By Robin Gomes

Pope Francis on Saturday decried the injustice of what he called “pharmaceutical marginality”, saying those who live in poverty are poor even in medicines, treatment and health. 

He made the remark to some 300 representatives of the Italy-based Fondazione Banco Farmaceutico (Medicine Bank Foundation), which collects medicines from donors and companies to deliver them to over 1,800 charities that take care of people in difficulty. 

Injustice in treatment

Speaking to the Foundation on its 20^th anniversary this year, the Pope said sometimes people “run the risk of not being able to get treatment for lack of money, or because some people in the world do not have access to certain medicines”. “There is also a “pharmaceutical marginality”, which, he said, “creates a further gap between nations and peoples”. 

 “On the ethical level, if there is the possibility of curing a disease with a medicine, it should be available to everyone, otherwise it creates an injustice.”

The Holy Father lamented that too many people and children are still dying in the world because they cannot have the medications available in other regions. Warning against the danger of globalization of indifference, he proposed the globalization of treatment, which is the “possibility of access to those medications that could save so many lives for all populations”.  

Involving all actors

This, the Pope said, requires a “common effort, a convergence that involves everyone”. Scientific research can help find new solutions to old and new problems, including new paths of healing and treatment. Pharmaceutical companies can help contribute to a more equitable distribution of medicines. 

Pharmacists, he said, can be particularly attentive to those most in need and work for the integral good of those who approach them. Through their legislative and financial choices, those in authority are called to build a more just world in which the poor are not abandoned, or worst still, discarded.

Pandemic and pharmaceutical poverty

Pope Francis drew attention to the current pandemic, which, he said, has claimed nearly a million lives and is also turning into a serious economic crisis. This is increasing the number of poor people and families who don’t know how to go ahead.

“While charitable assistance is being provided,” the Pope said, “it is also a matter of fighting this pharmaceutical poverty, in particular with a wide spread of new vaccines in the world.” He reiterated that “it would be sad if in providing the vaccine, priority is given to the richest, or if this vaccine became the property of this or that country, and not for everyone”.

Collection Day

Through its Medicine Collection Day over the past 20 years, the Banco Farmaceutico Foundation has collected over 5.6 million medicines worth some €34 million. Over 4,900 pharmacies and more than 22,000 volunteers were involved in this year’s Medicine Collection Day in February. More than 473,000 needy people benefitted from the medicines collected.  

By Vatican News

In the Cathedral of Como on Saturday morning, a Memorial Mass took place for Father Roberto Malgesini, murdered on Tuesday by a homeless person. Bishop Oscar Cantoni celebrated the Mass and Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the Papal Almoner, represented Pope Francis and concelebrated. At the end of the Mass, the Cardinal spoke on behalf of Pope Francis. The offerings collected during and after the Mass will be used in the charities sustained by Pope Francis as well as by the poor of the Diocese of Como.

“I bring you the Holy Father’s greetings and fraternal embrace”, Cardinal Krajewski said at the end of the funeral Mass for Father Roberto Malgesini. “He is with us. He is united with us in prayer.”

He then related that as soon as Pope Francis heard the news of Father Malgesini’s death, he picked up the words of Como’s Bishop during the General Audience on Wednesday.

“I give praise to God for the witness, that is, for the martyrdom of this witness of charity toward the poorest.”

The Cardinal repeated other words Pope Francis said during the audience: “Pope Francis is with us and is united to the pain and prayers of Father Robert’s relatives…. He is united with the faithful of his Parish, to the needy whom he served with all of his heart until that last morning, and with the entire community in Como.”

“Father Roberto is dead, therefore, he is alive. Love never dies, not even with death,” the Cardinal continued. He then called to mind a Gospel passage that Father Roberto’s death incarnates: “Greater love than this has no one than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Commenting on this passage, Cardinal Krajewski said, “One cannot be a true Christian if we do not make this page our own.”

To the question, “why did this happen to Father Roberto and not to me?” the Cardinal responded he does not know. However, one thing is certain, Krejewski added, “in his life, he incorporated Jesus’s prayer: ‘Our Father, your will be done, not mine; hallowed by thy name, not mine; thy kingdom come, not mine.”

That page, the Cardinal reflected, “refers particularly to us priests, who need to live the Gospel in its purity, we who need to spread Jesus’s perfume everywhere we go.” This is the sentiment expressed in a prayer written by Saint John Henry Newman and left by Mother Teresa as a legacy to her sisters in their daily service to the poor:

Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,
That my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me
That every soul I come in contact with
May feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!

Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine,
So to shine as to be a light to others;
The light, O Jesus will be all from You; none of it will be mine;
It will be you, shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example,
By the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do,
The evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You.

Then turning to the Bishop of Como, Oscar Cantoni, Cardinal Krajewski ended saying:

“I am sure that there are many priests and lay faithful who want to pick up Father Roberto’s evangelical work because this path is the true Gospel in action. If by any chance no one comes forward, I will come to you.”

When radio host Tashia Kalondo visited a conservancy in Namibia, she didn’t realize just how close she would get to the wildlife. Ms. Kalondo had travelled widely and seen wildlife before, but when the camp staff said they’d have to camouflage the gate to their campsite with shrubs to prevent elephants from coming in overnight, she found it hard to believe. “I laughed because, what a joke, right?” she recalls. “Wrong!”

The next morning, she found tracks made by elephants, which, during the night, had loped silently in, just a stone’s throw from where Kalondo was sleeping. “My mind was blown,” she remembers.

Conservation and sustainable development

Namibia has 86 communal conservancies, which are run by the local residents, and are highly appreciated by tourists. Their desert landscapes of ochre sand, black rock, shining blue skies are stunning, and an array of wildlife species, including black rhinos, lions, cheetahs, hyenas, and zebras, roam the land.

Communal conservancies play an important role in sustainable development. People who live on conservancy land are granted rights to utilize wildlife sustainably, which include the harvesting of meat and the sale of trophy hunting rights, both based upon regulation and quotas. This way they benefit from wildlife management and tourism, and have less incentive to trade illegally in animal parts.

The conservancies protect and even recover wildlife, building back the population of animals lost to poachers. In 2019, poaching in Namibian conservancies decreased by more than 60% over the preceding year, thanks to greater intelligence and law enforcement operations — supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) — and tougher sentences and fines.

Zero tourists

This success now risks being undermined by COVID-19. Compared to other countries, the health toll of the virus has been relatively low, thanks largely to a ban on international arrivals put in place by the Namibian government in March. However, the impact on the economy, and tourism in particular, has been devastating: Namibia’s Ministry of Tourism is expecting zero tourist arrivals for the entirety of 2020.

Tashia Kalondo is from Namibia, where she’s a popular radio personality, but most tourists come from Europe, the US, China, and neighbouring African countries. In 2019, there were 1.7 million foreign visitors — that’s in a country of 2.5 million people. The conservancies alone bring in $3.2 million in income, not to mention $3.5 million in annual staff salaries. That’s a lot of money in a country that falls in the bottom third of the Human Development Index: nearly a third of Namibians are poor.

Due to the pandemic, tens of thousands of conservancy jobs are in jeopardy. With many people more desperate for food and income than before, poaching is expected to increase, yielding valuable products such as elephant tusks, rhino horns, or simply meat for local consumption. 

“Namibia is facing three challenges at once,” explains Alka Bhatia, UNDP Namibia Resident Representative. “There’s the pandemic. There’s the economic crisis. And then there’s the threat of increased poaching, which strikes a blow to the tourist industry and the economy.”

‘Conservancies must survive’

In response, UNDP  and the World Health Organization (WHO) are supporting the government by procuring medical supplies. UNDP also collaborated with the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in the capital, Windhoek, and WHO on health education initiatives, to slow the spread of the coronavirus

The conservancies are one of the biggest tent poles holding up the national economy. If they fall, then a lot more will collapse around them. Alka Bhatia, Namibia Resident Representative, UNDP

In addition, UNDP partnered with a local online shop to launch an e-commerce platform to help informal traders regain some of their lost income. And the agency made a grant to conservancies to stay afloat, covering their salaries and anti-poaching work. That’s just the latest move in years of support that UNDP has provided to the conservancies, including training and equipment to fight fires, and help with fire and land management policy.

“For the long-term health of the Namibian economy, the communal conservancies must survive,” says Ms. Bhatia. “The conservancies are one of the biggest tent poles holding up the national economy. If they fall, then a lot more will collapse around them.” 

It’s not just the economy that will be affected. The loss of natural areas, as well as the poaching and consumption of wildlife, increase the chance that viruses will jump from animals to humans. That means more zoonotic infectious diseases — such as Ebola or HIV/AIDS that pass from animals to humans — which leads to more economic crises, more poverty, more hunger. By protecting flora and fauna, conservancies act as a natural buffer against disease.

“The human-wildlife relationship is an intricate one,” says Ms. Kalondo, reflecting on her conservancy visit. “Besides admiring the wildlife, I spent time with some community members, including a Himba tribe settlement. I saw first-hand people and wildlife living together.” Her experience points to one of the greatest values of the conservancies. 

“Conservancies create jobs. They provide jaw-dropping experiences of wildlife,” says Ms. Bhatia. “But they also give us something else. They provide a lesson on how to coexist with the natural world. It’s a lesson we should all be mindful of.”

Gary Rynhart: When COVID-19 spread around the world, many migrants were shipped home unceremoniously or left to fend for themselves. Migrants have also – because of the sectors they work in, and the poor conditions in which many lower skilled migrants live and work – been vectors for spreading the virus. Examples we’ve seen include workers in meat factories in Germany, and construction workers in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. 

UN News: are migrants more likely to have lost work, due to the economic crisis?

Gary Rynhart: Job losses have often hit migrant workers hardest, because they are more likely to work in informal jobs which can lack safety nets, in case of job loss or illness. This is particularly the case for migrants in developing countries, and temporary migrants, such as seasonal workers, where social protection tends, at best, to be limited to work injury compensation or health benefits.

Over thirty countries in the world get more than 10 per cent of their GDP from remittances. This money sent home by around one billion workers overseas or internally to their families is collectively higher than either foreign direct investment or official development assistance. It was almost three-quarters of a billion dollars last year. The World Bank estimates a drop of 20% this year. Families across the developing world are being impacting, creating ripple effects throughout their economies.

UN News: will migrants be able to find jobs, once the global economy recovers?

Gary Rynhart: The disruption to supply chains and closed borders resulting from the pandemic will probably lead to more firms turning to technology, automation and Artificial Intelligence. In a recent survey by accounting firm EY, around half of company bosses surveyed, in 45 countries, said that they are speeding up plans to automate their businesses, and some 41 per cent said they were investing in accelerating automation, as businesses prepared for a post-crisis world.

This is potentially bad news for migrants. Southeast Asia is a case in point: take the garment factories in the region, which is mostly filled with internal migrants, or the shrimp peeling industry in Thailand, which is done by Myanmar migrants.

Technology to reduce, or eliminate, the need for human workers in these industries already exists.

Even call centres in the Philippines, which benefited from outsourcing that began in the 1990s, are affected. It’s estimated that up to 90 per cent of these ‘new’ jobs are under high threat from automation. That’s one million jobs, accounting for around seven per cent of the country’s GDP.

Manufacturing, retail, health care and hospitality will be significantly impacted sectors.  In the Japanese healthcare sector robotic care workers, or ‘carebots’ are increasingly deployed to, quite literally, do the ‘heavy lifting’. This does away with many of the physically demanding orderly positions traditionally filled by migrants. 

The retail sector has typically relied on migrant workers, but the COVID-19 pandemic has seen a dramatic growth in online shopping. In the hospitality sector, automated experiments include robots that provide bartending services on cruise ships and in airports, and that deliver food to hotel guests’ rooms. More hotels are offering automated check-in via app or even, in China, via facial recognition. Alexa-enabled speakers in hotel rooms let guests ask for sightseeing tips and order toothbrushes without talking to staff.

Using GPS technology, robots can be used in precision agriculture for weed control and harvesting. The pandemic may also have given another nudge to technology for Driverless cars which could soon see taxi driving, another job many migrants do, fall by the wayside.

What the last few months have shown is that an awful lot of processes and meetings (e.g. doctors’ appointments, visa renewals) can be done online.  There has been a surge in telemedicine, and, as video technology improves, diagnostics such as measuring temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure may also be done via a webcam. Certain elements of teaching can be done through digital platforms, and there is currently a big increase in internet-based education services.

Improvements in virtual reality, augmented reality, hologram technology, and collaboration tools will make all of that even easier. Many administrative functions can be carried out remotely:

There are many new employment opportunities here, which could reduce the need for migration, and remote working could open the door for women to access opportunities commensurate with their talent by going elsewhere virtually, without moving physically. This is especially important in regions where there are cultural biases against women actively searching for jobs: platforms have been found to help women find work, and remote working can offer them an important veil of anonymity.

UN News: has the pandemic affected attitudes towards migrants?

Gary Rynhart: There has been an increase in discrimination, in particular anti-Asian discrimination specifically related to COVID 19, and some populist political parties have sought to scapegoat migrants (we’ve seen this in Italy, Spain, Greece, France, and Germany, amongst others).

But the post-pandemic world is not necessarily all bad news, and there are signs that it may bring about new opportunities for migrants, and even improved perceptions.

For example, many migrants are filling frontline medical roles or providing essential services like stacking supermarket shelves or cleaning hospitals. Additionally, we have seen some softening of restrictions on foreign-trained and foreign-born health workers in high-income countries to cope with the crisis: refugee doctors without recognized qualifications were called up in Germany, and had recognition of their qualifications fast-tracked in the UK, some US States have allowed foreign-trained doctors to work, and Australia lifted working hour caps on foreign-trained nurses.

In fact, despite recent populist rhetoric, attitudes towards migrants have been steadily, and markedly, improving in recent years. According to a survey of 18 countries published last year, 63 per cent of US citizens felt immigrants were a burden on the country, back in 1994, and only 31 per cent felt they strengthened it.

Fast forward 25 years and the figures are reversed. By a ratio of two to one US citizens are pro-migration.  According to the same survey, majorities in top migrant destination countries, which host half of the world’s migrants, say immigrants strengthen their countries. Majorities in the UK, France, Spain, Australia, Canada, Sweden and Germany all agree with the statement ‘migrants make my country stronger’. 

Maybe one outcome of this crisis will be more inclusivity, and more diversity, in the global workplace, and an improvement in some of the factors that drive people to leave their homes and countries, in search of better livelihoods.