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Open letter to African Development Bank and Nordic Development Fund: Address reprisals against Paten Clan

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1 year ago

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Open letter to African Development Bank and Nordic Development Fund: Address reprisals against Paten Clan
On September 9, a group of organizations that are members of the Coalition for Human Rights in Development and other allies sent an open letter to the African Development Bank and the Nordic Development Fund, calling on them to take immediate actions to address reprisals against a community in Uganda impacted by the Wadelai irrigation project.
On August 10, 2021, sixteen members of Paten Clan, a community in Pakwach District in northern Uganda, were shot at and wounded by local police and army officers, as a retaliation for their opposition to the Wadelai irrigation project which is funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and supported by the Nordic Development Fund (NDF).
Staff of the construction company in charge of implementing the project, together with representatives of the local authorities and the police, forcefully entered the community. When communities questioned and protested against the trespass, the local police and members of the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) started firing bullets and teargas to disperse them. 16 community members were injured.
After the shooting, the police refused to hand them the forms for documenting the injuries suffered, meaning they were unable to easily access healthcare in government health centres. The day after, UPDF officers arrested and beat up four women, including one pregnant woman, while they were on their way to fetch water. These attacks are just the latest example of the ongoing retaliations faced by community members and human rights defenders in Pakwach District, who are being targeted for their opposition to the government’s acquisition of their land for agricultural production under the Wadelai Irrigation Project that they are concerned will impact their livelihoods and way of life.
Nine members of the community have also been criminalised following the protests. They have been accused of sabotaging the project by local police and are currently out on bail. Two human rights defenders who volunteer with local human rights organisation, Buliisa Rural Initiative for Development (BIRUDO), who are also local civil servants have also been criminalised. They have been summoned before the District’s Award and Sanction Committee and have been interdicted from their jobs – meaning they are only earning half salary, have had to hand over their passports to the Resident District Commissioner, and are not allowed to leave Pakwach district – after having supported the community’s rejection of the land acquisition.
Buliisa Rural Initiative for Development (BIRUDO), a local human rights organisation which works to improve the quality of life of local communities through information sharing, sensitization, advocacy and networking for sustainable development, has also been suspended from operating in Pakwach District by the Deputy Resident District Commissioner following their work with Paten Clan. They have been accused of supporting the community to sabotage government projects.
The community has raised concerns about the amount of land sought for the project, which would leave them with limited use for their own agricultural and other needs. The community consented to offering 365 acres (equivalent to 145 hectares) for the project but later realized that the project would actually take up 365 hectares of their land. The community feel that they were deliberately misled regarding the amount of land needed, and therefore no longer trust the project implementers.
The Wadelei irrigation project, constructed by the Ugandan company Coil Construction Company Limited, is one of the four irrigation schemes under the African Development Banks’ Farm Income Enhancement and Forestry Conservation Project (FIEFOC-2). FIEFOC-2 is set to “improve household incomes, food security, and climate resilience through sustainable natural resources management and agricultural enterprise development.” The overall cost of this project is approximately USD 91.7 million, including approximately USD 5.9 million from the Nordic
Development Fund, USD 76.7 million from the AfDB and USD 9.1 million from the Government of Uganda.
Despite widespread opposition to further land acquisition within the local communities, and despite the recent violence and arrests, Coil Construction Company Limited continues to forcefully take land from the Paten clan. During an initial conversation with the African Development Bank about the retaliations stated above, the bank staff questioned the community’s grievances while failing to mention, let alone acknowledge, the ongoing violence
and arrests perpetrated against the community by the security forces. Action must be taken by the African Development Bank and Nordic Development Fund urgently to prevent further violence from taking place.
We, the undersigned organizations, strongly condemn the retaliations against the local community. We call on the African Development Bank and Nordic Development Fund to:
● Respond urgently to the Paten Clan and the NGOs supporting them and work closely with them in addressing their concerns
● Call on the authorities to immediately halt all violence and to drop all charges against community members and BIRUDO staff/volunteers
● Call on local authorities to lift BIRUDO’s suspension to operate in Pakwach District
● Clearly communicate to all organisations and individuals involved in the Wadelai irrigation project implementation that retaliation is not tolerated by the African Development Bank and Nordic Development Fund
● Immediately investigate the recent shooting of Paten Clan members and linkages to the project implementation partners of FIEFOC-2
● Analyse the consultation process undertaken around the Wadelai irrigation project and take action to ensure that going forward, the project complies with AfDB’s Operational Safeguard 2 – Involuntary resettlement: land acquisition, population displacement and compensation
● Ensure that a functional Project-level Grievance and Redress Mechanism is established.
Signatories:
AbibiNsroma Foundation
ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa
Arab Watch Regional Coalition
Bank Information Center
Botswana Watch Organization
Both ENDS, the Netherlands
Buliisa Rural Initiative for Development (BIRUDO)
Community Initiatives for Sustainable Development
Community Empowerment and Social Justice Network (CEMSOJ), Nepal
Community Resource Centre, Thailand
Defenders in Development Campaign
Equitable Cambodia
Foundation for Environmental Management and Campaign against Poverty (FEMAPO),
Tanzania
Front Line Defenders
Green Advocates International
International Accountability Project
International Rivers (Africa Program)
Jamaa Resource Initiatives, Kenya
Just Associates Southern Africa
Lawyers’ Association for Human Rights of Nepalese Indigenous Peoples (LAHURNIP)
Lumiere Synergie pour le Developpement
Narasha Community Development Group
Protection International Africa
Recourse, the Netherlands
Urgewald
Uganda Consortium on Corporate Accountability (UCCA)
WoMin African Allianc

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A corporate cartel fertilises food inflation

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1 week ago

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May 24, 2023

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Last year’s financial results from the world’s largest fertiliser companies are now in — and it’s a shocker. Given the sky high fertiliser prices of 2022, it was anticipatedthat their revenues would break records, but no one could have predicted this scale of profiteering. As the world grappled with a severe food crisis and farmers saw costs rise, the world’s largest fertiliser firms ramped up their margins and more than tripled their profits from two years ago.

Graph 1

Graph 1 shows the total profits of the big nine fertiliser companies over the past five years. They exponentially grew from an average of around US$14 billion before the Covid-19 pandemic to US$28 billion in 2021 and then to an astounding US$49 billion last year. International agencies like the World Bank blamed the spike in fertiliser prices on the Russian war in Ukraine, resulting in high natural gas prices (used to produce nitrogen fertiliser) from shortages and trade disruptions. But as can be seen in Graph 2, a major part of the story is the monopoly power of the fertiliser companies. These companies increased prices far beyond the increases in production costs and boosted their profit margins to a massive 36% in 2022.
Graph 2
There are signs that fertiliser prices are coming down from their stratospheric heights earlier this year, but the effects of the price spike are still being felt. The high prices and lack of supply in some countries caused farmers to cut fertiliser use, thereby reducing production levels and contributing to an alarming rise in global food insecurity. The high prices also pushed many farmers deeper into debt. Farmers from Cameroon to the U.S. say they are still spending three times as much on fertilisers as they were a few years ago. And in countries where fertilisers are heavily subsidised, the price spike has saddled governments with huge debts. In India alone, the central government’s expenditure on fertiliser subsidies last year surged from US$9.8 billion to US$17.1 billion. People are paying the price for the fertiliser industry’s price gouging.
The costs are also rising for the planet. Chemical fertilisers are a major source of environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, with nitrogen fertilisers alone accounting for one out of every 40 tonnes of annual emissions. New reports from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation and Earth4All, a global collective of leading scientists and economists, make it clear that steep and immediate reductions in global fertiliser use are required to avert catastrophic climate change. Both recommend a near phase-out of nitrogen fertiliser consumption by 2050 (see Graph 3). The idea is not to recklessly crash production levels, but a planned transition toward more sustainable, agroecological farming systems that require less or no fertiliser.
Graph 3
It is increasingly clear that today’s food inflation is a product of both corporate greed and ecological breakdown. Obscene levels of profit-taking by corporations are happening across the food system, from fertilisers to processing to retail, and this is pushing up prices. But the way these corporations organise our food production and distribution is also driving climate change and, undermining the capacity for the global food system to deliver affordable and accessible food, now and over the long term.
Bold new approaches are urgently needed to reign in corporate power in the food system and turn the food crisis around. When it comes to fertilisers, policy actions like windfall taxes and price controls can help. But to deal with both profiteering and environmental catastrophe we need to transition food production to rely far less on chemical fertilisers. The fertiliser industry will be pushing for the opposite when it gathers for its annual meeting in Prague this week, yet around the world there are farmers and rural movements already leading a transition away from chemical fertilisers, with plenty of successful examples to learn from. What’s holding us back is the structural political change needed at all levels to address the excess profiteering from the fertiliser industry, and chart a new path toward more resilient food systems.
Source: grain.org

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The Black Sea Grain Initiative: When the United Nations Brokers Profits for Corporations, Bankers, and Oligarchs

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2 weeks ago

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May 23, 2023

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“I am so moved watching the wheat fill up the hold of the ship. It was the loading of hope for so many around the world,” said United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, as a cargo ship was loaded up with Ukrainian grain in August 2022. Mr. Guterres was launching the Black Sea Grain Initiative, purportedly to prevent famines and a global food crisis by enabling food exports from Ukraine, amidst the Russian military blockade. USAID claimed that the “lifesaving deal”, which was renewed on May 18, 2023, “helps people in need across the globe by delivering desperately needed grains to lower income countries and bringing down food prices.” The European Commission celebrated the initiative as a “a critical step forward in efforts to overcome the global food insecurity caused by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”

Mr. Guterres’ hope, loaded on the cargo ship, has however since gone missing at sea.

Despite the hype in political circles and the Western media that the Initiative was essential to secure food supply for those in need — particularly in Africa — data released by the United Nations offers a starkly different reality. As of May 2023, only 3 percent of the food commodities exported from Ukraine under the initiative has gone to low-income countries. Out of the 30.3 million tons exported, a mere 2 percent — 625,000 tons — went to the World Food Programme for food aid operations around the globe.
Charts showing grain exports from Ukraine by income group and country.

The top destination for Ukraine’s agricultural exports is the European Union, with China being second. Spain is the largest recipient in Europe. Instead of offering relief, Ukrainian exports are threatening the livelihoods of millions of European farmers — to the extent that Hungary and Poland banned imports from Ukraine in April 2023 to protect their farmers. As Ukraine and the European Commission pressured for the ban to be lifted, Hungarian and Polish farmers pushed back, asking the critical question: Who actually benefits from these exports?

The Oakland Institute’s report, War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land, answers the question. It exposed that the producers exporting commodities from Ukraine are mostly large-agribusinesses and oligarchs, associated with European and North American financial interests. Furthermore, the report detailed how these producers are heavily indebted to Western financial institutions, in particular the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) — the private sector arm of the World Bank. Together, these institutions are major lenders to Ukrainian agribusinesses, with close to US$1.7 billion lent to just six of Ukraine’s largest landholding firms in recent years. Other key lenders are a mix of mainly European and North American financial institutions — both public and private.

Renewing the Black Sea Initiative and maintaining the flow of exports from Ukraine has nothing to do with supporting the struggling Ukrainian farmers or the trumpeted goal to prevent a global food crisis — which has been largely triggered by speculation on global food markets. Food prices skyrocketed when global stocks of cereals were at historically high levels according to the World Bank.

Pretending their goal is to fight world hunger is appallingly deceitful, when, with the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the United Nations has become a business broker for agribusiness corporations. In violation of its values and the principles of the United Nations Charter, together with the Western banks and financial institutions, the United Nations is supporting large food trading companies, oligarchs, and their lenders and shareholders, to sustain export business and grow profits despite the carnage of war.

Source: oaklandinstitute.org

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Grain trader Cargill faces legal challenge in US over Brazilian soya supply chain

Published

4 weeks ago

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May 8, 2023

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World’s biggest grain trader accused of ‘shoddy due diligence’ on deforestation and alleged rights violations.

The world’s largest grain trader, Cargill, is facing a first-ever legal challenge in the United States over its failure to remove deforestation and human rights abuses from its soya supply chain in Brazil.

ClientEarth, an environmental law organisation, filed the formal complaint on Thursday, accusing Cargill of inadequate monitoring and a laggard response to the decline of the Amazon rainforest and other globally important biomes, such as the Cerrado savannah and the Atlantic Forest.

The case, which was submitted under the guidelines of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, argues that Cargill’s “shoddy due diligence raises the risk that the meat sold in supermarkets across the world is raised on so-called ‘dirty’ soy”. ClientEarth says this breaches the international code on responsible business conduct.

The lawyers behind the complaint have stressed the urgency of the issue because Amazon degradation is approaching a tipping point, after which scientists say the rainforest will turn into dry grassland, emitting vast amounts of carbon dioxide. The Amazon’s sister biome, the Cerrado, has already lost half of its tree cover.

The lawyers say they hope the legal challenge will raise standards at Cargill – which is the biggest privately owned company in the US, with revenues last year of $165bn (£131bn) – and set an example across the industry.

Laura Dowley, a lawyer at ClientEarth, said: “Cargill has vast resources at its disposal to implement due diligence. The technology is already there. We aren’t asking it to do anything it doesn’t have the resources to do. We hope it will show leadership.”

Cargill has promised to be “deforestation-free” in the Amazon and Cerrado by 2025 and completely eradicate deforestation from all its supply chains by 2030. The company says it has put in place a sophisticated monitoring operation at ports, warehouses and other points in its supply chain. ClientEarth said it identified several shortcomings in this system, including a lack of environmental due diligence on:

  • Soya beans bought from third-party traders, which make up 42% of all Brazilian soya Cargill purchases.
  • Soya beans owned by other companies that passes through Cargill ports.
  • Indirect land use change.
  • Soya sourced from the Cerrado savannah.
  • Soya sourced from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

ClientEarth also cites reports alleging Cargill suppliers have been involved in rights violations of Indigenous, Afro-Brazilian and other forest-dependent communities.

Cargill told the Guardian it had not seen the full complaint but it had an “unwavering commitment” to eliminate deforestation and conversion in South America. In line with this, it added: “We do not source soy from farmers who clear land in protected areas and have controls in place to prevent non-compliant product from entering our supply chains. If we find any violations of our policies, we take immediate action in accordance with our grievance process.”

The company’s website notes: “Cargill is committed to transforming our agricultural supply chains to be free of deforestation by 2030. Our policy on forests lays out our overarching approach to achieving this target globally across our priority supply chains. It is founded on our belief that farming and forests can and must coexist.” A spokesperson added that Cargill was also “strongly committed” to protecting human rights in its operations, supply chains and communities.

However, journalists revealed last year that one of Cargill’s soya suppliers grows crops on land deforested and burned in the Brazilian biome. In 2020, the Guardian and partners uncovered evidence that Cargill supplied Tesco, Asda, McDonald’s, Nando’s and others with chicken fed on imported soya linked to thousands of forest fires and at least 300 sq miles (800 sq km) of tree clearance in the Cerrado savannah. Similar reports were broadcast this year by Sky News.

Source: The Guardian

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