soup for breakfast every morning with bread and vegetable soup with noodles. Her children are grown up, so her priority is that her five-year-old granddaughter does not suffer from anemia or malnutrition, two problems she frequently sees in her community.

“At my neighbors’ homes there are little children who don’t want to eat, who have swollen tummies, who have parasites, whose eyes look yellow and who fall asleep at school because they can’t stay awake,” the 44-year-old indigenous horticulturist told IPS during an interview at her plot of land in Paruro, the town where she lives with her husband, her daughter and her five-year-old granddaughter, Mayra, who she takes care of while her mother goes to school.”Peru will have a couple of generations with much greater health problems, much lower productivity and many more restrictions to generate sustainable livelihoods in the broad sense.” — Carolina Trivelli

At their house they don’t eat beef, pork or lamb, but they do eat guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus), an Andean rodent of recognized nutritional value, which she raises in a small shed next to her house, close to their organic garden.

“For lunch I make broth, stew or roast guinea pig and combine it with fresh corn, potatoes, vegetables from my garden and cheese,” she said in her home in Paruro, the seat of the province of the same name, located more than 3,000 meters above sea level.

Peru, a country of 33 million people, faces a political and institutional crisis aggravated by the interim presidency of Dina Boluarte, who in December 2022 replaced Pedro Castillo, ousted and imprisoned for an attempt to seize control of all branches of power after less than 19 months in office.

The institutional crisis is compounded by an economic recession, the reduction of agricultural production due to climatic phenomena such as El Niño, and a poverty level that climbed to 30 percent in 2023, according to official provisional data.

Against this backdrop, the levels of anemia and malnutrition in children under five years of age are of concern.

According to official figures presented last year, chronic malnutrition affected 11.7 percent of the population, but with a greater impact in rural areas: 24 percent compared to seven percent in urban areas.

Other forms of malnutrition also present worrying indicators: 42 percent of the population aged six to 35 months has anemia, with a higher percentage in rural areas (51.5 percent) than in urban areas (39 percent). Meanwhile, nine percent of children under five years of age are overweight or obese.

In the Andes highlands department of Cuzco, with a population of 1.4 million divided among its 13 provinces, child malnutrition reaches 14 percent and anemia 51 percent. It is only surpassed by the central-western department of Huancavelica, which reports 29 percent child malnutrition. This situation reflects the harsh impact of inequality and poverty.

Felipa Noamesa, a 44-year-old Quechua farmer, stands in her vegetable garden in Paruro, a village in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco. Malnutrition is a common problem in her community and her concern is to feed her young granddaughter a nutritional diet so that she will grow up strong and healthy. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

A price the whole country will pay

Carolina Trivelli, an economist and researcher at the Institute of Peruvian Studies, which has worked for more than 50 years in the country, said that as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis, access to nutritious and healthy food for individuals and families has declined.

“Unfortunately chronic malnutrition stopped going down and has remained steady at around 11.7, 11.5, 12 percent over the last three to four years,” the former minister of Development and Social Inclusion during the government of Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) told IPS in an interview at her home in Lima.

She said this has to do with the specific situation of families, the public apparatus and structural conditions such as high food inflation that affects the ability of families in a context of recession to afford food in sufficient quantity and quality to combat malnutrition. In addition, there is anemia, overweight and obesity.

Trivelli said these three elements make up a set of malnutrition problems that particularly affect the most vulnerable groups, including children from the poorest socioeconomic sectors.

Economist and former Minister of Inclusion and Social Development of Peru, Carolina Trivelli, is interviewed in her home office in Lima. She warns about the cost that the country will pay over the next two generations due to the high level of chronic child malnutrition, a problem that she says should be a priority on the public agenda. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

When looking at the figures for consumption of food needed to address anemia and chronic child malnutrition, the difference between the consumption levels of the poorest 20 percent and the wealthiest 20 percent is enormous. So not only is there a problem of access to affordable food, but it is a major issue among the most vulnerable sectors.

“Peru is going to pay the cost of this, all Peruvians are going to pay it over the next two generations,” she warned.

The expert in agricultural economics said that “Peru will have a couple of generations with much greater health problems, much lower productivity and many more restrictions to generate sustainable livelihoods in the broad sense.”

Ernesto Fisher is mayor of San Salvador, a town in the province of Calca in the southern Peruvian Andes highlands region of Cuzco, which has one of the highest levels of chronic child malnutrition in the country. The municipal government has put a priority on attention to the problem, but he said they need the support of the central government to ensure drinking water and sanitation for the entire population. CREDIT: District of San Salvador

Focus on water and sanitation

Calca, another of Cuzco’s provinces, contains some of the municipalities with the most worrying rates of malnutrition and anemia. For example, in the municipality of San Salvador, population around 6,000, child anemia stands at 26 percent.

This fact is related to the quality of their housing, most of which is in a precarious condition, while they have low levels of access to services, especially those who live in the countryside.

“From the mayor’s office we are prioritizing food security projects for raising chickens and guinea pigs so that families can improve their nutritional intake, and we are also delivering iron syrup to health posts to be supplied to children and their mothers,” the mayor, Ernesto Fisher, told IPS from San Salvador.

In a telephone interview, Fisher, in office since 2022, said that to eradicate the problem it is necessary to address water and sanitation deficiencies in his town. To this end, the municipal government is designing projects aimed at guaranteeing water resources for irrigation of family crops, drinking water and sewage services connected to the public network.

“Without sanitation it is impossible to talk about fighting anemia and malnutrition. We will not be able to complete it in this administration, but we will leave the projects on track so that eight years from now all of San Salvador will have running water and sanitation,” he promised.

He called on the national authorities, especially President Boluarte, to prioritize projects that help close inequality gaps such as securing water for different uses. “The rest will come later,” the mayor said, stressing that this should be the top priority.

Boiled ears of fresh corn, pieces of cheese and beans, and roasted corn are common foods in the diet of rural Andean families in Peru. However, the decline in agricultural production due to droughts and other climatic events has reduced their access in quantity and quality. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

It’s not just about budget funds

Peru’s public policies reduced chronic child malnutrition between 2008 and 2016, as documented by the World Bank, which pointed to it as a successful experience.

However, the current situation shows that the problem is no longer seen as a priority. Trivelli said that it is not just a question of budget funds, but of combining multiple efforts simultaneously so that resources are spent effectively.

“We can give a family all the food and training they need, but if they don’t have sewage, a safe water source, and proper solid waste management, the problems of chronic malnutrition and anemia are not going to be reduced. If those children go to a school that does not have toilets, we will continue to reproduce the cycle,” she said.

Statistics show that it is the poorest people in rural areas and children who are directly affected by policies that do not place them at the center of their actions.

Trivelli argued that anemia and chronic malnutrition in children should be considered a priority problem of public interest addressed by a body at the highest political level, such as the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, in order to overcome the current scattered approach.

“We are not talking about a health issue only but about a crisis of food, development and poverty, and it needs to be part of the public agenda,” she insisted.