A brand new Women’s Forum was launched in the run up to November’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Malta.

The Forum, which aimed to raise awareness of women’s issues in Commonwealth countries and show how women’s contributions can have a positive impact politically, economically and socially, took place from 22-24 November at the Intercontinental Hotel in St Julians.

Lakshmi Puri, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, was one of the main speakers at the Forum.

Sarah Kitakule, from the Gender and Economic Empowerment Section at the Commonwealth Secretariat, said: “The Commonwealth must summon both the political and financial will to honour and sustain its commitment to deliver real progress on improving the lives of women and girls. By holding the Women’s Forum we hope to influence real change for all women, men, girls and boys across the Commonwealth.”

The Women’s Forum joins the more established Business, People’s and Youth Forums, which run alongside the biennial CHOGM. The theme of the Women’s Forum was ‘Women Ahead be all that you can be’. The Youth Forum’s theme was ‘Adding Global Value… # WHAT NEXT?’, the People’s Forum was ‘What Makes Societies Resilient?’ and the  Business Forum’s theme was ‘Adding Global Value – Creating a More Prosperous Commonwealth’.

CHOGM will take place from 27-29 November with the theme ‘Adding Global Value’.

Speaking ahead of the event, Malta’s Foreign Minister George W. Vella said: “The first thing Malta wants to bring to the table during CHOGM 2015 is a sense of pride of belonging to this august organisation. We want to instill a conviction that by working together as a family of 53 nations we can achieve much.”

He went on to say that the Women’s Forum was instigated at Malta’s suggestion, adding: “We wanted CHOGM to be better informed of the potential lying within its citizens.”

Malta, one of just three European countries in the Commonwealth, is hosting CHOGM for the second time, having welcomed heads of government previously in 2005.

Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said: “On behalf of the Maltese government and our people, I would like to express how truly honoured we are to be hosting the 2015 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, a meeting which will undoubtedly tackle a number of key issues, while focusing on the Commonwealth’s global value.”

A 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit Pakistan and Afghanistan on 26 October, killing at least 370 people and injuring 1,900. Around 14,000 homes were lost.

Aid organisations, such as The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, have stepped in to help. However, the army is restricting access to the affected area, making it difficult for some non-profits to assist.

“If there is a silver lining to this earthquake, it is that it hit a remote area where fewer people live,” said Adam Eads, director of disaster programs at Give2Asia, a California-based organisation that is helping the relief effort.

Tel was one of five regional winners selected from 4,000 entries, his being the entry for Canada and Europe.

“I think of the short story, along with all the other stories that were regional winners, as existing, as it were, alongside each other, having a sort of genial conversation, stories interacting and remarking to each other,” Tel says.

He is currently writing a novel made up of several short stories about contemporary China, including The Shoe King of Shanghai, which was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Award 2014. He is looking for a publisher for the book. Tel is also writing a book of poems about Berlin.

Entries are now being accepted for the 2016 Prize. For more information see: www.commonwealthwriters.org

The announcement made history, as the Commonwealth Games have never been held in Africa before. The event will take place from 18-30 July 2022, kicking off on Nelson Mandela’s birthday.

Durban was left as the only contender to host the contest after the Canadian city of Edmonton withdrew, due to the country’s current economic difficulties.

Outgoing CGF President Prince Tunku Imran said: “It gives me great pleasure to welcome the South African city of Durban as proud hosts of the 22nd Commonwealth Games. As a movement we stand together to support the very first games on African soil.”

CGF Vice-President and South African Olympic Committee President Gideon Sam said that the event’s legacy would empower the nation’s young people.

“The fundamental premise of our submission is that the Games will provide the opportunity at both an economic and social level – in particular the development and inspiration of young people not only in South Africa but the rest of the Commonwealth,” he added.

The opening ceremony will be held at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.

The 2018 Commonwealth Games will take place in Australia’s Gold Coast.

The likelihood of crimes based around virtual currencies may be increased by the lack of restrictions governing them, according to a Commonwealth survey carried out in eight countries.

Virtual currencies are anonymised representations of value used for exchanges on the internet.

Currencies such as Bitcoin are widely used for the legitimate buying and selling of goods and services, but the Commonwealth researchers also found that there were not enough regulations in place to counteract the risk of criminal usage.

Opportunities for money laundering, the financing of terrorism and illegal trade exist within the current virtual currency system. Most criminal uses of virtual currencies take place in concealed or obscure parts of the web.

The Commonwealth Virtual Currencies Working Group met in London in August in an effort to find possible routes toward guarding against these threats.

“Collaboration and knowledge sharing is key to counter the risks and maximise the benefits of this rapidly developing technology,” said Katalaina Sapolu, director of the Commonwealth’s Rule of Law Division.

Online currencies don’t have legal tender status and in some countries, such as Bangladesh, they are not legal at all.

However, many other countries recognise it as a legitimate mode of exchange. The Financial Action Task Force this year released guidelines aimed at dealing with the potential for crime posed by virtual currencies.

New Zealanders are choosing between five designs for a prospective new flag in a postal referendum that runs between 20 November and 11 December.

The initial four candidates – three silver ferns and a koru – were selected by a panel from a longlist of the 40 best designs of the 10,300 sent in by the public when the government asked them to submit their ideas. Deputy Prime Minister Bill English announced their selection in September.

The first four finalists were Silver Fern (black and white) by Alofi Kanter from Auckland, Silver Fern (red, white and blue) and Silver Fern (black, white and blue) by Kyle Lockwood from Wellington, and Koru by Andrew Fyfe, also from Wellington.

Professor John Burrows, chair of the selection panel, said the panel’s choices were based on the recommendations of thousands of people of what they believed New Zealand stands for, along with the panel’s own criteria.

Response to the choices, however, was largely negative, with many New Zealanders left feeling they weren’t getting much of a say. Consequently a fifth candidate, Aaron Dustin’s Red Peak design, was championed by many members of the public – and was later officially added to the competition.

“In the end, I’m not wanting to be the one that stands in the way of people having some choice,” said Prime Minister John Key.

After one design is chosen from the five in the initial referendum, a second referendum will be held in March 2016, pitting the new design against the current flag.

If voters choose the new flag, it will be adopted six months later.

In November, France will be hosting the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), otherwise known as Paris 2015 or COP21. The conference, which will run from 30 November to 11 December, will look to draw up a new international agreement on climate change with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.

The UNFCCC was adopted at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. The Convention came into force on 21 March 1994 and was ratified by 196 states, now referred to as the ‘parties’ to the Convention. The key passages of the document acknowledge the existence of human-induced climate change and put the main emphasis on industrialised countries to stop it.

COP is the Convention’s supreme decision-making body. It meets annually to make decisions on goals for combating climate change. The COP held in Paris this year will be the 21st, hence the moniker COP21. The event is expected to have close to 50,000 participants, including 25,000 official delegates from governments, intergovernmental organisations, UN agencies, NGOs and civil society groups.

Lord Nicholas Stern is chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, part of the London School of Economics and Political Science. He says: “The two defining challenges of our century are overcoming poverty and managing climate change: if we fail on one, we will fail on the other. It is this understanding that links the climate negotiations, sustainable development and growth.

“So success in Paris will depend on a shared understanding of the profound interweaving of these challenges, and particularly the complementarity of sustainable development, economic growth and climate responsibility. Sustainable growth and climate responsibility are mutually supportive and intertwined. And international collaboration and co-ordination on finance and technology have never been more important to progress on sustainable development.”

COP21 comes just after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), the biennial event that sets future policy for the Commonwealth of Nations, which will take place in Malta in November (see Commonwealth Network, starting on page 67, for more on CHOGM). A Commonwealth statement on climate change will be released immediately before COP21, highlighting the challenges facing small and vulnerable states, which is an on-going concern of the Commonwealth. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, is scheduled to attend a special session on climate change at CHOGM to discuss the concerns of Commonwealth heads of government.

A number of small states in the Caribbean and the Pacific are members of the Commonwealth. Many of these countries are frequently prey to extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, which can devastate communities and cause loss of life. Rising sea levels are also a concern to many of these nations. Kiribati – a small group of islands in the Pacific ocean – has gone so far as to buy itself an island from Fiji as it is likely that its islands will become completely submerged in the future. The cost of protecting these islands from rising sea levels, as a proportion of national income, is among the highest in the world (see box below). Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Maldives – all Commonwealth countries – are among the ten nations where the financial impact of climate change is the most extreme.

Speaking at a Small States Forum in Lima, Peru in October, Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Deodat Maharaj called on the international community to ensure that COP21 becomes a turning point in agreeing to an ambitious climate change agenda and delivering resources effectively to those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. He added: “While many small states are middle-income countries, they are significantly different from larger middle-income countries by virtue of their disproportionate vulnerability to shocks. Both vulnerability and capacity for resilience must be considered as criteria for accessing concessional resources.”

The significance of 2°C

A National Research Council report in 2010 suggested that for every 1^oC increase in temperatures, there could be up to ten per cent less rainfall during the Mediterranean and southern African dry seasons and a corresponding increase of rainfall in arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

It could also mean up to ten per cent less stream flow in some river basins, up to a 15 per cent reduction in the corn crop in America and Africa and a similar lowering in yield from the wheat crop in India. Countries that suffer from bush fires could also see the areas burned by wildfire increase fourfold.

As far back as 1975, economist William Nordhaus warned that if temperatures rose more than 2^oC above pre-industrial levels, this would take the climate beyond temperatures that had been calculated for the last few hundred thousand years. He said:“According to most sources, the range of variation between distinct climatic regimes is on the order of around 5°C, and at present time the global climate is at the high end of this range.”

In 1990 the Stockholm Environment Institute suggested that policy-makers should strive to keep temperatures below 2^oC above pre-industrial levels.

The Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub

The Commonwealth convened an Expert Group to look at climate change in 2013. The group found that small states and least-developed countries are highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change and that their vulnerability is exacerbated by their inability to access available climate funds due to limited capacity. The group recommended a Commonwealth initiative be set up, aimed at assisting small and climate-vulnerable states with acute capacity needs to access existing sources of climate finance.

On the recommendation of the group, heads of government requested at CHOGM 2013 that a mechanism be developed – the Climate Finance Access Hub – that will enable these countries to improve their access to climate finance to cover the cost of adaptation and mitigation. In developing the Climate Finance Access Hub, the Commonwealth Secretariat has consulted widely with member states and climate change experts and will now present a proposal for the Hub to heads of government at CHOGM.

The Climate Finance Access Hub will aim to assist small and climate-vulnerable states with acute capacity needs to access existing sources of climate finance. This will facilitate cross-Commonwealth co-operation, as well as sharing of experience and expertise. Countries with limited expertise will be able to bid for and access climate finance and coherent approaches for dealing with multiple funds and partners will be established. There will be a small knowledge centre in Mauritius linked to technical advisers based around the Commonwealth. This online, networked approach will enable swift sharing of knowledge and expertise.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), have now been agreed by international leaders at a summit in New York and will take effect next year (see page 28). But the new goals are far more ambitious in their range and targets than the MDGs were. There are 17 of the SDGs, each with their own list of targets, which add up to a hefty 169 targets altogether. They cover poverty, food security, housing, health, access to clean water and the environment, including plants and animals. More or less everything you can think of that you would want in a perfect world is in there.

Some countries have baulked at the sheer number of them, suggesting that a smaller, more focused number of targets would be more achievable. Others argue that the goals are all interlinked, meaning that poverty, hunger and ill-health can only be tackled meaningfully by addressing all the other goals too.

Some goals are extremely ambitious, such as the one to “achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities” by 2030. Supporters of the SDGs call the goals ‘aspirational’, critics call them ‘naive’. Certainly, while some targets look realistic, others definitely don’t. Including a target of achieving full employment globally in 15 years – which is clearly impossible, since even the world’s richest countries have not achieved this – could risk damaging the credibility of the whole concept of the SDGs.

Goal 3 covers health and well-being. Some of the mortality targets are a continuation of the MDGs and, while the final data from the MDGs is yet to be analysed, a few countries are certain to fail some of their health targets. Sierra Leone, for example, is nowhere near its targets for child and maternal mortality, so reducing these figures further in the next 15 years is going to be tough for countries like this. The new maternal mortality target is to reduce deaths to less than 70 per 100,000 live births for every country by 2030. Sierra Leone’s maternal mortality ratio stood at 1,100 per 100,000 live births in 2013. Its MDG target for 2015 is 325. The country would need an awful lot of outside support to reduce its 2013 tally so drastically by 2030.

One of the more realistic-sounding goals is Goal 6, which looks to “ensure access to water and sanitation for all”. With enough support from developed countries and charities, there is no reason why this could not be achieved by 2030. It is supported by targets on water efficiency and reduction of the pollution of waterways, which also sound very reasonable.

Perhaps the most salient of all the SDGs is Goal 1, which sets out the aim of eradicating extreme poverty “for all people everywhere”, with extreme poverty defined as living on less than $1.25 a day. This really ought to be achievable by 2030, though it won’t be cheap – in 2013, the OECD estimated the cost of ending extreme poverty as being somewhere around 0.2 per cent of global GDP, or US$150 billion. The goal is backed up by a target aimed at putting policy frameworks in place at national and international levels “based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development”. If all the countries in the world made this goal a priority, a truly international effort could succeed in eradicating extreme poverty over the next 15 years. Then the SDGs would truly have served their purpose.

© OER Africa CC BY 2.0

Politics in post-independence Lesotho have been something of a battlefield, causing instability for the whole country at various junctures over the last five decades. There have been coups and the South African military had to intervene – at the request of the government – in the late 1990s to help restore peace. Even the royal family have not always been safe, with the King having to live in exile for a while in the 1970s. Just last year the Prime Minister fled to South Africa in fear of his life, after a vote of no confidence went against him in Parliament.

The modern state of Lesotho was forged in the early 1800s. Moshoeshoe I, a minor chief of the Bakwena, gathered a following among tribes trying to protect themselves against Zulu and Matabele raids. After successful resistance, Moshoeshoe became chief of the local Basotho and other tribal groups. He was also proactive in establishing relations with missionaries, especially French Catholics, whom he encouraged to establish missions and schools, and to advise him on negotiations with Europeans.

When the Boers set out on their Great Trek in 1834 in search of new territory, the savvy Moshoeshoe sought the protection of the British Crown – an alternative he preferred to annexation by the Boers. In 1868, the nation, then called Basutoland, was granted British protection and its borders, virtually unchanged today, were drawn up the following year. In 1871 Basutoland was annexed to the Cape Colony, but removed from Cape control 13 years later to come under direct British rule.

Lesotho became independent on 4 October 1966, with Chief Leabua Jonathan as Prime Minister and Moshoeshoe II as King.

The nation’s most recent troubles began after the general election in May 2012, which initially resulted in a peaceful transfer of power when Democratic Congress (DC) Prime Minister Bethuel Pakalitha Mosisili was succeeded by All Basotho Convention (ABC) leader Tom Thabane, the first change of prime minister since 1998. Thabane had come to prominence as a minister in the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) government, which was headed by Mosisili at the time. In October 2006, Thabane left LCD to form the ABC, along with 16 other LCD MPs.

In the meantime, Mosisili and 44 other members had also left the ruling LCD to set up DC. Thabane became Prime Minister in 2012, despite the ABC not polling the most votes. Mosisili’s DC had won the most seats (48) in the 2012 election, but did not have a working majority, so the three opposition parties (ABC, LCD and the Basotho National Party) formed a coalition, with parliament electing Thabane as Prime Minister.

By June 2014, divisions had appeared in the ruling coalition, culminating in a motion of no confidence against Thabane. Two months later, Thabane fled to South Africa, alleging that the army had attempted a coup and saying that he feared for his life. The South African government provided a security escort so that Thabane was able to return to Lesotho in early September of that year. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) initiated a process of mediation between the political stakeholders, which was facilitated by South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. This resulted in the signing of the Maseru Facilitation Declaration on 2 October 2014, which committed all political parties to the reconvening of Parliament on 17 October 2014. The declaration limited the business of that next Parliament to discussion about the budget and matters relating to the holding of elections; and to the holding of elections in February 2015.

In National Assembly elections in February 2015, Mosisili’s DC won 47 seats, Thabane’s ABC 46, the LCD 12 and the BNP seven. Neither DC nor ABC won a majority of the 120 seats in Parliament so, after negotiations with the smaller parties, the DC announced in March that it would form a coalition government with the LCD and five other smaller parties. Mosisili was, once again, Prime Minister.

The reinstatement of Mosisili as leader seems to have done little to promote peace and stability, however. In June it was reported that all opposition leaders, including Thabane, had fled abroad. Thabane, now leader of the opposition, claimed to have been the target of an assassination plot. Former Lesotho army commander Maaparankoe Mahao was also killed by soldiers in June, with opposition parties and civil society telling Cyril Ramaphosa, South African Deputy President and SADC facilitator, that there were splits within the army and that the government did not seem to be in control of the armed forces. They spoke of a deteriorating security situation, saying that ordinary people – and some soldiers – were in fear of their lives when Ramaphosa held talks in Maseru in June.

Mosisili disputes claims that the government is not in control of the army, however, saying: “The army has no power or political ambition as far as we are aware. Therefore the relationship between the Coalition government and the army is strictly professional.” See page 15 for more of Mosisili’s views on the army.

The killing of Mahao has caused particular concern among the international community, especially as it happened under the watch of newly reinstated lieutenant-general Tlali Kamoli who was head of the armed forces at the time of the alleged attempted coup in 2014.

George Robinson, an international affairs consultant for MWW, a US-based communications agency, says: “Lesotho has never been politically stable, and election results have always been fraught with dispute. The death of Lieutenant-General Maaparankoe Mahoa, which spurred the latest round of unrest, was just another chapter in the long-running saga of Lesotho’s army being beyond any kind of legitimate control. The decision of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili to reinstate Tlali Kamoli as Mahoa’s replacement after this was unforgivable, given that Kamoli is widely-believed to have staged the failed coup that led to elections earlier this year. It shows that Mosisili has little appetite to bring peace back to Lesotho.”

The government initially agreed to a SADC-led Commission of Inquiry into the killing of Maaparankoe Mahao and other security issues in Lesotho. Botswana Judge Mpaphi Phumaphi is chairing the enquiry. However, the government has been largely boycotting the enquiry, unhappy that so many of the hearings have taken place in South Africa, where Thabane and various ex-soldiers remain in exile.

“Given the power that the army holds, bringing it back into line will be no easy matter,” cautions Robinson. “Sadly, many feel that sanctions are now the only viable answer. The US and EU have already said that if Lesotho does not sort out its problems, aid will be discontinued. One of the first steps could see Lesotho removed from the African Growth and Opportunity Act. This should be a last resort, however, as the people hurt the most by this will be Lesotho’s rural poor.”

In a country where many people live below the poverty line, political instability does nothing to raise the standard of living and diverts the focus of the government of the day from dealing with some of the every day concerns that affect the lives of the population. One in five people in Lesotho don’t have access to a source of improved drinking water and 70 per cent have to live with inadequate sanitation facilities – a similar situation to other developing countries in the region.

Only 64 per cent of children complete primary school. Access to health care is limited in the most remote areas, though a network of hospitals, clinics and health centres provide basic facilities across most of the country. The country looks to have failed to meet its Millennium Development Goals on maternal and child mortality, which sought to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015 and reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters in the same timescale. Just 62 per cent of births were attended by qualified health staff in 2009 – again this is not dissimilar conditions in other lower middle-income countries, but the UN was aiming for this figure to reach 100 per cent in all countries by 2015.

But the health statistic that stands out the most is that life expectancy is a shockingly low 49 years, due to the spread of AIDS.

“Little is done about the country’s crippling AIDS problem,” adds Robinson. “It is famously said that there are two types of people in Lesotho: those infected by AIDS and those affected by it.”

Mosisili blames the escalation of the AIDS crisis partly on the previous government (see page 16). Robinson, however, thinks that poverty is the underlying reason why AIDS has such a grip on Lesotho, when other African countries have had more success in stemming the number of deaths.

“AIDS is exacerbated by food insecurity, with much of the population having to choose between putting food on the table or buying medication,” he says. “This is a vicious cycle, with Aids killing many farmers, meaning that the food crisis only gets worse. Charities like Sentebale are left to fill in the gaps, but they can only do so much.”