By Hopolang Phororo
WINDHOEK, Namibia, Feb 11 2025 – Communities in the Kavango West region of northern Namibia have firsthand experience of the severe impacts of climate change. The dry, cracked soil and emaciated livestock provide a constant reminder of the lack of access to water in this part of the country.

While the challenge of water scarcity is not new, the country is facing one of its worst droughts in more than a hundred years. Exacerbated by the impacts of El Niño, this drought has triggered widespread food insecurity, environmental degradation, health threats and rising unemployment, affecting more than half a million people.

To support the government and the people of Namibia, particularly those most vulnerable, including nursing mothers, other women and children, the UN in Namibia, under my leadership, mobilized resources through the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to tackle the crisis.

Even as women and girls disproportionately feel the impact of droughts, we have an opportunity to leverage their leadership and boost drought resilience in communities.

Meeting women’s immediate needs

To tackle urgent needs, our UN team works with government and partners, including the Society for Family Health, Catholic AIDS Action and Mobile Telecommunication Company (MTC), to leave no one behind.

Mupuni village Ext. 1 stands as a shining example. The World Food Programme (WFP) has been distributing food vouchers and has established a soup kitchen for children aged 6 months to 9 years old, reaching nearly 65,000 people facing acute malnutrition in the regions of Omaheke, Kavango East and Kavango West.

Complementing this, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) provides lifesaving support to breastfeeding mothers and children impacted by the drought emergency while the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) provides protection initiatives, including family planning and counseling services to women. These are delivered through mobile clinics set up in these areas.

The UN in Namibia is also paving the way to transition towards long-term resilience, climate action and sustainable development.

Building women’s long-term resilience

The national drought response plan, which is supported by the United Nations, prioritizes building the resilience of drought-affected communities, boosting food security and protecting livelihoods, particularly for vulnerable members of the population including women.

Through targeted interventions, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) support the introduction of initiatives that are helping diversify livelihoods.

Women farmers are provided with irrigation equipment for more efficient and sustainable water use, reducing dependence on rain-fed agriculture. Vulnerable households receive seeds, tools, poultry and pig feed, fencing, shade netting materials, and most crucially, access to markets. These initiatives boost agricultural productivity and build community resilience to effectively weather drought conditions.

Supporting teen mothers and children-at-risk

Compounding the impact of the drought crisis, teenage pregnancy also undermine development in Namibia. Teenage mothers often interrupt their education to care for their infants while older relatives take on added domestic and childcare responsibilities to support their younger counterparts. This perpetuates a vicious cycle of lost opportunities across generations.

The well-being of children borne by teenage mothers also suffers as part of these challenges. For example, children weaned at an early age, to give mothers time to earn a living, face increased risks of malnourishment and related health issues.

In communities heavily impacted by drought, disruptions to healthcare infrastructure and the resulting economic instability increase the challenges of providing adequate medical care and counseling, including reproductive health services to counter the spread of HIV and the provision of maternal and child health support.

Ultimately, teen mothers and their children stand to lose more, exposed to added risks of poor education, malnutrition, stunting and serious diseases. The UN has been a committed player contributing to the work to support vulnerable populations with rapid and coordinated interventions.

Joint solutions for long-term impact

The UN in Namibia puts building local resilience at the heart of its work, engaging communities through an integrated, gender-sensitive approach. As the Resident Coordinator overseeing the UN’s climate adaptation, mitigation and disaster response work and our initiatives to tackle poverty and gender inequalities, I ensure our collective efforts bear fruit, especially for those who need it most.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2025-2029 is our north star, centered on poverty eradication (SDG Goal 1) and resilience-building while empowering women and youth. Our UN team’s work support key government interventions, such as Namibia’s national flood and drought monitor and early warning system that provides crucial information to communities, enabling them to prepare for and respond to climate-related disasters. This work includes making climate information easily accessible and usable by women.

The UN in Namibia also works to integrate risk management into national policies and planning processes, including provisions for disaster risk reduction into legal frameworks. These efforts boost Namibia’s ability to respond to environmental threats, protect lives and livelihoods, minimize the impacts of extreme weather events, and foster a culture of preparedness.

An integrated programme, co-created with communities, addressing multifaceted challenges, including the needs of women and girls, is crucial. This work requires a whole of society approach and the UN in Namibia remains committed to working with national authorities and other partners to continue delivering meaningful results.

A solid foundation has been established in Kavango West. Even as the country prepares for the next drought cycle, let us build on this, work together, empowering communities to take ownership of Namibia’s resilient and sustainable future.

Hopolang Phororo is UN Resident Coordinator in Namibia. For more information about the UN’s work in Namibia, visit namibia.un.org.

Source: UN Sustainable Development Group

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
HARARE, Zimbabwe, Feb 11 2025 – Many in the West, of the political right and left, now deny imperialism. For Josef Schumpeter, empires were pre-capitalist atavisms that would not survive the spread of capitalism. But even the conservative Economist notes President Trump’s revival of this US legacy.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Economic liberalism challenged
Major liberal economic thinkers of the 19th century noted capitalism was undermining economic liberalism. John Stuart Mill and others acknowledged the difficulties of keeping capitalism competitive. In 2014, billionaire Peter Thiel declared competition is for losers.

A century and a half ago, Dadabhai Naoroji, from India, became a Liberal Party Member of the UK Parliament. In his drainage theory, colonialism and imperial power enabled surplus extraction.

As the Anglo-Boer war drew to a close in 1902, another English liberal, John Hobson, published his study of economic imperialism, drawing heavily on the South African experience.

Later, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin cited Hobson, his comrade Nikolai Bukharin and Rudolf Hilferding’s Finance Capital for his famous 1916 imperialism booklet urging comrades not to take sides in the European inter-imperialist First World War (WW1).

Three pre-capitalist empires – Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman – ended at the start of the 20th century. Their collapse spawned new Western nationalisms, which contributed to both world wars.

Germany lost its empire at Versailles after WW1, while Italian forays into Africa were successfully rebuffed. Western powers did little to check Japanese militaristic expansion from the late 19th century until the outbreak of World War Two (WW2) in Europe.

Imperialism and capitalism
Economists Utsa and Prabhat Patnaik argue that the primary accumulation of economic surplus – not involving the exploitation of free wage labour – was necessary for capitalism’s emergence.

Drawing on economic history, they clarify that primary accumulation has been crucial for capitalism’s ascendance. Thus, imperialism was a condition for capitalism’s emergence and rapid early development. Ensuring continued imperial dominance has sustained capitalist accumulation since.

The 1910s and 1920s debates between the Second and Third Internationals of Social Democrats and allied movements in Europe and beyond involved contrasting positions on WW1 and imperialism.

For most of humanity in emerging nations, now termed developing countries, imperialism and capital accumulation did not ‘generalise’ the exploitation of free wage labour, spreading capitalist relations of production, as in ‘developed’ Western economies.

Due to capitalism’s uneven development worldwide, the Third International maintained the struggle against imperialism was foremost for the Global South or Third World of ‘emerging nations’, not the class struggle against capitalism, as in developed capitalist economies.

After decades of uneven international economic integration, including globalisation, the struggle against imperialism continues to be foremost a century later. Imperialism has reshaped colonial and now national economies but has also united the Global South, even if only in opposition to it.

Blinkers at Versailles
After observing the peace negotiations after WWI, John Maynard Keynes presciently criticised the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, warning of likely consequences. In The Economic Consequences of the Peace, he warned that its treatment of the defeated Germany would have dangerous consequences.

But Keynes failed to consider some of the Treaty’s other consequences. Newly Republican China had contributed the most troops to the Allied forces in WW1, as India did in WW2.

Germany was forced to surrender the Shantung peninsula, which it had dominated since before WW1. But instead of China’s significant contributions to the war effort being appreciated at Versailles with the peninsula’s return, Shantung was given to imperial Japan!

Unsurprisingly, the Versailles Treaty’s terms triggered the May Fourth movement against imperialism in China, culminating in the communist-led revolution that eventually took over most of China in October 1949.

Even today, popular culture, especially Western narratives, largely ignores the role and effects of war on these ‘coloured peoples’. By contrast, understating the Soviet contributions to and sacrifices in WW2 was probably primarily politically motivated.

Another counter-revolution
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected US president in 1932. He announced the New Deal in early 1933, years before Keynes published his General Theory in 1936.

Many policies have been introduced and implemented well before they were theorised. Unsurprisingly, it is often joked that economic theory rationalises actual economic conditions and policies already implemented.

Keynesian economic thinking inspired much economic policymaking before, during, and after WW2. Both Allied and Axis powers adopted various state-led policies. Keynesian economics remained influential worldwide until the 1960s and arguably to this day.

The counter-revolution against Keynesian economics from the late 1970s saw a parallel opposition movement against development economics, which had legitimised more pragmatic and unconventional policy thinking. From the 1980s, neoliberal economics spread with a vengeance and much encouragement from Washington, DC.

This Washington Consensus – the shared ‘neoliberal’ views of the US capital’s economic establishment, including its Treasury, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund – has since been replaced by brazenly ethno-nationalist ‘geoeconomic’ and ‘geopolitical’ responses to unipolar globalisation.

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By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Feb 11 2025 (IPS-Partners)

A global alert is not an option. It requires global action. Over the past three years, the number of crisis-impacted school-aged children in need of urgent quality education support has grown by an alarming 35 million, according to Education Cannot Wait’s new Global Estimates Report.

The recently published report offers a stark and brutal alert for the future of 234 million girls and boys enduring the frontlines of the world’s most dire humanitarian crises. Their access to a quality education is non-existent. We cannot stand by and let the consequences avalanche into a total collapse. They desperately need our urgent collective global action, now.

The complex and horrific disruption of education in Gaza, the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Ukraine and beyond are utterly dangerous and harmful to them and all of us. Without action, we are pushing even more children into harm’s way. Without a quality education, we risk repeating cycles of displacement, instability, insecurity, uncertainty, chaos and mayhem. We risk leaving an entire generation behind. This will have severe impact on their lives, as well as all our lives.

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and all our partners – be it strategic donors, the private sector, ministries of education, UN agencies, civil society and local communities – have proven again and again that it is indeed possible to make a difference and a bold impact. It is indeed possible to extinguish the fire, reduce the speed of the avalanche and turn challenges into opportunities. In just a few years, we jointly and collectively delivered a continued quality education to over 11 million children and adolescents in the harshest circumstances on earth.

With more funding, we could double that number in just over a year. With even more funding, we can and will eventually become a collective force of nature that makes sure that every child and young person in crises reaches their potential. When they reach their potential through a quality education, they will be the force of nature for their societies and the world at large, be it in science, in business, as highly-qualified teachers, or any other profession that every society needs to thrive and make an impact.

The needs have never been greater. At the same time, the evidenced-based model for success has never been stronger. This is not the time to fear to fail, nor for closing our eyes to the reality, or the power of education to resolve it.

This is an investment in the human potential at its best. It is an investment in stronger economies and greater stability across the globe. No one loses. All are winners.

According to the United Nations, there is a US$100 billion annual financing gap to achieve the education targets in low- and lower-middle income countries. ECW is calling for a tiny part of that figure to make a major impact. That is US$600 million to deliver on the goals outlined in our four-year strategic plan: to reach 20 million crisis-impacted children and adolescents.

The need for collaboration has never been more important. In January, ECW and our close strategic partner the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) issued a Complementarity Note that underscores the value-addition of our individual organizations and charts a path toward increased results, impact, coordination and collaboration. We ensure that there is no duplication, nor double funding. Rather, we provide a holistic approach based on each other’s comparative advantage. The same applies for the third funding mechanism of IFFEd, the International Finance Facility for Education. With the resources required, these three funds work with all our partners to deliver comprehensively and completely. It is possible.

In Sudan, for example, recent analysis from OCHA indicates that of the 4.2 million targeted through the humanitarian response toward education, only 777,000 have been reached thus far, and of the US$131 million humanitarian funding ask for education, only US$22.8 million has been funded thus far. That is an 83% funding gap.

It is astonishing considering that education is both lifesaving and has the power to reduce aid-dependency in the long run. Now, more than ever, we need to step up funding for education in emergencies and protracted crises. Humanitarian, development, public and private sector funding can make a huge contribution to address the vicious cycle of humanitarian crises.

We should make no mistake: the children and adolescents in crises are extremely resilient due to their soul-shattering experiences. Once they get an education, they will certainly tap into extraordinary innovation, unbreakable courage and a limitless source of creativity. Then, they will show us how to make the impossible possible.

In conclusion, we need to connect the dots and see the whole picture. Climate change is no less of a major factor in disrupting education than conflict. Indeed, conflicts, climate change and forced displacement are all interconnected humanitarian crises. In this month’s high-level interview, we discuss the connection between education and climate change with ECW’s Climate Champion Adenike Oladosu. Funding climate change demands funding education, too. We cannot afford to separate the two.

Or, as the multi-faceted Leonardo da Vinci once said: “Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

The 234 million children and adolescents deprived of a quality education are connected to 8 billion people, our future as a human species and the progress of our world. Making an investment requires us to see the whole picture. It is not an option. It is a call for action.

Yasmine Sherif is Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait

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Pakistan’s once-thriving trout fish farming industry, a vital source of livelihood for communities in the country’s mountainous northern region, is now on the verge of collapse due to the devastating impacts of climate change. Rising temperatures, glacial melt, erratic rainfall, and catastrophic floods have dealt a severe blow to this promising sector, leaving farm owners […]

By External Source
Feb 11 2025 – The global commitment to fair climate finance is at a crossroads. COP29 concluded with a disappointing New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG), leaving developing nations at risk of being left behind. With the U.S. withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and slashing development aid, prospects for more ambitious fair climate finance are getting out of sight.

Decisions like these not only threaten global cooperation on climate change but will also fail to meet its core purpose in supporting the most affected communities in adapting to and mitigating climate change. Now, more than ever, fair and equitable climate finance – such as increased grant-based funding and debt relief – is critical.

Much of the climate finance provided is in the form of loans rather than grants, worsening existing debt burdens and limiting investments in sustainable development. Without stronger commitments to public grants and additional funding, developing countries risk falling into a cycle of debt that hinders climate action

In Africa, the impacts of climate change are stark and undeniable. Extreme weather events on the continent surged from 85 in the 1970s to over 540 between 2010 and 2019, causing 730,000 deaths and USD 38.5 billion in damages.

The increasing frequency and severity of floods, droughts, and storms are threatening food security, displacing populations, and putting immense stress on water resources. According to the World Bank, climate change could push up to 118 million extremely poor people in Africa into abject poverty by 2030 as drought, floods, and extreme heat intensify. A stark reality that underscores the urgent need for robust climate finance to implement adaptation and mitigation strategies to safeguard and secure the continent’s future.

At the same time, climate response remains critically underfunded in Africa. From the figures released by the Climate Policy Initiative, the continent will need approximately USD 2.8 trillion between 2020 and 2030 to implement its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.

However, current annual climate finance flows to Africa are only USD 30 billion, exposing a significant funding gap for climate adaptation and mitigation strategies.

Climate Finance at COP 29

COP 29’s main objective was to deliver on a finance goal that would see the world off the tipping point. However, after two weeks of nearly failed climate diplomacy, negotiators agreed to a disappointing USD 300 billion annually by 2035. This amount falls short of the USD 1.3 trillion per year figure, supported by the Needs Determinant Report, that many developing countries had advocated for.

Collins Otieno, Hivos

Nevertheless, the Baku to Belem Roadmap has been developed to address the climate finance gap. This framework, set to be finalized at COP30 in Brazil, offers a crucial opportunity to refine finance mechanisms to effectively and equitably meet the needs of developing countries.

Why the finance outcome of COP 29 could leave developing countries behind

Beyond the insufficient funding, the NCQG lacks a strong commitment to equity, a key principle of the Paris Agreement. The principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) emphasizes that developed countries should bear a greater share of the financial burden. However, the NCQG merely states that developed nations would “take the lead” in mobilizing USD 300 billion, reflecting a lack of firm commitment.

A major concern is the climate debt trap for developing nations. Much of the climate finance provided is in the form of loans rather than grants, worsening existing debt burdens and limiting investments in sustainable development. Without stronger commitments to public grants and additional funding, developing countries risk falling into a cycle of debt that hinders climate action.

Moving forward: shaping conditions for fair, equitable and enduring climate finance

To ensure COP 29’s finance outcomes do not leave the Global South behind, several actions are needed.

Firstly, debt relief is crucial. Approximately 60% of low-income countries are already in or near debt distress. Between 2016 and 2020, 72% of climate finance to developing nations was in loans, while only 26% was in grants. Reducing debt burdens would allow developing countries to allocate more resources to climate projects, improve fiscal stability, and attract additional investments.

Similarly, given the mounting climate finance debts in low-income developing countries, increased grant-based financing for climate action is needed. In 2022, developed countries provided around USD 115.9 billion in climate finance to developing countries, but a significant portion was in the form of loans.

Jaël Poelen, Hivos

Heavy reliance on debt-based financing exacerbates financial burdens on these nations. Grant-based finance, on the other hand, aligns with equity principles and ensures that funding effectively supports adaptation and mitigation.

Another potential path is leveraging private sector investment. The private sector plays an essential role in climate finance. However, its involvement often prioritizes profit over genuine climate benefits. Strategies must ensure that private investments align with climate justice principles. To address this, approaches are needed such as those used by Bill and Melinda Gates.

Lastly, implementing robust governance and transparent mechanisms is critical. This includes developing detailed reporting templates, public participation in decision-making, and clear monitoring systems to track climate finance flows and prevent double counting.

While the developed world is rapidly changing its relationship with the rest of the world from aid to trade, the price of not providing equitable grant-based, public climate finance will be economic losses, health impacts, increased disaster costs, food insecurity, biodiversity loss, and infrastructural damage. Quite simply, taking the equity conditions into account is the way forward if we are to ensure that the outcomes of COP 29 leave no low-income developing nation in the Global South behind.

Collins Otieno is a Climate Finance and Innovations Officer at Hivos. He is a licensed Associate Environmental Impact Assessment expert with the National Environment Management Authority of Kenya, a certified policy analyst, and has extensive experience in climate finance, having worked in the sector for over eight years.

Jaël Poelen is the Global Advocacy and Communications Officer at Hivos for the Voices for Just Climate Action Program, which aims to amplify the voices of people and communities most affected by climate change.