Non-Green Companies Warned on Earnings

WASHINGTON, Dec 3 (OneWorld.net) - Companies producing many food, beverage, and household items must implement sustainable environmental strategies or risk income losses of 19 to 47 percent over the next 10 years, says a report released Tuesday by an environmental think tank.

• Go green or lose green, say environmental experts. © Charlie Ambler (Flickr)The analysis, performed by the World Resources Institute and management concultancy A.T. Kearney, finds that "environmental pressures will continue to impact the supply and price of key commodities in the long term. The [current financial] crisis should be viewed as an opportunity to address these challenges through transformational change and not as a time to ignore them."

• Last month, as the Group of 20 major economic powers prepared to meet to discuss the global financial meltdown, environmental experts from the Worldwatch Institute urged leaders to focus on a "Global Green Deal that capitalizes on the current economic crisis to build economically and environmentally sustainable economies." In particular, Gary Gardner and Michael Renner said that transitioning to a renewable energy economy will not only phase out limited, environmentally hazardous power sources like oil and coal, but will also usher in 2 million new jobs around the world. "Doing more with less," they noted, "is one of the surest paths to wealth creation, and environmentalists have a great many ideas to raise energy and materials efficiency."

• And green business practices do not only benefit companies and the environment, but also, in many cases, local people. In November, for example, the world's first shipments of sustainable palm oil left Malaysia for Europe as part of a global effort to avert ecological disaster and support millions of poor palm oil producers. Palm oil is found in roughly half of all packed grocery items in supermarkets. The establishment of palm oil planatations, however, not only causes severe environmental harm -- particularly through mass deforestation -- but it often forces small farmers and indigenous communities off their traditional land and can lead to serious abuse of workers' rights, including harsh working conditions, unfair pay, and exposure to toxic pesticides. OneWorld.net reports on the alternatives.

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Consumer Goods Companies Face Major Earning Hit Without Smart Environmental Sourcing

From: World Resources Institute

CHICAGO and WASHINGTON, DC, December 2, 2008 -

Companies in certain consumer goods sectors that do not implement sustainable environmental strategies could face a potential reduction of 13 percent to 31 percent in earnings by 2013 and 19 percent to 47 percent in earnings in 2018.

These findings are the result of a “future scenario” analysis released today by the World Resources Institute and A.T. Kearney, Inc. It is titled Rattling Supply Chains: The Effect of Environmental Trends on Input Costs to the Fast Moving Consumer Goods Industry, and is the first report of its kind to calculate the financial impact of environmental issues facing this industry.

The analysis provides consumer packaged goods executives with a tool to assess how environmental legislation and climate change could impact their businesses in future years. It also outlines how these executives can begin to develop strategies to address these issues.

Although the current financial crisis has resulted in declining commodity prices, the authors find that environmental pressures will continue to impact the supply and price of key commodities in the long term. The crisis should be viewed as an opportunity to address these challenges through transformational change and not as a time to ignore them.

“The Ecoflation scenario is a vision of a future where companies have to deal with environmental costs previously borne by society,” said Andrew Aulisi, director of WRI’s Markets and Enterprise Program. “Environmental concerns are driving a global trend of policy activism and regulation. Our scenario describes this trend and the most pressing environmental challenges, and finds that the earnings of consumer goods companies are exposed to significant risk rising out of their supply chains.”

For their research, WRI and A.T. Kearney based the “ecoflation” scenario on major environmental trends and policy developments, such as U.S. and international climate change regulations, enhanced forest policies, growing water scarcity, and new biofuel policies. They then analyzed how these drivers might affect prices on selected commodities like oil, natural gas, electricity, cereals and grains, soy, sugar, palm oil, and timber. The results offer tangible illustrations of how environmental costs might impact the value chain, especially for fast-moving consumer goods that are usually produced in large quantities, such as food and beverages or household products.

Cereal prices, for example, are shown to have upward pressure from climate change policy and growing water scarcity, but may be reduced if certain biofuel policy changes reduce ethanol demand. The report finds a 6 to 13 percent increase in cereal commodity prices due to these pressures.

“The results highlight the need for strategic scenario-based planning,” according to Daniel Mahler, A.T. Kearney partner. “Winning companies will anticipate this changing landscape. These companies will collaborate with suppliers and other stakeholders, and make environmental sustainability a key business principal.”

Rattling the Supply Chain outlines a four-step process to develop a robust strategy around a company’s sustainability challenge and opportunities:

1. Understand environmental impacts and dependencies by examining how cost drivers are exposed to emerging environmental trends and, when possible, seek substitutes with lower environmental impacts.
2. Take inventory of current sustainability initiatives through the value chain to see what the company, its suppliers, and its partners are addressing.
3. Prioritize environmental issues and opportunities according to their current and future potential impact on costs, revenues, and reputation.
4. Chart a new course by having a cross-functional team systematically evaluate opportunities to reduce cost exposure to critical input commodities. This evaluation should include product re-design, backwards supply chain integration, local versus global sourcing, and an upgrade of sustainability standards for the supply base.

Global Effort Raises Awareness on Gender Violence

NEW YORK, Dec 3 (OneWorld.net) - Human rights groups in many parts of the world are taking to the streets this week to demand strict legal actions against those who commit violence against women and girls.

This women's group helps support victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. © cyclopsr (Flickr)"This is a truly global campaign to support women and girls to live their lives free from sexual and physical violence," said Heidi Lehmann of the U.S.-based International Rescue Committee (IRC) about the two-week campaign against gender violence.

Along with scores of other women's rights organizations, the IRC is currently engaged in organizing seminars, meetings, movie showings, and demonstrations to highlight the issue of gender violence.

Among the many events taking place are soccer and kickball tournaments in Liberia and Burundi, a London film screening about rape in the Congo, a discussion in Uganda about women and AIDS, and a Washington, DC roundtable on the U.S. role in fighting violence worldwide.

The campaign, which started on Nov. 25, leads up to the 60th anniversary of the UN adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence" was launched by women's rights groups in 1991. Every year the campaign runs from Nov. 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, through Dec. 10, which marks International Human Rights Day.

Despite improved laws and international treaties signed by various governments in the past few years, millions of women in many parts of the world continue to suffer violence at the hands of men.

At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime, and the abuser is usually someone known to her, says the UN Development Fund for Women.

According to the United Nations, in Russia, at least 14,000 women are killed by their husband or boyfriend every year. In India, demand is growing for girls trafficked from lower castes, who are subjected to household sexual slavery.

UN research shows that more women are being infected with HIV than men. Many of them get the disease as a result of the gender-based violence they face.

Rape in wartime, the practice of "widow cleansing" (where widows are expected to have sexual relations with a relative of their dead husband in order to secure property within the family), domestic violence, and female genital cutting are all forms of gender violence, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Domestic violence is defined by legal experts as an act that involves various forms of physical aggression, ranging from slaps, punches, and kicks to forced sex, assault with a weapon, and homicide.

Some UN studies show that women who suffer violence at home are 10 times more likely to acquire HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Research shows that in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, women have been known to burn themselves alive as a way to escape domestic violence.

UNFPA also cites the phenomenon of "compensation marriages" prevalent in northwestern Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa. This refers to the practice of forcing minor girls into marriages as compensation to offset debts or other disputes.

"The right to live free of violence and discrimination is the right of every human being," said UNFPA chief Thoraya Ahmed Obaid. "Yet this right is being violated on a massive and systematic scale."

Authors of a 2006 UN study strongly criticized governments that failed to adopt laws criminalizing gender violence. The findings showed that more than 100 countries still had no specific laws on domestic violence.

According to the report, many countries do not have sufficient support measures in place for victims of gender violence, nor do they keep any systematic or reliable data on violence against women.

In a past statement, Obaid urged all governments and parliaments that have not yet done so to adopt laws and establish programs to address these rights violations.

Joining others in the ongoing international campaign, women's groups in the United States are currently pressing members of Congress to endorse a proposed law that would protect women in poor countries.

"Violence is one of the biggest barriers to women's economic participation. It's hard to work if you fear for your life," said Ritu Sharma Fox, co-founder of the Women Thrive Worldwide coalition based in Washington, DC.

According to UN research, violence against women exists in every country in the world and continues to hinder efforts for gender equality.

Available statistics suggest that domestic violence is something that is rampant not only in developing countries, which frequently lack legal protections and equal opportunities for women, but also in industrially developed societies.

Despite strict laws against gender violence in the United States, for example, one in four women is a victim of domestic abuse there, according to a recent study titled "Women in an Insecure World" from the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces.

100 Nations Ban Cluster Bombs

WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (OneWorld.net) - As 100 nations met in Oslo yesterday to sign a landmark treaty outlawing the use of cluster munitions, human rights groups are putting pressure on the United States and other nations to join the ban.

• Ms. Thuyen lost part of her right leg after stepping on a concealed landmine in Vietnam. © Chi Vu/Advocacy ProjectOutgoing U.S. President George W. Bush has opposed signing the treaty banning cluster bombs, with the State Department saying: "Such a general ban on cluster munitions will put the lives of our military men and women, and those of our coalition partners, at risk." Many activists and stakeholders are now questioning whether President-elect Barack Obama will reverse his predecessor's policy. Previously, Obama has voted in favor of limiting the use of cluster munitions, notes an article in the UK's Guardian newspaper.

• Cluster munitions are large weapons that release up to hundreds of smaller submunitions. "Air-dropped or ground-launched, they cause two major humanitarian problems and risks to civilians," writes the Cluster Munition Coalition. "First, their widespread dispersal means they cannot distinguish between military targets and civilians so the humanitarian impact can be extreme, especially when the weapon is used in or near populated areas. [Second,] many submunitions fail to detonate on impact and become de facto antipersonnel mines killing and maiming people long after the conflict has ended." For these reasons, 98 percent of cluster-bomb victims are civilians and 27 percent are children, says a study by Handicap International, highlighted on the Web site of the British Independent newspaper.

• At least 14 countries have used the weapons and over two dozen countries have been affected by them, meaning cluster munitions pose an even graver threat to civilians than antipersonnel mines, according to the Cluster Munition Coaliton.

• This September, a group of Lebanese and international deminers received a prestigious human rights award for their work, which has cleared the way for nearly 1 million displaced people to safely return home. The deminers have cleared tens of thousands of mines and cluster munitions following a month-long conflict in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, a powerful Shia militia active in southern Lebanon. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports.

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Nations to Sign Landmark Ban on Cluster Bombs

Obama Should Reverse US Refusal to Join Treaty

From: Human Rights Watch

(Oslo, December 2, 2008) - The new international treaty banning the use of cluster munitions, to be signed in Oslo on December 3 by about 100 nations, will save thousands of lives, Human Rights Watch said today. The ban, the most significant arms control and humanitarian treaty in a decade, is supported by the overwhelming majority of NATO members but was opposed by the Bush administration.

"The cluster bomb treaty will save countless lives by stigmatizing a weapon that kills civilians even after the fighting ends," said Steve Goose, director of the Arms division at Human Rights Watch. "President-elect Barack Obama should make joining the cluster ban treaty a top priority."

The Convention on Cluster Munitions opens for signature on December 3, 2008, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and anniversary of the 1997 signing of the treaty banning antipersonnel landmines. The two-day signing conference will start with countries affected by cluster bombs, including Laos, which still suffers the effect of US Vietnam-era bombings, and Lebanon, target of Israeli cluster bombs during the 2006 war with Hezbollah. The "core group" that led the Oslo Process, which produced the treaty, will also be among the first signatories (Norway, Austria, Holy See, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, and Zambia).

Many of the world's past users, producers, exporters, and stockpilers will sign, as well as many of those contaminated from past use.

The convention prohibits the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions. It commits nations to clear affected areas within 10 years, declare and destroy stockpiled cluster munitions within eight years, help affected nations with clearance, and provide comprehensive assistance to victims of the weapon. The treaty will go into effect after 30 nations have signed and ratified it.

Cluster munitions can be fired by artillery and rocket systems or dropped by aircrafts, and typically explode in the air and send dozens, even hundreds, of tiny bomblets over an area the size of a football field. Used in urban areas, they invariably kill and wound civilians. Used in any circumstance, they can harm civilians decades after the war is over, as "duds" on the ground act like landmines, exploding when touched by unwitting civilians.

Both governments and nongovernmental organizations campaigning for the treaty intentionally built on the precedent set by the 1997 Antipersonnel Mine Ban Treaty, which proved to have an effect beyond the nations that signed it. Although the United States has still not signed the Mine Ban Treaty, for example, it has not used, exported, or produced any antipersonnel landmines since the treaty was negotiated 11 years ago.

Nongovernmental organizations, deminers, and cluster victims are attending the signing ceremony in Oslo City Hall, along with dozens of foreign ministers and other government officials. A delegation from Human Rights Watch is attending, along with its partners in the Cluster Munition Coalition, which it helped found and co-chairs. In 1999, Human Rights Watch was the first nongovernmental organization to call for a global halt to the use of cluster munitions.

"We'd love to see Washington, Moscow, and the others sign the treaty, but we think the ban will so stigmatize cluster bombs that even those who don't join now will be deterred from using the weapon," Goose said. "But a US decision to sign would certainly signal President Obama's commitment to multilateral action after the go-it-alone Bush era."

Brazil Sets High Goals for Forest Protection

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (OneWorld.net) - Following reports that Amazon deforestation is on the rise, Brazil has produced a revised plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 70 percent over the next eight years. Environmental activists met the plan with tempered applause.

• A birds-eye view of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. © longan drink (flickr)Late last month, new figures released by a Brazilian space agency revealed an increase in deforestation across the nation. From August 2007 to July 2008, Brazil cleared 3.8 percent more Amazonian flora than in the previous year, "an unwelcome surprise following declines of 18 percent over the previous period," writes the environmental group WWF.

• If serious action is not taken to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, the average global temperature will increase by an estimated 12 degrees Fahrenheit (6.4 degrees Celsius) by the end of the century, reports the Earth Policy Institute. Global warming, in turn, has been linked to rising sea levels, stronger storms, and severe droughts, all of which impact communities around the world, particularly by depressing food production at a time of global scarcity.

• OneWorld has sent a team to the United Nations climate negotiations again this year to open up this crucial conference to anybody and everybody around the world. OneWorld journalists will be providing a news roundup each day Dec. 6-12 and facilitating live interactive discussions online and in Second Life. Tune in at OneClimate.net at noon EST to stay up-to-date and take part.

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Brazil falls short with forest emission reduction ambitions

From: WWF

03 Dec 2008

Brasilia, Brail: Brazil's revised National Climate Change Plan, which for the first time defines goals for reducing massive emissions from deforestation in the Amazon, is commendable but still short on ambition and detail, WWF-Brazil said today.

The revised plan was released to coincide with the Conference of Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Poznan, Poland which is to put key processes in place to achieve an international climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol by the next COP meeting in Copenhagen in December next year.

Under the revised plan, the Brazilian government establishes a goal of reducing the annual rate of deforestation by 40 per cent from average 1996-2005 levels during 2006-09, with reductions of a further 30 per cent in each of the subsequent four-year periods. The aim is to achieve a total decrease of over 70% by 2014-2017.

Achieving these goals would avoid 4.8 billion tons of CO2 emissions during 2006-2017, a figure greater than the annual emissions of the European Union.

"This goal is reasonably ambitious," says Carlos Alberto de Mattos Scaramuzza, Conservation Director at WWF-Brazil. "To achieve it, next year deforestation will have to drop 23% in relation to this year."

In Brazil, land use and land use change represent 75% of greenhouse gas emissions, the vast majority originating from deforestation in the Amazon region. Hence reducing deforestation in the Amazon is a critical component of any strategy aimed at lowering Brazil´s greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the scenario defined in the plan, the average area of Amazon forest cleared each year would be 5,742 km2 by 2014-17.

"That´s bigger than the US state of Rhode Island," says Scaramuzza. "The CO2 released from clearing this area of Amazon forest would be roughly equivalent to the current annual emissions of Canada."

Together with eight other environmental NGOs, WWF-Brazil has proposed zero deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon by 2015. According to Scaramuzza: "This goal is achievable if key actors-ranging from indigenous peoples to ranchers-are compensated for conserving the forest and thereby avoiding deforestation."

In August the government of Norway pledged US$1 billion toward a newly established Amazon Fund. This voluntary contribution complements the ongoing climate negotiations, which are contemplating payments for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). Yet environmental NGOs such as WWF-Brazil have expressed concerns about the effectiveness of the Amazon Fund.

"This fund appears to be geared primarily to supporting government command-and-control programmes," says WWF-Brazil's CEO Denise Hamú. "To achieve more ambitious reductions in deforestation, it will be effective mechanisms to compensate the key actors on the ground who determine the fate of the forest."

As part of its long-term conservation strategy for the Amazon, WWF-Brazil supports a wide range of initiatives aimed at protecting natural ecosystems and managing natural resources.

WWF-Brazil assists the Brazilian government´s ambitious Amazon Protected Area (ARPA) programme, which aims to consolidate a total of 600,000 km2 in new and existing protected areas in the region by 2012. A recent study found that the protected areas established or planned for establishment in 2008 under the program would result in a total reduction of 5.1 gigatons of CO2 emissions by 2050, which is roughly equivalent to 14% of global CO2e emissions per year, or 70% of the emissions targeted for reduction under the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

Millions Immunized Against Polio in Bangladesh

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (OneWorld.net) - With hopes of eradicating polio in Bangladesh, health agencies have immunized 22 million children against the disease.

• A six-month old boy is vaccinated against polio on 29 November. © IRINAfter a five-year absence, polio re-emerged in Bangladesh in 2006. The subsequent drive to eradicate the illness "has been one of the best examples of a nation standing as one to immunize its children against the disease. The central challenge now is to sustain the momentum. For as long as one transmitter of polio virus remains anywhere, all children will be at risk - and until that last child is reached, the task is not completed," states Louis Georges Arsenault, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) representative in Bangladesh.
  

• The World Health Organization set out to eliminate polio, an infectious waterborne disease, worldwide in 1988. Since then, the global incidence of polio has fallen by 99 percent. Polio remains endemic in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan and a number of once polio-free nations have experienced re-infection. For more information, see the Global Polio Eradication Initiative's 2007 annual report.

• Despite shortcomings in quality of staff and treatment for the poorest sectors of society, key health indicators in Bangladesh, such as child and maternal mortality rates, indicate significant improvement since 1990. A key contributor to the country's health status will be the dramatic advance in access to safe sanitation, an important aspect of polio prevention as the disease can spread rapidly through human faeces. Defying gloomy progress reports elsewhere in the world, Bangladesh claims to be close to achieving a target of universal sanitation by 2010. Read more about health, development, and human rights in OneWorld UK's Bangladesh country guide.

BANGLADESH: Some 22 million children immunised against polio

From: IRIN

DHAKA, 1 December 2008 (IRIN) - Health experts in Bangladesh have successfully immunised 22 million under-five children against polio, a debilitating disease that mainly strikes children.

"We hope we will be able to make Bangladesh polio-free by 2011," Salma Begum, a local field worker told IRIN in a suburb of Dhaka, adding that there had not been a single case of polio in the country since November 2006.

Field workers from the government's health and family planning department, along with 600,000 volunteers administered the oral polio vaccines (OPVs) to children on 29 November at 140,000 sites across the country, followed by a four-day house-to-house search to ensure that no child was left out.

"When the immunisation team visited our slum, I took my two younger brothers to them to receive the drops and capsules," said seven-year-old Shapla Khatun of the Shekher Tek slum in Dhaka's Mohammadpur area. Shapla's father is a rickshaw puller. Her mother works as a domestic help.

About 22 million under-fives, or about 97 percent of that age group, were immunised against polio, as part of Bangladesh's current (17th) national immunisation day (NID), with each one receiving two drops of OPV and a vitamin A capsule as part of the first round of the campaign.

Vitamin A is given to children to bolster their immune system against diseases such as measles, diarrhoea and night blindness.

Coverage of vitamin A supplementation increased from around 50 percent in the mid-1990s to above 95 percent in recent years, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The government of Bangladesh, with support from UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), carried out the campaign.

Re-emergence of polio

Photo: David Swanson/IRIN

Children under five years of age are particularly susceptible

Polio (poliomyelitis) is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. It invades the nervous system, and can cause paralysis or even death within hours, say health experts.

The polio virus enters the body through the mouth, or in water or food that has been contaminated with faecal material from an infected person. The disease mainly affects younger children, but in rare instances, can affect older children as well.

Bangladesh launched the drive to immunise all under-five children when, after a lapse of five years, a case of polio was detected in March 2006.

Eighteen polio cases were thereafter detected in 12 districts across all divisions of Bangladesh, with the last one reported on 22 November 2006, according to UNICEF.

Since the 2006 detection, there have been six polio NIDs in 2006 and four in 2007. In each case 95-98.2 percent of under-five children were immunised.

With support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Micronutrient Initiative, UNICEF and WHO, the government of Bangladesh added vitamin A capsules which were dispensed with OPV during this latest NID.

Beyond polio

"The current NID round is sure to go much beyond containing the recurrence of polio alone," said Carel de Rooy, UNICEF representative in Bangladesh.

"By combining OPV and vitamin A supplementation, the NID campaign will be able to reduce a host of other illnesses like measles, diarrhoea and night blindness that pose threats to the lives of children in Bangladesh," he said.

Measles and diarrhoea contribute to over 25 percent of deaths among children aged 1-5 in Bangladesh, UNICEF has reported.

The annual number of under-five deaths per 1,000 live births was 69 in 2006.

"Bangladesh is again a polio-free country since 2006, but the threat of recurrence of the virus still exists. We need to sustain our achievements made during the previous NIDs, along with the routine EPI [Expanded Programme on Immunisation] coverage, particularly in hard-to-reach areas," said Duangvadee Sungkhobol, WHO representative in Bangladesh.

EU Governments 'Neglecting Congo'

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (OneWorld.net) - A leading international humanitarian aid group has accused France, Germany, and the UK of failing to respond to the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced due to unabating violence.

• Too afraid to return home, Congolese men, women, and children gather at refugee camps, where they are still subject to violence. © cyclopsr (Flickr)A fragile ceasefire between rebel groups and the Congolese government was declared upon the signing of the Goma peace agreement this January. Since Aug. 28, however, "fighting has resumed between the Congolese army and the forces of renegade general Laurent Nkunda, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), as well as other armed groups," explains Human Rights Watch (HRW). Now, with UN peacekeeping forces stretched thin, HRW is calling for increased military capacity to keep the people of the DRC safe.

• Women in the DRC have been most severely affected by the conflict and hundreds of thousands have been sexually assaulted since the war began in 1996, according to HRW. Relief organization Oxfam International estimates that approximately 1,100 are attacked every month. Nonetheless, women in the DRC continue to work to support each other and their communities while demanding peace and protection of their human rights. For their bravery and resilience, the women of the DRC have been named finalists for OneWorld.net's People of 2008 Award. Click here to read their story and vote.

• Although limited aid has reached the affected populations, one aid organization has set up a community-driven reconstruction program in eastern DRC called Tuungane, which in the Kiswahili language means "moving forward together." The International Rescue Committee's program aims to foster democracy, rebuild social services, create new economic opportunities, and restore order to an area torn by conflict and violence.

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Oxfam demands France, Germany and UK face up to the humanitarian crisis in Congo and get behind European 'bridging force'

From: Oxfam International

December 3, 2008

International agency Oxfam today accuses European member states of turning their backs on the suffering of the people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The crisis in DRC is horrendous for hundreds of thousands of people displaced due to the unabated violence and agencies are finding it extremely difficult to get aid to those in need.

Oxfam urges European governments, particularly France, Germany and the UK who have the capacity to lead the way, to ensure the swift deployment of a peacekeeping force to provide greater protection for people in desperate need now.

The UN Security Council recently agreed that the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC needed a further 3,000 troops, but it will take up to six months for them to be deployed. The EU has the ability to deploy a force which could provide greater protection for civilians now, until the MONUC reinforcements arrive.

“Oxfam is extremely disappointed by the unwillingness of European governments to provide a temporary peacekeeping mission to DRC. Member states must live up to their responsibility to protect civilians caught up in fighting and they must do it now. EU leaders have to face up to the stark choice before them. Failure to do so means armed men go on murdering, raping and looting indiscriminately and the enormous suffering in DRC continues.” said Elise Ford, head of Oxfam's EU office in Brussels.

Juliette Prodhan, head of Oxfam in DRC said: “Just because the media spotlight is no longer so focussed on the crisis in North Kivu does not mean that the humanitarian catastrophe has abated. The people here cannot wait six months for further protection.

“The fighting goes on between the different factions, there are still large numbers of armed men across the region terrorising local people, and thousands of Congolese people are still being forced to flee their homes every day.

“The EU governments are turning their back on the tens of thousands of vulnerable people in need of urgent protection. We cannot stand by and allow this to happen.”

Fighting in the Masisi area, 60km from the North Kivu capital Goma, over the last two days, has forced thousands of people to abandon their homes and aid agencies to evacuate the main town.

An upsurge in violence in the border town of Ishasha, over the weekend led to 13,000 more civilians fleeing into Uganda.

The humanitarian situation is alarming in the major town of Kanyabayonga, 150km north of Goma, where the 60,000-strong population was forced to flee two weeks ago when armed men went on the rampage, looting and raping. Oxfam has managed to start trucking water into the region, but the insecurity in the whole region means aid agencies cannot work in the town for more than two hours a day before having to retreat to safer areas once it gets dark.

“About half of the people in Kanyabayonga are still spending their nights in the bush because they are afraid of being robbed or raped in their homes. The number of armed men in the area means the people risk their lives just to grow, buy or sell the food they need to survive,” said Martin Hartberg, Oxfam's protection advisor.

Meanwhile, people living in and around the two Kibati camps, a few kilometers north of Goma, are under a constant threat of violence, rape and looting due to large numbers of armed men in the vicinity.

An Oxfam survey makes clear that the people in these camps are menaced on a daily basis by armed men. People in the camps are also afraid of being caught in the crossfire should fighting break out again.

“France which currently holds the EU presidency has already shown strong political commitment by helping to persuade the UN Security Council to authorize MONUC to deploy more troops on the ground. But the people in North Kivu urgently need greater protection now and some EU member states are willing to provide it. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner must now mobilize the political will that is so urgently needed and gain agreement for the swift deployment of a peacekeeping force,” said Nicolas Vercken, Oxfam conflict advocacy officer in Paris.