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By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 29 2024 – Older women and women with disabilities experience abuse that is unique to their demographics, yet they are underrepresented in national and global databases, according to findings shared by the World Health Organization (WHO).

On Wednesday, WHO and UN-Women released two new briefs, the first in a series that will discuss neglected forms of violence, including gender-based violence. The two briefs, titled Measuring violence against older women and Measuring violence against women with disability, investigate the types of violence that these groups face through the data available. Through reviewing existing studies into violence against women, the research team was able to synthesize the information available on this topic and its scope across different countries.

As was noted by Dr. Lynnmarie Sardinha, Technical Officer at WHO and the UN Special Programme on Human Reproduction (HRP) for Violence against Women Data and Measurement, and author of the briefs. The limited data on older women and women with disabilities undermines the ability of programmes to meet their needs. “Understanding how diverse women and girls are differently affected, and if and how they are accessing services, is critical to ending violence in all its forms.”

One in three women is affected by gender-based violence in these forms. For older women—aged 60 years and over—and women with disabilities, they are also subjected to other forms of abuse and neglect, usually at the hands of caregivers, family members, or healthcare institutions such as nursing homes. Examples of this include controlling behaviors such as withholding medicine and assistive devices, and financial abuse. Though these forms of neglect and abuse have been observed, the studies that the briefs reviewed seemed to focus more on intimate partner violence through physical and sexual abuse. The briefs acknowledge, however, that violence against women should not only be exemplified by intimate partner violence. The prevalence of this example hints at further nuances that are not sufficiently captured in the studies due to their limitations.

Violence against older women can manifest in other ways as they and their partners/perpetrators age. Although women aged 15–49 are at higher risk of intimate partner and sexual violence, older women are still likely to experience it, and this can shift towards other forms of abuse, such as neglect, economic abuse, and psychological abuse. The brief on older women reveals, however, that there is limited data to definitively state its prevalence. This is particularly the case for low- and middle-income countries; the data that was compiled for this brief comes largely from high-income countries, a gap that the reports are aware of. Older women are represented in only ten percent of the data on violence against women.

Only 6 percent of the studies reviewed for women with disabilities included measures of violence specific to this group. The lack of questions specific to this demographic indicates that they are, perhaps unconsciously, unaccounted for when measuring the scale of violence against women. Data collection procedures may not be designed to accommodate women with disabilities or prevent them from self-reporting, such as deaf or hard-of-hearing women who are unable to participate in surveys conducted through the telephone.

The briefs also suggest that women who live with lifelong disrespect and neglect may not recognize the specific forms of violence, which could account for fewer instances being reported. This could also apply to older women, where surveying and reporting mechanisms are geared towards women of reproductive age, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

This may also speak of socio-cultural attitudes towards violence against older women that are steeped in ageism, harmful stereotypes, and discriminatory cultural norms that prevent them from sharing their experiences.

The WHO briefs make several recommendations to address the evidence gaps. Among them are extending the age limit for survey participation and incorporating questions that relate to different types of violence. Data collection should also account for cultural-specific contexts of violence and abuse across different countries. Women with disabilities should be consulted in research at every stage when designing surveys targeted at them, which will allow for a broader spectrum of disabilities to be accounted for.

Read the briefs on women with disability and older women.

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By Zofeen Ebrahim and Sanskrita Bharadwaj
KARACHI, Pakistan & GUWAHATI, India, Mar 29 2024 – Nine years ago, farmer Sultan Ahmed Bhatti gave up tilling the soil and using most fertilizers and pesticides on his farm in Doober Bhattian, Pakistan.

His brothers at first derided him. But soon, his first experiment with growing wheat on raised beds was a runaway success. “We produced more wheat than what we grew on ploughed, flat land,” he said.

Today, researchers, climate experts, and agriculture students visit his 100-acre farm, where he grows wheat, rice, maize, sugarcane, and vegetables, to see how he is able to reap bumper crops with minimal input costs.

The magic is in the soil, says Bhatti, picking up a fistful of soil in his calloused hand. “It’s all about respecting the soil that treats you so well.”

Bhatti is among a small but growing segment of farmers across Pakistan and India pursuing regenerative farming techniques. It’s part of a global movement to make agriculture more sustainable by increasing soil health through cutting back on chemicals, adding organic material to soil, and diversifying plants and animals on the farm.

Experts see Regenerative Farming as a Climate Solution

Sultan Ahmed Bhatti discussing his farming techniques with visitors. Photo credit: Sukheki farms of Sultan Ahmed Bhatti

Farmer Sultan Ahmed Bhatti’s first experiment of growing wheat on raised but measured beds on one acre of land was a runway success. “We produced more wheat than what we grew on ploughed, flat land,” he said. Credit: Sukheki farms of Sultan Ahmed Bhatti

“Changing agricultural practices is the most straightforward way to benefit the planet’s health while ensuring food security in the long term,” said Francesco Carnevale Zampaolo, programme director at SRI-2030, a UK-based global organization that promotes eco-friendly farming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance carbon sequestration.

Bio-agriculture scientist Dr. Farooq-e-Azam, based in Faisalabad, Pakistan, has been promoting these methods since the early 1970s. He thinks that regenerative agriculture might be the key to addressing food insecurity and reducing intensive farming’s role in causing human-induced land degradation.

But there is no one-size-fits-all formula for transitioning to regenerative agriculture. It may require a different set of farming approaches depending on the soil type, weather conditions, and biodiversity. But generally, it means applying a range of techniques to restore the soil’s health.

Ways of restoring the soil include adding crop residue, composted manure, and natural rock minerals, says Azam, director of the Research and Development unit at US-based Bontera BioAg.

Illustration by Kulsum Ebrahim

Indian Farmers Turning to Nature for Solutions

The same is happening across the border, in India, too, where more farmers are shifting to a natural way of farming.

More than two decades ago, Samir Bordoloi quit his government job to become a farmer. Now, Bordoloi cultivates crops such as turmeric, jackfruit, papaya, and king chilies on nearly 12 acres of land in Sonapur, about 30 km from Guwahati, a city in northeast India. The once-derelict ground that Bordoloi took on lease is a flourishing food forest today.

Bordoloi uses zero tillage and no pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Among other innovative techniques, Bordoloi scatters “seed bombs” on his land and lets them germinate naturally. For example, he plucks uniform sized ripened chilies and keeps them aside for seven days.

“Then we slice and take out their seeds and cover them with a mixture made of biochar, cow dung and bamboo, which is then shaped into a ball.”

Is Conventional Farming Sustainable?

Conventional farming in India and Pakistan has taken a toll on agricultural land. Around 30 percent of the land in India is degraded, according to the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning. More than 50 percent of India’s farmers are debt-ridden, according to the 2019 National Statistical Office, and often seek alternatives outside of agriculture, or tragically, take their own lives.

In Pakistan, almost three-fourths of the land is degraded, according to Pakistan’s climate change ministry.

“Droughts, floods, deforestation, overgrazing, monoculture farming, excessive tillage, and the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides are the most glaring causes of land degradation on both sides of the fence,” said Dr. Aamer Irshad, head of programme at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in Pakistan.

Dr. Vinod K. Chaudhary, an associate professor of sociology at Punjab University in Chandigarh, India, who is also a farmer, said farming methods in both countries are unsustainable.

While researching sustainable farming, he came across videos on YouTube and Facebook put up by Asif Sharif, a progressive farmer from Pakpattan, across the border in Pakistan’s Punjab province. “I learned plants require moisture, not water, which was the most difficult to believe, as we farmers believe in inundation.”

He also learned that soil should be covered, not tilled. Chaudhary decided to try Sharif’s techniques and found they worked well. Now he encourages farmers in Indian Punjab and Haryana to try them.

“The soil resets itself with this kind of farming,” Chaudhary said.

Experimenting and finding solutions

Regenerative farmers are experimenting and spreading the word.

Mahmood Nawaz Shah, a third-generation progressive farmer with 600 acres of farmland in Tando Allah Yar district of Sindh province, Pakistan, has adopted regenerative agricultural techniques “through hit and trial and finding solutions” now for 25 years.

Shah controls fruit flies on his 45-acre mango orchards through pheromone traps and lets parasites that eat borers loose in the sugarcane field.

“This allows us to delay pesticide sprays as late as possible as well as increase the intervals between two sprays,” he explains.

Shah also uses farmyard manure from livestock, grows peas, cauliflower, and black cumin amid 145 acres of sugarcane crop, and adds mineral-rich silt to his land.

“It has all been a gradual and experimental process,” he says.

Dhaniram Chetia, a farmer in the village of Pengeri in Tinsukia, in India’s Assam state, found an innovative way to keep insects off his harvest: He grows papaya, tomatoes, and bananas on 30 percent of his eight acres of land to feed the local birds.

“The birds eat the pests that would otherwise prey on my cash crops. I don’t need to use insecticides,” he says.

Bordoloi in Assam says elephants have helped in turmeric farming.

“Elephants stamp on our turmeric plants, cut out the thatch and consume the green elephant grass after the rains; we barely need any labour,” he added.

Heaps of highly nutritious farmyard manure and silt from the river are spread to enrich and stabilize the soil’s pH levels, says Mahmood Nawaz Shah. Credit: Mahmood Nawaz Shah/IPS

Sugarcane waste, which otherwise was often burned, causing greenhouse gas emissions, is used to nourish the soil at Mahmood Nawaz Shah’s (right) farm. Credit: Mahmood Nawaz Shah/IPS

The once derelict ground that Bordoloi took on lease is now a flourishing food forest today in Sonapur, about 30 km from Guwahati city in Assam, India. Credit: Sanskrita Bharadwaj/IPS

Does Regenerative Agriculture Live up to the Hype?

It’s hard to find definitive data on regenerative agriculture. Organic farming data may come closest. India has up to 2.66 million ha of agricultural land under organic farming, according to the The World of Organic Agriculture 2023 yearbook, which places India among “countries with the most organic producers” alongside Uganda and Ethiopia. However, the data given by India’s department of agriculture and farmers welfare puts natural farming at just 0.65 million hectares.

In Pakistan, the area under naturally organic agriculture in the country is about 1.51 million ha, or about 6% of all agricultural land, according to the Pakistan Organic Association, while land certified to be cultivated organically is just 64,885 hectares. “The government has not realized the virtues of this kind of farming and there is a complete absence of government policies and practices, particularly for organic food regulations and certification,” pointed out Dr. Hasan Ali Mughal, founder of POA.

Further, 10 percent of the landlords in Pakistan own 52 percent of the land, where they prefer to carry out monocropping of wheat and rice, said the FAO spokesperson, Irshad. He predicted that regenerative agriculture “cannot become mainstream in Pakistan” due to poor soil conditions.

But soil revival using solutions from nature takes time, says Mohammad Zaman, 47, a farmer from Tando Jan Mohammad of Pakistan’s Sindh province’s Mirpur Khas district. He met with some initial resistance from his father when he decided to adopt a more “natural” way of farming on their 30 acres of mango orchards in 2017. But he has, so far, spared his 400 or so mango trees from all kinds of insecticides, fungicides, and pesticides. “I sell online and I’ve realized there is a growing demand for chemical-free fruits among consumers,” he said.

Seven years later, he is most satisfied. “I could not have chosen a better path for farming,” he said, as the soil fertility is even better than when his father was farming. He also grows ber, or Indian jujube, following the same principles.

“My water application is reduced by 50 percent as the dead and live mulch cover keeps the land moist,” said Zaman, who also grows sugarcane and bananas. “We broke the myth that sugarcane and bananas are water guzzlers,” he said. He, however, uses fertilizer on the banana crop “sparingly” but intends to wean it off in two years.

This was endorsed by Indira Singh, lead at the School for Environment and Sustainability at the Indian Institute for Human Settlement (IIHS), in Bengaluru.

“Getting soil rejuvenation may take a little more time, but eventually, as the soil microbiomes bloom, they will see change, which will lead to a sustainable solution,” she said.

Looking for Larger Solutions

Graphic credit: IPS

Graphic credit: IPS

Some would like to see more government support for regenerative farming.

Shah, currently the president of the Sindh Abadgar Board, an organisation of agriculturists in Sindh, said farmers are not being prepared for adapting to climate change and are not provided with solutions to counter those challenges.

Islamabad-based Dr. M. Azeem Khan, former chairman of the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council, agreed. The governments, he said, will need to modify existing farm equipment, build new ones, and make them available, as most small farmers cannot afford them. Further, the state will need to build the technical capacity of its extension workers, who can not only convince but also train farmers to give up their “old ways” and to let nature take its course.

“Seeing is believing; only then will farmers accept change,” Khan said.

Khan said cheaper electricity, like solar, surety to procure produce, provision of timely and subsidized inputs, repair and maintenance of farm machinery, and an effective advocacy system focusing on how to move towards regenerative and environment-friendly agricultural practices would help.

“At the outset, the change may be costly,” but it is possible, he said.

Notes: This story was part of a cross-border reporting workshop organized by the U.S.-based East-West Center.
This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

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Excerpt:

Regenerative farming is seen as a climate solution, with advocates saying that it is the most straightforward way to benefit the planet’s health and ensure food security. It is growing in popularity in both India and Pakistan, as this cross-border feature highlights.

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Mar 29 2024 – If there is a place where the interlinkages and dependencies between the effects of climate warming and biodiversity loss are clearly at display, it’s Nepal. There is clear evidence on the impact of climate change on the country’s ecosystem considering the fact that Nepal is an important biodiversity hotspot.

Climate change and biodiversity loss, if unchecked, can activate mutually devastating loops of devastation that hardly can be offset by any plan and strategy. The only solution is a much stronger level of coordination and policy alignment, not only within countries like Nepal but also regionally.

This is one of the reasons why scientists and experts working on the upcoming IPBES Next Assessment that attempts to study the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health with actions to achieve the Agenda 2030 while combating climate change, chose Kathmandu for their latest summit.

The linkages between climate warming and biodiversity loss were also one of the key hallmarks of COP 28 in the UAE where, for the first time, biodiversity preservation was recognized as a paramount factor to fight climate change.

In the first Global Stocktake, the main outcome document of the COP 28, there has been a strong reference to the implementation of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF).

In practice, for nations, it means to work hard to converge the climate and biodiversity agendas as the new cycle of Nationally Determined Contributions, the key mitigations plans prepared by each nation party to the Paris Agreement, will also have to include elements related to biodiversity.

This can be proved to be challenging considering also the efforts that a country like Nepal must also put to implement its adaptation plans.

Coordination and alignment between the mitigation and adaptation is at least provided in what should be as the country’s “master plan” to fight climate change, its National Climate Change Policy whose latest iteration was approved in 2019.

It is a document that identified 12 areas, from agriculture and food security to forests, biodiversity and watershed conservation to water resources and energies to rural and urban settlement, tourism and transportation, just to mention few.

Yet ensuring such policy level harmonization is going to be daunting, considering the traditional fragmentations that characterize policy making in Nepal.

At governance level, there are two key mechanisms that have not been fully harnessed.
The first one is the apex body in matter of climate action, the Climate Change Council that is chaired by the Prime Minister.

Its convenings have been not only rare but also mostly symbolic and devoid of substantial decisions. If you think about the challenges faced by Nepal, this should be the most important bureaucratic body at policy level but you seldom hear news about it.

The second instrument at disposal is the Multistakeholder Climate Change Initiative Coordination Committee that should bring together the best minds in the field. So far, what potentially could be a great platform for dialogue has been wasted.

The fact that the Government has formally included the Nepalese Youth for Climate Action as a constituency, does not absolve the authorities from being lacking in terms of proactively enabling and putting in place a structured and formal mechanism in matter of climate.

Coordination is indeed held indispensable, considering the gravity of what is unfolding.
The latest IPBES Global Biodiversity Report, published in 2019, confirmed, once again, that unequivocally “nature and its vital contributions to people, which together embody biodiversity and ecosystem, functions and services, are deteriorating worldwide”.

“Nature across most of the globe has now been significantly altered by multiple human drivers, with the great majority of indicators of ecosystems and biodiversity showing rapid decline”.

The latest report by the World Meteorological Organization could not be even more daunting, once again, proving we are living in the hottest times ever. The key message from the IPBES Next Assessment’s meeting held in Kathmandu was equally daunting and unequivocal, declaring that the whole Hindu Kush Himalaya’s biosphere is “on the brink’.

Another event organized by ICIMOD, the international conference on Climate and Environmental Change Impacts on the Indus Basin Waters, stressed out the essentiality of coordination.

Highlighting key findings of a series of new reports focused on ensuring effective “integrated river basin management”, this gathering underlined how climate change becomes the “urgent catalyst for collaboration over three key river basins in Asia, the Indus, the Ganga, and the Brahmaputra”.

In a press release issued by ICIMOD, Alan Nicol from the International Water Management Institute that collaborated in the writing of the reports, affirmed that the “level of challenges facing the Indus Basin call for collective action across the basin”.

How can such coordination be turned into reality within Nepal and within the whole South Asia?

At national level, climate action should permeate and be embedded in each sphere of policy making. Mechanisms like Climate Change Council and Multistakeholder Climate Change Initiative Coordination Committee must be seriously and meaningfully activated and empowered.

Considering the deep connections between climate and biodiversity, the latter, normally overshadowed by the former domain, should also be included or at least taken into account when the decision makers deliberate on climate related issues.

Enhancing coordination exponentially must be a priority but not only at central level especially in a federal country like Nepal.

Though federalism is still very much a work in progress and where the seven provinces still lack powers and real autonomy, it remains paramount to empower local bodies as well.

Imagine the immense work that must be done in the field of mitigation and adaptation, the two key areas of action within the climate agenda alone. Only in relation to adaptation, the National Adaptation Plan 2021- 2050 aims to mobilize the staggering figure of US$ 47.4 billion of which Nepal will only contribute US$ 1.5 billion.

In the recent “National Dialogue on Climate Change” organized by Municipality Association of Nepal made it clear that local bodies must necessarily be empowered to fight climate change.

A case study prepared by Prakriti Resource Center, one of the most renown climate focused organizations in Nepal, revealed the failure in effectively implementing the Local Adaptation Plans for Actions (LAPA), despite being revised 2019 to reflect the new federal governance of the country.

Local governments should also be at the vanguard of mitigation efforts but reality tells us a different story.

A limited and distorted focus of mitigation mainly in terms of production of hydropower energy, a federal competence, compounded by lack of resources, is currently disempowering local governments from taking action.

Frustrating and disappointing remains the work in the field of biodiversity. Both centrally and locally, there is a lack of urgency here even though the country can count with some success story in local forest preservations by local communities.

Yet, also on this case, Nepal is at risk of falling into a complacence trap without additional strategic thinking.

There is the need not only of coming up with a new, revamped national strategy but it is also essential to evaluate the implementation of the latest National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan 2014 -2020, especially in relation to design and execution of Local Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans.

But, as we know, coordination and alignment by overcoming silos approaches, should not stop within the national borders.

Here there is an opportunity to put together some sort of regional cooperative framework that, as we saw, are strongly encouraged by the experts. New synergetic impetus at national level in both climate and biodiversity areas could spur the country to also take the initiative regionally.

It can happen in a way that could, at least revamp and give some scope to the almost defuncted South Asia Association of Regional Cooperation, SAARC. Cooperation in South Asia in a novel integrated fashion that links and combines climate efforts and biodiversity preservation, is a must.

Geopolitical rivalries cannot impede it even if, it means, in practice, effectively sidelining the SAARC.

What all this could mean for Nepal?

A joint, combined approach to preserve nature and fight climate warming, together with a revamped attention on pollution and sustainable consumption habits, other two essential aspects that must be tackled in the years to come with urgency, could bring about not only a better and more effective forms of governance in the country.

It could also enable Nepal to become a trailblazer in revamping regional cooperation, pragmatically in areas where traditional rivalries must be set aside for the sake of South Asian citizens’ common good.

A good way to start is to at least to get the “homework” well done in the country, preparing itself on how integrating biodiversity in its negotiations for the next climate COP 29 in Azerbaijan but also be serious about the upcoming biodiversity COP 16 in Colombia.

Simone Galimberti is co-founder of Engage a local NGO promoting partnership and cooperation for youth living in disability and of The Good Leadership, a new initiative promoting character leadership and expertise among youth.

IPS UN Bureau

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