By Kul C Gautam and Mustafa Y Ali
KATHMANDU / NAIROBI, May 31 2024 – The United Nations will hold the Summit of the Future on September 22—23 this year, during its annual General Assembly. Heads of state and government and their representatives will gather at the UN headquarters in New York, to discuss, agree on, and endorse a multilateral, action-oriented “Pact for the Future” intended to “protect and enshrine the rights of future generations”.

With the draft document of the pact already detailing fifty-two sets of actions around sustainability, peace and security, science and technology, youth, and governance, the Summit is being called a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

Indeed, with post-pandemic political, economic, security, and social dynamics (and realignments) redefining world order, torpedoing trust in multilateral organizations and exposing the limits of international law, urgent action is needed to put humanity on a path to justice and equity.

The world is at a tipping point and multilateralism — the very vehicle of the Pact for the Future — is at risk of being ditched for expediency.

As advocates for a better world for children, including through interfaith collaboration, we applaud the worthy intentions behind both the Summit and the pact. However, the current draft of the pact leaves much to be desired. Children — the very essence of the future — are acknowledged only tangentially or conflated with young people, youth, and future generations.

The pact focuses squarely on adults, youth and young people. The protection and wellbeing of the most vulnerable infants and young children who are unable to articulate their unique needs and rights are not prioritized explicitly.

The fact that children make up a third of the world’s population and that 4.2 billion children are expected to be born over the next 30 years, ought to make it self-evident that protecting their rights and promoting their wellbeing must be at the very heart of any pact aimed at ensuring a better future humanity.

No future without children

We live in a world of incredible scientific breakthroughs, tremendous economic prosperity, and greater gender equality than ever before. Yet the number of children globally who are hungry, displaced and in desperate need of protection, has never been higher.

According to UNICEF, nearly one billion children live in multidimensional poverty with another 333 million children living in extreme poverty. These shocking, historically unprecedented figures are being exacerbated by growing inequality, the COVID-19 pandemic, devastating food and energy crises, a climate emergency, and new and protracted conflicts.

In the last year alone, more than 10.5 million children were forced to flee their homes mainly due to conflict and violence. The number of displaced children around the world is now estimated to be over 50 million, while the number of those living in conflict zones exceeds 460 million.

Even in supposedly “normal,” stable, and peaceful settings, children are routinely exposed to the dangers of a rapidly expanding digital environment, discrimination, inequality, abuse, and exploitation, some of it in the name of religion.

Without explicit mention of children in the Pact for the Future, their specific rights and unique perspectives risk being forgotten. As the former Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child emphasized in February, “If the UN is truly committed to becoming a more inclusive multilateral platform for partnership and solidarity having people at center (…) – children cannot be excluded from the process for the Summit of the Future (…). Children should be both subjects of the Summit and the resulting Pact for the Future, and active participants before, during and after the Summit.”

The child is calling

Shortly after the UN Summit for the Future, leaders from major world faiths and spiritual traditions and representatives of governments and international organizations will convene in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, from 19 to 21 November for the Sixth Forum of the Global Network of Religions for Children.

Hosted by the Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities, the forum will amplify the voices and rights of children — the architects of the future — as it tackles the issues of building a safe, secure, and sustainable world for children from an interfaith perspective.

With the greatest tragedy in recent memory involving children unfolding in Gaza, there could not be a more fitting theme or a more appropriate place for the world’s religious and secular leaders to congregate, offer prayers and catalyze action to “never again” allow the senseless killing and maiming of children we are witnessing today.

The forum’s ‘building a safe world’ theme will cover the dignity of the child in the digital world; role of families and collaborative communities; building resilience; and strengthening mental health in the face of global shocks, emerging crises, and pandemics.

Under ‘building a secure world’, the forum will address the root causes of conflicts, wars, xenophobia, hate crimes, and extremism; building resilience to conflict; the impact of conflict and war on children; and building a peaceful and inclusive world for children. The last theme – ‘building a sustainable world’ – will tackle responsible lifestyles; hunger, child poverty, and inequality; ethical values and education; and climate-conscious stewardship.

The forum is expected to foster intergenerational dialogue, mutual understanding, collaboration, and adaptive capacity to advocate for and with children for a future where children can grow and thrive without fear or limitation, regardless of their faith, cultural, racial, economic, or social backgrounds.

If we fail to put the rights and voices of children at the heart of the Pact for the Future, we will be failing one-third of the world’s population today and billions of children who are born in the future. The child is calling! We must unite our efforts, intensify our actions, and put the child’s voice at the center as we all come together to build a safe, secure, sustainable, and hopeful world for all.

Kul Gautam is a former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF, the Chair of the Arigatou International Advisory Group, and the Chair of the Global Network of Religions for Children (GNRC) Sixth Forum International Organizing Committee.

Dr. Mustafa Y. Ali is the Secretary General of the GNRC and Executive Director of Arigatou International – Nairobi.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, May 31 2024 – Three years ago, 43-year-old Benard Munondo was an “ordinary” Zimbabwean teacher at a local primary school, but now he has turned maggots into gold.

Thanks to maggot farming, Munondo, who has never owned a home nor driven a car, now has both.

In 2020, a week’s training on maggot farming changed his world.

One of the maggot farming trainers posted an advertisement on social media that lured Munondo in.

“Discover the Fascinating World of Maggot Farming! Whether you’re a farmer looking to boost your livestock’s nutrition or an entrepreneur seeking a unique venture, this training is for you! Fee: USD 30. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to revolutionize your farming practices,” reads the advertisement. This seized his attention.

Since then, he has not turned back and maggot farming has become a way of life in a country with 90 percent unemployment, according to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

Instead, Munondo, like several other maggot entrepreneurs, has become more of an employer after he set up a maggot plot of land just a year after he received training in farming the worms.

He has not, however, quit his teaching job, saying maggot farming, thanks to his workforce of 14 people at his plot outside the Zimbabwean capital Harare, has become his side job.

In fact, maggot farming, which involves breeding and harvesting maggots for various purposes such as producing cheap, high-protein animal feed, composting, and waste management, has become a big hit in Zimbabwe.

Many Zimbabweans, like Munondo in the capital, Harare, who are involved in maggot farming, are using the maggots to feed their own home-grown chickens.

For Munondo, that has helped cut costs for the over 800 chickens he rears in his backyard.

It now costs just USD 3.50 for entrepreneurs like Munondo to fully breed one chicken using maggots, compared to USD 6.50 using soy-based feed.

Thanks to maggot farming, Munondo claimed he was raking in 70 to 80 dollars a day from selling maggots alone, which he said at the end of the month exceeded the total he earns from his teaching job.

An average school teacher in Zimbabwe earns about USD 200 every month after tax deductions and for many, like Munondo, maggot farming has come in handy to supplement his meagre earnings from his government job.

With garbage going uncollected for long periods across Zimbabwe’s towns and cities, thanks to poor service delivery by council authorities, Munondo said some residents are buying maggots to destroy uncollected waste.

“The same maggots that are feeding my chickens are being used to get rid of uncollected waste.”

As maggot farming gains traction in Zimbabwe, even young people like 23-year-old Jonathan Pamhare in Harare have found something to gain from the maggots.

“I don’t really do maggot farming, but I’m interested in them and I started a training company that offers agricultural training, and among the trainings is maggot farming,” Pamhare told IPS.

Well versed in all the procedures related to maggot farming, Pamhare also said, “It (maggot farming) is the most profitable business because your expense is mostly your time.”

As such, added Pamhare, they (the maggots) feed on just anything rotten that comes within their reach.

This, Pamhare said, is cheap, coming more often than not at zero cost, with the maggots maturing in a period of about two weeks.

From his training venture, Pamhare made his money, charging between USD 30 and 40 per head for all the trainees that he recruits.

In high-density areas of Harare like Sunningdale, five kilometers east of Harare, thanks to maggot farming trainers, several homes boast of rearing chickens for sale and feeding them using maggots.

Battling high prices for chicken feed has become a thing of the past, as many urban chicken farmers now switch to maggots to fatten their chickens.

But these are no ordinary maggots, according to many, like Munondo, who has made a name for himself as a thriving maggot farmer.

Maggots begin as what Munondo called black soldier flies—literally giant black flies—which, through metamorphosis, turn into maggots. Pig farmers have also embraced them and are now feeding their pigs the protein-rich maggots.

The black soldier flies, popularly known as BSF here, have a four-stage life cycle from egg to larvae to pupa to adult fly.

The BSF deposit their eggs near a food source and after about three to four days, the flies grow into larvae that feed on the waste prior to being harvested.

There are no latest official statistics about maggot farmers in Zimbabwe, but the Zimbabwe Organic and Natural Food Association has been on record in the media, claiming that of late the number of maggot farmers has been growing.

The reason, said Munondo, is that maggot farming is the easiest.

“Maggots don’t require much land, while they need neither chemicals nor lots of water in order to be reared. Just a small land piece, flies, and waste, which are the most crucial components, are all one requires in order to kickstart maggot farming,” said Munondo.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, May 31 2024 – On 6 May, people went to the polls in Chad, ostensibly to elect a president who’d usher in democratic civilian rule. Ten days later, the Constitutional Council confirmed there’d be no change: the elected president was the leader of the military-backed transitional government supposedly handing over power, Mahamat Idriss Déby.

In 2021, Déby took over from his father, who’d held power since 1990 but had just been killed in a rebel attack. It was a coup; he wasn’t in the line of succession. At the head of a Transitional Military Council (CMT), he was in charge of leading the transition that hasn’t happened.

According to the official count, Déby won 61 per cent of the vote, easily securing the outright majority needed to avoid a runoff. There were widespread allegations of fraud. The campaign was marked by the assassination of a prominent opposition leader and the repression and killing of protesters. Civil society fears the results will legitimise authoritarian rule, deepening human rights abuses and further restricting civic space.

No democracy in sight

Since independence from France in 1960, Chad has experienced several coups and a long spell of authoritarian rule. General Idriss Déby, Mahamat’s father deposed the previous president in 1990 and had his autocratic reign rubber-stamped by six ritual elections between 1996 and 2021. Immediately after the 2021 election, rebels killed him on a visit to government troops, leading to his son installing himself as ‘interim leader’, perpetuating a political dynasty into its fourth decade.

The military initially said the transition would end with elections in October 2022, but as the date approached, instead it launched a ‘Sovereign Inclusive National Dialogue’, which extended Déby’s rule by over two years. Following the dialogue, the CMT was dissolved and Déby became head of a new transitional government, with a former opposition leader as prime minister.

The new timetable called for elections by November 2024. More than 60 people were killed in the protests that greeted this announcement, which the government denounced as an attempted coup. Numerous protesters received jail sentences. The government imposed a curfew and a three-month ban on political activity, arrested prominent opposition leaders and intimidated and harassed critical voices and journalists. Activists were detained or disappeared, with some forced to flee.

In November 2022, the government banned Wakit Tama (‘the time has come’), a coalition of civil society groups, trade unions and opposition parties, which first mobilised to demand democracy when Idriss Déby sought a sixth term. Any similar attempt at broad-based coordination was subsequently banned.

If something came out of the national dialogue, it was the need to decide whether Chad should be organised on federal or centralised lines. But the referendum held in October 2023 didn’t put this to a vote. Instead, it sought to validate a new constitution tailor-made to make the interim president’s rule permanent. Civil society and opposition groups called for a boycott, but as with every vote ever held in Chad, the dice were loaded.

Reportedly approved by 86 per cent of voters, the new constitution lowered the age required to run for president, enabling then-38-year-old Mahamat Déby’s candidacy, and required both the president’s parents to be Chad citizens, something his main rivals couldn’t easily prove. All junta and transitional government members were allowed to compete in elections.

As part of a deal to pave the way to a minimally competitive election, the government then issued a general amnesty for those involved in the 2022 protests and allowed exiled leaders to return and run. Among them was Succès Masra, who’d fled persecution and then came back after signing an agreement that made him prime minister. He ran for the Transformers party, coming in a distant second.

Third place was taken Albert Pahimi of the National Rally of Chadian Democrats, who served as prime minister between 2016 and 2018, and again between 2021 and 2022, but who now presented himself as the one who could stop the incumbent pushing the country over the edge.

Conspicuous by his absence was someone who’d been expected to be the main challenger. Yaya Dillo was killed on 28 February when security forces forced their way into the headquarters of his Socialist Party Without Borders. This happened days after a violent attack on the headquarters of the National Security Agency that the government blamed on Dillo and his party.

With an incomplete slate, a playing field heavily tilted in the regime’s favour and an election day plagued by violence and fraudulent practices that proliferated in the absence of independent observation, the results were predictable.

The international picture

There’s no pressure for democracy from Chad’s foreign partners.

Oil-rich Chad has long been a key ally of western states in their fight against jihadist insurgency, working with France and the USA against Al-Qaeda and ISIS operations in the Sahel. While other francophone countries under military rule – Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – have kicked western powers out and pivoted towards Russia, Chad has so far remained in the fold.

In March 2024, Chad’s air force asked the USA to withdraw its troops – fewer than 100 – from a French military base. It was unclear why, but the USA retreated, at least temporarily. However, everything else, including France’s 1,000 or so troops, has remained in place.

France – a long-time enabler of Chad’s authoritarian rulers – has been careful not to stir things. In March, France’s special envoy to Africa met with the two ‘official’ candidates, Déby and Masra, and confirmed that French troops would stay.

Because Chad’s authoritarian rulers have long been backed by France, democracy activists have increasingly turned their anger on the country. Protesters have set fire to French flags and targeted buildings belonging to the French oil company TotalEnergies. Wakit Tama increasingly denounces the presence of French troops.

This backlash strengthens French support for the authoritarian regime, out of fear of the alternatives. The French government has consistently backed leaders who underpin its position in the region. This makes it inconsistent in its support for democracy, condemning military coups by anti-French forces in Burkina Faso and Mali but supporting the manoeuvring to keep friendly faces in charge in Chad. As long as this situation continues, there seems little hope for genuine democracy in Chad.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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