Musings From Abroad

World Bank stops tourism fund to Tanzania’s Ruaha park. Here’s why

Published

7 months ago

April 24, 2024

A spokesperson for the World Bank said on Wednesday that the lender had stopped all new payments from a $150 million fund meant to expand a national park in southern Tanzania.

The suspension is linked to reports of extrajudicial killings and rights abuses, with claims that guards recently killed people and forced people to leave their homes last year.

The World Bank’s independent complaints system says that two anonymous complainants have said that rangers from Ruaha National Park killed local villagers without a court order, forced them to disappear, evicted them, tortured them, and took their cattle.

“The World Bank is deeply concerned about the allegations of abuse and injustice related to the… project in Tanzania,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “We have therefore decided to suspend further disbursement of funds with immediate effect.”

Mobhare Martini, a spokeswoman for the government, said the claims were not true but that the government was looking into them “to see if there was any misconduct from any staff so that it can take the right action.” He said the last instalment of the loan that had been put on hold was $25 million.

Human rights activists have spoken out against several government plans in Tanzania to increase tourism. This is especially true in the north of the country, where thousands of Maasai have been forced to leave their traditional homes.

The Oakland Institute, a think tank in California, released a report last year accusing Ruaha park rangers of sexual assault. The report also said that local communities across Tanzania were paying the price for saving the environment to bring in tourists.

The park is 81 miles (130 km) west of Iringa. A 45,000-square-kilometer (17,000-square-mile). In the past, the park was famous for having a lot of elephants. 34,000 of them lived in the Ruaha-Rungwa environment in 2009, but that number dropped to 15,836, give or take 4,759, in 2015. Six lions and 74 vultures were found also dead in February 2018 with wide allegations that the animals were poisoned by communal further fueling clashes between locals and authorities.

Wildlife tourism is one of Tanzania’s biggest economic sources, the government is keen on expanding the sector and claims it has provided fair compensation to people evicted from their homes and disturbed by the wild.

Related Topics:Featured Tanzania Tourism wildlife

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Musings From Abroad

UN Security Council deliberates stance on Sudan war

Published

4 days ago

November 13, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The UN Security Council is discussing a British-drafted resolution calling on Sudan’s warring parties to stop hostilities and permit safe, quick, and unimpeded assistance supplies across borders and front lines.

The world’s largest relocation crisis began in April 2023 when the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces engaged in a power battle ahead of a planned transfer to civilian administration.

Waves of ethnically motivated violence have resulted, with the RSF mostly to blame. The RSF has blamed the action on rogue actors and denies causing harm to civilians in Sudan. Two RSF generals were named last week by a Security Council committee in the first U.N. sanctions levied during the ongoing conflict.

“Nineteen months into the war, both sides are committing egregious human rights violations, including the widespread rape of women and girls,” Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Barbara Woodward, told reporters at the start of this month as Britain assumed the Security Council’s presidency for November.

“More than half the Sudanese population are experiencing severe food insecurity,” she said. “Despite this, the SAF and the RSF remain focussed on fighting each other and not the famine and suffering facing their country.”

According to diplomats, Britain wants to vote on the draft resolution as soon as possible. A resolution must receive nine votes or more to pass and not be vetoed by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, or China.

Nearly 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, require aid, according to the U.N., since 11 million people have abandoned their homes and famine has spread to displacement camps. Of those, around 3 million have departed for other nations.

In its draft language, Britain “demands that the warring parties immediately cease hostilities” and “demands that the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its offensives” throughout Sudan.

It also “calls on the parties to the conflict to allow and facilitate the full, safe, rapid, and unhindered crossline and cross-border humanitarian access into and throughout Sudan.”

Additionally, the draft urges that assistance deliveries continue to be made through the Adre border crossing with Chad “and stresses the need to sustain humanitarian access through all border crossings, while humanitarian needs persist, and without impediments.”

Sudanese authorities have permitted the U.N. and relief organisations to enter Darfur through the Adre border crossing for three months, ending in mid-November.

Musings From Abroad

South Africa worry Trump’s victory might affect climate fight

Published

1 week ago

November 10, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

South Africa’s environment minister has expressed concern about the potential effects of Donald Trump’s victory on climate change negotiations.

The demise of Germany’s coalition government this week and Trump’s election coincide with COP29 negotiations to address global warming, which experts credit for this year’s devastating hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves.

“We are concerned about America because we don’t know what they’re going to do … how (it) is going to approach COP,” South African Environment Minister Dion George told Reuters.

“Mr. Trump said that he would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but we don’t know what will happen,” George added in a telephone interview on Friday.

International partners are concerned that the prospect of an administration led by Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, will de-motivate poor and middle-income countries who want rich nations to shoulder more of its financial burden.

South Africa, which is one of the world’s top 15 greenhouse gas emitters and accounts for 30% of the continent’s emissions, has accepted $11.6 billion from rich nations, mainly in loans, for a switch from coal to renewable energy.

This is seen as a potential model for other ‘Global South’ countries who say financing pledges of $100 billion, which took years to come through, are insufficient.

“It’s certainly not enough. We need another target,” George said. “But then the question is: as the voter base is shifting in developed economies, are they actually going to pay it?”

The South African minister said he had been reassured by German officials that Europe’s stance at the COP29 climate talks will not be hurt by Berlin’s political crisis.

George said that Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s state secretary for international climate action, had contacted him to say it will be up to the European Union to maintain leadership.

“Their position is not changed and that is how they will approach COP,” George said, adding: “They’re on Team Europe. The European Union and German have clearly set out their objectives.”