Month: August 2022

Joyline Rushwaya is one of many teachers whose careers were halted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As numbers of infected people grew, many countries including Zimbabwe went into national lockdowns to minimise infections resulting in learners staying at home without options for continuing their education. Students in rural settings were the most affected by the national lockdowns due to limited access to internet and tools for communication such as mobile smartphones with WhatsApp for instance, where urban students were receiving information from their teachers and from their peers.

Prior to COVID-19, the Manicaland and Masvingo provinces of Zimbabwe experienced torrential rainfall, after the landfall of Cyclone Idai in Mozambique on 14 March 2019. The combination of high winds and heavy precipitation in the districts of Chimanimani, Chipinge, Buhera, Nyanga, Makoni, Mutare Rural, Bikita, Masvingo and Gutu resulted in riverine and flash flooding, as well as landslides, causing significant loss of life, injury and displacement.

In her account of the impact of Cyclone Idai Joyline notes, “When Cyclone Idai hit we were caught unawares. A bridge that is used by students to cross over to go to school was damaged by the cyclone and students were not able to come to school. This was a major issue for the community as many students were not able to go to their schools due to the damaged roads and bridges”.

The Solo Foundation introduced Joyline to radio lessons when she was invited to record lessons for airing on Diamond FM. She found herself in a situation where she had to record lessons without any prior knowledge of radio lessons scripting and recording. Joyline used her mobile telephone to record and send lessons that were aired on Diamond FM. Radio lessons enabled her to continue teaching remotely without convening her students in a classroom.

Joyline enjoyed recording lessons on her mobile telephone, however without being training she initially had some challenges to get the lessons just right. As one of the teachers recently trained by UNESCO, her journey in recording radio lessons has grown leading her to Chimanimani FM her local community radio station.

Chimanimani FM is one of the four operational community radio stations in Zimbabwe that are bringing resilience to disasters and development to Manicaland Province. Joyline is one of 25 teachers recently trained on radio lessons. During the training she was nominated by other training participants to represent their group on a practical excursion to Chimanimani FM where four teachers conducted On AIR radio lessons to a live audience. It was her first time visiting a radio studio and she enjoyed the experience.

Joyline Rushwaya is an early childhood development (ECD) teacher at Matendeudze Primary School in Chimanimani in Manicaland Province. She joined the teaching profession in 2011 and has been teaching at Matendeudze Primary School since 2012. She is one of the teachers that were recently trained on scripting for and conducting radio lessons by UNESCO.

More teachers in Zimbabwe and within Southern Africa will continue to be trained by UNESCO to complement the lessons that learners receive in classrooms and for education to continue when children cannot be in a classroom.

UNESCO has developed a Handbook for Interactive Audio Instruction: Planning and implementing radio lessons in sub-Saharan Africa to support radio lessons training in the region. For an overview of the manual kindly, visit here.

UNESCO work on building the resilience of Manicaland communities ensures early warning of disasters through weather monitoring equipment installed in various parts of Chimanimani. The system includes community radios, which entail bolstering already established indigenous community communication channels and cutting-edge Internet of Things (IoT) weather monitoring technology installed in various locations throughout Manicaland. The radio stations were developed as part of the World Bank funded Zimbabwe Idai Recovery Project (ZIRP) coordinated by UNOPS. UNESCO led and implemented the component of the project related to Comprehensive Resilience Building in the Chimanimani and Chipinge Districts.

Source: UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

LONDON, Aug 1 2022 (IPS) – It is often those least responsible for causing climate change that suffer the most from the impacts. And such is the case with women and girls in Malawi – one of the world’s poorest and lowest carbon-emitting countries but ranked fifth in the Global Climate Index 2021 list of nations worst affected by climate-related extreme weather.

Climate change exacerbates sexual and gender-based violence in numerous ways, pushing people further into poverty, enflaming conflict over depleting natural resources, forcing migration, and compounding pre-existing gender discrimination. All these and many other forces conspire to put vulnerable women and girls in greater danger of sexual abuse and exploitation.

A recent study by Cambridge University analyzing scientific literature on extreme weather events found that gender-based violence — such as sexual assault, intimate partner violence, or trafficking, both during and after disasters — are recurring issues in studies worldwide.

In Malawi, the climate crisis is already triggering more erratic and extreme weather, resulting in chronic water, food, and financial insecurity for millions. Over the past twenty years, droughts and floods have increased in intensity, frequency, and scale, causing devasting environmental, social, and economic damage.

Around 9 out of 10 people in Malawi depend on rain-fed agriculture, and over half the population is food insecure. Rising temperatures, unreliable rains, and extreme weather events like cyclones influence food production and costs.

The economic downturn triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has disrupted global supplies of cereals and fertilizers, have pushed prices up further.

According to World Bank data, 82% of Malawi’s population live in rural areas, and women account for 65% of smallholder farmers, making them particularly exposed to food insecurity. Women are often dependent on natural resources, and many earn a living in the informal sector, leaving them less able to withstand economic and environmental shocks.

Climate change is a threat multiplier

Climate change is not just an environmental problem – it acts as a “threat multiplier” interacting with social systems to exacerbate systemic inequalities. So, although everyone is affected by the ravages of the climate crisis, the vulnerability of individuals varies depending on their gender, geography, class, ethnicity, and age.

Global warming and environmental damage are gendered because the ability of women to adapt is hampered by their social status and limited income, education, and resources. Women are more likely to live in poverty than men and commonly have less schooling, decision-making power, and access to finance.

When yields from harvests are reduced, this leaves subsistence farmers with little or no surplus produce to sell to earn money for purchasing basics like medicine, clothes, sanitary products, schooling, and agricultural inputs for bolstering farming production.

Being unable to produce enough food to feed their families or pay for other essentials puts women under intense pressure to find alternative sources of income. This renders them more susceptible to sexual exploitation, which can take various forms such as transactional sex in exchange for goods, and being trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation.

Family financial hardship also disproportionately affects girls, who are frequently pressured to drop out of school to do domestic work and find paid employment. This, in turn, increases their susceptibility to exploitation, including false promises made by traffickers about jobs and education further afield.

In addition, girls experience higher rates of child and forced marriage, as parents may view marriage as a coping strategy to elevate monetary difficulties and shield daughters from sexual violence. It is estimated that around 1.5 million girls in Malawi are at risk of becoming child brides as a direct result of climate change.

There are other ways that existing gender roles interplay with climate change and sexual violence. In Malawi and across sub-Saharan Africa, gathering water and firewood is widely deemed the responsibility of women and girls. A lack of clean water and depletion of natural resources caused by environmental degradation means they often have to travel further to acquire scarce resources.

Not only does this use up precious unpaid time that could be spent on beneficial activities such as income generation or schooling, but it also heightens their exposure to rape and sexual assault. And in some instances, women and girls must contend with sexual exploitation and abuse by those who control access to limited natural resources, such as at water collection points.

The system is failing victims of sexual and gender-based violence

For the vast majority of victims of trafficking, sexual violence, and exploitation, justice goes unserved. Caleb Ng’ombo runs People Serving Girls at Risk (PSGR), a frontline organization in Malawi that works to end human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, prostitution, and child marriages.

Caleb explains, “Victims are being failed by Malawi’s criminal justice system. Few cases make it to court. Those that do are plagued by multiple delays, and perpetrators are rarely punished.”

“Child marriage, sexual exploitation, and trafficking have blighted the lives of thousands of women and girls across Malawi, and the worsening climate crisis is putting more at greater risk. The government should not turn a blind eye to gender-based human rights violations. Addressing these problems must be central to climate response, including disaster and adaption planning.”

Malawi is a source, transit, and destination country for sex trafficking, and climate crisis is fueling it. PSGR and international women’s rights organization Equality Now have submitted a joint complaint to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) highlighting the poor implementation of anti-trafficking legislation by the Government of Malawi is leaving girls unprotected against sex trafficking.

Malawi’s criminal justice system needs to respond better to the realities and needs of survivors, including safeguarding them against further exploitation and ensuring support services are readily available.

Effectively addressing this crisis requires a gender-responsive, human rights-based approach from the state, one that targets the root causes of gender discrimination.

Climate change also demands action from wealthy industrialized nations that bare the largest responsible for global warming due to their high emissions, both historical and current.

Around the world, a growing climate justice movement is calling for Global North governments to provide countries like Malawi with international finance for climate adaption, restitution for damages already caused, and national debt cancellation so money can be redirected towards supporting those in need, in particular women and girls and other marginalized groups.

With global temperatures continuing to rise, it is vital that laws, policies, and funding deliver on the distinct vulnerabilities and requirements of women and girls so they are protected against gender-based violence and better able to cope with future climate shocks.

Source: Inter Press Service

A neighbourhood resistance committee dismissed one of its leaders after his participation in a meeting with the National Consensus coalition chaired by Minni Minnawi to discuss ways to end the political crisis in Sudan.

Since the army’s coup against the civil authority in October 2021, the resistance committees have staged peaceful anti-coup demonstrations under the slogan “No negotiation, no partnership, no bargaining”.

However, in an unexpected development, Kareem Benzema, a member of the Resistance Committee of Ombada Dar Assalam suburb took part in a meeting with the National Consensus coalition which backed the military coup.

As a response, Oumbadda Dar Elsalam Resistance Committees issued a statement dismissing their member, Kareem Benzema under the accusations of treason and the infringement of resistance committees regulations.

As for the dismissal of the resistance committee member Karim Benzema, Ahmed Ismat, Spokesperson of the Khartoum Resistance Committees, told Sudan Tribune that the decision came as a result of violating the resistance committee’s principles and regulations.

Ismat explained that the stance of the resistance committees on national consensus is not as radical as it’s been portrayed, but rather that they want consensus among the civilians not with the military.

He said that the army’s recent decision to withdraw from politics is nothing but political manipulation. He added that the military component is in fact an agent for some countries in the region, but also they have no intention to relinquish their economic investments.

“If the army really wants to step down from the political scene, it must hand over all of its companies to the civilian government, with the dissolution of the RSF and its merger with the national army,” said Ismat.

“This is the only way to achieve consensus,” he stressed.

He confirmed that the goal of the resistance committees is to destroy the socioeconomic structure of the state in order to build a state that is more just and inclusive to all the people of Sudan.

Mubarak Ardol National Consensus Secretary-General said the meeting with Benzema and his colleagues was promising as they discussed how the resistance committees can take part in the transition.

“We listened to them respectfully despite the heated discussion and answered their questions and explained to them what we can play as political counterparts. But, we do not want to lead them or dictate any thing,” said Ardol in a statement after the meeting.

For his part, Benzema reaffirmed to Sudan Tribune that he attended as a representative of the neighbourhood resistance committee.

“If we want to build a state and achieve the democratic transition it is necessary to listen to the other side and consider what they are presenting,” he said.

The ousted member stressed that a large number of resistance committees’ members support this approach, but their voices are being dismissed and oppressed by “threatening of dismissal”.

“There are political groups that control the resistance committees,” he further added claiming they manipulate the resistance committees through controlling leadership positions and managing the resistance committees’ platforms on social media.

The very decentralized neighbourhood committees, in general, are not flexible with the other pro-democracy political forces and armed groups.

Some of them, refuse to have any joint activities with the FFC as they blame its leadership for accepting to rule the country with the military component.

Others criticise the armed groups and even reject Yasir Arman SPLM-N Deputy Chairman despite his open position against the coup, his arrest after the coup and active participation in the FFC coalition.

Source: Sudan Tribune

South Sudan President Salva Kiir has called for peaceful dialogue with all holdout armed and non-armed opposition groups, saying differences can best be resolved through nonviolent means.

He was speaking as the country commemorated Martyrs Day on Saturday.

“Let’s embrace dialogue as the tool for resolving our differences because it is the surest way to achieve rapid development in the country. On this note, I urge brothers and sisters in the holdout groups to accept dialogue as a way of honouring martyrs who gave their lives for our country”, said Kiir.

The South Sudanese leader called for collective efforts to address the insecurity in the country, saying it paves way for peace and development.

“In honour of our martyrs, let us devote our energies to achieving total peace and stability in the country. By so doing, we will ensure our martyrs are honoured for eternity”, he explained.

The president commended the organized forces and army veterans for continuously upholding the spirit of patriotism, despite existing challenges.

“Their selfless actions are key ingredients that move the country forward”, he stressed.

Kiir, who heads South Sudan’s coalition government, also reiterated his committed to maintain peace by implementing the country’s peace deal.

In January 2020, South Sudan government and the opposition signed a ceasefire agreement brokered by the Rome-based Sant’Egido community.

According to the agreement, the opposition movement alliance (SSOMA) would participate in the monitoring and verification mechanisms seeking to enhance negotiations on the root causes of the conflict in South Sudan.

Source: Sudan Tribune

The Deputy Head of the Sovereign Council acknowledged the failure of their military coup to achieve its objectives nine months after overthrowing a civilian government in October 2022.

Mohamed Hamdan Daglo ”Hemetti” made his confession in an interview with the BBC TV Arabic Service from the West Darfur capital El Geneina, where he is residing for more than a month.

Hemetti reaffirmed the seriousness of the military component to quit power after the agreement of political parties and armed groups on a transitional government, emphasizing that they prefer to respect the will of the Sudanese people and bring stability to the country.

“We have not succeeded to achieve change for reasons that I will not talk about. When you think about change, you certainly have a goal and a vision to achieve this change. Unfortunately, what was planned was not done and failed. Now we’ve gone worse despite some positives,”

“We did not succeed in changing for reasons that I will not disclose. So, when you think about a change, you certainly have a goal and a vision to achieve through this change. But unfortunately, what was planned was not done and the matter failed,”. he said.

“The situation now is worse than before. True there are some positive aspects but there are also negative results the support of the international community is crucial for Sudan,” he added.

He further pointed to the daily demonstrations, the killing of youth protesters and the “killing of security forces” saying “it is all on us”.

On October 25, 2021, the military component dissolved the civilian government and imposed a state of emergency in the country citing attempts by “minor political groups” to hijack power during the transition and avoid elections.

In response, the international community stopped financial and economic and isolated the military regime, particularly after the bloody repression that led to the killing of over 116 protesters, and continued grave human rights violations.

Running for presidency

However, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) did not exclude running for president in Sudan at the end of the transitional period.

When asked about the growing rumours about his plans to run for president as his entourage promotes, Hemetti left the door ajar.

He started by saying that in the past he had no political ambition in the past.

“I hated politics and politicians. But now, after three years, we see that Sudan is heading towards the abyss”.

“If a responsible government is formed by patriots who preserve Sudan’s integrity, security and independence, and strive for the revival of the country we will not want to run for office,” he said.

“But if Sudan goes towards collapse, we will be present,” he stressed.

This is the first time, the RSF leader divulges his political ambition, despite the negative image Sudanese have of the war crimes and grave human rights violations committed by his militiamen.

Also, he is accused of involving in gold mining and close relations with Moscow and it private mercenary company, Wagner.

RSF merger

With regard to the RSF merger into the national army, he also admitted the principle but spoke about required procedures.

“We have no objection to merging the Rapid Support Forces into the army and having one army, but there are procedures, and if reform is done, as you said, we have no problem,” he said.

Hemetti last year openly rejected calls to disband his RSF and to integrate its forces into the national army.

Source: Sudan Tribune