Commentary following the EU summit last week can be roughly divided into two types. While some prefer to see the glass as half full, with the decision to open accession negotiations for Ukraine and Moldova dominating the news, others say that Hungary’s positioning, and not just on Ukraine, is becoming increasingly problematic for the EU, and it is time other member states did something about Victor Orbán’s obstruction of crucial decisions.

Hungary’s veto on releasing the long-awaited €50bn ($55bn) aid package to Ukraine significantly undermined the positive message generated by the summit. But there are nonetheless encouraging conclusions to be drawn, and not only for candidate states.

There is, at last, a sense of German leadership on EU enlargement, even if this was oddly manifested — Chancellor Olaf Scholz invited Orbán to leave the room as a face-saving means to usher through the crucial vote on opening Ukraine’s accession talks.

If this had been a fictional tale, some readers would have found Scholz’s change of heart incredible, given that he barely agreed to Ukraine’s candidate status in summer 2022. But in real life, a change of leaders’ political perspective does happen, with time, not least due to a well-informed debate underway this year among the German foreign policy community.

For now, it appears that the pro-enlargement position of some in the German Bundestag and Ministry of Foreign Affairs has won the day, and rather than remain skeptical or disengaged, the Chancellor has chosen to lead this trend. This is promising, given that Germany was also a leader of the previous EU enlargement. This time around, however, Germany would not have been able to pull it off without heavyweight support from Poland, and that arrived in the form of Donald Tusk, who finally took the prime minister’s job in December after his election win two months earlier.

There is now a profound sense of ill-will toward Hungary. One senior official stated, tartly, that “at least 26” of the bloc’s leaders were responsible people, while a senior EU diplomat told Reuters the Budapest government were “hooligans” on Ukraine policy. This language is unusual and reflects the deep sense of aggravation at Orbán’s policy. By Marija Golubeva, CEPA

The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) acting Managing Director Samuel Maina's contract has been terminated with immediate effect.

ICT Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo, in a letter dated Tuesday, December 19,  said Maina had been dismissed for committing the government to pay USD 5 billion (Sh765 billion) in LCIA Arbitration without approval from the ICT Ministry, the Attorney General and Treasury.

Maina will now be replaced by Paul Macharia who will serve for six months in acting capacity. 

"I duly appoint Paul Macharia, currently the Communication Economic Expert at the National Communications Secretariat which falls under the mandate of the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy, as the Acting Managing Director...upon the appointment of a substantive Chief Executive Officer pursuant to section 34 of the Public Service Commission Act, No.10 of 2017," Owalo said in the letter addressed to the Chairman of the Board at KBC, Benjamin Maingi.

Further, Owalo has instructed the Board to expedite the process of recruitment of a substantive Managing Director for the media house. Maina was appointed the Acting Managing Director (MD) at KBC following Naim Bilal's contract expiry in March 2022.

Maina is a former Vice-President of the Kenya Editors’ Guild, who also served as KBC’s Editor-in-Chief. By Stephanie Wangari , The Standard

Refugees are facing “widespread homelessness” after only being given seven days notice to leave temporary accommodation, a bishop has warned.

Ministers told the Bishop of London that those with an asylum claim are given a 28-day period or longer to leave Home Office housing.

But in the House of Lords, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally said that this was not proving to be the case in practice.

She told peers: “Many of those who support refugees are receiving increasing numbers of concerns that refugees are being given as few as seven days’ notice before being evicted, causing widespread homelessness and greater concern.

“Last week, I, along with 45 faith and belief leaders, wrote to the minister for illegal migration and the faith minister about this. What data is the Home Office collecting that demonstrates that the 28-day notice period is being properly implemented? What action will it take to review it, given reported failures to do so?”

Home Office minister Lord Sharpe of Epsom responded: “I will go through the process: all individuals who receive a positive decision on their asylum claim can remain on support and in their accommodation for at least 28 days from when their decision is served.

“However… current practice is that individuals remain on that support and in accommodation for 28 days from the point of the biometric residence permit being issued. That can be five to seven days after the asylum decision.

“This means that individuals have longer than the 28-day notice after receiving their grant of leave to make onward arrangements. Confirmation of the exact date that an individual’s support and accommodation are due to end will be issued in a notice-to-quit or notice-to-vacate letter from the individual’s accommodation provider. This notice will be issued at least seven days before support and accommodation is due to end.

“There are at least three opportunities there where the asylum seeker, or the asylum claimant who has received a decision, will be notified. They have plenty of time.” 

Further questioning about the deadline revealed that the minister was unable to say when refugees were first notified of the need to leave their accommodation.

Crossbencher Baroness Watkins of Tavistock asked: “Is the minister confident that these refugees are made aware when they get their biometric assessment that the 28 days is commencing, or do they not realise that until they get the seven-day notice?”

Lord Sharpe was not able to confirm, telling peers: “I am going to look into that, because I do not know. I assume that they are made aware of it, of course, but I have not been present when one of these notices is issued. I will find out.” 

Labour Home Office spokesman Lord Coaker meanwhile claimed that “the reality for many refugees with newly granted status is that they are required to leave their accommodation, often within seven days from being given a notice to quit”.

He added: “That means they are forced to go to their local authorities and many of them are homeless or on the streets. That is the reality, and it is the result of Government policy. All the minister tells us is that everything is fine, but it is not. It needs sorting out.”

Lord Sharpe continued to insist there was a 28-day notice period, telling the Lords: “He is right that they get seven days from the notice to quit, but they get 28 days from the issue of the biometric residence permit, so it is not quite right.” by David Lynch, Evening Standard

United Nations, NEW YORK – What would the world look like if it was designed by and for women? 

For one thing, it would be safer. Cars would be equipped with crash systems tested to protect all types of bodies, and personal protective equipment would be sized to fit female health-care workers as well as their male counterparts.

It would also be more equitable. There would be more women working across science and technology, and new innovations would combat, rather than reinforce, old gender stereotypes.

Unfortunately, this is not yet the world we live in. But it is one imagined possible by the members united under the Equity 2030 Alliance, a global initiative from UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, to realize gender equity in science, technology and financing before the decade’s end. 

“Women walk through a world that was not built for them,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem at the programme’s launch. “Yet we can redesign the world. We can resolve this challenge if we unite and commit to equity by design, whether in tech, science or finance. The impact will last for generations to come.”

Below, read about several actions that the Alliance’s experts and members are taking to close gender gaps in their fields. 

Gendered innovations

“Ten years ago, five years ago, it wasn’t widely understood that women were left out of important safety and medical designs,” Equity 2030 expert Londa Schiebinger told UNFPA. “We’ve made a lot of headway, and we need to make a lot more.” 

Professor Schiebinger directs the EU/US Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering, and Environment Lab at Stanford University. She has introduced a framework for advancing gender equity that hinges on three “fixes”: Fixing the number of women and members of underrepresented groups producing science and technology, fixing the institutions that have historically excluded them, and fixing the knowledge that researchers produce. 

According to Professor Schiebinger, one answer is to integrate sex, gender and intersectional analysis into the research process. Applying a gendered lens to investigating topics ranging from chronic pain and COVID-19 to assistive robots and virtual assistants has proved to yield better results.

“We educate the workforce of the future,” she said. “If we do our job right, we can have a huge impact on equity and inclusion.”

Better research, better health care in Argentina

Becoming a health-care professional requires building habits that eventually become second nature. Think about how often health-care workers wash their hands.

Dr. Alejandro Kohn, the medical director at Hospital Británico, a leading health-care institution in Buenos Aires, Argentina, wants to add another habit to health workers’ repertoire: Thinking about the social determinants of health. “Whatever we do, we understand fully that the social determinants of health have a huge impact,” he told UNFPA. 

Social determinants of health are non-medical factors  – such as age, race, ethnicity  and gender – that influence people’s well-being. And though these characteristics do so much to shape humans’ lived experiences, they’re often overlooked in scientific and medical research. 

Hospital Británico has taken several initiatives to expose and correct these blind spots. Inspired in part by Equity 2030 Alliance, the institution took a retrospective look at its studies and found that too few examined sex and gender as variables. In response, according to Scientific Review Committee coordinator Dr. Glenda Ernst, it was decided that residents should integrate Stanford’s Health and Medicine checklist on Gendered Innovations into their research work.

“I think we have a very good opportunity to improve,” Dr. Ernst said. “Residents are the future.” 

Checklists on Gendered Innovations such as the one developed by Professor Schiebinger’s project represent helpful tools for practitioners. But perhaps even more important, according to Dr. Kohn, is ensuring that social determinants of health are part of everyday consideration and conversation. 

“You cannot have excellence of care if you don’t have proper education and proper research,” he said. “We see, here, the opportunity to grow into equity.” 

From systemic inequities to inclusion 

Around the globe, patriarchal systems often drive women and girls out of schools, into caretaking roles, and away from pursuing certain careers.

”The main obstacle faced by girls and women in Cameroon lies in social norms and stereotypes prevailing in a patriarchal society,” sociologist, researcher and University of Yaoundé 1 Associate lecturer Irène Kuetche Djembissi told UNFPA.

“Women are often assigned to take care of their homes, husbands, and raise children,” she said. “Inequalities manifest in the education system and the job market.” 

To combat these disparities, the University of Yaoundé 1 is partnering with civil society organization the Association des Acteurs de Développement (ADEV) to promote the development of gender-inclusive solutions and innovations in STEM. The organizations are also working to ensure grant-making bodies across Sub-Saharan Africa pursue gender equity in their activities and the research they support. 

Dr. Kuetche Djembissi is ADEV’s technical director, and has committed through her work there and at the University of Yaoundé 1 to exposing gender inequity through her research and to combating sexism across society.

“More and more women are willing to challenge traditional beliefs despite the patriarchal society in which we live,” she said. “One area that particularly excites me is the continuous increase in young girls' access to mathematical, technology and scientific studies.” 

“Change is underway.” 

Mentors and mothers in Uganda 

“Women are expected to be the ones to cook, serve the food, wash the dishes, clean the house – while the husband is in the library or the laboratory,” Pauline Byakika-Kibwika, head of the Medicine Department at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, told UNFPA.

For many Ugandan women, the road to – or back into – higher education is not an easy one. As in many countries, gender norms in Uganda exert pressure on women to get married and have children; many will take significant time off from studies to deliver and raise kids.

“Societal norms have a great influence on people's career progression,” Professor Byakika-Kibwika said. 

To combat this challenge, Makerere University established a Gender Mainstreaming Programme in 2000 to integrate gender-equitable approaches into its research and innovation practices. The programme also promotes women’s empowerment and sexual and reproductive health and rights while working against sexual harassment and violence against women and girls.

Gender equity in design also hinges on finding and retaining female talent. Early on, according to Professor Byakika-Kibwika, the university realized fewer women were pursuing higher education and working in leadership roles at the institution. 

“This led to intensification of mentorship activities for women,” she said. “Over the years, we’ve had more women coming back for postgraduate, master’s and PhD programmes and for technical careers – and women getting into leadership positions.” 

The university has also introduced a zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy, and Professor Byakika-Kibwika said she’s noticed an increased awareness of the issue around campus.  

“Things change over time, but there's still a lot more work to be done,” she said. Source: UNFPA