By Mohammad Ehsan Leghari

In a landmark initiative, Pedro Arrojo Agudo, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, has released a July 2025 report (A/80/117) that reframes freshwater as a “common good” essential for human survival and societal cohesion, rather than a commodity ripe for exploitation (World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2025).

Drawing on frameworks like the 2023 Water Justice Manifesto—endorsed by over 500 social movements—and the FAO’s Global Dialogue on Water Tenure, the report critiques technocratic, market-driven models that prioritize profit over people (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, n.d.). It champions democratic governance rooted in human rights principles: sustainability, participation, accountability, non-discrimination, equality, empowerment, and legality, augmented by commons-oriented tenets like equity, responsibility, efficiency, and priority.

This “state-of-the-art” document integrates Indigenous ecocentric views with anthropocentric rights, emphasizing a hydro-social approach under “One Health.” It warns against privatization, commodification, and financialization, which erode affordability and equity, and urges a “water transition” for climate resilience—restoring ecosystems as “natural technology” powered by solar energy (World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2025). As global temperatures rise, the report stresses nested governance from local communities to river basins, respecting customary rights and ensuring women’s equal participation (UNICEF, n.d.).

For developing countries, where governance failures perpetuate a crisis affecting billions— predominantly the poor— the report is a stark rebuke. Despite 961 million gaining safely managed drinking water since 2015, more than two billion people (one in four globally) still lack it as of 2025, with rural-urban divides exacerbating inequalities (World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2025). In low-income nations, pollution from mining and agriculture creates “sacrifice zones,” poisoning communities and warranting ecocide classification under an expanded Rome Statute (Abid et al., 2022). The crisis isn’t scarcity but mismanagement: over-allocation to agribusiness, ignored customary rights, and weak institutions favoring elites.

Arrojo Agudo details how colonial legacies and neoliberal policies marginalize Indigenous and peasant tenure, advocating integration into public domains with free, prior, informed consent. He highlights equity in concessions, precautionary reserves for droughts, and rejection of water markets that “patrimonialize” resources. Financialization via public-private partnerships (PPPs) hikes tariffs, undermining rights, while blended finance models like the World Bank’s 2024 framework prioritize “bankable projects” over social needs (World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2025).

In arid regions like Pakistan, climate change amplifies vulnerabilities: by 2025, 1.8 billion face absolute scarcity, with erratic weather hitting the poor hardest (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, n.d.). Governance “schizophrenia”—treating surface water as public but groundwater as private—leads to overexploitation, destroying river bases and quality. Subsidies skew to the wealthy (1.5–2% of GDP in developing nations benefiting the top 20%), while cut-offs plague the vulnerable (World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2025). Participation remains tokenistic, excluding women who bear 70% of collection burdens globally, and accountability falters amid corruption (UNICEF, n.d.).

This traps communities in poverty: unsafe water causes health epidemics, reducing productivity and entrenching marginalization (Abid et al., 2022). Arrojo Agudo’s principles—sustainability via ecological flows, participation through multi-criteria decisions, and equity via progressive tariffs—offer escape routes, but require ditching commodification for rights-based models (World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2025).

Pakistan exemplifies this dire scenario, where systemic lapses leave over 100 million— mostly rural poor— without safe water amid the Indus Basin’s abundance (UNICEF, 2023). As of late 2025, only 36–50% have safely managed supplies (and we must understand that these safely managed supplies are not completely safe from impurities), with contamination from sewage, pesticides, and arsenic rampant (Abid et al., 2022). Per capita availability has dropped to 660 cubic meters, mainly caused by unchecked population growth, signaling increased scarcity (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, n.d.).

The 2022 floods left over 10 million without safe water, and seawater intrusion still devastates the Indus delta, collapsing farming and fishing (Al Jazeera, 2025; UNICEF, 2023). This repeated in 2025 with almost 7 million people affected, most of them marginalized and poor. The drinking water and sanitation crisis again surfaced strongly. These floods unpacked many dimensions of Arrojo Agudo’s warnings: as floodwaters spread everywhere, canal command tail ends remained dry—mostly belonging to the politically poor and socially marginalized. The drinking water debacle, both qualitative and quantitative, merged into one.

The October 2025 suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty by India, weaponising water, added another transboundary flashpoint that no one is ready to address at the basin level.

Meanwhile, solar-powered tube wells, while boosting irrigation, are depleting groundwater catastrophically—expanding rice and other crops cultivation but accelerating salinization (Reuters, 2025). Governance mirrors the report’s critiques: centralized, technocratic systems favor elite irrigators (80% of usage in report; over 90% in Pakistan), ignoring domestic priorities and ecosystems (World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2025).

The concept of “Elite Irrigators” is about a powerful class of water users, such as large-scale landowners, political figures, or corporate entities, who exert disproportionate control over shared irrigation resources and governance systems—is fundamentally a challenge of elite capture (Meinzen-Dick, 1997). This process systematically diverts community benefits to a privileged few (Meinzen-Dick, 1997). These elites leverage political connections, economic power, and often their strategic location at the head reaches of canal systems to secure a larger, more reliable water supply, often to the detriment of smaller, marginalized farmers at the tail ends (Wade, 1988). The Special Rapporteur’s report substantiates this dynamic by highlighting how “powerful corporations and productive sectors” hold robust concessionary rights that function like quasi-property rights, often supported by heavy subsidies, and how the “influence of powerful private corporations in public institutions” erodes the concept of public interest. This systemic inequity is further evidenced by “land- and water-grabbing processes” and the “prevalence of large users” within participatory water governance bodies, ensuring that water is frequently controlled for “economic gain” rather than human rights and equity. This manipulation not only exacerbates rural poverty and social conflict but also undermines the sustainable operation of shared infrastructure by discouraging collective maintenance (Ostrom, 1990).

Aquifer overexploitation in Punjab violates sustainability, while pollution from intensive farming destroys water quality, leading to “water mining” in Balochistan (Abid et al., 2022). Customary rights in tribal areas are eroded, and women’s burdens—collecting from distant, unsafe sources—fuel gender inequities (UNICEF, 2025).

Financialization exacerbates issues: tanker mafias in Karachi have turned water delivery into a money-minting business, sustained by a “don’t go for sustainable solution” governance strategy—echoing Arrojo Agudo’s warnings about social costs. Subsidies benefit the rich, while floods expose poor planning. Climate vulnerability ranks Pakistan among the most threatened nations, with unpredictable monsoons and glacial melt, yet adaptation still lags (Abid et al., 2022).

The report’s “water transition” could transform this: restore aquifers as reserves, wetlands for flood control, and promote sponge cities (World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2025). Equity demands progressive tariffs, targeted subsidies, and community partnerships like Colombia’s, while pollution must be criminalized as ecocide (Abid et al., 2022).

Yet, without reform, Pakistan’s crisis deepens. As Arrojo Agudo notes, it’s a democratic failure: prioritize life over profit, integrate customary models, and build resilience. Global solidarity must aid climate refugees, as urged by Michelle Bachelet, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2025).

For Pakistan and developing peers, this report isn’t advisory—it’s urgent. Implementing its vision could fulfill SDG 6, turning thirst into justice. But inaction risks catastrophe, as billions remain parched amid governance voids (UNICEF, 2025).

References

Abid, M. et al. (2022) Climate change and water crises in Pakistan: implications on water quality, waterborne diseases and coping strategies. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 10. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9708371/.

Al Jazeera (2025) Water has surrounded us: The slow death of Pakistan’s Indus delta. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/8/5/water-has-surrounded-us-the-slow-death-of-pakistans-indus-delta.

Arrojo Agudo, P. (2025). Human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation (A/80/117). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, transmitted by a Note by the Secretary-General to the General Assembly. United Nations.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (n.d.) Water scarcity. Available at: https://www.fao.org/land-water/water/water-scarcity/en/.

Meinzen-Dick, R. (1997). Groundwater markets in Pakistan: Institutional development and productivity impacts. Agricultural Economics, 16(3), 209-219.

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Reuters (2025) Solar-powered farming is digging Pakistan into a water catastrophe. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/solar-powered-farming-is-digging-pakistan-into-water-catastrophe-2025-10-02/.

UNICEF (2023) More than 10 million people, including children, living in Pakistan’s flood-affected areas still lack access to safe drinking water. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/more-10-million-people-including-children-living-pakistans-flood-affected-areas.

UNICEF (n.d.) Water scarcity. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/wash/water-scarcity.

UNICEF (2025) Fast facts: 1 in 4 people globally still lack access to safe drinking water. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/fast-facts-1-4-people-globally-still-lack-access-safe-drinking-water-who-unicef.

Wade, R. (1988). Village Republics: Economic Conditions for Collective Action in South India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

World Health Organization and UNICEF (2025) 1 in 4 people globally still lack access to safe drinking water – WHO, UNICEF. Available at: https://www.who.int/news/item/26-08-2025-1-in-4-people-globally-still-lack-access-to-safe-drinking-water—who–unicef.

World Health Organization and UNICEF (2025) Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000–2024: special focus on inequalities. Available at: https://data.unicef.org/resources/jmp-report-2025/

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Mohammad Ehsan Leghari is Member (Sindh), Indus River System Authority, and former Managing Director, SIDA.

Read: Sindh Fears Kachhi Canal Phase II

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Geneva

Despite two decades of worldwide efforts, more than 4,000 precious wildlife species still fall prey to trafficking every year, a new report by the UN crime and drugs prevention office, UNODC, showed on Monday.

“Wildlife crime inflicts untold harm upon nature and it also jeopardizes livelihoods, public health, good governance and our planet’s ability to fight climate change,” said Ghada Waly, UNODC Executive Director.

The agency’s World Wildlife Crime Report takes stock of the efforts to counter poaching worldwide. Although there are positive signs that trafficking of some iconic species has decreased, including elephants and rhinoceroses – thanks to the dismantling of large trafficking networks and the suppression of demand in key markets – the overall picture is still gloomy for thousands of protected plants and animals.

Scope and harm

Wildlife crime has a profound global impact whose ramifications aren’t always clearly understood, UNODC insists.

Latest data on seized trafficked species from 2015 to 2021 across 162 countries and territories indicates that illegal trade affects roughly 4,000 plant and animal species with approximately 3,250 listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Over the reporting period, law enforcement bodies confiscated 13 million items totaling more than 16,000 tons.

Despite its significant role in driving the extinction of numerous rare species such as orchids, succulents, reptiles, fish, birds, and mammals, wildlife trafficking often goes unnoticed by the public, according to UN experts in wildlife crime prevention.

For example, illegal collection for trade is believed to have led to the recent extinction of several succulent plant species in South Africa. It has also caused substantial depletion of rare orchids, with newly discovered species quickly targeted by poachers and buyers.

In addition to directly threatening species populations, wildlife trafficking can disrupt delicate ecosystems and their functions, particularly undermining their ability to mitigate climate change.

Furthermore, experts in human and animal health have consistently raised concerns about the disease risks associated with wildlife trade in recent decades. These concerns encompass the direct transmission of diseases to humans from live animals, plants and wildlife products including bush meat, as well as broader threats to wildlife populations, ecosystems and food production systems.

A powerful enemy

The analysis of over 140,000 wildlife species traffic seizures from 2015 to 2021 reveals the intricate involvement of powerful organized crime groups in exploiting fragile ecosystems worldwide, from the Amazon to the Golden Triangle (broadly encompassing northeastern Myanmar, northwestern Thailand and northern Laos). Transnational criminal networks engage in various stages of the trade chain, including export, import, brokering, and storage, breeding and selling to customers.

READ: VANISHING WATERBODIES OF SINDH

Traffickers continuously adapt their methods and routes to evade detection and prosecution, exploiting regulatory loopholes and enforcement weaknesses, UNODC said. Corruption further exacerbates the plight of plants and animals, with officials often turning a blind eye to violations. Despite this, wildlife crime cases are rarely prosecuted under corruption charges, allowing perpetrators to escape punishment.

“To address this crime, we must match the adaptability and agility of the illegal wildlife trade. This demands strong, targeted interventions at both the demand and the supply side of the trafficking chain, efforts to reduce criminal incentives and profits, and greater investment in data, analysis, and monitoring capacities,” UNODC’s Ghada Waly said.

There’s hope

Recent analyses of illegal trafficking in elephants and rhinoceroses have demonstrated that a comprehensive strategy which addresses both demand and supply has yielded good results. But this approach must also be combined with a heightened policy focus, stricter market regulations and targeted law enforcement actions against major traffickers. There have been significant decreases in poaching, seizures, and market prices for these species over the past decade, UNODC noted.

READ: THE PARROT PROBLEM

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Courtesy: UN News (Posted on May 13, 2024)

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Geneva

Hundreds of Afghan women were forced to quit their jobs or have been arrested and denied access to essential services in the last quarter of 2023, a UN report revealed on Monday, as Taliban officials continue undermining their basic human rights.

Among those whose working lives have been upended, de facto authorities “banned” approximately 400 women workers at a pine nut processing from the workplace and dismissed another 200 at a power plant, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a report on the human rights situation.

The Mission also noted that women were arrested for purchasing contraceptives and that unmarried female staff at a healthcare facility were “advised” to get married by officials from the so-called Department for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or risk losing their jobs.

Related news: Women’s rights key for Afghanistan’s economic recovery

The officials reportedly stated that “it was inappropriate for an unmarried woman to work.”

Many women were also not allowed to board buses or go to work because they were unmarried or because they did not have a mahram – a male chaperone – to accompany them in public.

Enforcement of ‘hijab’ decree

The report also noted that several women were arbitrarily arrested in Kabul and other locations for “not wearing proper hijab”.

Most were released after their mahrams signed a guarantee that they will adhere to the hijab decree in the future.

Related news: Afghanistan: Women tell UN rights experts ‘we’re alive, but not living’

“The measures taken by the de facto authorities contradicts the hijab decree itself,” UNAMA said.

“For a first violation of the decree, a warning is to be issued to individual’s mahram (at the place of residence), for a second violation, the individual’s mahram is to be summoned, for a third violation, the individual’s mahram may be imprisoned for up to three days and for a fourth violation, the individual’s mahram is to be brought before the de facto court for further action.”

Freedom of expression

UNAMA further noted that the de facto authorities continued to infringe the right to freedom of expression by limiting the opportunity to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.

On 14 December, the Taliban Ministry of Higher Education issued a letter instructing all universities and private education institutions to remove books which are considered against the laws of Hanafi jurisprudence.

This includes books relating to Shi’a belief, political parties and materials authored by individuals associated with the elected Government the Taliban deposed, the report stated.

Also read: You Woman – A poem dedicated to the women of Afghanistan

In further examples, four women’s rights activists and three staff of a radio station were arrested between September and December simply for doing their jobs.

Although five of them were released, one rights activist remains in detention and one journalist was sentenced to a year in prison.

Remnants of war

The report notes that at least 11 people were killed and a further 51 wounded by unexploded ordnance between October and December 2023. Forty-nine of the 62 victims were children (41 boys and eight girls).

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Courtesy: UN News (Posted on Jan 22, 2024)

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New York

Continuing violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations, UN-appointed independent expert said on Tuesday.

“Women and girls continue to be killed on the basis of their sex and gender, rendered more vulnerable to femicide when being women and girls intersect with other grounds or identities,” said Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on the issue whose brief includes examining the causes and consequences of attacks.

She stated that “they continue to be unable to organize freely, believe and speak and suffer the consequences.”

Ms. Alsalem’s remarks followed the presentation of her report to the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly in New York.

“In some countries, we have witnessed concerning regressions in their ability to access education, to move freely and to access sexual and reproductive health.

“These regressions are happening while the world navigates multiple crises of war, climate change, poverty and pandemics that clearly have a gendered impact and affect women and girls unequally,” Ms. Alsalem added.

Violence against women

We are at the halfway point in the race to meet the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and “we have painfully realized that we are nowhere near achieving Sustainable Development Goal 5 (on gender equality and empowerment)” the expert said.

Globally, almost half of all married women currently lack decision-making power over their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

According to the World Health Organization, around 736 million, are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner – a number that has remained largely unchanged over the past decade.

Intimate partner violence is the most common form suffered by women, with around 641 million affected globally.

The organization said younger women remain particularly at risk of such violence, with one in four women aged 15 to 24 suffering violence at the hands of an intimate partner by the time they reached their mid-twenties.

Gender-based discrimination

“Gender equality cannot be achieved without ensuring that women and girls can enjoy their fundamental human rights and can participate in society equally and without discrimination,” Ms. Alsalem noted.

She said today, 50 countries continue to have nationality laws that contain gender-discriminatory provisions and in 24 of those countries, women are denied the right to confer nationality on their children on an equal basis with men.

Statelessness

The independent expert went on to say that sex and gender-based discrimination in nationality laws is one of the major causes of statelessness.

“Make no mistake: Statelessness and gender discriminatory nationality laws are tantamount to violence against women, as they constitute severe forms of discrimination against women and girls as defined by the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women.”

“They result in a vicious circle of human rights failures and violations, directly and indirectly exacerbating psychological, sexual, and physical violence,” Ms. Alsalem concluded.

She called on States to “uphold the objective, spirit and meaning of fundamental human rights obligations”.

Special Rapporteurs and other UN experts are not UN staff and are independent from any government or organization. They serve in their individual capacity and receive no salary for their work.

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Courtesy: UN News (Posted on October 3, 2023)

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Geneva

A new UN report reveals no improvement in the level of prejudice shown against women over the past decade, with almost nine out of 10 men and women worldwide, still holding such biases.

“Half of people worldwide still believe men make better political leaders than women, and more than 40 per cent believe men make better business executives than women,” according to the UN Development Program (UNDP) in its latest Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) report.

“Social norms that impair women’s rights are detrimental to society more broadly, dampening the expansion of human development,” said Pedro Conceição, head of UNDP’s Human Development Report Office.

The more things change

A staggering 25 per cent of people believe it is justified for a man to beat his wife, according to the report, reflecting the latest data from the World Values Survey.

The report argues that these biases drive hurdles faced by women, manifested in a dismantling of women’s rights in many parts of the world with movements against gender equality gaining traction and, in some countries, a surge of human rights violations.

Biases are also reflected in the severe underrepresentation of women in leadership. On average, the share of women as heads of State or heads of government has remained around 10 per cent since 1995 and in the labor market women occupy less than a third of managerial positions.

Broken links in progress

The report also sheds light on a broken link between women’s progress in education and economic empowerment. Women are more skilled and educated than ever before, yet even in the 59 countries where women are now more educated than men, the average gender income gap remains a 39 per cent in favor of men.

“Lack of progress on gender social norms is unfolding against a human development crisis,” Mr. Conceição said, noting that the global Human Development Index (HDI) declined in 2020 for the first time on record and again the following year.

“Everyone stands to gain from ensuring freedom and agency for women,” he added.

Governments’ crucial role

The UNDP report emphasized that governments have a crucial role in shifting gender social norms, from adopting parental leave policies that have changed perceptions around care work responsibilities, to labor market reforms that have led to a change in beliefs around women in the workforce.

“An important place to start is recognizing the economic value of unpaid care work,” said Raquel Lagunas, Director of UNDP’s gender team.

“This can be a very effective way of challenging gender norms around how care work is viewed. In countries with the highest levels of gender biases against women, it is estimated that women spend over six times as much time as men on unpaid care work.”

Change can happen

The report emphasized that despite the continued prevalence of bias against women, the data shows change can happen.

An increase in the share of people with no bias in any indicator was evident in 27 of the 38 countries surveyed. The report authors said that to drive change towards greater gender equality, the focus needs to be on expanding human development through investment, insurance, and innovation.

This includes investing in laws and policy measures that promote women’s equality in political participation, scaling up insurance mechanisms, such as strengthening social protection and care systems, and encouraging innovative interventions that could be particularly effective in challenging harmful social norms, patriarchal attitudes, and gender stereotypes.

For example, combatting online hate speech and gender disinformation can help to shift pervasive gender norms towards greater acceptance and equality, according to the report.

The report recommended directly addressing social norms through education to change people’s views, policies and legal changes that recognize the rights of women in all spheres of life, and more representation in decision-making and political processes.

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Courtesy: UN News (Posted on June 12, 2023)

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Prof. Dr. Abdullah G Arijo

One negative by-product of industrialization is environmental pollution which can adversely impact human health. When companies do not pay for the environmental damage they cause, or when these harms are not captured in pricing, this is considered a negative externality. The cost burden is placed on human society in the form of deforestation, extinction of species, widespread pollution, excessive waste, and other forms of environmental degradation. One such negative payback is the water issue in Pakistan and elsewhere.

In a recent report the United Nations has placed Pakistan in “critical water insecure category.” This must raise the eyebrows of the common man in general, and policymakers in particular.

According to a recent report published by PIDE, Islamabad, more than 80 per cent of Pakistanis face “severe water scarcity” for at least one month each year. The report suggests that Pakistan ranks 14 out of 17 countries designated as “extremely high water-risk” nations.

Another report published by the United Nations Institute of Water, Environment, and Health has placed Pakistan and 22 other countries in the “critically water insecure” category. (Daily Dawn 25/3/23))

The UN University very recently released the Global Water Security 2023 Assessment, which stated that 33 countries from three different geographic regions have high levels of water security. Nevertheless, all regions also featured countries with low levels of water security.

In a press release announcing the report, it was stated that the most recent assessment of the world’s water resources, conducted by United Nations water experts, revealed that access to managed drinking water and sanitation was “still a pipe dream for more than half of the global population, as more than 70 per cent, or 5.5 billion people, do not have safe water access, with Africa having the lowest levels of access, at only 15 per cent of the region’s population.”

In years to come, due to climate change, there can be severe melting of glaciers, resulting in super floods in our rivers and ultimately the sea level may rise. It is therefore required to address the water issue in Pakistan, or we will be suffering the most.

Reports also rank Pakistan among the list of 10 most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. The country is already facing climate-related threats to water resources as is evident from the change in recent monsoon patterns, melting glaciers, rising temperatures and relapse of floods and droughts. Pakistan has witnessed a number of floods in the past several years and long spells of drought. For example, the 2010 floods caused direct losses of more than US$10 billion and 1,600 deaths and affected 38,600 square kilometers. Similarly, Quetta and most parts of Balochistan experienced eight years of drought-like situations from 1997 to 2005.

Climate change may decline aggregate water flows in the future. In future, most projections show a declining trend and increased variability of the flows (50 to 75 years). It is reported that the Indus River Basin, Pakistan’s chief water source, being dependent on glacial and snowmelt and precipitation, is highly sensitive to climate change. It has already shrunk into a canal in the Sindh Province where many farmers have migrated to urban areas due to a shortage of water, and this trend is continuing.

Given the fact that snow and ice melt runoff currently generates between 50 per cent and 80 per cent of average water flows in the Indus River basin, this will result in landslides, heavy flooding, dam bursts and soil erosion initially and drought and famine in the long run (PIDE, Islamabad).

Experts are also of the opinion that in years to come, due to climate change, there can be severe melting of glaciers, resulting in huge water in our rivers, which may be a cause of super floods and eventually there shall be huge water flowing through rivers and ultimately the sea level may rise and with the result cities at the seaside will have to tell us different stories. It is therefore required to address the water issue in Pakistan, or we will be suffering the most.

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About the Author

Prof. (R) Dr. Abdullah G. Arijo is Advisor and Visiting Professor Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University of Veterinary and Animal Science, Sakrand, Sindh Pakistan. Formerly, he was Chairman, Department of Parasitology, Sindh Agriculture University Tando Jam. After retirement, he also served there as Advisor Academics & P&D to Vice Chancellor. He can be reached at Email: abdullaharijo.faculty@sbbuvas.edu.pk

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Geneva

With the number of people aged 65 and over projected to more than double by the middle of the century, the rights and well-being of older persons must be prioritized in efforts to achieve a sustainable future, the UN said in a new report launched on Thursday.

The World Social Report 2023 calls for concrete measures to support the greying global population, amidst escalating pension and healthcare costs.

Population ageing is a defining global trend of our time, according to the study, published by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

Countries can reap the benefits by giving everyone the chance to grow older in good health by promoting equal opportunities from birth.

“Together, we can address today’s inequalities for the benefit of tomorrow’s generations, managing the challenges and capitalizing on the opportunities that population ageing brings,” said Li Junhua, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.

Longer lifespans globally

In 2021, 761 million people worldwide were aged 65 and older, which will rise to 1.6 billion by 2050. The number of people aged 80 years or older is growing even faster.

People are living longer thanks to improvements in health and medical therapies, greater access to education and reductions in fertility.

Globally, a child born in 2021 can expect to live, on average, to age 71, with women living longer than men.  This is nearly 25 years more than a baby born in 1950.

Northern Africa, Western Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, are on track to experience the fastest growth in the number of older people over the next 30 years. Today, Europe and Northern America combined, have the highest share of this population.

Inequality in ageing

Increased global life expectancy reflects better health overall.

However, the report points to inequalities in our ageing world, because not everyone has benefited equally from the improvements in health and education that are driving this transformation.

While many older people are in excellent health or “economically active”, others live with ailments or in poverty.

In more developed regions, pensions and other public transfer systems, provide over two thirds of the consumption by older persons. Their counterparts in less developed regions tend to work longer and rely more on accumulated assets or family assistance.

Furthermore, an ageing global population also means a rise in the need for long-term care, a weakness exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Unfortunately, public spending in most countries has not been sufficient to cover the growing demand.

A lifetime of disadvantage 

Life expectancy is strongly influenced by factors such as income, education, gender, ethnicity and place of residence.

“Some combinations of these factors have too often led to systemic disadvantage that begins early in life,” the authors noted.

They warned that without policies to prevent them, these systemic disadvantages reinforce one another throughout peoples’ lives, leading to gaping disparities in old age.

As a result, progress towards achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) could be at risk, expressly SDG 10 on Reducing Inequalities.

Rethink policies, expand opportunities

The report recommends that countries rethink long-held policies and practices associated with livelihoods and work.

Many governments are already introducing opportunities for life-long learning, as well as strengthening and taking full advantage of intergenerational workforces.

They are also introducing flexible retirement ages to accommodate a broad range of personal situations and preferences.

Pension dilemma

Authorities must also rethink social protection systems, including pension provision.

“One major challenge is maintaining the fiscal sustainability of public pension systems while ensuring income security for all older persons, including workers in informal employment,” the authors said.

Other crucial elements involve expanding decent work opportunities for women and other groups traditionally excluded from the formal job market.

The aim is to secure their well-being when older, and to expand the productive capacity of the economy.

The informal care sector’s considerable contribution to the formal economy also should be properly recognized ad factored in, the analysis suggests.

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Courtesy: UN News (Posted on Jan 12, 2023)

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New York

Presenting a report to the General Assembly on its causes and consequences, Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls described climate change as “the most consequential threat multiplier for women and girls, with far-reaching impacts on new and existing forms of gendered inequities”.

She maintained that the “cumulative and gendered consequences” of climate change and environmental degradation “breach all aspects” of their rights.

Climate inequality

Ms. Alsalem emphasized the damaging ways in which violence directed towards women and girls intersects with socio-political and economic phenomena, including armed conflict, displacement and resource scarcity.

And when coupled with climate change, they result in the feminization and intensification of vulnerability, she said.

“Climate change is not only an ecological crisis, but fundamentally a question of justice, prosperity and gender equality, and intrinsically linked to and influenced by structural inequality and discrimination”.

Survival options

Emerging evidence shows that the negative impacts of climate change globally, aggravate all types of gender-based violence ranging from physical to psychological and economic, “all the while curbing the availability and effectiveness of protection mechanisms and further weakening the potential to prevent violence,” the UN expert said.

“When slow or sudden-onset disasters strike and threaten livelihoods, communities may resort to negative coping mechanisms, such as trafficking, sexual exploitation and harmful practices like early and child marriage and drop out from schools – all of which force women and girls to choose between risk-imbued options for survival”.

‘Understand the nexus’

She said women environmental human rights defenders, indigenous women and girls, women of diverse gender identities and sexual orientations, older women, women with disabilities, women in poverty, and those forcibly displaced were at particular risk, and yet often fall through the protection gap.

“Despite the irreparable and significant harm to the wellbeing of women and girls, more efforts and resources are necessary to understand the nexus between climate change and violence against women and girls”.

She urged the international community to double down on the commitment to gender equality and anchor the response to climate change and disaster risk mitigation in human rights.

Powerful stakeholders

“For our concerted efforts against climate change to be truly gender sensitive and transformative, measures to address the vulnerabilities faced by women and girls must build on a recognition of their role and agency as powerful stakeholders in the policy space,” Ms. Alsalem underscored.

“The wellbeing and the rights of women and girls should not be an afterthought and must be placed at the center of policies and responses”.

She upheld that if designed and implemented with a robust gender lens, “the global response to climate change and environmental degradation can be truly transformative, rather than reinforce a vicious cycle”.

Special Rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not paid for their work.

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Courtesy: UN News (Published on October 5, 2022)

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Some 420 million children in South Asia remain out of school due to pandemic control measures. The report warns that 4.5 million girls are likely to never return to school

Around 11,000 additional maternal deaths are also feared – UN Report

Islamabad: Drastic cuts in the availability and use of essential public health services across South Asia due to COVID-19 may have contributed to an estimated 228,000 additional child deaths in 2020, according to a new United Nations report released on Wednesday. Around 11,000 additional maternal deaths are also expected.

Clinics and other health facilities have been closed and many vital health and nutrition programs halted as the region battles to contain COVID-19 cases, which numbered 11 million by the end of 2020.

The report, commissioned by UNICEF and supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), cites examples of the more severe service disruptions. They include an 80 per cent drop in the number of young children treated for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in Nepal and Bangladesh, and a sharp drop in childhood immunizations in Pakistan and India.

“The fall-off of these critical services has had a devastating impact on the health and nutrition of the poorest families,” said UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia George Laryea-Adjei. “It is absolutely vital that these services are fully restored for children and mothers who are in desperate need of them, and that everything possible is done to ensure that people feel safe to use them.”

The report calls for making essential health services for pregnant women, adolescents and young infants a topmost priority. Strengthening supply chains for the delivery of vaccines and other essential childhood medicines is also vital.

“Maintaining essential health services is an important pillar of WHO’s COVID-19 response strategy,” said Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director of the WHO South-East Asia Region. “Countries in the region have been focusing efforts on continuation and restoration of essential services, as disruption would only increase the risk of deaths from preventable causes.”

Some 420 million children in South Asia remain out of school due to pandemic control measures. The report warns that 4.5 million girls are likely to never return to school and are at particular risk due to deteriorating access to sexual and reproductive health and information services.

“Given the cultural and social context of South Asia, the suspension of these services is deepening inequalities and is likely to lead to an increase in the number of maternal and neonatal deaths,” said Bjorn Andersson, Asia-Pacific Regional Director of UNFPA. “There are also likely to be an additional 3.5 million unintended pregnancies in this region.”

Focusing on South Asia’s six most populous countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka), the report notes that the increased levels of unemployment, poverty and food insecurity caused by the pandemic have further undermined public health.

“It is crucial that we ensure the continuity of essential services for women and children in Pakistan — especially the most vulnerable and the hardest-to-reach,” said Aida Girma, UNICEF Representative in Pakistan. “COVID-19-related disruptions have had a heavy impact on children’s access to essential services. UNICEF will continue to support the Government to respond to the pandemic and to build more resilient health and education systems that can reach all children.”

The report calls for cash transfer programs for the poorest families. It welcomes the various national social safety net programs put in place since the start of the pandemic, but notes that their full impact still needs to be evaluated. (PR)

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Also read: Direct and indirect effects of Covid-19 

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