More
    Home Blog Page 16

    Resilience through equality: A gender responsive social protection system in Mauritius

    By
    Rachel Moussié
    -
    0

     

    Rachel Moussié – Deputy Director, Social Protection Programme, WIEGO

    In this article, Rachel Moussié explores how gender-responsive social protection policies can prevent deepening inequalities now and contribute to a more resilient system prepared for future shocks in Mauritius. The article proposes to expand the benefit package and harmonise existing social protection schemes so they can better protect and reach women with low incomes, working in either the formal or informal economy.  Drawing on examples from other upper and middle-income countries, the intention is to propose policy options for discussion among social partners, civil society, researchers, and development partners.

    In the current COVID context significant risks of job losses for women and men have led to numerous emergency social protection measures aimed at supporting Mauritian workers both in the formal and informal economy. Recent post-Covid statistics show growing gender inequalities in the Mauritian labour market. This is undoing the timid progress made so far on women’s economic empowerment in the country and is exposing more women and children to poverty and violence.  For a small island reliant on its skilled labour force, growing gender and class inequalities pose a great risk to social cohesion, economic recovery and further development. The pandemic underscores how economic recovery, employment and social protection are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, making social protection an important development tool.  Drawing on examples from other upper and middle-income countries, the article proposes a non-exhaustive set of gender-responsive social protection policies that expand the benefit package and harmonise existing social protection schemes to better protect women and men with low incomes working in the formal and informal economy.

    The Gender Gap

    Mauritius is behind other high and upper-middle income countries when it comes to gender equality (see Table 1). The gender wage gap in Mauritius is triple that of Singapore.  Because of women’s low economic empowerment and opportunity and low political empowerment, Mauritius only scored 115 out of 153 countries on the 2020 Gender Gap Index.

    Table 1: Comparative employment data across selected high and middle-income countries – Source: Data taken from OECD database * Gender wage gap data taken from ILO. 2018. Global Wage Report – 2018/19. 2018; **Singapore Government Data – Ministry of Social and Family Development 2017; ***Statistics Mauritius, Gender wage gap estimate in the private sector as compared to a 7% wage premium in the public sector (World Bank, 2019)

    These inequalities are made worse by the economic downturn brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic through three channels:

    More women than men become inactive: While, by July 2020, more men than women have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, by September 2020, men had returned more rapidly to the labour market post-lockdown, while women were more likely to become inactive.  Between the first quarter of 2020 and July 2020 there has been a 6.2% increase in the inactive population among women compared to only 2.5 per cent increase among men.

    Women bear an increased unpaid care work burden: Evidence suggest that women take on even more unpaid care work during an economic crisis – rather than purchasing care services, cooked food or clothes, women will provide these goods and services in their own homes by spending more time caring for children or the elderly, cooking, or mending and recycling clothes.  This reduces women’s time for paid work, negatively impacts their wellbeing and leads to poorer quality care for children and other dependents as household incomes fall permanently.

    Women informal workers face constraints in accessing social protection programmes: Informal wage and non-wage employment were at lower levels in September 2020 than formal wage and non-wage employment, suggesting that a large proportion of the jobs lost during the crisis were in informal employment.  Recent research on vulnerable informal women entrepreneurs found that 88 per cent of their sample had no social protection coverage, the remaining 12 per cent benefited from the Basic Retirement Pension and/or the National Pension Fund as they were at least 60 years old.  Low education, lack of information and the complexity of administrative processes were key barriers faced by women for business registration and inclusion in social protection programmes. The research findings confirm that poverty-targeted cash transfers  available to those on the Social Register exclude the working poor many of whom are informal workers – leaving them with no social protection coverage during their working lives.

    Hence, as women face increasing constraints to access paid employment, there is an urgent need for a more gender-responsive social protection system.

     

    Mauritian women selling vegetables on the street. Source: nachosmooth on flickr.

    What policy options exist?

    Maintaining the universal Basic Retirement Pension

    The Mauritius Basic Retirement Pension is gender responsive and redistributive as it significantly contributes to income security among older women who have a higher life expectancy and are likely to have i) contributed less to social insurance schemes due to lower earnings and wages, ii) taken time off from paid work due to their unpaid care work responsibilities at home, iii) found work in the informal economy, iv) or never participated in the labour market.  A universal social pension protects the elderly and entire households from poverty and food insecurity during crises – acting as an economic and social stabiliser.  It guarantees women and men will receive the same social pension regardless of their contribution rate and whether they work in the formal or informal economy.  This is a redistributive measure that allows for the risks brought on by an aging population and climate change to be borne more collectively.

    In June 2020, without prior consultation with the social partners, the government announced a shift away from a funded pension system, the National Pension Fund, to a pay as you go pension system through the Contribution Sociale Generalisée (CSG).  Contributions to the CSG are currently intended to cover pensions and will be supplemented by tax revenue to finance the Basic Retirement Pension.

    Expanding the benefit package

    While the debate is still open on the viability of the chosen financial model for the CSG, expanding the benefit package of the CSG beyond a pension to include an unemployment benefit and maternity and paternity leave benefits could incentivise more informal workers to register and contribute to the CSG.  The advantages are multifold, i) it increases overall financing for the CSG, ii) it enables the formalisation of informal workers and enterprises and iii) it enhances social solidarity as contributions from the formal economy subsidise those from the informal economy.

    Unemployment benefit: In 2019, the Mauritius Workfare Program covered 23 per cent of workers in the formal economy and only three per cent in the informal economy. Men are almost twice as likely to participate in the program than women, and older workers are four times more likely to participate than younger workers. The program eligibility criteria requires full-time employment for at least 18 months. Women workers are more likely than men to work part-time due to their care responsibilities at home and younger workers may not have 18 months of experience in the same job.

    Eligibility for the Workfare Program should be relaxed so more women, youth and informal workers can benefit.   The CSG could partially cover the costs of expanding the Workfare Program in addition to tax revenue.  Those workers who contribute to the CSG could receive a slightly higher benefit amount through the Workfare Program than those who do not – incentivising informal workers to contribute to the CSG though not excluding those who cannot contribute.  This transforms the Workfare Program from a non-contributory benefit to one partially based on contributions.  It would require a financial assessment of the CSG.

    Maternity and paternity leave and benefit:  Mauritius is behind other high income and upper-middle countries in its parental leave policies. A first step to improve maternity and paternity protections is to finance this through social insurance or public funds rather than employer liability.  The latter discourages employers to hire and retain women during their prime reproductive years and is one more barrier for women to stay in employment once they have children.   Most high and middle-income countries rely on social insurance or a mix of employer liability and social insurance/public funds to cover maternity leave and benefits (see Table 2).

    Table 2: Comparative data on national statutory provisions on maternity leave – Source: ILO. 2014. Maternity and paternity at work; ILO World Social Protection Dashboard, 2020; *Updated based on Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017; **applicable for the first two children.

    Moving towards contributory maternity protections redistributes the costs of hiring and retaining women for an individual employer to all workers and employers and across small and large firms. Given Mauritius’ low and stable fertility rate of 1.4, the associated costs should remain manageable.

    In Singapore, the parental leave benefits are available to employees and self-employed workers in continuous employment for at least three months before the birth.  The two-week paternity leave benefit is paid entirely by the state with no employer liability.  To encourage shared-parental responsibility, the government allows for working fathers to share up to four weeks of their wives 16 weeks of maternity leave.[1]

    Simplification and harmonisation of contributions

    The CSG could integrate the Workfare Program, maternity and paternity leave benefits and the Basic Retirement Pension into a unified social protection benefit package.  All workers’ and employers’ contributions would go towards financing this bundle of social protection measures.  The CSG currently proposes to include self-employed workers through a Rs 150 ($4) contribution, this could constitute the first tier of a ‘monotax’ payment and registration system for micro-enterprises  as used in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. A monotax combines tax revenue and social security contributions into one simplified payment for low-income earners in the informal economy that gives them access to pensions, maternity and unemployment benefits.

    It is noteworthy that the implementation of the Self-Employed Assistance Scheme allowed informal workers to register with the Mauritian Revenue Authority for the first time and set up mobile and online banking services. This demonstrates the potential for the formal registration of informal activities through a harmonised CSG.

    Harmonisation, equity and recovery

    Expanding and harmonising benefits through the CSG must go hand in hand with greater representation of women workers in the formal and informal economy in a CSG governed by a tripartite structure.  Financing the CSG is a concern given the declining active labour force, an aging population, the low fertility rate and the economic transformation needed towards low-carbon sectors.  It has been argued that higher employer contribution rates threaten Mauritius’ status as a low-tax jurisdiction.  However, other low-tax jurisdictions such as Singapore and Ireland have far higher employer contribution rates and more comprehensive social protection systems. A more equitable and gender responsive redistribution of wealth is central to a stronger social protection system that will allow Mauritius to recover and prepare for future shocks.

     

    [1] The policy is discriminatory as the full benefit levels are only available if the child is a Singaporean citizen and the parents are married.  This discriminates against migrant workers whose children are not Singaporean citizens and single mothers who only receive 12 weeks paid maternity leave.

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Environmentally friendly behavior is easy — tourists just need a ‘nudge’

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

     

    Simple cues reduce cognitive strain and provide a nudge — helping tourists to demonstrate environmentally conscious behavior, such as refusing a plastic bag

    By Tayyibah Aziz, science writer at Frontiers

    A new study by Katherine M. Nelson1, Mirja Kristina Bauer2 and Stefan Partelow1has demonstrated that providing a simple ‘nudge’ — or cue — is an effective way to influence the decision making process of tourists and encourage them to act in more environmentally friendly ways. The results offer many practical insights on how a simple, low cost intervention, such as placing a sign in a store, has huge potential on reducing the local impacts of businesses and tourist operators by making pro-environmental choices easy.

    A new study in Frontiers in Communication has demonstrated the powerful impact that subtle messaging and cues, or ‘nudges’, can provide on encouraging people to show socially desirable behaviors. Travelers who were observed on the Indonesian island of Gili Trawangan, a popular tourist destination, were more likely to demonstrate environmentally conscious actions, such as refusing a plastic bag or avoiding contact with a coral reef, when they were ‘nudged’ towards the desirable action with either a written or face to face interaction. The researchers found that any intervention, whether framed positively or negatively, was enough to lead people to make environmentally conscious decisions, compared to being given no behavioral cues or messaging. The study provides many practical takeaways that can be easily implemented by tourist operators or businesses, at a low cost, to increase environmental stewardship and promote positive behaviors in their customers.

    Although many of us feel a responsibility to demonstrate environmentally-conscious behaviors and possess the knowledge we need to take these actions, we are often burdened by numerous obstacles, a phenomenon the researchers describe as the ‘knowledge-action gap’. Dr Katherine Nelson, who led the study in partnership with the Gili Eco Trust, explains:

    “The gap between knowledge and action exists because it is much easier to think a certain way than it is to actually consistently behave in that manner – but providing a subtle cue can help us relieve some of the cognitive burden on our brains when we are in a complex environment.”

    To try and close this gap, the researchers set up scenarios for tourists in two real life situations — when being offered a plastic bag at a convenience store, and when given a briefing before a snorkeling trip. The researchers observed the differences in people’s behavior based on whether a person was confronted with a written or face to face interaction of either a positive message highlighting good outcomes, or a negative message focusing on the bad outcomes of a specific action.

    Example of a poster that could be used to ‘nudge’ tourists. Campaign for sea turtles by MEDASSET.

    The study showed that the presence of a ‘nudge’ or cue towards certain behaviors was enough to encourage people to behave in more environmentally conscious ways, whether that was refusing a plastic bag whilst at the convenience store or ensuring they maintained a safe distance from turtles when on a snorkeling trip — whether this message was framed positively or negatively did not matter.

    “Our study highlights that an intervention can lead people to making better decisions by just drawing their attention to an issue – by providing a small cue, we can reduce the obstacles that get in the way and make environmental behaviors easy.”

    Rubbish washed up the coast, Indonesia – Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels

    The results offer important insights on the effectiveness of simple messaging as a practical way to nudge people towards environmentally conscious behaviors. The tourist sector in particular has huge potential to utilize these types of approaches and make pro-environmental behaviors a simple choice to reduce local impacts.

     

    The article was first published in Frontiers 

    Original article : Informational nudges to encourage pro-environmental behavior: examining differences in message framing and human interaction by Katherine M. Nelson1*, Mirja Kristina Bauer2 and Stefan Partelow; 1Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Bremen, Germany; 2Department of Biology/Chemistry, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Fostering Innovation through Clustering of Universities in Mauritius

    By
    Dhanjay Jhurry
    -
    0

     

    Dhanjay Jhurry, Vice-Chancellor, University of Mauritius, Réduit, Mauritius

    In this article, Professor Dhanjay Jhurry, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mauritius (UoM), reviews Mauritius’ innovation shortfalls and some of the UoM’s initiatives to foster research and innovation beyond the traditional research silos. With its poles for research excellence, its poles for Innovation and its Knowledge Transfer Office, the UoM is increasingly producing impactful research and innovation with effective links to industry. To effectively support Mauritius into becoming an innovation driven economy, Dhanjay Jhurry  calls for a more integrated national innovation system with, as one key component, the establishment of a cluster of private and public universities partnering and leveraging their respective strengths for the creation of research and knowledge towards identified common goals.   

     

    Status of Innovation in Mauritius

    The Global Innovation Index(GII)  2020 report points out to a number of weaknesses as regards the innovation performance of Mauritius. Two major weaknesses are (i) business sophistication and (ii) knowledge and technology outputs. Both are intimately linked through their respective key indicators as depicted in Figure 1. The ‘Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) financed and performed by business’, ‘University/industry research collaboration’ and ‘Research talent’ together with ‘scientific output’ and ‘high-tech manufacturing’ are key elements that need our urgent attention if we are to develop the k-economy (knowledge economy).

    One could also refer to the Innovation Sophistication Index which identifies four stages in the assessment of how innovative a business is, namely – launch, progress, acceleration and achievement. Given Mauritius’ scores in the GII Business Sophistication sub-indices it is reasonable to suspect that the majority of businesses in Mauritius is still in the Launch phase where the need for innovation is recognised but not much has been achieved so far.

    Figure 1: Key indicators for Business sophistication and Knowledge and Transfer outputs

     

    Innovation at the University of Mauritius

    The University of Mauritius (UoM) has put innovation at the heart of its vision in 2017 through the promotion of a research-engaged and entrepreneurial university, as illustrated in Figure 2.  The UoM is a partner of development in close interaction with the public sector, the private sector and the community through a quadruple helix model of innovation. As opposed to a traditional university, the modern UoM caters not only for the human and intellectual capital needs of the country but aspires to develop the business and social capital for progress. As a research-engaged University, our priority research areas align with national priority needs: agriculture, life and marine sciences, health, energy, digital technologies, and socio-economic-tourism. We have institutionalised research and built research teams through Poles of Research Excellence and Poles of Innovation. We are addressing impactful research through a top-down approach that can help solve local problems. Through our Knowledge Transfer Office, we are getting closer to industry and engaging more in innovation. We have set up in October 2018 a UoM-Industry cluster in IT and Digital technologies to precisely address the needs of industry in this growing sector of the Mauritian economy.

    Figure 2: University of Mauritius vision of a research-engaged and entrepreneurial University to foster innovation

     

    National Innovation System

    Innovation and technical progress are the result of a complex set of relationships among actors producing, distributing and applying various kinds of knowledge. These actors are primarily private enterprises, universities and public research institutes and the people within them. The innovative performance of a country depends to a large extent on how these actors relate to each other as elements of a collective system of knowledge creation. The absence of a National Innovation System (NIS) is therefore a barrier to the development of the k-economy. In that respect,  there is a need, in Mauritius, to develop ways and means to connect the dots and foster institutional linkages, map human resource flows between different sectors and institutions, identify clusters of activities and encourage the emergence of innovative firms. It should be pointed out that Mauritius initiated a National Innovation Framework (NIF) (2018-2030), a programme for creating innovation ecosystems and aimed at invigorating the economy from four perspectives – National, Industry, Company and People. The success of the Innovation Framework was dependent on the synergy and collaborative spirit of the different stakeholders, which would drive multidisciplinary initiatives across organisations. The extent of its implementation and success remains to be assessed but it is undeniable that connecting the dots, i.e. the sectors, remains an issue yet to be tackled holistically.

    The proposal for the establishment of a NIS was a major recommendation of the Innovation Week organised by the University of Mauritius in December 2020, heavily supported by both private and public sectors [1]. The proposed NIS is structured into 3 levels: macro, meso and micro, as depicted in Figure 3, which addresses policy issues, the conducive environment and the actions towards enhancing innovation.

    Figure 3: Proposed structure of the National Innovation System (NIS)

     

    Clustering of Universities in Mauritius as key to foster innovation.

    Clusters are defined as “a geographically proximate group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities” [2]. They can include concentrations of interconnected companies, service providers, suppliers of specialised inputs to the production process, customers, manufacturers of related products and governmental and other institutions, such as national laboratories, universities and research institutes.

    Cluster is a term more commonly associated to industry than to academia. However, Universities play key roles in the growth of clusters by providing solutions to business problems through consultancy activity and through the licensing of discoveries to new and existing companies. Universities are important contributors to the development and success of these companies through the skills, knowledge and infrastructure they provide [3]. CLUSTER is an example of such university cluster initiative. It is in this respect that the UoM has set up in 2018 a first cluster around the digital technologies grouping local companies in the sector. However, there is a need to take it to the next level.

    In shaping the NIS as discussed earlier, the setting-up of a cluster of local –public and private – Universities is proposed as a means to foster innovation at national level. Such a cluster would focus inter alia on:

    • Capturing and nurturing talent
    • Leveraging on strengths of different universities and enhancing collaboration
    • Optimising and sharing resources, thus promoting efficiency and avoiding duplication
    • Establishing research clusters and address multi-disciplinary problems.

    The cluster here referred to goes beyond the ‘Leverage/ Exchange’ type of partnership [4] where one organisation recognises that another can provide resources (knowledge, services, skills) that it needs to employ towards its own strategic goals. It is more about the ‘Combine/ Integrate’ type of partnership – a collaboration between organisations where complementary resources are brought together to tackle a common challenge or achieve a shared strategic goal.

     Conclusion

    In the new normal post-covid19 pandemic, it is important we envision a new culture of university partnership based on complementarity, sharing and a set of principles and values as spelled out in SDG17 ‘Partnerships for the Goals’ [5]. The proposed cluster could be initiated by the universities themselves and should help us in our endeavour to create more impacts and contribute more effectively to the development of Mauritius. It should help also address the weaknesses identified in the GII 2020 report hampering innovation.

     

    References

    [1] Innovation Week 2020 Report, University of Mauritius. http://www.uom.ac.mu

    [2] Porter, M.E., 1998: On Competition, Harvard Business School Press

    [3] Srinatha Karur, M.V.Ramana Murthy. Survey and Analysis of University Clustering,  International Journal of Artificial Intelligence & Applications (IJAIA), Vol. 4, No. 4 (2013)

    [4] Stibbe, D.T., Reid, S., Gilbert, J.; The Partnering Initiative and UN DESA (2019)

    [5] Orazbayeva, B., A. Meerman, V. Galan Muros, T. Davey, C. Plewa. The Future of Universities Thoughtbook Universities during times of crisis; UIIN (2020). p.102.

    Main photo by Alina Grubnyak/Unsplash

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Artificial intelligence must not be allowed to replace the imperfection of human empathy

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

    Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies, SOAS, University of London

    At the heart of the development of AI appears to be a search for perfection. And it could be just as dangerous to humanity as the one that came from philosophical and pseudoscientific ideas of the 19th and early 20th centuries and led to the horrors of colonialism, world war and the Holocaust. Instead of a human ruling “master race”, we could end up with a machine one.

    If this seems extreme, consider the anti-human perfectionism that is already central to the labour market. Here, AI technology is the next step in the premise of maximum productivity that replaced individual craftmanship with the factory production line. These massive changes in productivity and the way we work created opportunities and threats that are now set to be compounded by a “fourth industrial revolution” in which AI further replaces human workers.

    Several recent research papers predict that, within a decade, automation will replace half of the current jobs. So, at least in this transition to a new digitised economy, many people will lose their livelihoods. Even if we assume that this new industrial revolution will engender a new workforce that is able to navigate and command this data-dominated world, we will still have to face major socioeconomic problems. The disruptions will be immense and need to be scrutinised.

    The ultimate aim of AI, even narrow AI which handles very specific tasks, is to outdo and perfect every human cognitive function. Eventually, machine-learning systems may well be programmed to be better than humans at everything.

    What they may never develop, however, is the human touch – empathy, love, hate or any of the other self-conscious emotions that make us human. That’s unless we ascribe these sentiments to them, which is what some of us are already doing with our “Alexas” and “Siris”.

    Productivity vs. human touch

    The obsession with perfection and “hyper-efficiency” has had a profound impact on human relations, even human reproduction, as people live their lives in cloistered, virtual realities of their own making. For instance, several US and China-based companies have produced robotic dolls that are selling out fast as substitute partners.

    One man in China even married his cyber-doll, while a woman in France “married” a “robo-man”, advertising her love story as a form of “robo-sexuality” and campaigning to legalise her marriage. “I’m really and totally happy,” she said. “Our relationship will get better and better as technology evolves.” There seems to be high demand for robot wives and husbands all over the world.

    In the perfectly productive world, humans would be accounted as worthless, certainly in terms of productivity but also in terms of our feeble humanity. Unless we jettison this perfectionist attitude towards life that positions productivity and “material growth” above sustainability and individual happiness, AI research could be another chain in the history of self-defeating human inventions.

    Already we are witnessing discrimination in algorithmic calculations. Recently, a popular South Korean chatbot named Lee Luda was taken offline. “She” was modelled after the persona of a 20-year-old female university student and was removed from Facebook messenger after using hate speech towards LGBT people.

    Meanwhile, automated weapons programmed to kill are carrying maxims such as “productivity” and “efficiency” into battle. As a result, war has become more sustainable. The proliferation of drone warfare is a very vivid example of these new forms of conflict. They create a virtual reality that is almost absent from our grasp.

    But it would be comical to depict AI as an inevitable Orwellian nightmare of an army of super-intelligent “Terminators” whose mission is to erase the human race. Such dystopian predictions are too crude to capture the nitty gritty of artificial intelligence, and its impact on our everyday existence.

    Societies can benefit from AI if it is developed with sustainable economic development and human security in mind. The confluence of power and AI which is pursuing, for example, systems of control and surveillance, should not substitute for the promise of a humanised AI that puts machine learning technology in the service of humans and not the other way around.

    To that end, the AI-human interfaces that are quickly opening up in prisons, healthcare, government, social security and border control, for example, must be regulated to favour ethics and human security over institutional efficiency. The social sciences and humanities have a lot to say about such issues.

    One thing to be cheerful about is the likelihood that AI will never be a substitute for human philosophy and intellectuality. To be a philosopher, after all, requires empathy, an understanding of humanity, and our innate emotions and motives. If we can programme our machines to understand such ethical standards, then AI research has the capacity to improve our lives which should be the ultimate aim of any technological advance.

    But if AI research yields a new ideology centred around the notion of perfectionism and maximum productivity, then it will be a destructive force that will lead to more wars, more famines and more social and economic distress, especially for the poor. At this juncture of global history, this choice is still ours.The Conversation

     

    Main Photo by Yuyeung Lau on Unsplash

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    L’ouverture des sciences marines, au service d’un océan bien commun de l’humanité

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

    Nadège Legroux, Doctorante AFD-SENS, Agence française de développement (AFD) et Stéphanie Leyronas, Chargée de recherche sur les communs, Agence française de développement (AFD)

     

    450 ans – c’est la durée de vie dans l’eau de mer des masques à usage unique utilisés dans la prévention contre le Covid-19. Des déchets qui viennent s’ajouter aux 8 millions de tonnes de plastique qui finissent dans nos océans. La navigatrice Catherine Chabaud, désormais eurodéputée, raconte :

    “Dans les cinquantièmes hurlants, je me souviens avoir vu des dizaines de sacs échoués… Mes premières colères sont nées là. » (Catherine Chabaud, La Croix, 2017)

    Dans une initiative lancée l’année suivante, elle se joint à plusieurs personnalités du monde de la mer pour faire reconnaître l’océan comme un « bien commun de l’humanité ». L’appel veut éveiller un lien sensible de chacun de nous à l’océan, animé par notre responsabilité collective et individuelle vis-à-vis du plus grand écosystème de la planète.

    Prendre la mesure de cette responsabilité nécessite une connaissance de l’espace marin partagée par tous. L’UNESCO vient de lancer la Décennie des Nations unies pour les sciences océaniques au service du développement durable (2021-2030). Comment ces sciences se construisent-elles, se partagent-elles ? Entre diversité, coopération et ouverture, comment sont-elles au service d’un océan bien commun ?

    Les sciences de l’océan : la diversité fait la force

    L’océanographie moderne s’institutionnalise au cours du XXe siècle. Elle recouvre l’ensemble des travaux portant sur les phénomènes océaniques et touche un tel foisonnement de disciplines que l’historienne des sciences Naomi Oreskes écrit que « l’océanographie en tant que discipline n’existe pas ».

    Illustration du HMS Challenger par William Frederick Mitchell (1881). Wikimedia

    Et effectivement, l’océanographie est par nature pluridisciplinaire, comme le montre très tôt la composition de l’équipe scientifique de la première campagne océanographique du H.M.S Challenger (1872-1876). Avec le terme générique de « sciences de l’océan », les études physiques, biologiques, chimiques et géologiques de l’océan viennent s’enrichir de champs plus opérationnels, comme l’ingénierie marine ou la gestion des pêches.

    Coopérer pour appréhender la complexité

    En plus d’être pluridisciplinaires, les sciences de l’océan ont très tôt été motrices dans diverses formes de coopération. En plein contexte de guerre froide, le programme océanographique de l’Année géophysique internationale (1957-1958) a réuni des scientifiques des pays de l’ouest et du bloc soviétique. De nombreux projets internationaux ont depuis mobilisé des scientifiques du monde entier pour faire remonter des jeux de données, comme l’expérience mondiale sur la circulation océanique (1990-2002). À travers des travaux de modélisation et des collectes de données océanographiques, celle-ci visait à mieux comprendre le rôle de l’océan dans le système climatique mondial. En biologie marine, le recensement de la vie marine (2000-2010) est un autre exemple d’effort d’envergure internationale qui a donné naissance au portail de données ouvertes OBIS recensant les taxons de la biodiversité marine.

    Pour faire face au coût élevé des collectes de données (le budget d’un navire océanographique est de plusieurs dizaines de milliers d’euros par jour), les chercheur·e·s se sont très tôt appuyé·e·s sur l’expérience des marins et sur des navires dits « occasionnels ». Des outils spécifiques comme le bathymothermographe ont rendu possibles ces collaborations en permettant à ces usagers de l’espace marin de saisir et d’envoyer des mesures océanographiques aux scientifiques lors de leurs déplacements.

    Aujourd’hui, certains programmes de recherche associent même des bénévoles amateurs qui recensent des données en suivant des protocoles précis. Cette approche de science citoyenne est promue par le European Marine Board et mobilisée dans des projets nombreux et variés. C’est par exemple le cas du programme français BioLit, qui s’appuie sur les citoyens pour collecter des données sur la faune et flore marine du littoral méditerranéen, ou encore l’initiative Planète Plankton qui vise à regrouper une communauté de « planctonautes » (plaisanciers, professionnels de course au large, pêcheurs…) équipés pour récolter des échantillons de planctons lors de leurs activités en mer.

    Ouvrir l’accès grâce aux technologies

    Les données sur l’océan se sont démultipliées avec les évolutions technologiques et notamment la télédétection et le déploiement de capteurs automatisés (ancrés, dérivants, flottants, etc.). La prolifération des données satellitaires est telle que de nouvelles voies de partage se sont ouvertes. La NASA par exemple, et son programme Seasat à l’origine du lancement du premier satellite de télédétection de la surface des océans en 1978, a pris dès les années 1980 la décision de rendre les données du programme accessibles. Cette politique d’accès ouvert aux données s’est ensuite renforcée en 1994 avec la migration des données sur un dépôt du Web. Ce choix était à l’époque peu commun pour les politiques de la NASA qui tendaient à maintenir des droits propriétaires pendant plusieurs années.

    La mission Sentinelle-3 a pour but d’élargir la couverture de données du programme européen Copernicus. Lancée en 2016, Sentinelle-3 fournit des mesures sur nos océans, régions terrestres, zones de banquise et atmosphère pour suivre et mieux comprendre leurs interactions à grande échelle. Source : ESA, Wikimedia

    Des services comme le Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service donnent aujourd’hui accès à leurs données sur l’état de l’océan, qu’elles soient physiques, chimiques, géophysiques et géologiques ou encore biologiques, et qu’elles proviennent de données satellites, d’échantillons recueillis ou d’images in situ. Cette politique d’ouverture par de tels organismes qui se sont spécialisés dans la collecte et le traitement des données permet d’ouvrir l’accès à l’océanographie à une plus grande diversité de parties prenantes. La géographe Jessica Lehman va jusqu’à proposer que cela ait « facilité la contribution des scientifiques issu·e·s d’institutions moins bien financées ».

    Coopération et ouverture : les premiers ingrédients d’un océan bien commun ?

    Entre pluridisciplinarité, efforts de collaboration internationaux et avec des acteurs hors du champ scientifique, ouverture grandissante des données et opportunités qui en découlent, les sciences de l’océan contribuent sans aucun doute au mouvement de la science ouverte. Mais du chemin reste à faire pour qu’elles participent pleinement à la reconnaissance de l’océan comme bien commun de l’humanité.

    La mise à disposition des résultats de recherche et des données ne sera pas suffisante. La construction collective d’une connaissance scientifique et sensible est un ingrédient majeur. L’expérience du défi climatique nous a montré que les données du GIEC ne suffisaient pas à faire bouger les lignes. Dans la communauté scientifique, nombreux sont ceux qui appellent à l’« ocean literacy », une approche développant un lien entre chacun de nous et l’océan à travers la sensibilisation aux interactions entre l’océan et les sociétés, qui restent en grande partie invisibles.

    Dans un contexte où les données sur les activités humaines restent encore peu accessibles, en particulier dans le secteur de la pêche, les politiques d’ouverture et de transparence devront aussi s’appliquer au-delà des sciences de l’océan. Un océan bien commun, c’est réfléchir ensemble à la réduction des impacts de nos usages et à la protection de la biodiversité marine. Comme le souligne l’appel de Catherine Chabaud, il s’agit d’adopter une « nouvelle approche qui place la responsabilité collective au-dessus des principes de liberté et d’appropriation ».The Conversation

    Cet article est republié à partir de The Conversation sous licence Creative Commons. Lire l’article original.

    Photo by Hung Tran from Pexels

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    World economy in 2021: here’s who will win and who will lose

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0
    The Conversation

     

    Steve Schifferes, Honorary Research Fellow, City Political Economy Research Centre, City, University of London

     

    The coronavirus has crippled the world economy. Global GDP suffered its sharpest drop since the end of the second world war in 2020, millions were unemployed or furloughed, and governments pumped trillions of dollars into their economies to prevent greater damage.

    Nevertheless, a 2021 recovery is very uncertain. China’s economy is growing strongly again, but many of the world’s richest nations may not fully rebound until 2022 at the earliest.

    Inequality is also rampant. While America’s 651 billionaires have increased their net worth by 30% to US$4 trillion, a quarter of a billion people in developing countries could face absolute poverty, and up to half the global workforce may have lost their livelihoods.

    Advantage Asia

    The speed at which the pandemic can be contained will have a huge bearing on how the world economy performs. In the race between new virulent strains of the virus and the vaccine roll-out, early victory is by no means assured. Even rich countries that have secured most of the available vaccines may fail to inoculate enough people to provide herd immunity until the end of 2021. In developing countries, where vaccines will generally be scarce, the virus is expected to spread further.

    The big winners are likely to be countries like China and South Korea that succeeded in suppressing COVID-19 early. China’s economy is projected to grow in 2021 by 8%, over twice that of the most successful western countries even before the pandemic.

    China’s export-led economy has actually benefited from lockdowns in western countries. Western demand for services like entertainment and travel may have declined, but demand for household consumer goods and medical supplies has increased. Chinese exports to the US have reached record levels despite the high tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

    China is also expanding its economic influence throughout Asia, with a new free trade area in the Pacific and huge infrastructure projects along its trade routes to Europe and Africa. It is investing in advanced technologies to reduce its dependence on western supply chains for components such as semiconductors. China could now overtake the US as the world’s largest economy within five years, twice as fast as previously predicted.

    Harder times elsewhere

    For rich countries such as the US, UK and those in mainland Europe, the picture is less rosy. After brief recoveries in summer 2020, their economies stagnated. This was driven as much by the second wave of the pandemic as lockdowns. In the US, for instance, employment and growth closely tracked the pandemic rather than the unevenly applied lockdowns as business and consumer confidence slumped. Even with some recovery next year, these economies are expected to be 5% smaller in 2022 than if the crisis had not occurred.

    OECD GDP projections (Q4 2021 vs Q4 2019)

    Graph showing G20 growth projections
    The bars represent percentage changes. OECD

     

    The biggest losers of 2021, however, are likely to be developing countries. They lack both the economic resources to acquire enough vaccines, and the public health systems to treat large numbers of COVID patients. They also can’t afford the huge government subsidies that have prevented mass unemployment in Europe and the US. With demand for their raw materials crippled by the recession in the west, and little aid available from rich countries to alleviate their large debts, they can ill afford further lockdowns.

    Even formerly fast-growing countries like Brazil and India are facing hard times. Many millions of poor workers in the informal sector are being forced back to their villages and urban slums to face mass poverty and even starvation.

    Meanwhile South Africa, the wealthiest country in Africa, may have left it too late to obtain enough vaccines to stem the rapid rise in infections. It has taken a collective approach by becoming a member of the COVAX programme. The programme aims to ensure that poorer countries do not lose out, but it has yet to achieve results.

    The new divide

    The economic effects of the pandemic have been hugely varied across society. Those in full-time work, often in highly paid jobs working from home, have accumulated substantial savings since there is less to spend wages on.

    The very rich, especially in the US, have benefited from huge stock market increases driven by pandemic successes like Amazon, Netflix and Zoom – and this looks likely to continue. The big question for the economy is whether in the coming year those with secure jobs and high incomes will return to their previous spending patterns, or hold on to their savings in the face of continuing uncertainty.

    In contrast, many who have lost jobs or businesses or been furloughed will struggle to find new work or return to their previous income levels – especially since low-wage sectors such as retail and hospitality are unlikely to recover fully after the pandemic. This group includes many younger people, women and ethnic minorities.

    The inequality could be increased as rich governments scale back the huge subsidies being used to keep many workers employed or furloughed. Rishi Sunak, the UK chancellor, gave clear indications of this intention in his November spending review.

    In the US, the political deadlock over further relief spending was only resolved at the last minute, and Republicans will probably now aim to minimise Biden-administration spending despite the profligacy of the Trump years. Europe has just reached an unprecedented agreement to provide EU-funded aid to member states most affected by the pandemic, but tensions over the extent of the package and the recipients will probably continue.

    Cooperation could ease the adjustment to a post-pandemic world. But international cooperation during the pandemic has been weak, and economic tensions have further undermined the world’s commitment to free trade – not a good start for Brexit Britain. Domestically, redistribution of wealth and income through higher taxes could give western governments more resources to deal with the victims of the pandemic, but will be politically difficult in a continuing recession.

    Social unrest has been one consequence of previous pandemics. Let’s hope that this time, we find the wisdom to tackle the gross inequalities revealed by COVID-19, and build a fairer world.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Dummy’s guide to how trade rules affect access to COVID-19 vaccine

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

     

    Ronald Labonte, Professor and Distinguished Research Chair, Globalization and Health Equity, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa and Brook K. Baker, Professor of Law, Northeastern University

    The race is on to secure vaccines that will protect people from COVID-19. But it’s already become apparent that there is gross inequality playing out in the procurement and distribution of the new drugs. One reason is intellectual property rights. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is considering whether to temporarily waive certain rules about Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), so as to allow more countries access to vaccines, drugs, and medical technologies needed to prevent, contain, or treat COVID-19. Initially proposed by South Africa and India, the waiver has the support of almost 100 developing countries, scores of international NGOs, several UN agencies, and the Director-General of the World Health Organisation. But there is opposition, particularly from countries that are home to large pharmaceutical companies. This means that the decision has yet to move forward within the WTO. Meanwhile, vaccinations are under way in high-income countries that made multiple bilateral advance purchase agreements with pharmaceutical companies. Developing countries are having to wait. Caroline Southey, editor of The Conversation Africa, asks Ronald Labonte and Brook Baker to unpack the issues.

    Has the WTO failed developing countries?

    No. The failure rests with some of the WTO member states. The WTO is an intergovernmental institution that is rules-bound and whose actions are directed or guided by the many trade treaties (including TRIPS) that it oversees. Those treaties are the products of negotiations between governments of countries that are member states of the WTO. Some member states are withholding support for the proposed TRIPS waiver. These are the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, Norway, the EU and Brazil. Most are home to pharmaceutical companies benefiting from TRIPS extended patent protections. All have inked advanced purchase agreements with vaccine companies.

    Some countries, including Canada and those in the EU, are using voluntary measures, like promises to donate excess vaccine or contributions to the WHO’s COVAX facility, as a defence against the need for the waiver. COVAX now has enough financial commitments to make just over one billion doses available to eligible developing countries by the end of 2021. But the supply and the roll-out is insufficient to meet the need. The bottom line for the non-supporters appears to be: protect TRIPS patent rights first, worry about globally equitable vaccine access second.

    What difference would the waiver make?

    The waiver would allow WTO members to choose to neither grant nor enforce certain sections of the TRIPS agreement. This would allow WTO member states to collaborate on manufacturing, scaling up and supplying COVID-19 medical tools equitably.

    The waiver would be temporary, in effect only until the WHO declares global herd immunity. It would apply only to those drugs, vaccines and medical technologies related to the prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19. It would be optional; countries could elect not to abide by the waiver.

    WTO member states arguing against the waiver maintain that existing TRIPS flexibilities already allow countries experiencing a public health emergency to issue compulsory licences to domestic pharmaceutical companies to produce generic (and less costly) equivalents. This is true, but the process is cumbersome and does not yet apply to trade secret know-how and cell lines needed to copy vaccines and biologic medicines. Compulsory licences must be issued on a country-by-country, case-by-case basis. Some compulsory licences require prior negotiations with rights holders and some are only for public, non-commercial use. Moreover, even for a single medicine, compulsory licences might need to be issued in the country that produces the active pharmaceutical product, the country that produces the finished product, and the country that imports and uses the medicine.

    The rules covering export of a compulsory-licensed product to a country lacking its own production capacity are so complex that this flexibility has only been used once. Countries attempting to invoke these TRIPS flexibilities in the past have been subject to criticisms and trade pressures from the US and the EU in efforts to discourage them from doing so. Attempts to bypass patent rules on several COVID-19 related medical technologies have already faced implementation barriers.

    Approving the waiver will not immediately solve all access issues. Underfunded or limited health system capacities in developing countries will remain a challenge. Countries will also need to share manufacturing capacities and the technical production knowledge that newer health technologies require, and allow export to other countries. And countries that want to use the waiver may need to implement their own legislative changes or emergency declarations to do so.

    The waiver doesn’t solve these concerns, but it does create an enabling context for their more rapid resolution.

    What role are pharmaceutical companies playing in the waiver deliberations?

    Member states within the WTO will make the final decision on the waiver. But many are home to rich and powerful pharmaceutical industries or have secured bilateral agreements with them for vaccines or other COVID-19 health products. It is reasonable to infer that domestic lobbying by pharmaceutical companies may be at play, or that support for these industries for some countries has simply become accepted practice. The pharmaceutical industry itself has been vocal in opposing any efforts to undermine the patent system, arguing that intellectual property “is the blood of the private sector”.

    Pharmaceutical companies have long argued the need to be rewarded for their risks in researching new discoveries. But what of the $12 billion plus that governments have directly contributed to vaccine discovery and expanded manufacturing? It is true that private funding for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was four times that of public funding. But governments have also entered into $24 billion of advance purchases agreements, including an estimated $21 billion in 2021 for the Pfizer vaccine, sales of which are expected to generate a 60%-80% profit margin.

    Is there anything developing countries can do to ensure they don’t get left behind?

    Negotiations at the TRIPS Council in January and February may well produce a draft text or declaration on the waiver. When, and if, the waiver or declaration text makes it to the WTO General Council in March, both developing and developed countries should vote in support of it. WTO member state decisions are usually made by consensus. But in the absence of one, they can be passed with a three-fourths majority (123 of 164 members).

    Between now and then government leaders of developing countries and others who support the waiver should contact non-supportive member states directly, making their arguments in favour of it. Emphasis should be placed on:

    • the extent of public financing for COVID-19 medical discoveries,
    • the degree of UN and broader civil society support for the waiver, including support from global public health leaders,
    • the slow roll-out of vaccines to developing countries in its absence,
    • the inequalities this will worsen as some countries are able to access vaccines and treatments and so recover more rapidly than others, and
    • most countries’ already stated acknowledgement that until everyone receives the vaccine everyone remains at risk.

    If the waiver fails, developing countries should explore a collaborative effort to make use of TRIPS Article 73 (Security Exceptions). A legal interpretation of this article suggests that the pandemic satisfies the conditions set out in the article and its conditions could achieve much the same outcome as the proposed waiver.

    Invoking Article 73 might be challenged and have to undergo a formal dispute settlement process. Nonetheless, it is a strategy that merits consideration.

    Finally, there is an urgent need to clarify public interest and public health exceptions to TRIPS intellectual property rights. Compulsory licensing for all applicable intellectual property rights should be improved so that full technology transfer and access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics can be more easily guaranteed in the future. This body of work should proceed quickly this year so that the world can better address predictable pandemic threats and global health needs – now and in the future.The Conversation

     

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Main Photo by Shubhangee Vyas on Unsplash

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Anthropocene: human-made materials now weigh as much as all living biomass, say scientists

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

     

    Jan Zalasiewicz, Professor of Palaeobiology, University of Leicester and Mark Williams, Professor of Palaeobiology, University of Leicester

     

    Our deficiencies have always driven us, even among our distant ancestors, back in the last Ice Age. Having neither the speed and strength to hunt large prey, nor sharp teeth and claws to tear flesh, we improvised spears, flint knives, scrapers. Lacking a thick pelt, we took the fur of other animals. As the ice receded, we devised more means of survival and comfort – stone dwellings, ploughs, wheeled vehicles. All these inventions allowed small oases of civilisation to be wrested from a natural wilderness that seemed endless.

    The idea of a natural world that dwarfed humanity and its creations long persisted, even into modern times – only to run, lately, into concerns that climate was changing, and species were dying through our actions. How could that be, with us so small, and nature so large?

    Now a new study in Nature by a team of scientists from the Weizmann Institute in Israel upends that perspective. Our constructions have now – indeed, spookily, just this year – attained the same mass as that of all living organisms on Earth. The human enterprise is growing fast, too, while nature keeps shrinking. The science-fiction scenario of an engineered planet is already here.

    It seems a simple comparison, and yet is fiendishly difficult in practice. But this team has practice in dealing with such impossible challenges. A couple of years ago they worked out the first part of the equation, the mass of all life on Earth – including that of all the fish in the sea, microbes in the soil, trees on land, birds in the air and much more besides. Earth’s biosphere now weighs a little less than 1.2 trillion tonnes (of dry mass, not counting water), trees on land making up most of it. It was something like double that before humans started clearing forests – and it is still diminishing.

    Heavyweight Victoria Palacio, Unsplash

    Now, the team has delved into the statistics of industrial production and mass flows of all kinds, and reconstructed the growth, from the beginning of the 20th century, of what they call “anthropogenic mass”. This is all the things we build – houses, cars, roads, aeroplanes and myriad other things. The pattern they found was strikingly different. The stuff we build totted up to something like 35 billion tonnes in the year 1900, rising to be roughly double that by the middle of the 20th century. Then, that burst of prosperity after the second world war, termed the Great Acceleration, and our stuff increased several-fold to a little over half a trillion tonnes by the end of the century. In the past 20 years it has doubled again, to be equivalent to, this year, the mass of all living things. In coming years, the living world will be far outweighed – threefold by 2040, they say, if current trends hold.

    Most of the weight is in concrete. Taylor Smith / Unsplash

    What is this stuff that we make? It is now of extraordinary, and exploding, diversity. The number of “technospecies” now far exceeds the estimated 9 million biological species on Earth, and counting them exceeds even the formidable calculating powers of this team. But our stuff can be broken down into ingredients, of which concrete and aggregates take a gargantuan share – about four-fifths. Then come bricks, asphalt and metals. On this scale, plastics are a minor ingredient – and yet their mass is still greater, now, than that of all animals on Earth.

    It’s a revealing, meticulous study, and nicely clear about what the measurements include and exclude. They do not include, for instance, the rock and earth bulldozed and landscaped as foundations for our constructions, nor all of the waste rock generated in mining the ingredients: currently, nearly a third of a trillion tonnes of such material is shifted each year. Add in the Earth material that we use and abuse in other ways, in ploughing farmland, and letting sediment pile up behind dams, and humans have cumulatively used and discarded some 30 trillion tonnes of Earth’s various resources.

    Whichever way that you cut the cake, the team’s final point in its groundbreaking study hits home, and chimes with that of another recent analysis we both worked on. Since the mid-20th century, the Earth has been set on a new, human-driven trajectory – one that is leaving the stable conditions of the Holocene Epoch, and is entering the uncertain, and rapidly changing, new world of the Anthropocene. The weight of evidence, here, seems unarguable.The Conversation

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Main Photo by Kelly Lacy from Pexels

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Mauritius Food and Energy Resilience in a COVID Landscape

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

     

    Proceedings of Charles Telfair Centre Launch Panel Discussion – 25th November 2020

     

    A crowd of over 120 gathered on Wednesday 25th November to celebrate the launch of the Charles Telfair Centre – the new Charles Telfair Campus Think Tank initiative. To kick start our activities, we brought together a panel of experts and practitioners to share on the theme: Food and Energy Resilience in a COVID landscape. The crowd of guests included actors and decision-makers from the private sector, NGOs, parastatal bodies, academia as well as representatives of international development organisations. A first success for the Centre: bringing together in the same room the various social, economic and political actors of the country. It is through this diversity that the Centre ambitions to advance ideas and debates.

    Jacqueline Sauzier, Secretary-General of the Mauritius Chamber of Agriculture, Mickaël Apaya, Sustainable Development and Inclusive Growth Manager at Business Mauritius and Jaime de Melo Emeritus Professor of the University of Geneva unpacked the achievements, challenges and ways forward for Mauritius in building greater food and energy resilience (see the fact sheet prepared by the Charles Telfair Centre on food and energy resilience in Mauritius).

     

    Food Resilience in Mauritius – Jacqueline Sauzier

    In 2019, Mauritius’ agriculture self-sufficiency was estimated to be around 30% with more than 70% of the country’s food imports in products for which the country had either no local production or that were used for agro-processing (detailed data is available on Jacqueline’s Sauzier’s presentation here). In 2019, Mauritius was 95% self-sufficient in meeting local vegetable consumption.

    Jacqueline Sauzier presenting on Food resilience in Mauritius

    Fruit and Vegetable Sector

    Yet, the fruit and vegetable sector has been in decline for the last 10 years both in terms of area harvested and production volume, combined with what appears to be declining productivity (decline in volume produced per hectare harvested). With artisanal production practices dominating non-sugar vegetable and fruit crop, a lack of understanding of the respective roles of the multiple stakeholders within the value chain on the part of small planters (who represent 80% of fruit and vegetable production), uneven action and limited storage capacity, the sector exhibits inefficiencies in the production, storage and distribution of fruit and vegetable crop.

    To build a more resilience fruit and vegetable sector, Jacqueline Sauzier argued for improved processes through proper planning, diversified varieties, innovative practices and value chain creation, together with, improved storage facilities to ensure that surplus production could substitute imports for fresh fruits and vegetables. She also called for consumers to be better informed on alternative food consumption habits towards healthier and locally sourced products.

    Fruit and Vegetable Sector in Mauritius: key trends, challenges and recommendations for greater Resilience Source: Charles Telfair Centre adaptation of Jacqueline Sauzier, Charles Telfair Centre Launch Panel presentation, 25th November 2020

     

    Sugar Sector

    The presentation also probed the difficulties faced by the sugar sector since the dismantling of the sugar protocol and the associated loss of preferential pricing which was initiated in 2009 and took effect in 2015 following a six-year transition period. The last twenty have seen a steady decline in the production volume of cane and rising costs of inputs. In 2018 the sector made losses of more than MUR 1,500. Only Refineries and Independent Power Producers’ activities (such as biomass) were able to generate positive revenues.

    Jacqueline Sauzier called for greater recognition of the importance of the sugar sector whose economic contribution would rise from 15% to 30% if indirect activities were accounted for. She highlighted the importance of initiatives to help its survival, notably by reducing labour costs through a revision of the current sugar labour agreement and the introduction work permits for seasonal migrant workers. Biomass being a subsector with great potential not just for the sugar sector but also in meeting the country’s energy transition goals and overall resilience, Jacqueline Sauzier suggested the implementation of the Biomass framework as presented in the 2019-20 budget.

    Sugar Sector in Mauritius: key trends, challenges and recommendations for sustainability   Source: Charles Telfair Centre adaptation of Jacqueline Sauzier, Charles Telfair Centre Launch Panel presentation, 25th November 2020

     

    For Jacqueline Sauzier, a more resilient food sector calls for strengthening local capacities, capabilities and efficiencies in the fruit and vegetable sector and new solutions to preserve the sugar industry notably through an improved Biomass framework. Her full presentation is accessible here.

    Energy Resilience in Mauritius – Mickaël Apaya

    Jacqueline Sauzier’s case for a Biomass framework was a great transition to Mickaël Apaya’s presentation on energy resilience in Mauritius. Presenting the Mauritius energy landscape, Mickaël Apaya exposed the country’s high import dependency (87.2%) in fossil fuel energy sources and the, hence, relatively small size of renewable energy source. Yet, by 2030, the country aims to have 40 per cent of its electricity produced by renewables compared to around 20% today. Currently, transport is the sector that consumes the most energy, but it is electricity that generates the largest CO2 emissions (59% of total Mauritius’ emissions).

    Mickael Apaya presenting on Energy Resilience in Mauritius

    Toward lower energy CO2 emissions and energy intensity of GDP

    Using the KAYA equation, he called for a clearer roadmap to meeting our 40% target of renewable energy through both reduced energy CO2 emissions and reduced energy intensity of GDP.  To achieve these, he recommended an improved regulatory framework combined with a precise implementable Bioelectricity Strategy throughthrough the development of local biomass energy sources. He recommended, among other things, the decentralised management of production, i.e. the democratisation of production and consumption with smart micro-grid systems. Similarly, he called for energy sobriety (i.e. seeking economic solutions that consume less energy), better energy demand management towards greener consumption and production processes for individuals and industries, the promotion of carbon-light circular economies and favouring low-tech solutions.

    For Mickaël Apaya, a more resilient energy sector in Mauritius implies a drastic transition to locally sourced renewable energies within a democratic strategy that involves everyone, from consumer to producer via regulators into a dialogue towards the development of a green long-term economic development plan. His full presentation is available here.

    Source: Charles Telfair Centre adaptation of Mickael Apaya, Charles Telfair Centre Launch Panel presentation, 25th November 2020

     

    Resilience beyond Self-sufficiency – Jaime de Melo 

    Jaime de Melo reminded the audience that the country’s past resilience was built, among other things, on particularly favourable international trade terms, notably through the Sugar Protocol and the Multi-Fibre Agreement. The country also pursued efficient fiscal policies and established early on an export processing zone. These policies and favourable terms allowed Mauritius to accumulate rents which the country judiciously reinvested in developing new pillars such as Tourism, Textile, and later Global Business and Finance. Yet, the drop in sugar production and revenues, as displayed in Jacqueline Sauzier’s presentation, simply reflects the true or natural comparative advantage of Mauritius’ sugar sector. From an economist’s perspective, the data clearly suggests that Mauritius has lost some if its “competitive” advantage in raw sugar exports (and in textile and clothing) with the end of quotas and preferential pricing.

    Jaime de Melo discussing avenues for greater resilience in Mauritius

    Bioethical Food Products

    Looking more closely at the Mauritius agricultural sector and its import dependency, Jaime de Melo argued that self-sufficiency should not be an end in itself for building resilience, especially for a globally dependent small-island economy like Mauritius. The country should resist temptation to protectionist measures against imports, , even temporarily, as these are difficult to remove later on. The real question for building food resilience in Mauritius, he argued, is whether we should rethink the production mix of the sector towards bioethical food products. Hence, a first step would be to measure the ecological footprint of the Mauritius agricultural sector and then explore policies that would help build competitive bioethical agricultural activities. Such a shift towards a more bioethical agricultural mix would be beneficial both on health grounds and for projecting an image of more sustainable tourism.

     

    Mauritius Food and Energy Resilience as a globally dependent small-island economy; some avenues. Source: Charles Telfair Centre adaptation of Jaime de Melo, Charles Telfair Centre Launch Panel presentation, 25th November 2020

    Renewable Energies: solar and wind

    On the energy side, the transition towards renewable energy is key to building greater resilience in Mauritius, but the key question is how to get the societal support to decarbonise the economy and reach our CO2 emissions targets. Now that renewables, especially solar are becoming a cheaper source of energy, it is time to plan for a transition towards green energy. Guided by proper expertise, this should be cost-effective in Mauritius given its natural advantages.

    For Jaime de Melo, greater resilience in energy and food system in Mauritius will be achieved by building a competitive bioethical agricultural sector and a competitive renewable energy sector. Fiscal incentives (tariffs on pesticides, carbon tax, green subsidies), energy resale network, among others, will be needed to achieve these goals. Because the transition away from fossil fuels takes time, a regulatory framework announcing the progressive shift away from fossil fuels along a pre-announced path is crucial.

     

    Questions and answers with the audience

     

    Questions raised during Q&A with panel and audience Source: Charles Telfair Centre transcription of questions and answers session, Charles Telfair Centre Launch Panel discussion, 25 November 2020.

    New technologies?

    During the Q&A, the audience highlighted the many remaining questions and issues pending. What explains our dependency on imports in products such as fish and fruits, and what can be done about it? What new technologies are available to support the development of smarter and greener agriculture? Jacqueline Sauzier noted that there are regional collaborations & collaboration with international experts to explore smart agricultural solutions, but she highlighted that these solutions have costs which at this stage would not make these products price competitive vis a vis imports. The question on how to bring these innovations and be cost-efficient remained unanswered.

    A new generation of Agri-entrepreneurs?

    Further questions were asked on how to motivate a new generation of young agri-entrepreneurs and move beyond the self-sufficiency argument towards the development of profitable activities for which self-sufficiency simply becomes a by-product.  Who can support agri-entrepreneurs in choosing its production mix? Who can guide them in how to export? What research is being undertaken to identify relevant crops for Mauritius?

    Multi-stakeholders dialogue?

    To the question of how to operationalise an efficient public/private dialogue for the application of effective policies and regulatory frameworks, there was a call for building competencies to bridge the dialogue between the private and public sector in the same way it was done during the sugar reform.  Some guests noted that private-public partnership had been a key component of Mauritius past success and thus needed to continue to be part of future solutions by also bringing into the discussion academia and civil society. Whether this dialogue should be led by the government or, others such as academia, was left as an open question.

    Regional solutions?

    Discussions on food security also pointed out that the issue is not one of local production but of affordability for which Mauritius has an advantage. Hence, the country could look for regional African sourcing/investments in agricultural products which may make more economic sense than self-sufficiency for a small island economy such as Mauritius.

    Technical & Regional solutions to renewable energies?

    On the energy front, questions were raised on the specific technical solutions to a successful energy transition. Mickaël Apaya highlighted the importance of making the right energy mix choice now because these require heavy investments that are not easily reversible.

    It was also suggested that Mauritius together with other small States should make a case for subsidies on the global front in order to push the development of renewable energies.

    Other pending questions from the discussions included: How to better manage our land? What future for the sugar and bagasse industry? What specific fiscal incentive mix?

    Overall, there was a strong call from the audience to work on specific practical and operational solutions which would be adapted to a small island economy such as Mauritius.

    All these questions are avenues for the Centre to explore in future articles and events. Our future work on food and energy resilience has been cut out.

    The Panel answering questions from the public.

     

    Main Photo by Singkham from Pexels

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Exploring the Indian Ocean as a rich archive of history – above and below the water line

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

     

    Isabel Hofmeyr, University of the Witwatersrand  

    Charne Lavery, University of Pretoria

     

    On many beaches around the Indian Ocean, keen observers may spot bits of broken pottery. Washed smooth by the ocean, these shards are in all likelihood hundreds of years old, from centres of ceramic production like the Middle Eastern Abbasid caliphate and the Chinese Ming dynasty.

    Originally destined for Indian Ocean port cities, this pottery would have been purchased by merchant elites accustomed to eating off fine plates. These traders formed part of vast commercial networks that crisscrossed the Indian Ocean arena and beyond, from East Africa to Indonesia, the Middle East and China.

    These trade networks stretched back thousands of years, powered by the monsoon winds. Reversing direction in different seasons, these winds have long shaped the rhythm of life around the ocean, bringing rain to farmers, filling the sails of dhows and enabling trade between different ecological zones.

    The monsoon wind pattern makes the Indian Ocean relatively easy to cross both ways. In the Atlantic, by contrast, winds blow in one direction all year round. That’s why the Indian Ocean is the world’s oldest long-distance trans-oceanic trading arena, and is sometimes known as the cradle of globalisation.

    This cosmopolitan world has long fascinated scholars and has become a vibrant domain of research. Yet this work has had little to say about the sea itself. Its focus is on human movement with the ocean as a passive backdrop. In the age of rising sea levels and climate change, it’s important to learn more about the sea from a material and ecological point of view.

    Over the past few years, this situation has started to shift. In this article we survey both the older and the newer forms of Indian Ocean studies, of surface and depth.

    Surface histories of the Indian Ocean

    Given the long millennia of trade and exchange, one key concern of Indian Ocean studies has been a focus on cultural interaction. Cities on the shores have sustained deep forms of material, intellectual and cultural exchange, so that the denizens of these ports had more in common with each other than with their fellows inland.

    This early cosmopolitan world has famously been explored in Amitav Ghosh’s In an Antique Land, which traces the travels of Abram bin Yiju, a 12th century Jewish Tunisian merchant based in Cairo and later in Mangalore, India. The book contrasts the rigidity of borders in the 1980s with the relative ease of movement in the late medieval Indian Ocean.

    The Swahili coast provides another famed example of Indian Ocean cosmopolitanism. Stretching a thousand miles from Somalia to Mozambique, Swahili society arose from centuries of interaction between Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

    Centred on coastal city states like Kilwa, Zanzibar and Lamu, Swahili trade networks reached far inland to present day Zimbabwe and outward to Persia, India and China. After reaching their height from the 12th to the 15th centuries, these city states were eventually undone by the Portuguese, who arrived from the early 16th century, seeking to establish a monopoly of the spice trade.

    Fishermen, Zanzibar, Tanzania –

    Central to these histories of mobility and exchange in the Indian Ocean has been the spread of Islam across land and sea from the 7th century CE. By the 14th century, mercantile networks around the Indian Ocean were almost entirely in the hands of Muslim traders.

    In their wake came scholars, theologians, pilgrims, clerks, legal pundits and Sufi divines. Together, these groups created a shared economic, spiritual and legal frameworks. Sufism, a mystical form of Islam is an important strand in the Indian Ocean histories, as is the centrifugal power of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

    European Colonisation along the Indian Ocean

    When the Portuguese rounded the Cape in the late 15th century, they entered what many have termed a Muslim Lake, dominated in the north by the Turkish Ottoman, Persian Safavid and Indian Mughal empires. When the Dutch arrived in the Indian Ocean in the 17th century, “they were able to go from one end of it to another by carrying letters of introduction from Muslim sultans on various shores”.

    As Engseng Ho has indicated, these sprawling networks of Muslim commerce operated without the backing of an army or a state.

    Early European entrants to the Indian Ocean world initially had to adapt to the trading orders that they encountered. But by the 19th century, European empires dominated. Their military, transport and communication infrastructure intensified the movement of people across the Indian Ocean world.

    As Clare Anderson has demonstrated, much of this mobility was forced and conscripted. It involved slaves, indentured labourers, political exiles and prisoners who were transported between regions. At times, these systems built on existing foundations of labour exploitation. As recent research indicates, South Asian indentured labour was often taken from regions in India where slavery existed. Old and new systems of unfree labour produced an archipelago of prisons, plantations and penal colonies.

    As an archive, the Indian Ocean provides a new way of looking at world history, that has previously been dominated by European accounts. The age of European empires is only one tiny sliver of time in a much longer arc. A view from the Indian Ocean unsettles ideas of the relationship between European colonisers and colonised groups.

    As historians like Engseng Ho and Sugata Bose have argued, the Indian Ocean world was an arena of competing claims.

    The ambitions of British imperialism, for example, were countered by the equally grand visions of Islam. Indeed, the Indian Ocean arena produced a rich repertoire of transoceanic ideologies, including Hindu reformism and pan-Buddhism.

    Such ideologies eventually acquired an anti-imperial character which also fed into ideas of Afro-Asian solidarity and non-alignment. These arose from the Bandung Conference in 1955 at which 29 newly independent nations gathered to forge a new path rather than falling in line with either of the rival camps in the emerging Cold War.

     

    Image
    The Belt Road Initiative, Source: The World Bank, The Belt and Road Initiative, 2020.

     

    In the 21st century, these older alliances have come under pressure as China and India elbow each other for dominance in the Indian Ocean. China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative involves massive transport and port infrastructure and aims to extend China’s footprint across much of the Indian Ocean arena. In response, New Delhi has bolstered its economic and military activity in this domain.

    Deep histories of the Indian Ocean

    While the uniquely well-travelled surface of the Indian Ocean has received much attention, its depths barely register in the cultural or historical imagination. Its waters constitute nearly 20% of the ocean’s total volume, and its deepest point, the Sunda Deep of the Java Trench, lies nearly 8km below the surface. Yet its seafloor, like much of the world’s oceans, is largely unmapped.

    Seafloor features determine weather patterns, fish concentrations and tsunami dynamics. Initial explorations by mining companies revealed mineral-rich deposits on submarine volcanic vents, while new species are continually being discovered.

    The deep Indian Ocean is far less studied than the depths of the other oceans, for economic reasons: it is ringed by underdeveloped countries. The second International Indian Ocean Expedition was launched only in 2015, fifty years after the first. It aims to increase understanding about the oceanographic and biological characteristics of this undersampled ocean, as well as the ways in which it is changing.

    Coral Reef in Maldives, Ursula Krapf on Unsplash.

     

    Paying attention to the submarine world is becoming increasingly important in a time of climate change prompted by human activities. The Indian Ocean is warming faster than any of the other oceans, holding more than 70% of all the heat absorbed by the upper ocean since 2003. Indian Ocean islands – the Maldives being a well-known example – are already being submerged by rising global sea levels.

    Cyclone patterns are shifting further south and happening more often as a result of the ocean’s rising temperature. The monsoon, which underpinned the Indian Ocean’s shipping networks and the rainfall patterns on its coastlines, is losing its power and predictability.

    Deities, spirits and ancestors

    While the Indian Ocean’s depths are in many ways opaque, they are not unpopulated in people’s imaginations. The ocean bustles with water deities, djinns, mermaids and ancestral spirits – a mythical submarine world that reflects the cosmopolitanism of its land populations.

    In southern Africa this mix is especially rich: Khoisan/ First Nation water sprites, Muslim djinns introduced by South East Asian slaves, African ancestors, one of whose domains is the ocean, and British imperial ideas about the romance of the sea.

    These ideas encounter each other and turn bodies of water into rich sites of memory and history. They have been explored by the Oceanic Humanities for the Global South project. Work by Confidence Joseph, Oupa Sibeko, Mapule Mohulatsi and Ryan Poinasamy explores the literary and artistic imaginations of southern Africa’s creolised waters.

    Afrofuturist science fiction is also turning to the deep Indian Ocean. Mohale Mashigo’s Floating Rugs is situated in a submarine community on South Africa’s east coast. Mia Couto’s stories from the Mozambican coastline have long paired myths of mermaids with marine biology. Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s novel The Dragonfly Sea links contemporary Afro-Asian networks to the undersea.

    Deep sea mining

    Some exploration of the deep ocean can seem science-fictional, but isn’t.

    The International Seabed Authority, a branch of the United Nations in operation since 2001 and responsible for parcelling out potential marine mining areas, has granted contracts for mining exploration in the Indian Ocean. At the same time, researchers are discovering an astonishing number of new deep ocean species on the same sites.

    The submarine world has long been plundered for riches. Histories of pearl diving in the Indian Ocean – as in a central scene of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea – are continued in today’s illegal abalone trade. Poachers on the coast of South Africa don scuba gear to harvest abalone to trade with Asian markets, linking the undersea to Indian Ocean criminal underworlds, along the same lines as the ancient trade networks.

    At times these networks are the source of treasure. On the Island of Mozambique, for instance, the shards of blue pottery that were traded around the Indian Ocean are one of the objects of the active treasure hunting trade today. While some of the treasures are sold by dealers in antiquities, others provide crucial evidence for maritime archaeological research. Recently, the Slave Wrecks Project has discovered slave shipwrecks that provide concrete symbols of the transatlantic slave trade and link it to histories of Indian Ocean slavery and indenture.

    The old waterfronts of East African port cities like Mombasa, Zanzibar and Lamu are dominated by buildings with a pure white finish. This present-day architecture echoes a centuries-old tradition of building houses, mosques and tombs from white coral stone and dressed with lime plaster. Made from shells and corals that began their life under the sea, this luminous plaster made port cities visible from afar to incoming vessels.

    The ocean’s submarine life and its human histories are always entangled. And now writers, artists and scholars are increasingly drawing attention to their connectedness.The Conversation

    Isabel Hofmeyr, Professor of African Literature, University of the Witwatersrand and Charne Lavery, Lecturer and Research Associate, University of Pretoria

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    1...151617...20Page 16 of 20