The National Tobacco Control Bill Coalition has commended President Goodluck Jonathan for Signing the National Tobacco Control Bill, calling it an extraordinary public health legacy.
In a statement issued Wednesday, May 27 2015, the coalition comprising the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Environmental Rights Action /Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) and Nigeria Tobacco Control Coalition (NTCA) also commended members of the 7th National Assembly for fast-tracking the bill process so that it was ready for the President’s assent.
CISLAC Executive Director,AuwalMusa Rafsanjani, described the bill’s presidential accent as a remarkable step in efforts to protect the Nigerian people from the dangerous effects of smoking.
“We salute the courage of President Jonathan in signing this bill to law, ignoring overtures by the tobacco industry to frustrate every effort to enact a comprehensive tobacco control legislation in Nigeria.”
Director Corporate Accountability Campaigns, ERA/FoEN, Akinbode Oluwafemi, noted: “Though there is no perfect bill, more work needs to be done in ensuring that every Nigerian is protected from the harmful effects of tobacco. This bill is however providing Nigeria the necessary framework for action both at the local, state and national levels.
“Tobacco is major public health challenge and it is a welcome relief that Nigeria has finally join the league of nations that have taken proactive steps to protect their citizens.”
Project Manager at NTCA, Gbenga Adejuwon, urged government to immediately ignite processes and mechanisms that will ensure effective implementation of the law.
“We want to thank Mr. President for signing the bill into law. The immediate action should be on implementation. We want to see the Ministry of Health rising up to the occasion by leading all stakeholders for effective implementation of the law.”
The National Tobacco Control Law is aimed at regulating the production, sale, marketing and consumption of tobacco products in Nigeria.
The highlights of the law include: ban of smoking in public places, ban of tobacco advertising sponsorship and promotion, ban of sale of cigarette in single sticks, ban of sale oftobacco products to minors, mandatory warning messages on cigarette packs among others.
The tobacco bill was initially passed in 2011 but was not accented to by President Jonathan.
The bill has all these years received tremendous support from public health advocates and public health professionals.
ActionAid Nigeria, an anti-poverty agency, has called on the Nigerian government to prioritise protection of every Nigerian child and more concerted efforts at rescuing the Chibok girls.
Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria, Ojobo Ode Atuluku
The group, which made this call on the occasion of 2015 Children’s Day called on the Federal, State and Local Governments in the country to make more commitments towards the protection and guaranteeing the rights of the Nigerian child.
In a statement, the Country Director, Ojobo Ode Atuluku, said, “In the past two years, over 100 students have been killed in different attacks on schools in the North-East, with over 1,000 kidnapped or abducted. 10.5 million Nigerian children of school going age are currently out of school, the highest number in the world. About 60 per cent of those children are girls and most of them live in the north of the country.”
Explaining further the magnitude of the out of school children in Nigeria, Atuluku added that “implication of this is that one out of every three primary school age children is out of school, and roughly one out of four junior secondary school age children is out of school”. This situation is likely to get worse as she explained due to security challenges, which has resulted in numerous children currently having no access to schools in parts of the north, and particularly in the northeast.
The ActionAid Country Director also raised concern that the current quality of education in the country now poses a threat to quality adult life for the Nigerian child, especially those from poor background. “The quality of education has continued on a free fall, and this is evidenced in the performance of students in external exams such as NECO, WAEC and JAMB. Of the 1,692,435 students who sat for the May/June 2014 WAEC examinations only 46.7% passed with five credits.”
School children in Borno State, Nigeria. Photo credit: premiumtimesng.com
Atuluku also expressed concern on the lack of adequate learning infrastructure for the Nigerian child. “As established in recent studies, the country has neglected to invest in relevant infrastructure that would facilitate learning for the Nigerian child. At 4.1% allocation to education in the 2015 federal government budget Nigeria is still lagging far behind the 26% UNESCO minimum budget recommendation for education.
“Providing reliable and comfortable learning environment for children is a rights issue, which is also tied to securing a future for the children”, stated Atuluku who also expressed concern that the schools in the country as at now are understaffed with the ratio of pupils to qualified teachers in primary schools currently standing at 150:1.
Bemoaning the situation in which Nigeria loses about 2,300 under-five year olds every day, making the country the second largest contributor to the under–five mortality rate in the world, Atuluku said that “it is an unnegotiable duty of governments from the federal down to local government levels to invest more in maternal and child health care as well as put in place relevant infrastructure at the community levels to guarantee primary health care which would protect children’s right to life and good health. “The Nigerian government needs to ensure the justiciability of the rights of Nigerian child, where government officials who fail to provide and guarantee these rights could be tried and sentenced, if found guilty”, Atuluku stated.
The ActionAid Nigeria boss who called all tiers of government to uphold their obligation to protecting the rights of the child, as Nigerian is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, said that “it is time to move away from rhetorics and governments become more accountable on the protection of the rights of every single Nigerian child.”
The controversy trailing the N9.3 billion contract awarded by the Federal Executive Council for the purchase of clean cookstoves and wonder bags is far from being over as efforts to procure and distribute the stoves are allegedly being frustrated by officials of the Ministry of Environment.
Sample clean cookstoves
The contract was awarded to Messrs Integra Renewable Energy Services Limited late last year for the procurement of 750,000 clean cookstoves of various models and 18,000 wonder bags for free distribution to women in the rural areas.
The ministry started with the inauguration of an implementation committee made up of members drawn from development partners, civil societies, media, auditors and procurement officers from the ministry but the committee was disbanded on the order of the minister after three sittings.
Suspecting foul play, a non-governmental organisation, Connected Development (CODE), wrote to the Minister of Environment, Laurentia Mallam, on the strength of the Freedom of Information Act demanding a detailed breakdown of how the N9.3 billion was used and how the stoves and wonder bags would be distributed.
CODE also conducted a stakeholders meeting recently on the clean cook stoves and participants at the meeting were told how efforts to get the ministry to explain to Nigerians when the stoves would be distributed failed to yield result.
The group was able to trace the contract file between the ministry and Messrs Integra Renewable Energy Services Limited and it showed that 15 per cent of the contract sum had been paid to the contractor as mobilisation.
Investigations however revealed that while only 15 per cent of the contract sum was paid to the contractor, records at the ministry showed that about 40 per cent of the contract sum had been paid out.
Following the mobilisation, our checks revealed that the contractor had procured and brought into the Velodrome at the National Stadium over 200,000 pieces of the clean cookstoves including mini LPGs, Stove 80, Envirofit, among others.
The ministry was to follow up on the issuance of waiver to the company for the procurement but this was also terminated and as a result over 500,000 pieces of the stoves are currently being held at one of the ports in Lagos.
The ministry, in its bid to thwart the contract, also wrote to the bank that granted an Advance Payment Guarantee to the company to stop further transaction with the company as it had failed to carry out the contract.
A staff of the bank who pleaded anonymity said: “We were shocked when we saw the letter from the ministry but the contractor was able to bring evidence to the bank of work done so far and certified by officials of the ministry.”
A directorate staff at the accounts department in the ministry who also didn’t want to be mention disclosed that the going on in the ministry regarding the stoves showed clearly that the stoves would never get to the rural women.
“The contractor is subjected to all sorts of abuses and ridicule because he has refused to ‘cooperate’ and if things continue this way, I’m sure they will never be paid,” the source said, “The contractor was asked to bring in a little less number of the stoves than what was contained in the contract but his refusal has pitched him against the minister who has only few days left in the ministry and the permanent secretary who has taken charge of the whole affair.”
Several attempts were made to carry out a national launch of the scheme but none came to pass as a lot of interests ensured that it did not happen, chief among which was that if the scheme was launched in the middle of campaigns the overall meaning or purpose for which it was meant will be defeated.
Various stakeholders have kicked against the scheme saying that free distribution of the stoves would kill the emerging clean cookstove market which painstaking efforts had gone into building over the years.
Effort to reach the contractor was not successful as he was said to have relocated from his office in the Central Business District in Abuja.
The ministry’s spokesperson, Bem Gong, said the minister cannot honour a request for an interview on the issue as she was busy with handover activities.
Gong however said that all inquires, issues or questions regarding the clean cook stoves would be addressed by the ministry in a press release that will be sent out on June 5 to commemorate the World Environment Day.
Food Tank and The Lexicon for Sustainability feature farming and resilience through The Food List, a cross-media messaging campaign that provides the vital tools needed for fixing the food system
Agriculture in Africa is rain fed and thus vulnerable to climate change. Photo credit: osundefender.org
Farmers depend on just a handful of crop varieties, which can be more easily wiped out by pests, diseases, or climate change. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), approximately half of farmland in the United States is planted with corn or soy, accounting for about 150 million acres. This lack of diversity limits farmers’ ability to adapt to changing weather patterns and climate change.
“The question is not whether systems this brittle will break down, but when and how, and whether when they do, we’ll be prepared to treat the whole idea of sustainability as something more than a nice word,” wrote Michael Pollan.
A more resilient agricultural system is needed, especially in the face of climate change
“With 80 million more mouths to feed each year and with increasing demand for grain-intensive livestock products, the rise in temperature only adds to the stress. If we continue with business as usual on the climate front, it is only a matter of time before what we (saw) in Russia becomes commonplace,” said Lester Brown, U.S. environmental analyst, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute.
Family farmers and food revolutionaries are working to create this paradigm shift by restoring ecological resilience in their local communities. Farmers are diversifying their cropping systems and working together on projects to preserve biodiversity in fields and on plates.
According to Dr. Bianca Moebius-Clune, Soil Health Division Director for the U.S. National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), farmers are improving soil’s “ability to take in and hold ‘water in the bank.’ They’re even creating wildlife and pollinator habitat—all while decreasing risks from extreme weather and harvesting better profits and often better yields.”
Here’s how family farmers, food heroes, and organisations around the world are working to create resilient local food systems that are immune to the shocks of climate change and ecological disturbance.
Adapt-N is an interactive tool developed by researchers at Cornell University, designed to help corn growers reduce nitrogen applications based on site-specific recommendations. The website is part of a suite of decision-support tools from Cornell that aim to help farmers mitigate and adapt to climate change in the United States.
DivSeek, an international partnership launched in January of 2015, is working to use big data in order to catalog the physical and genetic information held within international gene banks, and to make it available online. The initiative, involving 69 organizations from 30 countries, enhances the productivity and resilience of global crops by giving breeders and researchers access to information through an online portal.
In the Philippines, Dr. Wilson Cerbito, Assistant Regional Director of the Department of Agriculture, addressed the First Agriculture Summit on May 7, 2015, noting the Philippines is the third most vulnerable country in the world to climate change. The event aimed to outline strategies for improving productivity of rice and root crops through technologies and practices that promote ecological resilience.
Full Belly Farm in California received the California Leopold Conservation Award for its land stewardship and conservation efforts. Judith Redmond, a manager of the farm, demonstrated resilience in the face of extreme drought by changing her crop choices, implementing drip irrigation, and reducing her reliance on groundwater. The creek that usually irrigates her crops ran completely dry last year, but Redmond was still able to irrigate her crops using micro-irrigation.
La Red de Guardianes de Semillas (The Network of Seed Guardians) is preserving rare plant varieties and culturally important seeds in Tumbaco, Ecuador. The community model for seed-saving fosters exchange of cultural knowledge between small farmers, trains growers on permaculture techniques, and works to preserve biodiversity throughout Ecuador. The coupling of cultural heritage and biological heredity in something so small as a seed gets at the heart of the resilience concept; the more biologically and culturally varied a system, the more buffered it is against disturbance.
The Lexicon of Sustainability is spreading the word about agricultural resilience through information artworks and inventive media campaigns. Douglas Gayeton, multimedia artist and founder of the Lexicon of Sustainability, emphasizes, “there are farmers who believe in biodiversity instead of monoculture. Farmers who build soil fertility without depending on chemicals. Farmers who go beyond organic.” By defining terms such as True Cost Accounting, The Lexicon of Sustainability seeks to describe a vision for resilience through engaging stories.
African leaders must prioritise sanitation from the highest decision making levels and support the proposed UN Sustainable Development Goal to ensure water and sanitation for all by 2030, said the international development agency, WaterAid in Dakar, Senegal at the AfricaSan 4 conference.
Mariame Dem, WaterAid’s West Africa Head of Region. Photo credit: globalhealth.thelancet.com
The much-anticipated conference, which was postponed for eights months due to the Ebola outbreak, commenced on Tuesday, 25 May and will be rounded up Wednesday, 27 May, 2015. The forum is attempting to build momentum to address the sanitation crisis across the African continent.
The conference comes at a critical time as UN member nations negotiate the final stages of the new Sustainable Development Goals, which will come into effect next year and determine the shape of development to 2030.
Currently more than 70% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa lack access to sanitation, and a quarter of the population practices open defecation. Every year 400,000 children under five die in Africa because of diseases linked to poor sanitation – almost four times as many as in the rest of the world combined.
To support monitoring and engagement, WaterAid has just unveiled its redesigned WASHWatch reporting system to track Africa’s commitment to bring water and sanitation to its citizens and support universal access for all.
The centrepiece of WASHWatch is a new interactive world map of water and sanitation, which shows predicted progress by 2030 – the target date proposed for the new UN Sustainable Development Goals for achieving basic toilets for all.
WaterAid’s new WASH Map demonstrates that despite assurances from African nations that sanitation is a priority; by 2030 more than 66% of the African population will still be living without adequate sanitation – a reduction of only 4% over the next 15 years.
Political leadership is vital to accelerate progress in financing, monitoring and capacity development, and ensure that no one is left behind on the road to 2030.
An additional 50 million people a year will need to be provided with access to safe, sanitary toilets if Africa is to meet its target.
Mariame Dem, WaterAid’s West Africa Head of Region, said: “Not enough progress has been made on sanitation and it is time for African leaders to honour their commitments. Some 53.3 million Africans must be reached each year if we are to reach everyone in Sub-Saharan Africa with basic, hygienic toilets by 2030.
“This is an immense undertaking, particularly in Africa where the lack of sanitation is so widespread, and it cannot be achieved unless African leaders commit with political will and financing to prioritise sanitation.
“We are calling on the African ministers attending AfricaSan 4 to put their promises into action. Their people need dedicated leaders who are willing to rally their resources and do everything in their power to reach everyone in their nations. Ambitious targets alone are not enough.”
Poor sanitation has a terrible impact on both the health and economies of African nations, which lose on average between 1% and 2.5% of their GDP to lost productivity and medical costs associated with treating illnesses linked to dirty water and poor sanitation.
Dr. Michael Ojo, WaterAid Nigeria’s Country Representative
Access to clean water, basic sanitation and good hygiene practices are basic human rights. They free women and children from the chore of fetching water and the dangers associated with open defecation to allow them to work or attend school, and are critical to good health.
Dr. Michael Ojo, WaterAid Nigeria’s Country Representative, said: “Nigeria must see the elimination of open defecation as an urgent priority and important first step towards achieving universal access to basic sanitation facilities and improving safe management of excreta. Access to safely-managed sanitation is critical, not only at the household level, but also in institutional settings, including schools and health care facilities.
“Access to sanitation is recognized as a Human Right and therefore attention must be given to ensuring the progressive elimination of inequalities in access so no one is left behind. This implies increased attention to the bottom quintile of the population which includes urban slum, remote rural areas, and marginalized groups especially women and girls.
“It defies logic that as influential as Nigeria is on the continent, we remain one of only a handful of countries around the world where access to basic sanitation is actually falling rather than rising. We call on our own leaders to invest the resources needed to provide safe water, sanitation and hygiene for its people. We must continue to demand that our leaders embrace new and ambitious policies that will eradicate poverty, inequality and change the future of Nigerians for the better.”
The WASH Map identifies those African nations which are lagging the furthest behind the 2030 sanitation target, with the furthest behind shown to be Togo, Malawi, Niger and Sierra Leone. Only one in ten people in Togo and Malawi will have access to sanitation by 2030. Nigeria is number ten on the list with only about two in ten people projected to have access to sanitation by 2030 if current trends continue.
The Seychelles and Mauritius are predicted to make the strongest progress, with 3% and 8% of the population still living without sanitation respectively by 2030, but even they fail to reach the target of universal access. These are closely followed by South Africa at 12% and Angola at 14%. Only six countries in the region will manage to reach 50% of the population or more with basic, sanitary toilets.
WaterAid is part of action/2015, a global movement of 1,200 organisations in 125 countries working to ensure a better future for people and our planet in this transformative year for tackling poverty, inequality and climate change.
Foundations and international donors can play a greater role in providing assistance to scale-up ecological farming initiatives in Africa, according to a report released today by Greenpeace Africa. The report entitled Financing Ecological Farming in Africa – a Guide for International Donors spells out the crucial financial, technical, capacity and network-building support that donors can provide.
Kumi Naidoo. Photo credit: www.greenpeace.org
Over recent years there has been an upsurge of investment into the agriculture sector in developing countries by governments, development co-operation agencies, philanthropies and the private sector. But more needs to be done.
“The donor community must be more courageous in its support of Africa’s small-scale farmers,” said Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo, ahead of a meeting in Milan of the European Foundation Centre, at which he will be giving the closing address. “Foundations and donor organisations should seek out and invest in ecological farming initiatives that value the crucial role of farmers, promote food resilience in times of climate change and contribute to better rural livelihoods.”
The Greenpeace guide builds upon the mounting body of evidence that achieving long-lasting improvements in the livelihoods of small-scale farmers in East Africa and the rest of the world requires building ecological farming systems that create new livelihood opportunities, improve productivity, improve food and nutritional security and provide greater resilience against the impacts of climate change.
The guide, that follows an earlier Greenpeace report entitled “Fostering Economic Resilience – The financial Benefits of Ecological Farming in Kenya and Malawi”, highlights that with successful donor innovations and interventions farmers can increase yields significantly, on average by 79% across a wide variety of crops.
“A major shift in donor financing towards more ecological and climate resilient forms of agriculture is required to end the detrimental impacts of destructive agriculture,” said Naidoo. “This can break the cycle of dependency on large quantities of chemical fertilisers and pesticides and address the multiple challenges facing small-scale producers.”
Greenpeace Africa is calling on governments and the community of financial donors to support small-scale farmers through four primary channels that include: research and training institutions; community seed banks and exchange networks; public procurement schemes; and producer organisations and co-operatives.
The two-week long Triple Conference of Parties (Triple COPs) to the UN Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm (BRS) Conventions appeared to have failed in its objective of “translating science into action” as it closed in the early hours of 16 May (CW 6 May 2015).
Many of the decisions up for adoption – which were supported by the vast majority of parties – were blocked by a handful of countries, or in some cases just one. Meanwhile environmental NGOs say many of the decisions adopted include provisions that weaken the recommendations and proposals tabled at the meeting.
Parties to the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) failed to agree a compliance mechanism. However, decisions included:
•polychlorinated napthalenes (PCNs) will be added to the list of banned substances (Annex A), but, at Russia’s suggestion, with an exemption for some PCNs used as intermediates. Environmental groups are concerned by the exemption as it is for highly-hazardous polyfluorinated substances. Little PCN is made these days, with its main uses in wire insulation coatings, wood preservatives, and rubber and plastic additives;
•the solvent hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD), which is mainly used to make rubber compounds, will also be added to Annex A. However, at the request of several parties, the conference did not follow the POP Review Committee’s recommendation to also include it in Annex C, which tackles unintentional sources. NGOs say that because the substance is not made any more, addition to Annex C is critical to controlling releases; and,
•after discussions in several plenary sessions, the parties agreed to add the biocide and pesticide pentachlorophenol (PCP) and its salts and esters to Annex A. The decision was repeatedly blocked by India, which questioned the science behind the POP Review Committee’s recommendation to list the substance – much to the exasperation of the EU and Australian delegations. In the end, at Switzerland’s suggestion, it was decided to take the unprecedented step of voting on the proposal (previously all decisions had been adopted by consensus). The first vote in the history of the convention saw 90 countries back a global ban on PCP, two oppose it and eight abstain.
The parties to the Rotterdam Convention on the prior informed consent procedure for certain hazardous chemicals and pesticides in international trade agreed to add the pesticide methamidophos to the list of substances subject to the Pic procedure (Annex III).
Other substances recommended by the convention’s scientific advisory body, the Chemical Review Committee, for inclusion in Annex III included insecticides trichlorfon and fenthion, as well as certain formulations of paraquat, and chrysotile asbestos. However, the parties could not reach consensus on listing the substances, and decided instead to establish an inter-sessional working group on the issue.
Although several parties stressed that addition to Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention does not constitute a ban, but instead triggers the need for countries to notify and consent to trade the substances, others insisted they would not support their inclusion in Annex III: for example, despite a compromise sought on fenthion, Sudan “categorically” rejected its inclusion.
The inability to get chrysotile asbestos, and certain formulations of paraquat, listed (decisions deferred in 2013), raised questions on the activities of industry at the meeting. Ecuador, for example, said it was “intolerable” that the private sector had exerted “some pressure” on delegates, and the EU delegation said it appreciated Ecuador’s comments. Some NGOs told Chemical Watch they were concerned by the apparent influence of industry on parties to the conventions, notably in the asbestos and pesticide sectors.
The decision to list chrysotile asbestos was blocked by India, which tried to block four decisions in total.
The parties also failed to adopt a compliance mechanism, because India blocked such a move. Unlike the Stockholm Convention, the treaty lacks a voting mechanism when consensus cannot be reached.
Seven technical guidelines for the management of different wastes were adopted under the Basel Convention on the transboundary waste shipments. These covered:
•mercury and mercury compounds;
•general POPs;
•perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), its salts and perfluorooctane sulfonyl fluoride (PFOSF);
•polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, polychlorinated dibenzofurans, hexachlorobenzene, polychlorinated biphenyls or pentachlorobenzene;
•polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated terphenyls (PCTs) or polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), including hexabromobiphenyl (HBB);
•hexabromodiphenyl ether and heptabromodiphenyl ether, and, tetrabromodiphenyl ether and pentabromodiphenyl ether; and,
•hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD).
NGOs were particularly concerned about the waste disposal threshold levels included in the general POPs guidelines. The International POPs Elimination Network (Ipen) said the waste content limit 1,000ppm for the brominated flame retardants HBCD, pentaBDE, and octaBDE – substances widely used in building insulation, upholstery and electronics – were “dangerous”and much higher than the 50ppm limit for PCBs and other substances already listed in the treaty.
Consequently, it said, recycled products used by EU consumers and then exported to developing countries as waste, will“transfer the toxic burden from richer countries to poor countries where the capacity to deal with contaminated waste is limited.”
Parties also adopted technical guidelines on electronics waste (e-waste), including the transboundary movement of e-waste and used electronic and electrical products on an“interim basis” after India repeatedly objected to their legal basis.
The guidelines are designed to help countries identify e-waste and used equipment moving between countries, with the aim of controlling illegal traffic, as well as supporting genuine recovery, repair, recycling and reuse of non-hazardous electronic components and equipment. Under the interim agreement, the content of the guidelines will be reviewed by the Treaty’s Open-Ended Working Group in a year’s time.
The progress on the technical guidelines, especially those on e-waste, along with agreement on the substance listings, were highlighted as successes of the Triple-COPs by the BRS secretariat, along with advances made in strengthening the synergies and implementation arrangements for the three conventions.
One source close to the meeting said the votes on PCP and pushing through adoption of the e-waste guidelines could have positive implications, especially for the next COPs in two years” time. He said“a small revolution took place on Friday night and that might push the processes in a more positive direction for future implementation, listings, and so on. Some parties basically said ‘enough!’ and forced through the view of the vast majority, the view which stood for science and for health and for environment.”
Delegates from more than 90 countries took the unprecedented step of voting for a global ban on pentachlorophenol – a proven toxic pesticide and contaminant found in wildlife and human biomonitoring studies worldwide. The historic vote came at the combined meetings of the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Conventions – which usually make decisions by consensus – after India repeatedly blocked action. The forum held recently in Geneva, Switzerland.
Leslie Adogame of SRADev Nigeria. Photo credit: mynewswatchtimesng.com
During the meeting, India surprisingly rejected the findings of the Stockholm Convention’s own scientific expert committee in which they participated. Switzerland triggered the voting procedure – the first in the history of the convention. Ninety-four countries voted in favor of global prohibition of pentachlorophenol; two opposed; and eight countries abstained.
“We appreciate and congratulate African delegates for their resilience in this global struggle, although we didn’t get all that we wanted particularly in regards to the Rotterdam listing, the fact that a historic vote was finally taken by the Stockholm parties for the listing of Pentachlorophenol (PCP) changes the culture of the chemical conventions forever. No longer can one or two countries think they have the global power to block the desires of the majority,” said Leslie Adogame of SRADev Nigeria.
“We commend the global community for this important decision which will help ensure that the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic and the traditional foods on which they depend are protected against toxic pentachlorophenol,” said Pamela Miller of Alaska Community Action on Toxics.
The delegates of the Stockholm Convention also supported international bans on two other industrial chemicals that harm the global environment and human health: chlorinated naphthalenes and hexachlorobutadiene.
Delegates at the Rotterdam Convention failed to list two deadly substances, chrysotile asbestos and a paraquat formulation, despite the fact that exporters would simply have been required to notify and get permission from importing countries. Belarus, Cuba, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Russia all opposed listing chrysotile asbestos. Guatemala, India, Indonesia, and Paraguay blocked listing of the paraquat formulation.
“All the candidate substances meet the Convention criteria according to the treaty’s own expert committee,” said Mariann Lloyd-Smith, IPEN Sr. Policy Advisor. “That means that a small handful of opposing countries and their powerful industry representatives undermined the treaty with a political decision that disrespects governments’ right to know what substances are entering their borders. They simply put their own economic and trade interests before the health and well-being of the global environment and its inhabitants.”
The Basel Convention considered e-waste guidelines that would exempt equipment destined for repair from the treaty’s hazardous waste trade control procedures, a measure that would open the door to unscrupulous traders claiming all broken equipment as “repairable.” The Convention President pushed a decision to adopt this exemption after the meeting lost interpretation due to the late night hour. Latin American countries protested the procedure and conduct of the meeting.
“Developing countries struggling with e-waste would benefit from good Basel ewaste guidelines,” said Leslie Adogame, SRADev Nigeria. “But they do not want loopholes that allow dumping under the excuse of repair. We needed stronger measures, not a weakened treaty.
The EU pushed dangerous clean-up standards of 1000 ppm for three toxic flame retardant chemicals widely used in building insulation, upholstery and electronics (HBCD, PentaBDE, and OctaBDE). In contrast, the waste clean-up limit for PCBs and other substances already listed in the treaty is 50 ppm – 20 times lower than the EU proposal. For the first time, delegates settled on two options for HBCD (100 ppm or 1000 ppm) and two options for PentaBDE and OctaBDE (50 ppm or 1000 ppm). Although the EU pushed a weak standard that undermines the Stockholm Convention, China and Iran pushed for the more protective standards (50 ppm and 100 ppm) that are more consistent with the serious threats posed by POPs.
IPEN is a global network of over 700 public interest organisations in 100 countries working to eliminate toxic substances.
The need to provide universal access to reproductive health and uphold the fundamental rights of women has been stressed as key in the prevention of obstetrics fistula among girls and women.
This year’s International Day to End Obstetrics Fistula aims at restoring women’s dignity through actions targeted at ending obstetrics fistula. Obstetric fistula, which is a hole in the birth canal, accounts for up to 6% of all maternal deaths. And more than two million young women live with untreated obstetric fistula in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with 50,000 to 100,000 women developing obstetric fistula worldwide every year.
A woman suffering from inconvinience caused by obstetrics fistula. Photo credit: who.int
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it is one of the most serious and tragic injuries that can occur during childbirth where there is prolonged and obstructed labour without treatment.
The NOTAGAIN Campaign shares a global view that obstetric fistula as well as maternal deaths and morbidity still exists because the health care systems have failed to provide adequate and accessible quality maternal health care, including family planning, skilled care at birth, basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric care, and affordable treatment and delivery.
Message to Countries
In his message on this year’s International Day to End Obstetrics Fistula, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, urged global leaders to fulfill commitments to improve maternal health and women rights.
“We have a moral obligation, as a global community, to complete the unfinished agenda of eradicating fistula. Together, let us keep our promises to support universal human rights and ensure the health and dignity of women and girls everywhere,” he said.
Prevention
Generally, the WHO recommends three approaches including: delaying the age of first pregnancy, elimination of harmful traditional practices, and timely access to obstetric care.
In addition, the National Coordinator, Accountability for Maternal and Child Health in Nigeria (AMHIN), Dr. Aminu Magashi, expressed the need for access to antenatal and basic quality health care for adolescent girls and women as a way of preventing obstetric fistula.
He said, “All women that are at risk, like those with small age, small height and those diabetic women should be fully monitored throughout the pregnancy so that if there is any potential complication, it’s going to be averted by a competent skilled medical personnel.”
Way Forward
Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, in a message for the International Day to End Obstetrics Fistula 2015, expressed optimism that obstetric fistula could be ended with increased political and financial commitments to maternal health care.
“With the right combination of political will and leadership, financial commitment and scaling up of evidence-based, cost-effective, quality interventions, ending forced marriage and ensuring girls education as well as voluntary family planning, we can end the needless suffering of millions of women and girls,” he said.
Furthermore, the NOTAGAIN Campaign team urge improved commitment of relevant stakeholders to improve quality of maternal health care services by investing in antenatal care coverage, family planning, essential life-saving commodities, and emergency obstetrics care. This is expected to contribute to improving the fifth Millennium Development Goal (MDG 5).
Stakeholders working to reduce the burden of Tuberculosis under The Global Fund to Fight AIDS TB and Malaria grant to Nigeria have called on Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the president-elect, to make TB control a priority when he assumes office as president. The call was made at the end of Quarter 1 2015 TB Grant Project Implementation review meeting held in Abuja from 12th to 13th of May 2015.
R-L: Mrs. Kehinde Osinowo, Director of Programmes, ARFH; Prof. O. A. Ladipo (OON), President & CEO, ARFH; and Dr. Ayodele Awe, NPO, World Health Organisation at the Global Fund TB Grant PRs/SRs Review Meeting
The stakeholders acknowledged the current support from government and immense contribution from development partners to TB Control in Nigeria and recommended adequate budgetary allocation and timely release of funds at federal, state and local government levels.
The group also called for intensified advocacy efforts to the highest level of government including the legislature and state governors. Chairman of the meeting, Prof. O. A Ladipo, President and CEO of Association for Reproductive & Family Health, maintained that tuberculosis remain a major public health concern in Nigeria. He said this was based on the result of the first national prevalence survey carried out in 2012 which revealed an overall prevalence rate of 326 per 100,000 population in Nigeria
Nigeria was rated in 2014 as the third highest Tuberculosis (TB)-burden country in the world and number one in Africa by World Health Organisation (WHO). ARFH is working with National TB and Leprosy Control Programme (NTBLCP), International Anti-Leprosy Organization (ILEP Partners – German Leprosy Relief Association, GLRA; Damian Foundation Belgium, DFB; The Leprosy Mission Nigeria, TLMN and Netherlands Leprosy Relief, NLR), Health Alive Foundation to reduce significantly the burden of TB in Nigeria through the Global Fund Round 9 Phase II TB grant to Nigeria
