Author Archives for Grant Montgomery

US humanitarian worker hostage killed in strike on ISIS

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On Friday, the Islamic State announced that Kayla Mueller’s, a 26-year-old aid worker from Prescott, Ariz., had been killed in the falling rubble of a building in northern Syria that it said had been struck by bombs from a Jordanian warplane. Top Jordanian officials said the announcement was cynical propaganda.

But the group’s use of Ms. Mueller’s name for the first time prompted her family to throw a spotlight on a hostage ordeal that befell an eager and deeply idealistic young woman, who had ventured into one of the most dangerous parts of Syria — apparently without the backing of an aid organization.

Initially based in southern Turkey, where she had worked for at least two aid organizations assisting Syrian refugees, Ms. Mueller appears to have driven into the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Aug. 3, 2013, alongside a man who has been alternatively described as her Syrian friend or colleague, and by others as either her boyfriend or her fiancé. He had been invited to travel to the city to help fix the Internet connection for a compound run by the Spanish chapter of Doctors Without Borders.

They caught a bus back to Turkey, but never made it, abducted on the road.

On July 12, 2014, the Islamic State announced that it would kill Ms. Mueller within 30 days unless the family provided a ransom of 5 million euros ($5.6 million), or exchanged her for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist educated in America who was convicted of trying to kill American soldiers and F.B.I. agents in Afghanistan in 2008, and is serving a sentence in a Texas jail.

That was shortly before the United States began airstrikes against the Islamic State in concert with European and Arab allies. Soon after, in August, the Islamic State posted the first of its decapitation videos, starting with the beheading of the American James Foley, and then in quick succession the fellow Americans Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig.

After the Islamic State released a video showing the immolation of a captured Jordanian pilot, the Jordanians began their own extensive bombings of Islamic State targets in Syria. It was one of those attacks, the Islamic State said in its message Friday, that killed Ms. Mueller.

Experts on the Middle East said they believed Ms. Mueller was dead, since the Islamic State had no motivation to make such an assertion about a hostage if it were not true.

[The New York Times]

Malaria nets used for fishing

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Insecticide-treated mosquito nets are widely considered a magic bullet against malaria—one of the cheapest and most effective ways to stop a disease that kills at least half a million Africans each year. But Mwewa Ndefi in Zambia and countless others are not using their mosquito nets as global health experts have intended.

Nobody in his hut, including his seven children, sleeps under a net at night. Instead, Mr. Ndefi has taken his family’s supply of anti-malaria nets and sewn them together into a gigantic sieve that he uses to drag the bottom of the swamp ponds, sweeping up all sorts of life: baby catfish, banded tilapia, tiny mouthbrooders, orange fish eggs, water bugs and the occasional green frog.

“I know it’s not right,” Mr. Ndefi said, “but without these nets, we wouldn’t eat.”

Across Africa, from the mud flats of Nigeria to the coral reefs off Mozambique, mosquito-net fishing is a growing problem, an unintended consequence of one of the biggest and most celebrated public health campaigns in recent years.

The nets have helped save millions of lives, but scientists worry about the collateral damage: Africa’s fish. Many of these insecticide-treated nets are dragged through the same lakes and rivers people drink from, raising concerns about toxins. One of the most common insecticides used by the mosquito net industry is permethrin, which the United States Environmental Protection Agency says is “likely to be carcinogenic to humans” when consumed orally. The E.P.A. also says permethrin is “highly toxic” to fish.

Congolese officials have snatched and burned the nets, and in August, Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, threatened to jail anyone fishing with a mosquito net.

Though experts say that the vast majority of mosquito nets are used exactly the way they were intended—hung over beds—the full extent of mosquito-net fishing is unknown. “No one is going to come forward in a survey and say, ‘That thing you’re giving me, we’re not using it properly,’ “said Seth Faison, a spokesman for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has financed the purchase of 450 million nets.

Mr. Faison and several other public health officials maintained that mosquito-net fishing was “anecdotal.” “In regards to what we face,” Mr. Faison said, “it’s an infinitesimal problem, maybe 1 percent.”

But that would still amount to millions of nets.

[New York Times]    Read more on the topic

African families defensive on their use of malaria nets for fishing

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One of the few detailed studies on the issue of insecticide-treated mosquito nets being used for fishing showed that in several villages along Lake Tanganyika, an essential body of water shared by four East African nations, 87.2 percent of households used mosquito nets to fish. When that study was presented at a malaria conference last year, the reception, according to some of those in attendance, was decidedly cool.

“People are very defensive about this topic,” said Amy Lehman, an American physician and the founder of the Lake Tanganyika Floating Health Clinic, which conducted the study. “The narrative has always been, ‘Spend $10 on a net and save a life,’ and that’s a very compelling narrative.

“But what if that net is distributed in a waterside, food-insecure area where maybe you won’t be affecting the malaria rate at all and you might actually be hurting the environment?” she said. “It’s a lose-lose. And that’s not a very neat story to tell.”

An insecticide-treated mosquito net, hung over a bed, is the front line in the battle against malaria. It’s also the perfect mosquito-killing machine.

Western governments and foundations donate the money. Big companies like BASF, Bayer and Sumitomo Chemical design the nets. They are manufactured at about $3 apiece, many in China and Vietnam, shipped in steel containers to Africa, trucked to villages by aid agencies, and handed out by local ministries of health, usually gratis. The World Health Organization says the nets are a primary reason malaria death rates in Africa have been cut in half since 2000.

But at the end of the line, in poor areas where little goes to waste, mosquito nets become many other things: soccer balls and chicken coops, bridal veils and funeral shrouds. Mosquito nets are literally part of the fabric of a community. For many uses, a secondhand net, which has less insecticide on it, will do. But for fishing, it’s different.

“New mosquito nets are the best,” said David Owich, who fishes on Lake Victoria. “No holes.” When asked where he had gotten his, he smiled. “At the hospital,” he said. “Much cheaper than a real net.” (A “real” net costs about $50, an enormous expense in a place where many people survive on a few dollars a day.)

In Mr. Owich’s world, there is no overstating the centrality of fish. His daily catch pays for school supplies and keeps the kerosene lamp lit in his mud hut. All around Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi and so many others, fish are the engine block of the economy and a de facto social security system for landless people.

For Mr. Ndefi, it is a simple, if painful, matter of choice. He knows all too well the dangers of malaria. His own toddler son, Junior, died of the disease four years ago. Mr. Ndefi hopes his family can survive future bouts of the disease. But he knows his loved ones will not last long without food.

[New York Times]

A third of promised International Aid for Ebola not delivered

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Only two-thirds of the $2.89 billion in aid promised to Ebola-stricken countries by the international community had been delivered as of the first of the year, a study published in the British Medical Journal found. Furthermore, that funding may have come too late to bring the most help to the affected region — revealing a potential gap in the international aid effort.

Karen Grepin, a professor of global health policy at New York University, said funding, while generous, may have arrived too late to help with the bulk of the crisis — the outbreak started in March and worsened substantially in August and September, but resources didn’t start pouring into the region until October.

Generally, governments far outpaced international aid groups and private foundations in giving money to fend off Ebola. The top donors include the U.S. ($900 million), the U.K. ($307 million), the World Bank ($230 million) and Germany ($161 million).

In addition to governments and aid agencies, a few wealthy benefactors have also sent aid — Paul Allen of Microsoft gave $100 million to the effort and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook contributed $25 million.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has stated $2.27 billion was needed to halt the Ebola outbreak. Based on that estimate, international donors have pledged more than enough for the fight — so long as they deliver.

[International Business Times]

ISIS handing out stolen aid with its own logo

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Images uploaded to ISIS propaganda channels suggest that members of the terror network near Aleppo, Syria are stealing food and other humanitarian aid delivered by the United Nations, relabeling the boxes with group’s logo and handing them out to desperate refugees.

ISIS are calling their distribution of rice, oil and other supplies to the city of al-Sfera is a “Zakat”—a traditional Islamic tithing for the poor.

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) had been shipping modest amounts of aid to the region—about $1 of food aid per day for each refugee—until early December of last year when it suspended its program due to lack of funds.

[Vocativ]

How two rockers forced government support to address the AIDS crisis

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Bono of U2 fame has been a successful campaigner for debt relief, trade reform, and more and better international aid.

Bono’s insistence that overcoming poverty meant tackling complex policy questions was a striking and refreshing anomaly. The Irish rock star was brave enough to educate himself and demand that his fans, if they were serious about the cause, use their brains as well. Several years ago, Bono and his countryman Bob Geldof performed a superb double act on AIDS and poverty in Africa to force the hand of Prime Minister Tony Blair, when they thought his commitment to the cause was wobbling.

In May 2003, Tony Blair invited the leaders of Britain’s aid charities to breakfast at 10 Downing Street to canvass their views on what should be his government’s priorities for Africa. Apparently unscripted, Bob Geldof interrupted the aid chiefs’ presentations to lay out with practiced frankness the moral obscenity of the collapse in life chances of African children in the shadow of the AIDS epidemic. Bono weighed in with facts and figures, speaking in a level, intense tone.

Blair wasn’t disconcerted. The British prime minister made not a single concession on substance to the aid agency chiefs’ points, and by the time Blair left the room, he had charmed and impressed Britain’s international charity constituency.

Geldof and Bono were not so easily won over. While the aid agency bosses munched pastries, the two Irishmen lurked in the corridor waiting for Blair to reappear. And when he did, they frog marched him out of the front door of Number 10 where the cameras were waiting for a quick press conference. Geldof announced his demand for a commission for Africa—he mentioned AIDS as the most pressing issue—and Blair rather weakly said he supported the idea. He had been bounced into Geldof’s agenda and was less than happy—but he knew better than to object.

Geldof had been incubating this plan for a while, and the breakfast-time prime ministerial hijacking was a crucial step in the project that culminated in Blair’s “Commission for Africa” and the Live 8 concerts which accompanied the G8 Summit in Scotland in 2005, where world leaders made their largest-ever pledges to end poverty and provide universal access for AIDS medication by 2010.

This was the zenith of celebrity activism on AIDS and poverty in Africa, cannily imposed on an impressionable government. It’s unlikely that the ambitious goals will be met—but funds for assistance and AIDS have been moving in the right direction. Without the involvement of Bono and Geldof, it’s unlikely that President George W. Bush would have created his President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and this year expanded its budget to $85 billion for the next five years, making it the largest-ever aid commitment for a single disease.

[World Affairs]

The agony of Syrians and Iraqis who can’t go home

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Excerpts of a NY Times Op Ed by Angelina Jolie:

I have visited Iraq five times since 2007, and I have seen nothing like the suffering I’m witnessing now. … In almost four years of war, nearly half of Syria’s population of 23 million people has been uprooted. … For many years I have visited camps, and every time, I sit in a tent and hear stories. I try my best to give support. To say something that will show solidarity and give some kind of thoughtful guidance. On this trip I was speechless.

What do you say to a mother with tears streaming down her face who says her daughter is in the hands of the Islamic State, or ISIS?

What do you say to the 13-year-old girl who describes the warehouses where she and the others lived and would be pulled out, three at a time, to be raped by the men?

How can you speak when a woman your own age looks you in the eye and tells you that her whole family was killed in front of her, and that she now lives alone in a tent and has minimal food rations?

I met a family of eight children. No parents. Father killed. Mother missing, most likely taken. The 19-year-old boy is the sole breadwinner. When I comment that it is a lot of responsibility for his age, he just smiles and puts his arm around his young sister. He tells me he is grateful he has the opportunity to work and help them. He means it. He and his family are the hope for the future. They are resilient against impossible odds.

Syria’s neighbors have taken in nearly four million Syrian refugees, but they are reaching their limits. Syrian refugees now make up 10 percent of Jordan’s population. In Lebanon, every fourth person is now a Syrian. This means fewer resources available for local people.

Who can blame these refugees for thinking that we have given up on them? Only a fraction of the humanitarian aid they need is being provided. There has been no progress on ending the war in Syria since the Geneva process collapsed 12 months ago. Syria is in flames, and areas of Iraq are gripped by fighting. The doors of many nations are bolted against them. There is nowhere they can turn.

The plain fact is we cannot insulate ourselves against this crisis. The spread of extremism, the surge in foreign fighters, the threat of new terrorism — only an end to the war in Syria will begin to turn the tide on these problems.

Read full Op Ed 

USAid suspends contractor ‘International Relief and Development’

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The United States Agency for International Development announced Monday that it had suspended one of its largest contractors, International Relief and Development, a nonprofit group based in Virginia, because of questions over oversight of its spending, a significant amount being in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The agency would not say specifically what it had found, but deemed the findings serious enough to suspend the group from receiving new contracts.

“U.S.A.I.D. has a zero-tolerance policy for mismanagement of American taxpayer funds and will take every measure at our disposal to recover these funds,” said Benjamin Edwards, a spokesman for the agency.

The suspension came after years of criticism that the agency had provided little oversight of its contractors. The group also came under fire last year after a Washington Post investigation raised questions about the millions of dollars in bonuses it had awarded to members of the family that founded the group.

International Relief and Development is one of the largest recipients of grants and contracts among nonprofit groups that work for the agency. It gets most of its funding from the aid agency, having received $2.4 billion from it since 2006. Among its other services, the group builds roads and clinics and works with farmers to increase food production in developing countries. It works in more than 40 countries.

 [New York Times]

Oxfam: Richest 1 percent sees share of global wealth jump

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The richest 1 percent of the population will own more than half the world’s wealth by 2016, Oxfam International said in a report released as the World Economic Forum begins in Davos, Switzerland.

Oxfam said the world’s richest people saw their share of global wealth jump to 48 percent last year from 44 percent in 2009. Rising inequality is holding back the fight against global poverty as the world’s biggest companies lobby the U.S. and European Union for beneficial tax changes at a time when average taxpayers are still paying the bill for the financial crisis, Oxfam said.

“Do we really want to live in a world where the 1 percent own more than the rest of us combined?” Winnie Byanyima, Oxfam’s executive director, said in a statement. “The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering, and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast.”

While world leaders such as President Barack Obama and International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde have talked about tackling extreme economic inequality “we are still waiting for many of them to walk the walk,” Byanyima said.

One in nine people don’t have enough to eat and more than a billion people live on less than $1.25 a day, Oxfam said, ticking off statistics that paint a grim picture for all but the world’s richest.

[AP]

Approaches to international aid

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The future of humanitarian assistance and security policy in chaotic places such as Syria and Iraq could rest on a single question: Does aid in conflict zones promote peace or war? It seems intuitive to assume that hunger and exposure push people to violence and that aid should, therefore, lead to peace. This idea has been the bedrock of scores of “hearts and minds” campaigns dating back to the Cold War, which have invested billions of dollars on the principle that assistance can buy compliance and, eventually, peace.

Yet recent evidence indicates that sending aid into conflict-affected regions can actually worsen violence in some cases. Over the past decade, the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC), has conducted a suite of studies in conflict zones to test this relationship.

On the broadest level, we found that the type of the aid program matters greatly. Certain kinds of assistance—targeted, low-profile, conditional transfers delivered directly to needy families—appear to decrease conflict.

By contrast, large and more high-profile projects, such as initiatives to improve infrastructure, may empower insurgents and exacerbate hostilities.

These findings can help inform an improved approach to aid that would both relieve suffering and help promote long-term stability.

[Foreign Affairs]