By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, May 30 2024 – As the communities of Enga province in Papua New Guinea contend with the landslide that has devastated the residents of Yambani, the United Nations and its partners have been active on the ground addressing the immediate humanitarian needs, according to agencies. 

Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, James Marape, says “extraordinary rainfall” and weather pattern changes were responsible for multiple disasters in the Pacific Island nation this year, including the landslide last Friday.

“Our people in that village went to sleep for the last time, not knowing they would breathe their last breath as they were sleeping peacefully. Nature threw a disastrous landslip, submerged or covered the village,” Marape told parliament on Wednesday.

Since the May 26 disaster, the United Nations has been actively supporting Papua New Guinea’s government in coordinating humanitarian support, search and rescue operations and the initial needs assessments of the thousands of locals who have been impacted by the devastating landslide. The UN is also coordinating the response efforts of all partners, both at the national and provincial levels, with the National Disaster Centre and the Enga Provincial Disaster Management Team.

UN agencies present on the ground to address immediate humanitarian needs include the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). UN-Women, UNFPA, and UNICEF are also coordinating with local emergency response teams to provide relief supplies, such as emergency health kits, tents, and psychosocial support.

Rescue efforts in Yambani, Papua New Guinea, after the May 26, 2024, landslide. Credit: UNICEF

UNICEF’s involvement has included the distribution of at least 50 hygiene and dignity kits, containing multipurpose cloth, soap, buckets, and reusable sanitary pads. They are also working to establish the broader needs of the affected communities, including child protection, health and sanitation, and nutrition needs.

“We are working closely with Papua New Guinean authorities and community organizations to provide vital support to the survivors of this terrible disaster,” said UNICEF Representative Angela Kearney.

“The challenges we face in the aftermath of this tragedy are immense,” said Serhan Aktoprak, IOM’s Chief of Mission in Papua New Guinea. “The area remains extremely dangerous due to ongoing land movement, and access is hindered by blocked roads, damaged infrastructure, and adverse weather conditions.”

The total affected population is estimated at 7,849 individuals, according to their 2022 common roll. Among the population, at least 42 percent are children aged 16 years or younger. So far, only six bodies have been retrieved from the rubble, with the numbers likely to increase as rescue and recovery efforts continue. The death toll is likely to be high. However, no official number has been confirmed yet. Though earlier reports indicated that anywhere from 670 people to over 2,000 have perished,.

“While the death toll is expected to be high, we refrain from stating exact numbers until the search operations are completed,” Juho Valka, Head of Communications, UNDP PNG, told IPS by email. Valka further explained that, as a result of the landslide, a total of 150 structures are estimated to have been buried. Evacuation centers have been set up between both sides of the debris, which is up to 8 meters, or 26 feet, high.

Papua New Guinea’s National Disaster Centre made an official request for international assistance through a letter to the UN Resident Coordinator. The UN is expected to coordinate assistance from local partners and individual member states.

Authorities in the Enga province have also called on international assistance for the deployment of geotechnical engineers to conduct a geohazard assessment. As of Tuesday, Australia, one of the country’s closest neighbors, has sent over a disaster response team, which includes a geohazard assessment group. The Australian government has also pledged over 2.5 million Australian dollars in aid efforts.

The situation is not without its complications. On Tuesday morning, a bridge collapsed in the Western Highlands province, which cut off the main Highlands highways just before Enga. This has disrupted communications between Enga and the rest of the Highlands. An alternative route to Enga is through the Southern Highlands Highway, which adds an additional two-three hours in travel time. The PNG Defense Force is currently making an effort to fix the bridge as soon as possible.

There is also a growing concern over a disease outbreak, as underground water flowing downward will likely contaminate local drinking water sources. Furthermore, locals are worried over the possibility of a second landslide, and a further 8,000 people may need to be evacuated, as Aktoprak told the Associated Press.“If this debris mass is not stopped, if it continues moving, it can gain speed and further wipe out other communities and villages further down the mountain,” he said.

According to an AP report, a team of 40 military engineers and medical personnel reached Yambali village on Tuesday night to negotiate with the villagers to begin digging efforts. Heavy earth-moving equipment, such as excavators, is expected to reach the scene by Thursday. However, villagers are divided on whether to use heavy-grade equipment, fearing that this could potentially further damage the bodies of their buried relatives. Villagers have been using shovels and farming tools to find bodies, with some even using their bare hands to dig through deep mud and debris.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Margaret López
CARACAS, May 30 2024 – Venezuela is one of the few countries outside the Escazú Agreement, a treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean ratified by 16 member countries that guarantees access to environmental information, public participation in environmental decisions, and environmental justice.

“The failure to sign the Escazú Agreement is a symptom of this general situation of lack of environmental rule of law in the country,” said Erick Camargo, researcher of the Observatory of Political Ecology, in an interview with IPS.

For the past seven years, the Observatory of Political Ecology has been part of a group asking the Venezuelan State to embrace this international treaty. The petition of civil organizations aims to ensure that the environment and threats such as illegal mining, deforestation, or the murder of indigenous defenders are not forgotten, amid a complex humanitarian emergency that this Caribbean country is experiencing.

What is the Escazú Agreement?

It is the first treaty on environment and human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its full name is Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. Although it is better known by the name of the place where it was signed on March 4, 2018: Escazú, Costa Rica.

The Escazú Agreement ratifies that all Latin Americans have the right to know if the water they receive in their homes is potable, if the air they breathe daily is safe for their health, or if a community should have a veto over companies for activities such as mining, oil exploitation, or tourism in biodiverse areas.

Its 26 articles entered into force in 2021. This treaty is also a recognition of the role played by Latin American environmental defenders in the preservation of nature and the problem of violence experienced by these defenders in the region.

“Latin America is the most dangerous area in the world to defend environmental human rights. These are not only people who work for environmental organizations, but also environmental journalists and people from indigenous communities who defend the territory and habitat where they live”, explained Alejandro Alvarez, biologist and coordinator of the non-governmental organization Clima 21, in an interview with IPS.

Statistics compiled by Global Witness, an independent organization that monitors deaths in defense of the environment, speak of 1,335 environmental defenders murdered in Latin America between 2012 and 2022. That is, 70 percent of all killings of environmental defenders in that decade. In the Venezuelan case, 21 people were killed defending nature in the same period, most of them belonging to Indigenous communities.

For researcher Liliana Buitrago of the Observatory of Political Ecology, the central point of this treaty is that it helps to “make visible a fundamental narrative in the climate crisis (…) because environmental defenders are decisive actors to protect, fight, and stop environmental and ecological collapse.”

What benefits do Venezuela bring to this agreement?

As with other international environmental bodies, the Escazú Agreement provides for a Conference of the Parties (COP) to be held every year. At COP 3, its most recent edition held in Santiago, Chile, the Regional Action Plan on environmental human rights defenders was approved.

The implementation of this special plan for environmental defenders will take six years. This is the first multilateral agreement that requires States to ensure that the defense of the environment can take place in freedom and its implementation will strengthen the protection of environmental defenders in the Latin American region. This environmental protection plan is part of what Venezuelan organizations want to obtain with the country’s adhesion to this agreement.

“Venezuela has quite robust environmental legislation for the protection of its natural areas or its defenders, but it is neither complied with nor known. The importance in the Venezuelan case is that the Escazú Agreement would give us an international tool to put pressure on our state,” said Camargo.

If Venezuela were to adopt the Escazú Agreement in the coming year, this would give an international legal instrument to organized groups to demand greater security for indigenous peoples defending their territories in the Venezuelan Amazon. This is an area that is now threatened with deforestation for the establishment of new illegal mining sites for the extraction of gold, according to the independent organization SOS Orinoco.

Another benefit would be the establishment of an updated environmental information system. Such a public and accessible environmental system should include, for example, key data on the impacts of climate change in the country as well as a list of the most polluted areas, as established in Article 6 of the Escazú Agreement.

Transparency in the environmental field, not in vain, is one of the most common requests from Venezuelan organizations such as Clima 21, the Venezuelan Society of Ecology, the Observatory of Political Ecology, and Espacio Publico.

“There is no guarantee that the Venezuelan state will comply with environmental commitments. Many international agreements were signed and the standards have not been met, but their signature is already a step. The signing of the Escazú Agreement would show a certain willingness to be transparent in environmental management and, therefore, it would be good to sign it,” explained Carlos Correa, executive director of Espacio Público, in an interview with IPS.

Now, the Venezuelan government has 10 months ahead of it to evaluate its position and join the next COP of the Escazú Agreement as another of the countries in the region that are truly committed to the defense of nature amid the climate crisis.

IPS UN Bureau Report

This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, May 30 2024 – The World Bank expects the international economic slowdown to be at its worst in over four decades in 2024. This is mainly due to powerful Western nations’ contractionary macroeconomic and geopolitical policies.

Dismal outlook
According to the Bank’s last Global Economic Prospects report, world economic growth will be weakest by the end of 2024. Only the US economy’s strength will statistically prevent a world recession.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

World economic growth was expected to slow to 2.4 per cent in 2024. But even the US-controlled World Bank acknowledges growing geopolitical tensions are the main threat.

Medium-term prospects for most developing economies have worsened due to slower growth in most major economies. This has been exacerbated by tighter monetary policy and credit, sluggish trade and investment growth.

2024 would be the third year of economic slowdown due to tighter monetary policies supposed to rein in inflation. Central banks are fixated on bringing inflation below their two per cent target by tightening credit.

Worldwide growth was expected to slow from 2.6% in 2023 to 2.4% in 2024 – well below the 2010s’ mean. Developing economies would only grow by 3.9% in 2024, more than a percentage point below the previous decade’s average.

World Bank Chief Economist Indermit Gill feared, “Near-term growth will remain weak, leaving many developing countries – especially the poorest – stuck in a trap: with paralysing levels of debt and tenuous access to food for nearly one out of every three people.”

Gloomy prospects
The Bank projected that developed economies would slow as most developing economies outside Asia recover. It also acknowledges precarious prospects for vulnerable developing economies due to much higher debt financing costs.

At the end of 2023, the Bank expected things to worsen due to the Gaza invasion, related commodity market pressures, financial stress, more indebtedness, higher borrowing costs, persistent inflation, China’s weak recovery, trade disruptions, and climate disasters.

US unwillingness to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine or to stop the Gaza massacre or South China Sea militarisation has worsened geopolitical risks and recovery prospects while diverting more resources for war.

Financial stress and higher interest rates have exacerbated inflation and stagnation. Meanwhile, the new Cold War has slowed growth in China and much of Asia by worsening ‘trade fragmentation’ and global heating.

The Bank urges multilateral cooperation to provide debt relief, especially for the poorest countries, address global heating, enable the energy transition, revive trade integration, address climate change, and reduce food insecurity.

The world economy has lost $3.3 trillion since 2020. Yet, instead of strengthening developing countries’ recoveries, the Bank still urges fiscal austerity and financialization.

A quarter of developing countries and two-fifths of low-income countries (LICs) would be worse off in 2024 than in 2019, before the pandemic. With limited fiscal space, developing nations with poor credit ratings are especially condemned.

With rich economies expected to slow from 1.5% last year to 1.2% in 2024, demand for primary commodities will further dampen. Despite other dismal projections, the Bank wishfully projected LICs would grow by 5.5% in 2024!

But instead of prioritising economic recovery, finance ministers and central bank governors agreed to continue policies worsening the situation by suppressing demand and ignoring ‘supply-side disruptions’ responsible for inflation.

Fiscal follies?
For decades, the Washington-based Bretton Woods institutions urged developing economies to be much more open and market-oriented. Unsurprisingly, the global South now faces problems due to earlier procyclical policies.

The report advises commodity exporters – two-thirds of developing nations – how to cope with price fluctuations. Breaking with past advice, the Bank now calls for a more counter-cyclical fiscal policy framework.

Fiscal policies in recent decades have often been procyclical, overheating economies and deepening slumps. The Bank found fiscal policy in commodity-exporting nations 30% more procyclical and 40% more volatile than in other developing economies.

It argues commodity exporters’ fiscal policies have worsened price vicissitudes. It estimates that when commodity price increases enhance growth, government spending increases can boost growth by an additional fifth.

Greater fiscal policy pro-cyclicality and volatility amplify business cycles, hurting economic growth in commodity-exporting developing economies.

The Bank argues this should be addressed with “a fiscal framework that helps discipline government spending, by adopting flexible exchange-rate regimes, and by avoiding restrictions on the movement of international capital”.

The report claims such policy measures will help commodity-exporting developing economies boost per capita growth by about 0.2% annually.

Misrepresenting statistical correlations, the Bank urges easing restrictions on international financial flows, claiming this would “help reduce both fiscal procyclicality and fiscal volatility”.

Ignoring developing countries’ experiences, it urges the adoption of developed-economy “exchange rate regimes, [lack of] restrictions on cross-border financial flows, and … fiscal rules” as part of a “strong commitment to fiscal discipline.”

The report ignores overwhelming evidence of fiscal austerity and capital account openness exacerbating procyclicality and volatility.

Clearly, Bank advice has not changed much since the 1980s, when such policy recommendations worsened Latin America’s and Africa’s lost decades.

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