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African heads of state, representatives of international organizations and private business leaders gathered in Tunisia on Saturday for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, a triennial event launched by Japan to promote growth and security in Africa.

Economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, a food crisis worsened by Russia’s war in Ukraine, and climate change are among the challenges facing many African countries expected to define the two-day conference.

Tensions among African countries also weighed on the meeting: On Friday, Morocco announced a boycott of the event and recalled its ambassador to Tunisia to protest the inclusion of a representative of the Polisario Front movement fighting for independence for Western Sahara.

The conference comes as Russia and China have sought to increase their economic and other influence in Africa.

While 30 African heads of state and government attended the event in Tunis, Tunisia’s capital, many key talks are being held remotely, including those involving Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of the summit.

The Japanese government created and hosted the first TICAD summit in 1993. The conferences now are co-organized with the United Nations, the African Union and the World Bank. The summits have generated 26 development projects in 20 African countries.

This year, discussion around an increase of Japanese investments in Africa is anticipated, with particular focus on supporting start-ups and food security initiatives. Japan has said it plans to provide assistance for the production of rice, alongside a promised $130 million in food aid.

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies, an academic institution of the U.S. Defense Department, compared the conference’s format to the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, “where government, business, and civil society leaders participate on an equal basis.”

However, this weekend’s summit has sparked controversy in Tunis, which faces its own acute economic crisis, including a recent spike in food and gasoline shortages.

Critics have spoken about the organizers’ alleged “white-washing” of the city, which has seen cleaner streets and infrastructure improvements in preparation for the conference summit. One local commentator said the North African capital looked like it had applied makeup to impress participants.

Meanwhile, the journalists’ union in Tunisia issued a statement Friday condemning restrictions on reporting and information around the summit.

Morocco’s complaint stemmed from Tunisia inviting the Polisario Front leader to attend. Morocco annexed Western Sahara from Spain in 1975, and the Polisario Front fought to make it an independent state until a 1991 cease-fire. It’s a highly sensitive issue in Morocco, which seeks international recognition for its authority over Western Sahara.

“The welcome given by the Tunisian head of state to the leader of the separatist militia is a serious and unprecedented act, which deeply hurts the feelings of the Moroccan people,” Morocco’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Morocco announced its withdrawal from the conference and the recall of its ambassador for consultations. But the ministry said the decision does not “call into question the commitment of the Kingdom of Morocco to the interests of Africa.”
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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered a stark warning Friday about the Fed’s determination to fight inflation with more sharp interest rate hikes: It will likely cause pain for Americans in the form of a weaker economy and job losses.

The message landed with a thud on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 1,000 points for the day.

“These are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation,” Powell said in a high-profile speech at the Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole. “But a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain.”

Investors had been hoping for a signal from Powell that the Fed might moderate its rate increases later this year if inflation were to show further signs of easing. But the Fed chair indicated that that time may not be near, and stocks tumbled in response.

Runaway price increases have soured most Americans on the economy, even as the unemployment rate has fallen to a half-century low of 3.5%. It has also created political risks for President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats in this fall’s elections, with Republicans denouncing Biden’s $1.9 trillion financial support package, approved last year, as having fueled inflation.

Dow, Nasdaq sag

The Dow Jones average finished down 3% Friday, its worst day in three months. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite shed nearly 4%. Shorter-term Treasury yields climbed as traders built up bets for the Fed to stay aggressive with rates.

Some on Wall Street expect the economy to fall into recession later this year or early next year, after which they expect the Fed to reverse itself and reduce rates.

A number of Fed officials, though, have pushed back against that notion. Powell’s remarks suggested that the Fed is aiming to raise its benchmark rate — to about 3.75% to 4% by next year — yet not so high as to tank the economy, in hopes of slowing growth long enough to conquer high inflation.

“The idea they are trying to hammer into the market’s head is that their approach makes a rapid pivot to [rate cuts] unlikely,” said Eric Winograd, an economist at asset manager AllianceBernstein. “They are going to stay tight even when it hurts.”

After raising its key short-term rate by a steep three-quarters of a point at each of its past two meetings — part of the Fed’s fastest series of hikes since the early 1980s — Powell said the Fed might ease up on that pace “at some point,” suggesting that any such slowing isn’t near.

Powell said the size of the Fed’s rate increase at its next meeting in late September — whether one-half or three-quarters of a percentage point — will depend on inflation and jobs data. An increase of either size, though, would exceed the Fed’s traditional quarter-point hike, a reflection of how severe inflation has become.

The Fed chair said that while lower inflation readings that have been reported for July have been “welcome,” he added that “a single month’s improvement falls far short of what [Fed policymakers] will need to see before we are confident that inflation is moving down.”

Drop in inflation

On Friday, an inflation gauge that is closely monitored by the Fed showed that prices actually declined 0.1% from June to July. Though prices did jump 6.3% in July from 12 months earlier, that was down from a 6.8% year-over-year jump in June, which had been the highest since 1982. The drop largely reflected lower gas prices.

In his speech Friday, Powell noted that the history of high inflation in the 1970s, when the central bank sought to counter high prices with only intermittent rate hikes, shows that the Fed must stay focused.

“The historical record cautions strongly against prematurely” lowering interest rates, he said. “We must keep at it until the job is done.”

What particularly worries Powell and other Fed officials is the prospect that inflation would become entrenched, leading consumers and businesses to change their behavior in ways that would perpetuate higher prices. If, for example, workers began demanding higher pay to match higher inflation, many employers would then pass on those higher labor costs to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Many analysts speculate that Fed officials want to see roughly six months or so of lower monthly inflation readings, similar to July’s, before stopping their rate hikes.

Powell’s speech was the marquee event of the Fed’s annual economic symposium at Jackson Hole, the first time the conference of central bankers is being held in person since 2019, after it went virtual for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rapid hikes

Since March, the Fed has implemented its fastest pace of rate increases in decades to try to curb inflation, which has punished households with soaring costs for food, gas, rent and other necessities. The central bank has lifted its benchmark rate by 2 full percentage points in just four meetings, to a range of 2.25% to 2.5%.

Those hikes have led to higher costs for mortgages, car loans and other consumer and business borrowing. Home sales have been plunging since the Fed first signaled it would raise borrowing costs.

At last year’s Jackson Hole symposium, Powell listed five reasons he thought inflation would be “transitory.” Yet it has persisted, and many economists have noted that those remarks haven’t aged well.

Powell indirectly acknowledged that history at the outset of his remarks Friday, when he said that “at past Jackson Hole conferences, I have discussed broad topics such as the ever-changing structure of the economy and the challenges of conducting monetary policy.”

“Today,” he said, “my remarks will be shorter, my focus narrower and my message more direct.”
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California set itself on a path Thursday to end the era of gas-powered cars, with air regulators adopting the world’s most stringent rules for transitioning to zero-emission vehicles.

The move by the California Air Resources Board to have all new cars, pickup trucks and SUVs be electric or hydrogen by 2035 is likely to reshape the U.S. auto market, which gets 10% of its sales from the nation’s most populous state.

But such a radical transformation in what people drive will also require at least 15 times more vehicle chargers statewide, a more robust energy grid and vehicles that people of all income levels can afford.

“It’s going to be very hard getting to 100%,” said Daniel Sperling, a board member and founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California-Davis. “You can’t just wave your wand, you can’t just adopt a regulation — people actually have to buy them and use them.”

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom told state regulators two years ago to adopt a ban on gas-powered cars by 2035, one piece of California’s aggressive suite of policies designed to reduce pollution and fight climate change. If the policy works as designed, California would cut emissions from vehicles in half by 2040.

More to come

Other states are expected to follow, further accelerating the production of zero-emissions vehicles.

Washington state and Massachusetts already have said they will follow California’s lead and many more are likely to — New York and Pennsylvania are among 17 states that have adopted some or all of California’s tailpipe emission standards that are stricter than federal rules. The European Parliament in June backed a plan to effectively prohibit the sale of gas and diesel cars in the 27-nation European Union by 2035, and Canada has mandated the sale of zero-emission cars by the same year.

California’s policy doesn’t ban cars that run on gas — after 2035 people can keep their existing cars or buy used ones, and 20% of sales can be plug-in hybrids that run on batteries and gas. Though hydrogen is a fuel option under the new regulations, cars that run on fuel cells have made up less than 1% of car sales in recent years.

The switch from gas will drastically reduce emissions and air pollutants. Transportation is the single largest source of emissions in the state, accounting for about 40% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. The air board is working on different regulations for motorcycles and larger trucks.

California envisions powering most of the economy with electricity, not fossil fuels, by 2045. A plan released by the air board earlier this year predicts electricity demand will shoot up by 68%. Today, the state has about 80,000 public chargers. The California Energy Commission predicted that needs to jump to 1.2 million by 2030.

The commission says car charging will account for about 4% of energy by 2030 when use is highest, typically during hot summer evenings. That’s when California sometimes struggles to provide enough energy because the amount of solar power diminishes as the sun goes down. In August 2020, hundreds of thousands of people briefly lost power because of high demand that outstripped supply.

That hasn’t happened since, and to ensure it doesn’t going forward, Newsom, a Democrat, is pushing to keep open the state’s last-remaining nuclear plant beyond its planned closure in 2025. Also, the state may turn to diesel generators or natural gas plants as a backup when the electrical grid is strained.

More than 1 million people drive electric cars in California today. Their charging habits vary, but most people charge their cars in the evening or overnight, said Ram Rajagopal, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University who has studied car charging habits and energy grid needs.

If people’s charging habits stay the same, once 30% to 40% of cars are electric, the state would need to add more energy capacity overnight to meet demand, he said. The regulations adopted Thursday require 35% of vehicle sales to be electric by 2026, up from 16% now.

But if more people charged their cars during the day, that problem would be avoided, he said. Changing to daytime charging is “the biggest bang for the buck you’re going to get,” he said.

Both the state and federal government are spending billions to build more chargers along public roadways, at apartment complexes and elsewhere to give people more charging options.

The oil industry believes California is going too far. It’s the seventh-largest oil-producing state and shouldn’t wrap its entire transportation strategy around a vehicle market powered by electricity, said Tanya DeRivi, vice president for climate policy with the Western States Petroleum Association, an industry group.

“Californians should be able to choose a vehicle technology, including electric vehicles, that best fits their needs based on availability, affordability and personal necessity,” she said.

Some difficulties seen

Many car companies, like Kia, Ford and General Motors, are already on the path to making more electric cars available for sale, but some have warned that factors outside their control like supply chain and materials issues make Californians’ goals challenging.

“Automakers could have significant difficulties meeting this target, given elements outside of the control of the industry,” Kia Corp.’s Laurie Holmes told the air board before its vote.

As the requirements ramp up over time, automakers could be fined up to $20,000 per vehicle sold that falls short of the goal, though they’ll have time to comply if they miss the target in a given year.

The new rules approved by the air board say that the vehicles need to be able to travel 150 miles (241 kilometers) on one charge. Federal and state rebates are also available to people who buy electric cars, and the new rules have incentives for car companies to sell electric cars at a discount to low-income buyers.

But some representatives of business groups and rural areas said they fear electric cars will be too expensive or inconvenient.

“These regulations are a big step backwards for working families and small businesses,” said Gema Gonzalez Macias of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce.

Air board members said they are committed to keeping a close eye on equity provisions in the rules to make sure all California residents have access.

“We will not set Californians up to fail, we will not set up the other states who want to follow this regulation to fail,” said Tania Pacheco-Warner, a member of the board and co-director of the Central Valley Health Policy Institute at California State University-Fresno.
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In 1999, fewer than 1 million people graduated from college in China. This year, a record-breaking 10.7 million new college graduates joined the Chinese job market.

And many of them face a tough time finding jobs, according to official data.

Youth unemployment in China reached 19.9% in July, according to the latest data released by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics. That’s the highest rate since Beijing started publishing the index in January 2018, when the rate was as low as 9.6%.

July’s high unemployment rate for youth aged 16-24 — up from a previous record high of 19.3% in June — is largely due to an economic slump that China has been experiencing over the past few years, multiple China analysts told VOA Mandarin. That economic downturn has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and Beijing’s strict containment restrictions, including the “Zero COVID” policy, which reduced exports and consumer spending.

“They’re reaping what they’re sowing at the moment, and what they’ve sown for the last two years has not been great for the job market,” said Zak Dychtwald, CEO of the Young China Group, a consulting firm that does market research on youth in China.

The market may be even more discouraging to recent graduates and other jobseekers than the official figures suggest, said Dorothy Solinger, a professor emerita at the University of California, Irvine, who studies unemployment in China.

China’s “unemployment statistics are notoriously wrong,” Solinger told VOA Mandarin. “I’m surprised they’re announcing that it’s this high now, but it makes me think it may be even higher.”

Due to lengthy, pandemic-driven lockdowns in Shanghai and Beijing between March and May, the World Bank projected that China’s economic growth will slow to 4.3% in 2022, which is 0.8% lower than its original December estimate.

The pandemic “has made production and operation difficult, which has reduced the ability to attract jobs,” said Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson of China’s Washington, D.C. embassy, in an email.

“As the economy recovers and policies to stabilize employment, especially policies and measures to help young people find jobs, are strengthened, the employment situation on the whole will gradually improve and remain stable,” he added.

The pandemic isn’t the only culprit, Dychtwald told VOA Mandarin, since the issue of overall unemployment has been on Beijing’s radar for decades.

“For years, one of China’s biggest issues has been creating enough jobs for its educated class of young people,” Dychtwald said in an interview. “It’s just always been hard — and especially these last five or 10 years — to have the job market keep pace with the education rates.”

Even though unemployment is a perennial issue in China, that doesn’t mean the current unemployment rates don’t matter. Far from it, experts told VOA Mandarin, especially with the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party approaching in the fall, where President Xi Jinping is expected to secure a third term despite economic fallout from the pandemic, banking scandals and business practices that have caused a backlash and led some homeowners to stop paying their mortgages in protest.

The Chinese public will probably demand that Xi does more to address the unemployment crisis, especially ahead of the upcoming congress, according to Li Qiang, founder of the New York-based NGO China Labor Watch.

“This data may give him a wake-up call. This road is very difficult and will also affect the country’s political stability,” Qiang told VOA Mandarin.

Or as Dychtwald said, “If the government doesn’t address [unemployment], then it’s a potential powder keg, politically.”

Beijing has long maintained policies and programs to stimulate the economy and job growth, and much Chinese Communist Party rhetoric and art celebrates labor and workers, according to experts VOA interviewed. As one 2021 article in the state outlet Xinhua put it, “Only hard work brings happiness.”

In January, Xi wrote in the CCP’s journal Qiushi that no matter how much China  develops, the country must “steer clear of the idleness-breeding trap of welfarism.”

Manfred Elfstrom is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, whose research focuses on China, social movements, labor, and authoritarianism. To him, Xi’s article suggests the high youth unemployment rate China faces is of great concern to the CCP.

“If you are critical of people being ‘idle’ and relying on the government, then you also presumably feel pressure to deliver on job opportunities,” he told VOA Mandarin.

But it’s not just the CCP feeling the pressure. One of the most important factors impacting China’s younger generations is “the pressure to get ahead,” Dychtwald said, referring to “immense” social and familial expectations to excel in school, snare a well-paying job, marry and own property. “Pressure is the defining word.”

The CCP presents itself as a protector of the country and its people, so it’s more or less expected that the government will create an environment where people can find jobs, experts including Dychtwald said. With the realization that Beijing may not be meeting its end of the bargain comes dissatisfaction and disillusionment, particularly among the country’s youth.

China’s entrenched culture of overwork — which Dychtwald says is common in other countries like Singapore and South Korea — alongside fewer job prospects and relatively lower wages gave way to China’s “lying flat” movement in 2021.

The movement urges young people “to opt out of the struggle for workplace success, and to reject the promise of consumer fulfilment,” according to a 2021 Brookings Institution report.
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President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced his long-awaited plan to deliver on his campaign promise to provide $10,000 in debt cancellation for millions of Americans — and up to $10,000 more for those with the greatest financial need.

Borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year, or families earning less than $250,000, would be eligible for the $10,000 loan forgiveness, Biden announced in a tweet. For recipients of Pell Grants, which are reserved for undergraduates with the most significant financial need, the federal government would cancel up to an additional $10,000 in federal loan debt.

Biden is also extending a pause on federal student loan payments for what he called the “final time” through the end of 2022. He was set to deliver remarks Wednesday afternoon at the White House to unveil his proposal to the public.

If his plan survives legal challenges that are almost certain to come, it could offer a windfall to a swath of the nation in the run-up to this fall’s midterm elections. More than 43 million people have federal student debt, with an average balance of $37,667, according to federal data. Nearly a third of borrowers owe less than $10,000, and about half owe less than $20,000. The White House estimates that Biden’s announcement would erase the federal student debt of about 20 million people.

Proponents say cancellation will narrow the racial wealth gap — Black students are more likely to borrow federal student loans and at higher amounts than others. Four years after earning bachelor’s degrees, Black borrowers owe an average of nearly $25,000 more than their white peers, according to a Brookings Institution study.

Still, the action is unlikely to thrill any of the factions that have been jostling for influence as Biden weighs how much to cancel and for whom.

Biden has faced pressure from liberals to provide broader relief to hard-hit borrowers, and from moderates and Republicans questioning the fairness of any widespread forgiveness. The delay in Biden’s decision has only heightened the anticipation for what his own aides acknowledge represents a political no-win situation. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Biden’s intended announcement ahead of time.

The continuation of the coronavirus pandemic-era payment freeze comes just days before millions of Americans were set to find out when their next student loan bills will be due. This is the closest the administration has come to hitting the end of the payment freeze extension, with the current pause set to end Aug. 31.

Details of the plan have been kept closely guarded as Biden weighed his options. The administration said Wednesday the Education Department will release information in the coming weeks for eligible borrowers to sign up for debt relief. Cancellation for some would be automatic, if the department has access to to their income information, but others would need to fill out a form.

Current students would only be eligible for relief if their loans were originated before July 1, 2022. Biden is also set to propose capping the amount that borrowers pay monthly on undergraduate loans at 5% of their earnings.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden was initially skeptical of student loan debt cancellation as he faced off against more progressive candidates for the Democratic nomination. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had proposed cancellations of $50,000 or more.

As he tried to shore up support among younger voters and prepare for a general election battle against President Donald Trump, Biden unveiled his initial proposal for debt cancellation of $10,000 per borrower, with no mention of an income cap.

Biden narrowed his campaign promise in recent months by embracing the income limit as soaring inflation took a political toll and as he aimed to head off political attacks that the cancellation would benefit those with higher take-home pay. But Democrats, from members of congressional leadership to those facing tough reelection bids this November, have pushed the administration to go as broad as possible on debt relief, seeing it in part as a galvanizing issue, particularly for Black and young voters this fall.

Democrats are betting that Biden, who has seen his public approval tumble over the past year, can help motivate younger voters to the polls with the announcement.

Although Biden’s plan is changed from he initially proposed during the campaign, “he’ll get a lot of credit for following through on something that he was committed to,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who worked with Biden during the 2020 election.

A survey of 18- to 29-year-olds conducted by the Harvard Institute of Politics in March found that 59% of those polled favored debt cancellation of some sort — whether for all borrowers or those most in need — although student loans did not rank high among issues that most concerned people in that age group.

Some advocates say Biden’s plan still falls short.

“If the rumors are true, we’ve got a problem,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP, which has aggressively lobbied Biden to take bolder action, said Tuesday.

“President Biden’s decision on student debt cannot become the latest example of a policy that has left Black people — especially Black women — behind,” he said. “This is not how you treat Black voters who turned out in record numbers and provided 90% of their vote to once again save democracy in 2020.”

John Della Volpe, who worked as a consultant on Biden’s campaign and is the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, said the particulars of Biden’s announcement were less important than the decision itself.

“It’s about trust in politics, in government, in our system. It’s also about trust in the individual, which in this case is President Biden,” Della Volpe said.

Republicans, meanwhile, see a political upside if Biden pursues a large-scale cancellation of student debt ahead of the November midterms, anticipating backlash for Democrats — particularly in states where there are large numbers of working-class voters without college degrees. Critics of broad student debt forgiveness also believe it will open the White House to lawsuits, on the grounds that Congress has never given the president the explicit authority to cancel debt on his own.

The Republican National Committee on Tuesday blasted Biden’s expected announcement as a “handout to the rich,” claiming it would unfairly burden lower-income taxpayers and those who have already paid off their student loans with covering the costs of higher education for the wealthy.

Biden’s long deliberations have led to grumbling among federal loan servicers, who had been instructed to hold back billing statements while Biden weighed a decision.

Industry groups had complained that the delayed decision left them with just days to notify borrowers, retrain customer service workers and update websites and digital payment systems, said Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance.

It increases the risk that some borrowers will inadvertently be told they need to make payments, he said.

“At this late stage I think that’s the risk we’re running,” he said. “You can’t just turn on a dime with 35 million borrowers who all have different loan types and statuses.”
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Blueberry bison tamales, harvest salad with mixed greens, creamy carrot and wild rice soup, roasted turkey with squash. This contemporary Native American meal, crafted from the traditional foods of tribes across the United States and prepared with “Ketapanen” – a Menominee expression of love – cost caterer Jessica Pamonicutt $976 to feed a group of 50 people last November.

Today it costs her nearly double.

Pamonicutt is the executive chef of Chicago-based Native American catering business Ketapanen Kitchen. She is a citizen of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin but was raised in the Windy City, home to one of the largest urban Native populations in the country, according to the American Indian Center of Chicago.

Her business aims to offer health-conscious meals featuring Indigenous ingredients to the Chicago Native community and educate people about Indigenous contributions to everyday American fare.

One day, she aims to purchase all ingredients from Native suppliers and provide her community with affordable access to healthy Indigenous foods, “but this whole inflation thing has slowed that down,” she said.

U.S. inflation surged to a new four-decade high in June, squeezing household budgets with painfully high prices for gas, food and rent.

Traditional Indigenous foods — like wild rice, bison, fresh vegetables and fruit in the Midwest — are often unavailable or too expensive for Native families in urban areas like Chicago, and the recent inflation spike has propelled these foods even further out of reach.

Risk of disease compounds the problem: healthy eating is key to battling diabetes, which afflicts Native Americans at the highest rate of any ethnic group in the United States.

“There are many benefits to eating traditional Native foods,” said Jessica Thurin, a dietician at Native American Community Clinic in Minneapolis. “The body knows exactly how to process and use that food. These foods are natural to the Earth.”

But many people the clinic serves are low-income and do not have the luxury of choosing where their food comes from. Food deserts – areas with limited access to a variety of healthy and affordable foods – are more likely to exist in places with higher rates of poverty and concentrations of minority populations.

“In these situations, there are limited healthy food options, not to mention limited traditional food options,” Thurin said.

Aside from health benefits, traditional foods hold important cultural and emotional value.

“It’s just comfort,” said Danielle Lucas, a 39-year-old descendant of the Sicangu Lakota people from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota.

Lucas’ mother, Evelyn Red Lodge, said she hasn’t prepared traditional dishes of the Great Plains, like wojapi berry sauce or stew, since May because the prices of key ingredients – berries and meat – have soared.

Pamonicutt, too, is feeling the pinch. Between last winter and this spring, the price of bison jumped from $13.99 to $23.99 per pound.

Shipping costs are so high that the chef said it’s often cheaper to drive hundreds of miles to buy ingredients, even with spiking gas prices. She’s even had to create her own suppliers: the 45-year-old’s parents are now growing crops for her business on their Wisconsin property near the Illinois border.

Gina Roxas, program coordinator at Trickster Cultural Center in Schaumburg, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, has also agreed to grow Native foods to help the chef minimize costs.

When a bag of wild rice costs $20, “you end up going to a fast food place instead to feed your family,” Roxas said.

More than 70% of Native Americans reside in urban areas – the result of decades of federal policies pushing families to leave reservations and assimilate into American society.

Dorene Wiese, executive director of the Chicago-based American Indian Association of Illinois, said members of her community have to prioritize making rent payments over splurging on healthy, traditional foods.

Even though specialty chefs like Pamonicutt aim to feed their own communities, the cost of her premium catering service is out of the price range for many urban Natives. Her meals end up feeding majority non-Native audiences at museums or cultural events that can foot the bill, said Wiese, a citizen of the Minnesota White Earth Band of Ojibwe Indians.

“There really is a shortage of Native foods in the area,” she said, But the problem isn’t unique to Chicago.

Dana Thompson, co-owner of The Sioux Chef company and executive director of a Minneapolis Indigenous food nonprofit, is another Native businesswoman striving to expand her urban community’s access to traditional local foods like lake fish, wild rice and wild greens amid the food price surge.

Thompson, of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and Mdewakanton Dakota people, said inflation is “really impacting the food systems we have here,” which include dozens of Indigenous, local and organic food producers.

At Owamni, an award-winning Indigenous restaurant under The Sioux Chef umbrella, ingredients like Labrador Tea – which grows wild in northern Minnesota – have been especially difficult to get this year, Thompson said.

When an ingredient is not consistently available or affordable, she changes the menu.

“Being fluid and resilient is what we’re used to,” Thompson said. “That’s like the history of indigeneity in North America.”

Inflation is similarly impeding the American Indian Center of Chicago’s efforts to improve food security. Executive Director Melodi Serna, of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, said the current prices of food boxes they distribute – with traditional Midwestern foods like fish, bison, venison, dairy products and produce – are “astronomical.”

“Where I could have been able to provide maybe 100 boxes, now we’re only able to provide 50,” Serna said.

For 57-year-old Emmie King, a Chicago resident and citizen of the Navajo Nation, getting the fresh ingredients she grew up with in New Mexico is much more difficult in the city, especially with inflation biting into her budget.

She finds ways to “stretch” the food she buys so it lasts longer, purchasing meat in bulk and freezing small portions to add to stews later on. “I get what I need, rather than what I want,” she said.

But King was able to enjoy a taste of home at an Aug. 3 luncheon at the American Indian Center of Chicago, where twenty elders gathered to enjoy turkey tamales with cranberry-infused masa, Spanish rice with quinoa, elote pasta salad with chickpea noodles and glasses of cold lemonade.

The mastermind behind the meal was Pamonicutt herself, sharing her spin on Southwestern and Northern Indigeneous food traditions. Through volunteering at senior lunches and developing a food education program, the chef is continuing to increase access to healthy Indigenous foods in her community.

“I want kids to learn where these foods come from,” the chef said. “That whole act of caring for your food … thanking it, understanding that it was grown to help us survive.”
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The International Monetary Fund is facing pressure to reevaluate how it imposes fees on loans it disperses to needy countries like war-torn Ukraine — which is one of the fund’s biggest borrowers.

The move comes as more countries will need to turn to the IMF, as food prices and inflation internationally continue to rise.

Surcharges are added fees on loans imposed on countries that are heavily indebted to the IMF.

Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in Aspen last month that finance ministers of several countries realize they have to pay a price for Russia’s war in Ukraine, especially with food prices going up.

“They’re going to have to go to the IMF, they’re going to need to find assistance,” Adeyemo said.

However, the IMF fee system could change through U.S legislation. An amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, otherwise known as the defense spending bill, would suspend IMF surcharges while their effectiveness and burden on indebted countries is studied.

That was passed by the U.S. House in July. The Senate is expected to vote on its defense bill in September. A representative of the Senate Armed Services Committee said an amendment may be offered in the next few weeks or even on the Senate floor.

As the largest IMF shareholder and member of the Fund’s executive board, the U.S. can push for policy decisions and unilaterally veto some board decisions.

Citing worsening financial crises in Sri Lanka and Pakistan as examples, some accuse China of engaging in debt trap diplomacy — or having countries fall so deeply in debt that they are beholden to it on international issues.

Advocates and civil rights organizations lodge the same complaint against the Fund, who claim the organization undercuts its core lender-of-last-resort role with countries in vulnerable positions to pay back debt.

With an ever-worsening risk of a global debt crisis and rising interest rates, the issue has become more pressing for countries looking to reduce their deficits.

However, some economists and representatives of the fund say the surcharges amount to responsible lending behavior, as they provide an incentive for members with large outstanding balances to repay their loans promptly. This applies especially to countries that may otherwise not be able to obtain financing from private lenders.

Maurice Obstfeld, a Berkeley economics professor and former IMF research department director said as a lender of last resort, the Fund’s ability to lend is important — as low and middle income countries face rising interest rates.

“The Fund’s staff is small and, in a crisis, its efforts are better deployed serving member countries’ needs,” he said in an email to The Associated Press. “Surcharges could be relaxed temporarily in the face of intense pressures on borrowing countries, but at the expense of the Fund’s ability to serve its membership in the longer term.”

Illinois Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García, who offered the defense spending amendment, told The Associated Press, “it is unfair for the IMF to require countries like Ukraine that are already deep in debt to pay surcharge fees. These surcharges increase poverty and hold back our global economic recovery.”

Ukraine’s projected real GDP is expected to decline by 35%, due in large part to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to IMF data.

The country, engaged in a war with no projected end, has an outstanding balance of 7.5 billion SDRs — an IMF accounting unit valued at around $9.8 billion according to Ukrainian central bankers. The latest figures estimate that Ukraine will owe the IMF $360 million in surcharges between 2021 and 2023.

Economists Joseph Stiglitz at Columbia University and Kevin P. Gallagher at Boston University wrote earlier this year that “forcing excessive repayments lowers the productive potential of the borrowing country, but also harms creditors” and requires borrowers “to pay more at exactly the moment when they are most squeezed from market access in any other form.”

Serhiy Nikolaychuk, Deputy Chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, said Ukraine is continuing to pay its debts “despite Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.”

“Our country will pay its debt and surcharges under previous programs and fulfill its obligations to the IMF,” Nikolaychuk said. “It will be difficult, but we will pay.”

For years, lawmakers, economists and civil rights organizations have called on the IMF, which has for decades loaned billions to low-income countries, to end its surcharge policy.

In January, 18 left-leaning lawmakers wrote to the Treasury calling for the surcharge policy to be eliminated. And in April, a group of 150 civil society groups and individuals signed an open letter to the IMF, asking for the same, calling surcharges “regressive.”

A spokesperson for the fund says the surcharges are designed to discourage large and prolonged use of IMF resources.

“They only apply to countries with particularly large outstanding loans,” Mayada Ghazala said in an emailed statement, adding that poorest countries are exempt from the surcharges.

The fund’s executive board met in December 2021 and discussed the role of surcharges — it ultimately decided not to make a change to the fees, but said they would review them again in the future.

The IMF was created in 1944 at the United Nations Bretton Woods Conference — one of its missions is lending to maintain the financial stability of countries. Among its 190 countries, it lends around $1 trillion, according to the organization’s website.

An April review of the fund’s financial health for fiscal year 2022 and 2023 states that lending income excluding surcharges “remain strong and are expected to exceed expenses in FY 2023–2024.”

Andrés Arauz, a senior research fellow at the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research says the IMF’s financial position shows “the surcharges are not necessary for sound finances.”

“There is no excuse for the IMF to be punishing countries under debt stress with surcharges,” he said. “There is also no logic to it, the amount of money that the IMF raises from surcharges is trivial relative to its income and capacity.”

Garcia said, “I’m proud the House passed my amendment to support a pause and review of surcharges at the IMF, and I will keep up the fight until the president signs it into law.”

Separately, the U.S. has sent roughly $7.3 billion in aid to Ukraine since the war began in late February, including a new $775 million defense aid package announced Friday.
…

Ghana has raised its benchmark interest rate to a record-high 22% as the country struggles to check soaring prices caused in part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ghana is also trying to boost its currency, the cedi, which saw the second-worst drop in value globally after Sri Lanka’s rupee. The high cost of living sparked street protests in July and talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bail out.

The cost of food and services has more than doubled in Ghana as inflation hit 31.7% annually in July, its highest since late 2003. Consumers and businesspeople say they are being pushed out of business as the local currency continues to lose its value against the U.S. dollar.

Naa Koshie, a 45-year-old mother of five who runs a cold store business in the capital, Accra, told VOA she is losing money as prices of goods keep soaring.

The people had a lot of hopes in this government, she said, but it’s embarrassing how things keep getting worse daily.

Addressing the Methodist Church of Ghana on Thursday, President Nana Akufo-Addo said his government is not sleeping on the job.

“The ravages of the pandemic, worsened by the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have led to spiraling freight charges, rising fuel costs, high food prices, steep inflationary spikes and widespread business failures. I am fully aware that these are very difficult times for us in Ghana, just as they are for most people in the world. However, the Akufo-Addo government has not thrown its hands up in despair at this pernicious development.”

The president says he is optimistic the economy will bounce back and will bring relief to Ghanaians.

“We are determined to bring relief to the Ghanaian people. Other steps will be taken, in particular, to deal with the unacceptable depreciation of the cedi. Reining in inflation, by bringing down food prices, is a major preoccupation of the government, and this season’s emerging, successful harvest will assist us achieve this objective, together with other policies.”

Courage Kingsley Martey, the senior economist with Databank Research, told VOA the measures taken by the central bank at its emergency meeting Wednesday to address the free fall of the cedi are appropriate.

“The central bank’s target is to bring inflation down and what we all want as citizens is to have low and stable inflation,” Martey said. “In doing so, there are going to be short-term consequences or tradeoffs. This means individuals who would love to have access to cheaper funds or capital may not be able to do that, but that would have to be the cost we have to bear in the short term.”

Godfred Bokpin, a professor of finance at the University of Ghana, urged Akufo-Addo to reduce the size of his government as a further cut on spending.

“Time is not on our side. The government needs to reduce the size of government drastically and also as a signal and be able to have greater control over expenditure from that side,” Bokpin said.

Time is running out for the government as Ghanaians continue to wait with bated breath, hoping for a major economic turnaround ahead of a hike in utility prices taking effect on September 1.
…

With transportation costs tripling in the past year, Mozambican wholesalers are sending bananas to market by bicycle instead of truck, aiming to reduce spending on fuel. From Manica province in western Mozambique André Baptista has the story, narrated by Carol Guensburg.
…

Nigerian authorities say the country’s inflation rate jumped to nearly 20% in July, compared to last year, the highest in nearly two decades. Consumers in Africa’s biggest economy are struggling to keep up with rising prices for basic foods. 

Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday the country’s inflation rate in July was 19.64% – the highest rate since September 2005.

A NBS report found the highest increases were for necessities like food, fuel, transportation and clothing.  

Food prices have risen steadily in Nigeria for years, due to the effects of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread insecurity.  

But in February, when Russia invaded Ukraine, commodity prices soared, affecting the ability of millions of citizens to meet their basic needs.  

Abuja resident James Orshio earns the equivalent of about $50 a month from his sales job but said his salary can no longer cushion economic pressures.  

“There’s a lot of challenges now due to the increment [increases] of prices; I cannot even talk of going to the market now to buy something to feed myself because the prices are not encouraging at all,” he said. “A loaf of bread that used to be 300 naira is now 1,000 naira. Even some of the bakers in Abuja are not working because of the high price.”

In a bid to address inflation, Nigeria’s Central Bank (CBN) has been tightening monetary policy by increasing interest rates from 11% in January to 14% in July.

Akintunde Ogunsola, founder of Abuja-based financial consulting firm Karma Professional Service, explained the reason for the CBN’s policy. 

“What is happening is that we have too much money in circulation chasing a few goods, and that’s what causes inflation,” he said. “There is scarcity in supply and that’s why CBN is using the open market operation to reduce the money in circulation by increasing [the] interest rate so that people will be saving money back into the bank, like mopping up money from the economy.”

Nigeria’s import-dependent economy has been further hit by currency devaluation. The naira has lost more than 30% of its value in seven months.

But Ogunsola said inflation nowadays is a global problem.

“It’s not only in Nigeria alone that we’re experiencing this,” he said. “The United States’ inflation is also going up. Even our neighbors, Ghana, their inflation rate is already over 30%.”   

In March, the World Bank estimated that about 4 out of 10 Nigerians live below the national poverty line.

Experts predict the inflation rate will increase further in coming months and may put many more Nigerians on the brink of poverty.
…

The European Union is planning a five-fold increase in financial support to an African military mission in Mozambique, an internal EU document shows, as Islamist attacks threaten gas projects meant to reduce the EU’s reliance on Russian energy.

The energy squeeze due to the Ukraine war has added impetus to Europe’s scramble for gas off Mozambique’s northern coast, where Western oil firms are planning to build a massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal.

The move also comes as the West seeks to counter Russian and Chinese influence in the southern African nation, three years after Russian private military firm Wagner withdrew most of its forces following a string of defeats by Islamist militants.

Mozambique has been grappling with militants linked to the Islamic State in its northernmost gas-rich province of Cabo Delgado since 2017, near LNG projects worth billions of dollars.

A southern African military mission and a separate intervention by troops from Rwanda have between them managed to contain the militants’ spread since being deployed last year.

But “the situation remains very volatile and smaller-scale violent attacks have continued in various districts,” the EU document dated Aug. 10 said.

The paper prepared by the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s de facto foreign ministry, recommends 15 million euros ($15.3 million) of EU funding to 2024 for the mission of the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC), a bloc of 16 African nations of which half a dozen sent troops to Mozambique.

The mission is expected to be extended for six or twelve months at a SADC summit in Kinshasa starting on Wednesday, according to the document, which adds that EU support for the Rwandan mission would also be proposed in the coming months.

An EU spokesperson confirmed additional financial support to the SADC mission had been proposed, but declined to comment further as the matter was still being discussed by EU governments.

The proposal needs the backing of the 27 EU governments, whose military experts are scheduled to hold a regular meeting on Aug. 25.

A SADC official also confirmed a request for EU support, but added SADC countries would continue to provide key financial support to the mission.

French oil giant Total TTEF.PA is leading an international consortium to extract gas off north Mozambique’s shores and liquefy it at an LNG plant under construction, from where it would be exported to Europe and Asia.

Gas projects threatened

Mozambique has the third largest proven gas reserves in Africa, after Nigeria and Algeria. The EU fears that without support for the military interventions, Mozambique may again lose control of its restive north.

The Islamists have recently stepped up attacks.

The EU has already pledged to provide the country’s army with an additional 45 million euros ($45 million) of financial support, and has so far made available to the SADC mission 2.9 million euros of funding.

The fresh EU support would be limited to “equipment not designed to deliver lethal force,” including radars, mine detectors, boats and medical supplies, the EU document said, in spite of SADC’s needs for lethal material.

Despite delays caused by militant activity, Total still plans to begin production in 2024 from gas reserves estimated in trillions of cubic feet (tcf), more than the amount of gas the EU imports annually from Russia.

Italian oil firm ENI ENI.MI expects to begin shipments from a nearby offshore gas field this year, using a floating LNG terminal which can process only limited amounts of gas.

Other major oil firms, including U.S. giant ExxonMobil XOM.N are also operating in the region.

The funding is also meant to discourage local authorities from seeking help again from Russia, or from China.

The EU is also supporting the training of Mozambique military forces through its own defense mission in the country.
…

State oil giant Saudi Aramco reported a soaring 90% rise in second-quarter profit on Sunday, beating analyst expectations and propelled by higher oil prices, volumes sold and refining margins.

The company expects “oil demand to continue to grow for the rest of the decade, despite downward economic pressures on short-term global forecasts,” Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser said in the earnings report.

Aramco’s net profit rose to $48.39 billion for the quarter to June 30 from $25.43 billion a year earlier.

Analysts had expected a net profit of $46.2 billion, according to the mean estimate from 15 analysts.

It declared a dividend of $18.8 billion in the second quarter, in line with its own target, which will be paid in the third quarter.

Aramco shares have risen over 25% this year as oil and natural gas prices have scaled multi-year highs after Western sanctions against major exporter Russia squeezed an already under-supplied global market.

Aramco joins other oil majors that have reported strong results in recent weeks.

On July 29, Exxon Mobil Corp posted its biggest quarterly profit ever, a net income of $17.9 billion, an almost four-fold increase over the year earlier period.

Margins for making fuels like gasoline and diesel surged worldwide, boosting the profits of oil giants, including European majors Shell and TotalEnergies, both of which reported results on July 27.

Aramco said its average total hydrocarbon production was 13.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in the second quarter.

“But while there is a very real and present need to safeguard the security of energy supplies, climate goals remain critical, which is why Aramco is working to increase production from multiple energy sources – including oil and gas, as well as renewables, and blue hydrogen.” said Nasser.

Capital expenditure increased by 25% to $9.4 billion in the second quarter compared to the same period in 2021. Aramco said it continued to invest in growth, expanding its chemicals business and developing prospects in low-carbon businesses.
…

Salespeople, food servers, postal workers — “Help Wanted” ads are proliferating across the United States, as companies struggle to deal with a worker shortage caused by the pandemic, a rash of early retirements and restrictive immigration laws.

More than 10 million openings went unfilled in June, according to government data, while fewer than 6 million people were seeking work, even as employers desperately try to boost hiring amid a frenzy of consumer spending.

“We have a lot of jobs, but not enough workers to fill them,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents American companies, said in a statement.

Many of those who stopped working as COVID-19 first ravaged the U.S. economy in early 2020 have never returned.

“There would be 3.4 million more workers today if labor force participation” — the percentage of the working-age population currently employed or actively seeking work — was at the pre-pandemic rate, the Chamber calculated. It has slipped from 63.4% to 62.1%.

And where have all these people gone? Many simply took early retirement.

“Part of that is just the US population continues to age,” Nick Bunker, a labor-market specialist with jobs website Indeed, told AFP.

Too few immigrants

The huge cohort of baby boomers had already begun leaving the labor market, but there has been an “acceleration in retirements” since the pandemic struck, Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, told AFP.

Millions of people opted for early retirement, concerned for their health and with sufficient assets — thanks to a then-buoyant stock market and high real-estate prices — to leave the workplace.

In the short term, Bunker said, “We’re unlikely to get back to exactly the pre-pandemic level of labor-force participation because of the aging of the population.”

Adding to this, said Swonk, “We haven’t had immigration at the pace to replace the baby boomers.”

Restrictions imposed under President Donald Trump, plus the impact of COVID, steeply reduced the number of foreigners entering the country.

“It has rebounded a little bit, but still not at the levels we were seeing several years ago,” Bunker said.

The Chamber of Commerce also underscored the impact of generous government assistance during the pandemic, which “bolstered people’s economic stability — allowing them to continue sitting out of the labor force.”

Long COVID

Large numbers of women quit their jobs in 2020, in part because extended school closings required many to stay home to care for children.

Those who wanted to place children in day care were often frustrated, as labor shortages hit the day care sector as well.

Swonk noted that not only COVID infections but also the debilitating effects of long COVID have had a serious impact.

It’s “really one of the most underestimated and misunderstood issues” keeping workers sidelined, she said.

To lure workers back, many employers have boosted pay and benefits.

And if Americans’ buying frenzy slows, analysts say, companies will need fewer workers.

The labor shortage is expected to ease a bit as the Federal Reserve continues aggressively raising interest rates in its effort to combat inflation.

In the meantime, wage earners have profited. Over the past year, millions have changed jobs, often lured elsewhere by higher wages and better working conditions.

This “Great Resignation” has resulted in higher hourly wages. The private sector average is now $32.27, up 5.2% in a year, adding to inflationary pressures.

The US labor market showed new signs of vitality in July.

The 22 million jobs lost due to COVID-19 have returned, and the unemployment rate is a historically low 3.5%.
…

Gasoline prices have dipped to their lowest in more than five months — good news for consumers who are struggling with high prices for many other essentials.

AAA said the national average for a liter of regular was $1.05 on Thursday, down from the mid-June record of $1.37. However, that’s still about 21 cents higher than the average a year ago.

Energy is a key factor in the cost of many goods and services, and falling prices for gas, airline tickets and clothes are giving consumers a bit of relief, although inflation is still close to a four-decade high.

Glen Smith, a for-hire driver, sized up the price — $1.01 a liter — while waiting between rides at a gas station in Kenner, Louisiana.

“I’m not tickled pink, but I’m happier it’s less than what it was,” Smith said. “There for a while, every two days I put $50 of gas in my car. It’s $12 to run from the airport to drop off in the city — $12 a trip!”

Oil prices began rising in mid-2020 as economies recovered from the initial shock of the pandemic. They rose again when the U.S. and allies announced sanctions against Russian oil over the country’s war against Ukraine.

Recently, however, oil prices have dropped on concern about slowing economic growth around the world. U.S. benchmark crude oil has recently dipped close to $90 a barrel from over $120 a barrel in June.

It is unclear whether gasoline prices got so high that consumers cut back on their driving. Some experts believe that is true, although they acknowledge that the evidence is largely anecdotal.

“I don’t know that $5 ($1.32 per liter) was the magic amount. I think it was the amount of increase in a short period of time,” said Peter Schwarz, an expert on energy pricing and an economics professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “People were starting to watch their driving.”

Schwarz expects oil prices to remain relatively stable at least for the next month or so, particularly after OPEC and partners including Russia agreed to only a small oil production increase in September, which won’t be enough to drive prices lower.

Christian vom Lehn, an economics professor at Brigham Young University, said the price of oil is the key factor for gasoline, but that seasonal trends could also keep prices from surging again.

“We are coming to the end of summer, and summer is a peak travel season, so demand is naturally going to fall,” he said. “That is certainly contributing to the most recent decline” in gas prices.

The average gas price has dropped 58 straight days, but that streak will end soon, predicted Tom Kloza, head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service. He said the industry will face challenges to meet gasoline demand for the rest of the year.

Kloza noted that it’s still early in the hurricane season, which in the past has shut down some of the nation’s biggest refineries that sit in hurricane-prone areas of the Gulf Coast; the Gulf of Mexico is speckled with oil-producing platforms. Also, he said, “refinery runs will come down because of a lot of delayed maintenance that can’t be delayed indefinitely.”

Prices at the pump are likely to be a major issue heading into the mid-term elections in November.

Republicans blame President Joe Biden for the high gasoline prices, seizing on his decisions to cancel a permit for a major pipeline and suspend new oil and gas leases on federal lands.

Biden has previously targeted the oil companies, accusing them of not producing as much energy as they could while posting huge profits. “Exxon made more money than God this year,” he said in June.

Exxon said it has increased oil production. The CEO of Chevron said Biden was trying to vilify his industry.

Biden has also ordered the release of oil from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve this year. While not large enough to account for the drop in gasoline prices, the extra supply from reserves might have helped stem the rise in pump prices, according to analysts.

The nationwide average for gas hasn’t been under $1.05 per liter since early March. Prices topped out at $1.32 per liter on June 14, according to AAA. They declined slowly the rest of June, then began dropping more rapidly. The shopping app GasBuddy reported that the national average dropped under $1.05 per liter on Tuesday.

Motorists in California and Hawaii are still paying above $1.32 per liter, and other states in the West are paying close to that. The cheapest gas is in Texas and several other states in the South and Midwest.

A year ago, the nationwide average price was just under 84 cents per liter, according to AAA. After a long climb, that price has dropped steadily this summer, falling 4 cents per liter in the past week and 18 cents in the last month.

“If you talk to people who are not economists, gas prices always go up faster than they come down,” said Schwarz, the energy-pricing expert. “These are still high gas prices.” 
…

The International Labor Organization says the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the youth labor market. The ILO’s just released “Global Employment Trends for 2022” report finds job prospects for young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are lagging behind other age groups.

Latest data estimate the total global number of unemployed youths will reach 73 million this year. While that is a slight improvement from 2021 levels, the ILO says the number of young people without jobs is still six million above the pre-pandemic level of 2019.

ILO Deputy Director-General Martha Newton says the COVID-19 crisis has exposed shortcomings in the way the needs of young people are being addressed. She says those least able to gain a foothold in the labor market include first-time jobseekers, school dropouts, inexperienced fresh graduates, and those who remain inactive not by choice.

“Following the arrival of the pandemic in 2020, the share of young people who are neither in employment, education, or training– and we refer to them as NEETS—rose to 23.3 percent, reaching the highest level…We saw the youth NEET rate jump to its highest level in 15 years,” Newton said.

The ILO says young people have faced multi-dimensional crises throughout the pandemic. It says interruptions in their education and training have robbed them of the skills needed to get a job. That, it says, threatens to damage their long-term employment, education and earning prospects.

Newton says job opportunities are narrowing for many young people. She adds young women are worse off than young men in finding employment. She says the ILO projects 27.4 percent of young women globally are likely to be employed in 2022, compared to 40.3 percent of young men.

“The impact of the pandemic has a feminine face. And we also know from our data that women are not coming back into the labor force at the same rates as the men in many countries around the world,” Newton said. “This is partly tied to the care responsibilities of women.”

The report finds recovery in youth unemployment is likely to be more successful in high-income countries than in low-and-middle-income countries. It projects the youth unemployment rate in North America to be below world average levels, at 8.3 percent compared to an unemployment rate of 20.5 percent in Latin America this year.

While youth unemployment stands at 12.7 percent in Africa, the report says that figure masks the fact that many young people in Africa have chosen to withdraw from the labor market.

The ILO cites the Arab states as the region with the highest and fastest growing youth unemployment rate in the world. It says the situation for women is particularly bad. The report notes the 42.5 percent unemployment rate for young women in the region is nearly three times higher than the global average for young women.
…

On the main street of Honiara, capital of the Solomon Islands, the Chinese presence is noticeable — some people on the street, some characters on the signs and at almost every cashier’s counter.

Locals say almost all of the grocery stores and convenience shops selling everything from snacks to electronics are owned by ethnic Chinese. In the city’s Chinatown, where three people died during riots in November that many blamed on Chinese ties, the Chinese presence is almost inescapable.

These days, some local residents are expressing dissatisfaction at what they see as China’s takeover of the Solomon Islands’ construction industry.

“A lot of Chinese firms, construction firms, have come into the country and there’s no way we can compete with them in terms of pricing,” Ricky Fuo’o, chairman of Solomon Islands Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told VOA Mandarin.

“Just the sheer size of these companies. … They are huge. So that’s one of the industries that we’ve seen that’s slowly being penetrated and taken over,” Fuo’o said.

In October 2019, the small but strategically important South Pacific island nation cut ties with Taiwan, established diplomatic relations with China, and signed agreements with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project that is planned to stretch from Asia to Europe.

In return, China promised $730 million for financial aid, and has taken over multiple infrastructure projects in the country. Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOE) such as China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC), China Railway Construction Company (CRCC) and China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC), are building most of these projects in the Solomon Islands.

The stadium project for the 2023 Pacific Games is one example. China’s state-owned company CCECC has won five of the seven infrastructure projects for the stadium in Honiara that includes facilities to accommodate many sports. At the same time, CCECC is building half of the main road in Honiara. There’s only one road, and aJapanese company is building the other half.

Bob Pollard, managing director of the local firm, Kokonut Pacific Solomon Islands, which makes coconut oil-based personal care products, told VOA Mandarin he thinks it is unfair because local companies cannot compete with these Chinese state-owned enterprises.

“I think it’s a real concern. … I don’t think it’s a level playing field,” Pollard said. “Who knows how much subsidy they receive from the Chinese government.”

Others think China is just helping the island develop its economy. The Solomon Islands consist of six major islands and more than 900 smaller islands in Oceania, covering a land area of about 28,400 square kilometers. The country achieved independence from Britain in 1978.

“I think China is not taking over Solomon Islands. … China is developing [the] Solomon Islands and they build public facilities and so forth,” Walton Naezon, former minister for Commerce, Industries and Employment, told VOA. Naezon is now the director at Gold Ridge Mining, an open-pit mining operation about 30 kilometers outside Honiara.

“That’s a good thing for the country. I’m happy that most of the Chinese investments here are in terms of public property. They are not loans, they are grant money,” he said.

A report from the Council on Foreign Relations pointed out China’s interest in the region.

“The Chinese government views the Pacific Island region as an important component of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),” the report said. “Specifically, it sees the region as a critical air freight hub in its so-called Air Silk Road, which connects Asia with Central and South America.”

Although all can see China’s influence here in Honiara, few know how these Chinese companies operate.

Michelle Lam, a consultant, is an ethnic Chinese born in the Solomon Islands to Hong Kong immigrants who came to teach English in the 1960s.

“They (ethnic Chinese) are everywhere. They run the shops, they have businesses, they move around. But you can’t call them Chinese presence. I guess this is just people doing their work,” Lam told VOA. “When people talk about Chinese presence, I guess they mean the (Chinese) SOEs (state-owned enterprises) who are here to do certain work,” in the construction industry on infrastructure projects.

Lam, who previously worked at China Harbor Engineering Company, said this has to do with how the Chinese SOEs operate.

“According to them, they’re just here to do their construction work. They don’t mingle at all,” she told VOA.

“When I was with China Harbor, the camp was very tight. They bring people in to work. They (the workers) basically work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep. They (the company) have zero tolerance for socialization,” she added.

VOA approached staff from China Harbor and China Civil Engineering Company for interviews, but both rejected offering comments on their current projects.

Liu Ze, the secretary of the Solomon Islands Chinese Business Council, told VOA Mandarin that Chinese workers arrived more than a century ago when the nation was a British protectorate.

Five people arrived from Guangdong Province, brought in to work as cooks to work as carpenters, according to Liu. By 1914, one, Kwong Cheong, had a trading business at Tulagi, the colonial capital, according to the Solomon Encyclopedia, which states that between 1920 and 1933, the Chinese population increased from 55 to 193.

“Most of them are from China’s Guangdong Province. They came over 100 years ago with the British and expanded their businesses here in Honiara,” he said. Britain had declared a protectorate over the island mainly to forestall a threat of annexation by France.

After World War II, the Chinese community increased and in the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s began to integrate into colonial society, took out British citizenship and came to control much of the Protectorate’s retail trade and became dominant in Honiara and the main provincial towns, according to the Solomon Encyclopedia. 
…

As India’s economy grew, the hum of factories turned the sleepy, dusty village of Manesar into a booming industrial hub, cranking out everything from cars and sinks to smartphones and tablets. But jobs have run scarce over the years, prompting more and more workers to line up along the road for work, desperate to earn money.

Every day, Sugna, a young woman in her early 20s who goes by her first name, comes with her husband and two children to the city’s labor chowk — a bazaar at the junction of four roads where hundreds of workers gather daily at daybreak to plead for work. It’s been days since she or her husband got work and she has only 5 rupees (6 cents) in hand.

Scenes like this are an everyday reality for millions of Indians, the most visible signs of economic distress in a country where raging unemployment is worsening insecurity and inequality between the rich and poor. It’s perhaps Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s biggest challenge as the country marks 75 years of independence from British rule on Monday.

“We get work only once or twice a week,” said Sugna, who says she earned barely 2,000 rupees ($25) in the past five months. “What should I do with a life like this? If I live like this, how will my children live any better?” Entire families leave their homes in India’s vast rural hinterlands to camp at such bazaars, found in nearly every city. Out of the many gathered in Manesar recently, only a lucky few got work for the day — digging roads, laying bricks and sweeping up trash for meager pay — about 80% of Indian workers toil in informal jobs including many who are self-employed.

India’s phenomenal transformation from an impoverished nation in 1947 into an emerging global power whose $3 trillion economy is Asia’s third largest has turned it into a major exporter of things like software and vaccines. Millions have escaped poverty into a growing, aspirational middle class as its high-skilled sectors have soared.

“It’s extraordinary — a poor country like India wasn’t expected to succeed in such sectors,” said Nimish Adhia, an economics professor at Manhattanville College. 

This year, the economy is forecast to expand at a 7.4% annual pace, according to the International Monetary Fund, making it one of the world’s fastest growing.

But even as India’s economy swells, so has joblessness. The unemployment rate remains at 7% to 8% in recent months. Only 40% of working age Indians are employed, down from 46% five years ago, the Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) says.

“If you look at a poor person in 1947 and a poor person now, they are far more privileged today. However, if you look at it between the haves and the have nots, that chasm has grown,” said Gayathri Vasudevan, chairperson of LabourNet, a social enterprise.

“While India continues to grow well, that growth is not generating enough jobs — crucially, it is not creating enough good quality jobs,” said Mahesh Vyas, chief executive at CMIE. Only 20% of jobs in India are in the formal sector, with regular wages and security, while most others are precarious and low-quality with few to no benefits.

That’s partly because agriculture remains the mainstay, with about 40% of workers engaged in farming.

As workers lost jobs in cities during the pandemic, many flocked back to farms, pushing up the numbers. “This didn’t necessarily improve productivity — but you’re employed as a farmer. It’s disguised unemployment,” Vyas said.

With independence from Britain in 1947, the country’s leaders faced a formidable task: GDP was a mere 3% of the world’s total, literacy rates stood at 14% and the average life expectancy was 32 years, said Adhia.

By the most recent measures, literacy stands at 74% and life expectancy at 70 years. Dramatic progress came with historic reforms in the 1990s that swept away decades of socialist control over the economy and spurred remarkable growth.

The past few decades inspired comparisons to China as foreign investment poured in, exports thrived and new industries — like information technology — were born. But India, a latecomer to offshoring by Western multinationals, is struggling to create mass employment through manufacturing. And it faces new challenges in plotting a way forward.

Financing has tended to flow into profitable, capital intensive sectors like petrol, metal and chemicals. Industries employing large numbers of workers, like textiles and leather work, have faltered. This trend continued through the pandemic: despite Modi’s 2014 ‘Make in India’ pitch to turn the country into another factory floor for the world, manufacturing now employs around 30 million. In 2017, it employed 50 million, according to CMIE data.

As factory and private sector employment shrink, young jobseekers increasingly are targeting government jobs, coveted for their security, prestige and benefits.

Some, like 21-year-old Sahil Rajput, view such work as a way out of poverty. Rajput has been fervently preparing for a job in the army, working in a low-paid data-entry job to afford private coaching to become a soldier and support his unemployed parents.

But in June, the government overhauled military recruitment to cut costs and modernize, changing long-term postings into four-year contracts after which only 25% of recruits will be retained. That move triggered weeks of protests, with young people setting vehicles on fire.

Rajput knows he might not be able to get a permanent army job. “But I have no other options,” he said. “How can I dream of a future when my present is in tatters?”

The government is banking on technology, a rare bright spot, to create new jobs and opportunities. Two decades ago, India became an outsourcing powerhouse as companies and call centers boomed. An explosion of start-ups and digital innovation aims to recreate that success — “India is now home to 75,000 startups in the 75th year of independence and this is only the beginning,” Minister of Commerce, Piyush Goyal, tweeted recently. More than 740,000 jobs have been created via start-ups, a 110% jump over the last six years, his ministry said.

There’s still a long way to go, in educating and training a labor force qualified for such work. Another worry is the steady retreat of working women in India — from a high of nearly 27% in 2005 to just over 20% in 2021, according to World Bank data.

Meanwhile, the stopgap of farming appears increasingly precarious as climate change brings extreme temperatures, scorching crops.

Sajan Arora, a 28-year-old farmer in India’s breadbasket state of Punjab, can no longer depend on ancestral farmland his family has relied on to survive. He, his wife and seven-month-old daughter, plan to join family in Britain and find work there after selling some land.

“Agriculture has no way forward,” said Arora, saying he will do whatever work he can get, driving a taxi, working in a store or on a construction site.

He’s sad to leave his parents and childhood home behind, but believes the uncertainty of change offers “better prospects” than his current reality.

“If everything was right and well, why would we go? If we want a better life, we will have to leave,” he said.
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