Showing posts from category India.
-
UNiTE To End Violence Against Women
›November 25, 2011 // By Schuyler NullToday is the International Day to End Violence Against Women, an awareness and advocacy campaign organized by a host of UN agencies and offices “to galvanize action across the UN system to prevent and punish violence against women.”
Gender equity and inequity play a role in a myriad of international development, health, security, and even environmental issues, from rape as a weapon of war; demography’s effects on political stability; maternal health and its impact on child development; women’s rights as a social stability issue; and the disproportionate effect of climate change on rural women.
The numbers around gender-based violence are staggering. According to the UN:
Here are some of New Security Beat’s posts on gender-based violence and inequity and their intersection with development, the environment, and security:- 70 percent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime.
- Approximately 250,000 to 500,000 women and girls were raped in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), at least 200,000 cases of sexual violence, mostly involving women and girls, have been documented since 1996, though the actual numbers are considered to be much higher.
- In the United States, one-third of women murdered each year are killed by intimate partners; in South Africa, a woman is killed every six hours by an intimate partner; in India, 22 women were killed each day in dowry-related murders in 2007; and in Guatemala, two women are murdered, on average, each day.
- Over 60 million girls worldwide are child brides, married before the age of 18, primarily in South Asia (31.1 million) and sub-Saharan Africa (14.1 million).
Gender-Based Violence in the DRC: Research Findings and Programmatic Implications:
Dr. Lynn Lawry, senior health stability and humanitarian assistance specialist at the U.S. Department of Defense, presented findings from the first cross-sectional, randomized cluster study on gender-based violence in the DRC at the Wilson Center this year. The first of its kind in the region, the population-based, quantitative study covered three districts in the DRC and a total of 5.2 million adults, comprehensively assessing gender-based violence, including its prevalence, circumstances, perpetrators, and physical and mental health impacts.
Pop Audio: Judith Bruce on Empowering Adolescent Girls in Post-Earthquake Haiti: “The most striking thing about post-conflict and post-disaster environments is that what lurks there is also this extraordinary opportunity,” said Judith Bruce, a senior associate and policy analyst with the Population Council. Bruce spent time last year working with the Haiti Adolescent Girls Network, a coalition of humanitarian groups conducting workshops focused on the educational, health, and security needs of the country’s vulnerable female youth population.
The Walk to Water in Conflict-Affected Areas: Constituting a majority of the world’s poor and at the same time bearing responsibility for half the world’s food production and most family health and nutrition needs, women and girls regularly bear the burden of procuring water for multiple household and agricultural uses. When water is not readily accessible, they become a highly vulnerable group. Where access to water is limited, the walk to water is too often accompanied by the threat of attack and violence.
Weathering Change: New Film Links Climate Adaptation and Family Planning: “Our planet is changing. Our population is growing. Each one of us is impacting the environment…but not equally. Each one of us will be affected…but not equally,” asserts the new documentary, Weathering Change, launched at the Wilson Center in September. The film, produced by Population Action International, explores the devastating impacts of climate change on the lives of women in developing countries through personal stories from Ethiopia, Nepal, and Peru.
Sajeda Amin on Population Growth, Urbanization, and Gender Rights in Bangladesh:
The Population Council’s Sajeda Amin describes the Growing Up Safe and Healthy (SAFE) project, launched in Dhaka and other Bangladeshi cities last. The initiative aims, to increase access to reproductive healthcare services for adolescent girls and young women, bolstering social services to protect those populations from (and offer treatment for) gender-based violence, and strengthen laws designed to reduce the prevalence of child marriage – a long-standing Bangladeshi institution that keeps population growth rates high while denying many young women the opportunity to pursue economic and educational advancement.
No Peace Without Women: On October 31, 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325, which called for women’s equal participation in all efforts to maintain and promote peace and security; however, little progress has been made over these last 10 years and women remain on the periphery when it comes to post-conflict reconstruction and development. A report from the humanitarian organization CARE concedes that “much of the action remains declarative rather than operational.”
Addressing Gender-Based Violence to Curb HIV: At last year’s International AIDS Conference in Vienna an astonishing development in the campaign to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS was unveiled – a microbicide with the ability to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV. This welcome development coincides with an intensified focus on women’s health and security needs among donors, especially the United States.
The Future of Women in the MENA Region: A Tunisian and Egyptian Perspective: Lilia Labidi, minister of women’s affairs for the Republic of Tunisia and former Wilson Center fellow, joined Moushira Khattab, former minister of family and population for Egypt, this summer at the Wilson Center to discuss the role and expectations of women in the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, as well as issues to consider as these two countries move forward.
Sources: UN Secretary-General’s Office. -
Michael Kugelman for Seminar
Safeguarding South Asia’s Water Security
›November 4, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Michael Kugelman, appeared in the public policy journal Seminar.
In today’s era of globalization, the line between critic and hypocrite is increasingly becoming blurred. Single out a problem in a region or country other than one’s own, and risk triggering an immediate, yet understandable, response: Why criticize the problem here, when you face the same one back home?
Such a response is particularly justified in the context of water insecurity, a dilemma that afflicts scores of countries, including the author’s United States. In the parched American West, New Mexico has only 10 years-worth of drinking water remaining, while Arizona already imports every drop. Less arid areas of the country are increasingly water-stressed as well. Rivers in South Carolina and Massachusetts, lakes in Florida and Georgia, and even the mighty Lake Superior (the world’s largest fresh-water lake) are all running dry. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, if American water consumption habits continue unchecked, as many as 36 states will face water shortages within the next few years. Also notable is the fact that America’s waterways are choked with pollution, and that nearly twenty million Americans may fall ill each year from contaminated water. Not to mention that more than thirty U.S. states are fighting with their neighbors over water.
Such a narrative is a familiar one, because it also applies to South Asia. However, in South Asia, the narrative is considerably more urgent. The region houses a quarter of the world’s population, yet contains less than five percent of its annual renewable water resources. With the exception of Bhutan and Nepal, South Asia’s per capita water availability falls below the world average. Annual water availability has plummeted by nearly 70 percent since 1950, and from around 21,000 cubic meters in the 1960s to approximately 8,000 in 2005. If such patterns continue, the region could face “widespread water scarcity” (that is, per capita water availability under 1,000 cubic meters) by 2025. Furthermore, the United Nations, based on a variety of measures – including ecological insecurity, water management problems and resource stress – characterizes two key water basins of South Asia (the Helmand and Indus) as “highly vulnerable.”
These findings are not surprising, given that the region suffers from many drivers of water insecurity: high population growth, vulnerability to climate change, arid weather, agriculture dependent economies, and political tensions. This is not to say that South Asia is devoid of water security stabilizers; indeed, its various trans-national arrangements, to differing degrees, help the region manage its water constraints and tensions. This paper argues that such arrangements are vital, yet also incapable of safeguarding regional water security on their own. It asserts that more attention to demand-side water management within individual countries is as crucial for South Asian water security as are trans-national water mechanisms.
Continue reading on Seminar.
Michael Kugelman is a program associate for the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Sources: The American Prospect, Jaitly (2009), The New York Times, UNEP, UN Population Division, Washington Post.
Video Credit: “Groundwater depletion in India revealed by GRACE,” courtesy of flickr user NASA Goddard Photo and Video. For more on the visualization, see the story on NASA’s Looking at Earth. -
Digging Deeper: Water, Women, and Conflict
›It’s not just “carrying water from a water point, but it’s discharging responsibilities that a woman has for using and managing water which may make her vulnerable to violence and bring her into risky areas,” said Dennis Warner, senior technical advisor for water and sanitation at Catholic Relief Services (CRS), at the Wilson Center on August 29. [Video Below]
-
Perfect Storm? Population Pressures, Natural Resource Constraints, and Climate Change in Bangladesh
›Few nations are more at risk from climate change’s destructive effects than Bangladesh, a low-lying, lower-riparian, populous, impoverished, and natural disaster-prone nation. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that by 2050, sea levels in Bangladesh will have risen by two to three feet, obliterating a fifth of the country’s landmass and displacing at least 20 million people. On September 19, the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, with assistance from ECSP and the Comparative Urban Studies Project, hosted a conference that examined Bangladesh’s imperiled environmental security.
Climate Change and PopulationThe first panel focused on manifestations, drivers, and risks. Ali Riaz addressed the threat of climate refugees. Environmental stress, he said, may produce two possible responses: fight (civil conflict or external aggression) or flight (migration). In Bangladesh, the latter is the more likely outcome. Coastal communities, overwhelmed by rising sea levels and flooding, could migrate to Bangladesh’s urban areas or into neighboring India. Both scenarios pose challenges for the state, which already struggles to provide services to its urban masses and has shaky relations with New Delhi.
Mohamed Khalequzzaman examined Bangladesh’s geological vulnerability in the context of climate change. In a deltaic nation like Bangladesh, he explained, sedimentation levels must keep up with rates of sea level rise to prevent the nation from drowning. However, sediment levels now fall below 5 millimeters (mm) per year – short of the 6.5 mm Khalequzzaman calculates are necessary to keep pace with projected sea level rises. He lamented the nation’s tendency to construct large dams and embankments in the Bengal Delta, which “isolate coastal ecosystems from natural sedimentation,” he said, and result in lower land elevations relative to rising sea levels.
Adnan Morshed declared that Bangladesh’s geographic center – not its southern, flood-prone coastal regions – constitutes the nation’s chief climate change threat. Here, Dhaka’s urbanization is “destroying” Bangladesh’s environment, he said. Impelled by immense population growth (2,200 people enter Dhaka each day) and the need for land, people are occupying “vital wetlands” and rivers on the city’s eastern and western peripheries. “Manhattan-style” urban grid patterns now dominate wetlands and several rivers have become converted into land. Exacerbating this urbanization-driven environmental stress are highly polluting wetlands-based brickfields (necessary to satisfy Dhaka’s construction needs) and city vehicular gas emissions.
Adaptation Responses
The second panel considered possible responses to Bangladesh’s environmental security challenges. Roger-Mark De Souza trumpeted the imperative of more gender-inclusive policies. Environmental insecurity affects women and girls disproportionately, he said. When Bangladesh is stricken by floods, females must work harder to secure drinking water and to tend to the ill; they must often take off from school; and they face a heightened risk of sexual exploitation – due, in great part, to the lack of separate facilities for women in cyclone shelters. He reported that such conditions have often led to early forced marriages after cyclones.
Shamarukh Mohiuddin discussed possible U.S. responses. On the whole, American funding for global climate change adaptation programs has lagged and initiatives that are funded often focus more on short-term mitigation (such as emissions reductions) rather than adaptation. She recommended that Washington’s Bangladesh-based adaptation efforts be better coordinated with those of other donors.
Mohiuddin also suggested that to convey a greater sense of urgency, Bangladesh’s climate change threats should be more explicitly linked to national security – and particularly to how America’s strategic ally, India, would be affected by climate refugees fleeing Bangladesh.Philip J. DeCosse highlighted Bangladeshi government success stories in the famed Sundarbans – one of the world’s largest mangrove forests. Officials have banned commercial harvesting in some areas of the forests and shut down a highly polluting paper mill. He also praised civil society and the media for bringing attention to the Sundarban’s environmental vulnerability. As a result of efforts such as these, the Sundarbans are “coming back,” he said, with mangrove species growing anew. Thanks to a range of actors – from the forestry department to civil society – these forests are also now being “governed more than managed,” said DeCosse.
The Sundarbans – click to view larger map.
DeCosse’s fellow panelists identified additional hopeful signs. Morshed shared a photograph of a green, pristine park in Dhaka. De Souza underscored how family planning programs have worked in Bangladesh in the past, with fertility rates declining considerably in recent years, and several speakers spotlighted efforts by civil society and the media to bring greater attention to Bangladesh’s environmental security imperatives.
Nonetheless, major challenges remain, and panelists offered a panoply of recommendations. Khalequzzaman called for a major geological study of soil loss and siltation. De Souza implored Bangladesh to ensure that women’s roles and family planning considerations are featured in climate change negotiations and adaptation policies. Morshed advocated for imposing urban growth boundaries and enhancing public transport in cities. And several speakers spoke of the need to pursue more effective natural-resource-sharing arrangements with India. Ultimately, in the words of De Souza, it may not be possible to eliminate Bangladesh’s “perfect storm” – but much can be done to calm it.
Event ResourcesMichael Kugelman is a program associate with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program.
Sources: UN.
Photo/Image Credit: “Precarious Living, Dhaka,” courtesy of flickr user Michael Foley Photography; “Impact of Sea Level Rise in Bangladesh,” courtesy of UNEP; and the Sundarbans courtesy of Google Maps. -
Water: Asia’s New Battleground
›“Asia faces a daunting water crisis,” warns Brahma Chellaney, professor at the Center for Policy Research (New Delhi) and author of the new book, Water: Asia’s New Battleground. It is a crisis that imperils the region’s economic and political rise, and that deepens environmental risk in a part of the world marked by melting glaciers and densely populated coastal areas.
In his book, Chellaney, regarded as one of India’s most distinguished strategists, surveys the water landscape across Asia; examines the security implications of water-based territorial disputes; and offers policy recommendations to help prevent water conflict. On September 12, Chellaney spoke about Water at a Wilson Center event organized by the Asia Program and co-sponsored by the China Environment Forum and Environmental Change and Security Program. Steven Solomon, a journalist and author who last year published Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization, offered commentary.
According to Chellaney, Water “fills a void in the literature” by, for the first time, focusing on water issues across the entire continental region of Asia – an immense expanse that includes not only Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia, but also Central Asia and the Middle East. The book, he explained, defines Asia “as it looks on a map.”
The World’s Dam Center
What drives the water crisis in this vast region? One factor is population. Asia is the world’s largest and most populous continent but also the most water-deficient; its freshwater levels per capita are one-third those of Europe’s, and slightly less than Africa’s. Another is tied to economic development. Asia is the world’s fastest developing continent, yet its most rapidly developing nations, particularly India and China, are already afflicted by serious water challenges.
Rising income levels and attendant growth in consumption rates are additional drivers. Asians are consuming more resources, including meat, which requires prodigious amounts of water to produce. A fourth factor is intensive irrigation. Seventy percent of the world’s total irrigation originates in Asia, and 80 percent of the region’s “water withdrawals” are allocated to agriculture. (The latter figure is only 30 percent in Europe.) Such large-scale irrigation has enabled Asia to evolve from “a land of recurrent famine” to a major food exporter, yet it has also spawned ruinous agricultural conditions such as waterlogging and soil salinity.
Chellaney contended that Asia’s water ills can also be attributed to the “large-scale impoundment of water” by dams, barrages, and other storage-creating structures. Asia is the world’s “dam center,” he said, with China boasting half the world’s dams and now planning to construct “mega dams,” including one “higher than the Eiffel Tower.” Impounding water triggers riverwater depletion, which in turns promotes “the reckless use” of sub-surface groundwater resources, said Chellaney. With water tables plummeting, millions of groundwater pumps are depleting what used to be a pristine and plentiful resource.
“We Need Better Politics”
In a region rife with transboundary rivers yet devoid of mechanisms to promote transboundary water-sharing, Asia’s water troubles pose grave geopolitical risks.
According to Chellaney, “water wars” are already being waged across the region via non-military means, fostering mistrust and hampering efforts toward greater cooperation. He argued that in order to forestall water conflict, Asia must develop a set of norms on shared resources based on the 1997 UN Convention on the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses – the only available instrument for international water management. Chellaney also called for the creation of “inclusive water institutions,” that emphasize transparency and dispute settlements, and for the adoption of “holistic planning” on central and provincial governmental levels that aim for better water efficiency.
Playing devil’s advocate, Solomon faulted Chellaney for according insufficient attention to Asia’s crisis of energy – a resource that, he pointed out, is “extraordinarily water-intensive.” He also countered Chellaney’s criticism of dams by observing that Asia desperately needs storage – a deficiency that makes the region highly vulnerable to drought. And he questioned whether China’s dam-building activities on the Brahmaputra River truly imperil lower riparian India’s water security, noting that only 15 percent of the river’s flows entering India are impacted by Chinese dams.
Ultimately, Chellaney said, alleviating Asia’s water crisis will also require improving the region’s poor political environment. While Asian economies are coming together, its politics are more divided. Transboundary water cooperation – and any treaty meant to undergird it – cannot be expected to last if co-riparians do not get along. “We need better politics,” he concluded.
Event ResourcesMichael Kugelman is a program associate with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program.
Photo Credit: David Hawxhurst/Wilson Center. -
India’s Quest for a Lower Carbon Footprint
›Between 1994 and 2007, India reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 35 percent. As a result, the country’s emissions per capita now register at just over a ton per year – less than China (nearly five tons) and much less than the United States (18 tons). On May 10, Wilson Center Public Policy Scholar Ajay Shankardiscussed how India made these reductions, and what the nation plans to do to bring them down further in the decades ahead.
According to Shankar, several factors account for the 35 percent reductions. One is market-based, with high costs having discouraged heavy carbon-based energy consumption. India levied a “huge de facto” carbon tax on all commercial and industrial uses of electricity, which led to prices as much as 80 percent higher than the cost of supply. Another reason is legislation: New Delhi passed a robust energy conservation law. The private sector was a major contributor to the reductions; Shankar pointed out that India is now the world’s largest hub for small fuel-efficiency vehicles, as embodied by the Tata Motors corporation’s Nano car.
Shankar acknowledged the need for further carbon reductions. As India’s economic growth continues and its citizens become wealthier, carbon emissions will likely increase as more people buy cars and invest in air conditioning. Accordingly, the country has announced its intention, by 2020, to lower emissions by 20 to 25 percent from 2005 levels. He identified two carbon-reducing “opportunities” for India in the coming decades. One is to make irrigation more energy-efficient through the use of solar energy.
Another opportunity lies in India’s cities, where 300 to 400 million people are expected to flock over the next two to three decades. Urbanization presents a considerable carbon challenge, given the proliferation of carbon-emitting vehicles and AC units envisioned by such migration. Shankar spoke of the need for “smart cities” replete with “green buildings,” parks, and electric vehicles. He argued that India has created these types of cities before – including Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab Province, back in the 1950s.
Shankar stated that solar and nuclear energy constitute the “game-changers” for lessening the country’s carbon emissions. New Delhi hopes to generate 20,000 megawatts of solar capacity by 2020, with projections of grid parity by 2017 – meaning that in just several years, solar power could be as cheap to generate as fossil-fuel-driven electricity. He also underscored the priority New Delhi places on nuclear energy, noting that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was willing to stake his political survival on the passing of a controversial civil nuclear deal with Washington because of nuclear’s environmental benefits. Shankar insisted that the Indian government will not be deterred by Japan’s recent nuclear crisis.
While Shankar described New Delhi’s 20 to 25 percent reductions goal as “ambitious,” he contended that he is more optimistic than he would have been several years ago about India’s prospects for attaining that objective. India, he concluded, must “rule out no option, and pursue every option intelligently.”
Michael Kugelman is program associate with the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Photo Credit: “Tata nano,” courtesy of flickr user mjaniec. -
Ten Billion: UN Updates Population Projections, Assumptions on Peak Growth Shattered
›May 12, 2011 // By Schuyler NullThe numbers are up: The latest projections from the UN Population Division estimate that world population will reach 9.3 billion by 2050 – a slight bump up from the previous estimate of 9.1 billion. The most interesting change however is that the UN has extended its projection timeline to 2100, and the picture at the end of the century is of a very different world. As opposed to previous estimates, the world’s population is not expected to stabilize in the 2050s, instead rising past 10.1 billion by the end of the century, using the UN’s medium variant model.
-
Michael Kugelman, World Politics Review
The Gathering Global Food Storm
›March 28, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Michael Kugelman, appeared on World Politics Review.
In India’s vibrant capital, food seems to be everywhere – from bustling fruit and vegetable markets and greasy kebab stalls, to sumptuous platters in rooftop restaurants and dilli ki chaat, Delhi’s ubiquitous street snacks. Poor street vendors and high-end chefs alike offer a multitude of culinary options to keep the city – and its array of visiting tourists, diplomats and business leaders – well-fed.
Yet behind this apparent culinary prosperity lies rampant food insecurity. Food-related inflation in India soared above 18 percent in December, sparking street protests over high onion prices. Today, food-related inflation remains high, at nearly 12 percent. In a nation where at least 250 million subsist on less than a dollar a day, even modest price rises have a devastating impact on incomes and livelihoods. Yet, when food prices fall, India’s small farmers suffer. Already crippled by debt and encumbered by water shortages, 200,000 of them have committed suicide over the past 13 years.
India is not alone in this story. Just a few years removed from the 2007-2008 global food crisis, the world is once again experiencing the telltale drivers of acute food insecurity: rising prices of both food and oil, low agricultural yields, destructive weather and unquenchable demand. Once again, nations are banning exports in an effort to keep prices down at home – even as such policies drive up food costs in global markets. The consequences can be seen from Bolivia, where top government officials are hoarding food in their homes, to the Middle East, where the rising cost of basic foodstuffs has become a rallying cry for revolution.
Continue reading on World Politics Review.
Michael Kugelman is a program associate for the Asia Program at the Wilson Center and lead editor of Hunger Pains: Pakistan’s Food Insecurity and Land Grab? The Race for the World’s Farmland.
Sources: The Economist, India’s Contemporary Security Challenges, CNN, The Washington Post.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “India’s Food Crisis,” courtesy of flickr user lecercle.
