The European Civil Society Round-Up

Inequality overshadows WTO Ministerial

2011-12-14T04:26:00.000-08:00

The international trade union movement has warned of growing social unrest and increased social hardship if trade liberalization continues against the backdrop of harsh unemployment and austerity measures. Ten years since the Doha Round of trade talks opened in 2001, the global economy has witnessed a food crisis, a climate crisis, a financial crisis and a severe jobs crisis. “The existence of the WTO has done nothing to prevent trade imbalances growing to unsustainable levels accompanied by dangerously widening income inequality,” said Sharan Burrow, General-Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

The deal on the table at the 8th meeting of Trade Ministers in Geneva 15 -17 December 2011 will not help trade to drive economic recovery, employment creation and genuine economic development, and ultimately puts the multilateral trading system at risk. The trade union delegation attending the talks will be monitoring a number of issues up for negotiation by Ministers and will aim to maintain policy space and to keep new issues such as the Singapore issues (investment, competition policy and government procurement) out of the WTO negotiations. According to ITUC, the talks should provide a package for Least Developed Countries to have duty free and quota free market access for all products, the elimination of cotton subsidies and a waiver for commitments in services.

The ITUC is calling for an evaluation of the Doha round outcomes to assess its impact on providing decent work, improved living standards and diversifying the economies of developing countries. “Without measuring the impact on developing countries and workers, it makes little sense to move forward with trade liberalization. The developmental mandate of the Doha agenda must be reaffirmed if the round is to be concluded.” said Sharan Burrow.

* Find the Global Union Statement of Priorities for the 8th WTO Ministerial Conference >>> here.

Eurodad: ECAs push poor country debt and shrinks aid budgets

2011-12-13T08:39:00.000-08:00

Campaigners are demanding tighter controls on the activities of so-called export credit agencies (ECAs) after a new report lifts the lid on how the shadowy government bodies force vulnerable developing nations ever-deeper into debt, while allowing European governments to count their own financial gain as development aid. “Almost 80% of developing country debt to European governments comes from loans that supported European commercial interest and not development,” says Núria Molina, director of the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) which drew up the new report, Exporting goods or exporting debts? Export Credit Agencies and the roots of developing country debt. “They are undermining aid efforts, and keeping countries mired in poverty,” adds Molina.

ECAs are public bodies that provide credit guarantees to companies and financial institutions to ease exports from the country in which they are based. This allows exporting companies to invest in riskier projects than what would normally be the case, often in developing countries. Export credits to developing countries almost tripled in 2008 as compared to pre-crisis levels, showing the need to tighten up on controls. UN figures show that European government ECAs supported more than $1trillion in trade and investment in 2007. The figure increased by 35% in 2008-2009 as an effort by European governments to save their export industries at a time of dwindling global markets.

Export credits greatly reduce the amount of aid to developing countries, as when most European governments cancel developing country debt they charge that amount from the aid budget. According to the study, 85% of developing country debt cancelled by European governments and charged from the aid budget in 2005-2009 was actually debt created from export credits, which are in most cases driven by commercial, not development objectives. Counting cancellation of export credit debt as aid monies draws monies away from real aid, making fewer resources available for the world’s poor. The activities of these public bodies are hardly controlled at all, so the projects they support have often caused human rights violations and environmental damage in poor countries.

European Union regulations agreed in September, although welcome, don’t go far enough. Based on its Responsible Finance Charter, Eurodad is proposing concrete measures for governments to clean up their export credit operations including:
* Ensuring that ECAs and the projects they back are opened up to public scrutiny;
* Ending the use of aid money to cancel export credit debt;
* Introducing binding regulations to stop export credits being peddled aggressively to developing countries to the benefit of companies in industrialised nations.

Durban: Turning Green Climate Fund into Greedy Corporate Fund?

2011-12-01T03:50:00.000-08:00

Today 163 civil society organisations from 39 countries released a letter exposing an attempt led by the US, the UK and Japan to turn the Green Climate Fund into a “Greedy Corporate Fund” at UN climate talks in South Africa. The Green Climate Fund was created to support people in developing countries – people who are the most affected by the climate crisis but are the least responsible for it. But at the climate negotiations this week, developed countries are trying to allow multinational corporations and financiers to directly access GCF financing. This means companies could bypass developing country governments and their national climate strategies to get to public money.

“Turning the Green Climate Fund into a Greedy Corporate Fund would be
shameful, yet this is what is being attempted at the Durban climate
talks,” said Meena Raman from Third World Network. “Led by the US and the UK on behalf of Wall Street and The City, this attempt to hijack developing countries’ funding is outrageous. Communities need this money to address climate change and to finance their own development – without repeating the same mistakes that the rich countries have made,” said Karen Orenstein from Friends of the Earth US. “The role of private investment in financing climate activities must be decided at the national and sub-national levels in line with countries’ priorities, not corporate bottom lines. The move to allow the private sector to go directly to the Green Climate Fund for money undermines the possibility of a democratic, participatory process for meeting the needs of communities struggling to fight climate change,” said Lidy Nacpil of Jubilee South Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development.

Few adaptation measures in developing countries will be attractive to the private sector, as they will not generate revenue. Some key mitigation programs may also not be financially lucrative. Groups also warned against closed door negotiations on the Green Climate Fund by South Africa, the US, and other developed countries. “Whatever happens in Durban must be fully transparent. We are deeply concerned by reports that South Africa is informally consulting behind closed doors on the Green Climate Fund decision,” said Bobby Peek of groundwork / Friends of the Earth South Africa. “This will greatly undermine the legitimacy, and ultimately the effectiveness, of the Green Climate Fund.”

The concerns expressed in the letter come on top of the long-held
rejection by many in civil society of any role for the World Bank in the
Green Climate Fund.

Civil Society Reflection Group: Statement to Rio+20

2011-11-11T07:17:00.000-08:00

“We have exceeded the ecological limits and ignore the planetary boundaries. With the climate change threat we are already living on borrowed time. However, we refuse to cut back on emissions and allocate the scarce resources to those who have not yet benefitted from their exploitation,” warned the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives in its statement for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+2012) to be held next June. “We live in a world where the top 20% of the population enjoy more than 70% of total income and those in the bottom quintile get only 2% of global income” and where “50% of carbon emissions are generated by 13% of the population,” adds the document of the Reflection Group, created a year ago by an alliance of civil society groups, networks and foundations to provide specific policy recommendations for Rio+2012, among other tasks.

The statements noted that “the ideals and principles” set in the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 “have been overshadowed, as implementation has mostly not occurred”. “Similarly, a host of international commitments to human rights and gender justice have not been fulfilled. World product per capita has more than doubled in the last two decades, yet with widening disparities. Globalization has yielded millions of poor quality jobs. Financial and commodity speculation has undercut food security and turned millions of hectares of land away from growing food and into unsustainable uses. Little has been done to change patterns of production and consumption that pollute, erode biodiversity and lead inexorably to climate change,” adds the Group, which members are Alejandro Chanona, Barbara Adams, Beryl d'Almeida, Chee Yoke Ling, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, Danuta Sacher, Filomeno Sta. Ana III, George Chira, Gigi Francisco, Henning Melber, Hubert Schillinger, Jens Martens, Jorge Ishizawa, Karma Ura, Roberto Bissio, Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, and Yao Graham.

The failure, said the group, happened because “states have reneged on their democratic values and governments have become less accountable to the people”, and because “universal norms and standards are being ignored or side-stepped by new rules that favour markets”. “Risks are being borne by those who had no role in taking them while a new classification of ‘too-big-to-fail’ has re-ordered the distribution of public resources. We are confronted with a hierarchy of rights with those protecting human and eco systems relegated to the lowest rungs Polluter pays principle. The simple message of this principle is that the costs of pollution have to be borne by those who cause it,” explained the Group.

The Reflection Group proposal remarked eight core principles: the “precautionary principle”, the “do not harm principle”, the “subsidiarity principle”, the “principle of free, prior and informed consent”, the “principle of peaceful dispute settlement”, and the principles of freedom, equality, diversity and respect for nature. “All governments agreed to these principles in general”, but “they have mostly failed to translate them into enforceable obligations and specific policies”.

The statement proposes to fix fiscal policies for “the four R’s”: “the raising of revenues in order to provide the necessary public goods and services; the redistribution of income and wealth from the richer to poorer sections of society; the repricing of goods and services in order to internalize ecological and social costs and discourage undesirable behaviour; and the justification for citizens to demand democratic representation and accountability.” It also suggested, in the area of public expenses, the abolition of harmful subsidies, the strengthening of public spending to stimulate sustainable production and consumption, cutting military spending, setting an universal social protection floor for all, the universal access to public healthcare, guaranteed state allowances for every child and support for unemployed and underemployed people, an universal basic pension provided by the state for persons in old age or with disabilities, the public provision of essential services, the strengthening participatory, gender and human rights budgeting initiative, the use of public procurement policies to promote sustainability and the use of sovereign wealth funds to finance sustainable investment.

The document also proposes a new global system of financial burden sharing beyond ODA and a compensation scheme to pay off climate debt. The Reflection Group finally suggested to “re-arrange and re-configure” international and national institutions in charge of the sustainable development, as the creation of a “Sustainable Development Council”, international ombudsperson (one for “future generations”) and special rapporteurs, a “Sherpa for Sustainability”, parliamentary committees on policy coherence on sustainability and upgrading the Committee on Development Policy.

The preliminary statement (full text >>> here) produced by the Civil Society Reflection Group is a “work in progress” and has not been fully discussed by all its members. Not every recommendation in the statement was explicitly endorsed by each of its members, but the text captures the ideas and the fundamental consensus formulated in previous meetings. A more comprehensive final report of the Group will be published in spring 2012.

Gates Report highlights role of innovation in expanding development resources

2011-11-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

In a report about financing for development delivered today at the G20 Summit, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, urged leaders to commit to increasing the pool of resources dedicated to development or risk causing irreparable damage to the livelihoods of millions of the poorest people. Underlying these recommendations is the idea that innovation can multiply the impact of the resources devoted to development. Gates’ report, Innovation with Impact: Financing 21st Century Development, was presented to heads of State and Governments in Cannes, France, at the request of G20 chairman French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In his report, Gates stresses the need for rich countries to continue their generosity and meet their foreign aid commitments – which are generally between one and two percent of government’s budgets – while ensuring that aid is spent effectively in areas such as health and agriculture. Beyond rich countries’ responsibility, Gates says rapidly emerging economies represented in the G20 also play a growing role in driving progress in development. In his report, he proposes ideas for enabling speedier transfer of the innovations these countries are pioneering – particularly in the areas of health and agriculture, such as vaccines and seeds – to transform the lives of poor people in Africa and beyond. “I am particularly excited about the possibility of ‘triangular partnerships’ among rapidly growing countries, traditional donors, and poor countries, because they exploit the comparative advantages of many different countries,” Gates says in his report.

“Ultimately, developing countries’ domestic resources will be the largest source of funds for development,” according to Gates, who recommends measures the G20 could take to help poor countries’ maximize their own resources to reduce poverty. Ideas include directing foreign aid at helping developing countries better collect tax revenue, which could raise approximately $20bn a year at today’s GDP, and increasing transparency requirements for mining and oil companies. Gates calls on poor countries to focus resources on priorities which directly benefit poor people, like health and agriculture, and urged African leaders to meet the targets they had set in the Abuja Declaration to devote at least 15% of their budgets to improving health, and in the Maputo Declaration, which calls for devoting 10% of budgets on agriculture.

The report to G20 leaders also calls for adopting innovative ways to mobilize private sector finance and encourage private sector growth as a way to raise funds for development. Recommendations include making sovereign wealth funds available for infrastructure investments in poor countries, continuing to lower transaction costs of remittances by diaspora communities, and using pull mechanisms in agriculture to encourage innovation in agricultural technologies.

Gates also uses the report to identify new streams of funding, by directing a percentage of funds from a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), Solidarity Tobacco Contribution, and an aviation and bunker fuel tax, to fund development and climate change. Concerning the FTT the report says: “Some modelling suggests that even a small tax of ten basis points on equities and two basis points on bonds would yields about $48bn on a G20-wide basis, or $9bn if it were confined to larger European economies. Other FTT proposals offer substantially larger estimates, in the S100bn to $250bn range, especially if derivatives are included.”

World of Work Report 2011: ILO warns of a new and deeper jobs recession

2011-10-31T09:23:00.000-07:00

In a grim analysis issued on the eve of the G20 leaders summit, the International Labour Organization (ILO) says the global economy is on the verge of a new and deeper jobs recession that will further delay the global economic recovery and may ignite more social unrest in scores of countries. The new World of Work Report 2011: Making markets work for jobs says a stalled global economic recovery has begun to dramatically affect labour markets. On current trends, it will take at least five years to return employment in advanced economies to pre-crisis levels, one year later than projected in last year’s report.

Noting that the current labour market is already within the confines of the usual six-month lag between an economic slowdown and its impact on employment, the report indicates that 80 million jobs need to be created over the next two years to return to pre-crisis employment rates. However, the recent slowdown in growth suggests that the world economy is likely to create only half of the jobs needed.

The report also features a new “social unrest” index that shows levels of discontent over the lack of jobs and anger over perceptions that the burden of the crisis is not being shared fairly. It notes that in over 45 of the 118 countries examined, the risk of social unrest is rising. This is especially the case in advanced economies, notably the EU, the Arab region and to a lesser extent Asia. By contrast, there is a stagnant or lower risk of social unrest in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

The study shows that nearly two-thirds of advanced economies and half of emerging and developing economies with recent available data are once again experiencing a slowdown in employment. This comes on top of an already precarious employment situation in which global unemployment is at its highest point ever, surpassing 200 million worldwide.

The report cites three reasons why the ongoing economic slowdown may have a particularly strong impact on the employment panorama: first, compared to the start of the crisis, enterprises are now in a weaker position to retain workers; second, as pressure to adopt fiscal austerity measures mount, governments are less inclined to maintain or adopt new job- and income-support programmes; and third, countries are left to act in isolation due to lack of international policy coordination.

G20 leaders must put people before bankers

2011-10-31T09:13:00.000-07:00

G20 leaders must meet the demands of working people at the G20 summit in Cannes on 3-4 November 2011 and deliver on their promises to reform the financial sector. As the economic and financial crisis enters its most dangerous phase so far, G20 leaders must deliver a co-ordinated response which puts people before bankers, warns the international trade union movement. Meeting alongside the G20, the ‘Labour 20’ Summit in Cannes will bring together elected trade union leaders from G20 countries for crisis talks on the economy and on attacks on labour rights.

International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Sharan Burrow said unemployment is the largest single threat to recovery and has reached record levels with over 200 million people out of work and many more working in insecure jobs. Meanwhile, the financial system continues to be bailed out by governments who fail to take the necessary action to reform their destabilising and highly risky lending practices. “Public pressure for governments to act in the interests of people and not the bankers will grow and grow. People are angry. The international trade union movement will be in Cannes to demand action and reform to respond to that justified anger,” said Burrow.

Global Unions are calling on G20 leaders to adopt a four-point plan for jobs and recovery that stems the jobs crisis and re-shapes the world economy for working people:

* Establish a co-ordinated jobs target and immediate measures of job-intensive infrastructure programmes, green jobs investment and labour market programmes to raise skills;
* Reduce income inequality and strengthen workers’ rights;
* Put in place a social protection floor;
* Reform the financial sector and establish a financial transactions tax.

The proposals for recovery plans from the L20 will be delivered to G20 host President Nicolas Sarkozy and to other G20 Heads of State and Government, and must be taken into account in the final G20 conclusions. The statement of global unions to the G20 is >>> here.

No land investments without consent of local communities, CIDSE says

2011-10-21T04:11:00.000-07:00

This week, the UN Committee on Food Security (CFS) held its 37th session in Rome, which looked at food price volatility, gender, food security and nutrition and agricultural investment. The session was meant to open with the adoption of new voluntary guidelines on land tenure, but governments were unable to finalise negotiations. The international alliance of Catholic development agencies CIDSE welcomes the efforts put into the talks so far, while urging governments to finalise negotiations as soon as possible and move towards putting the guidelines in practice. The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests are meant to protect land tenure of small scale food producers, urgently needed in view of land grabbing which has dramatically increased in recent years.

CIDSE and other civil society organisations who participated in the negotiations in Rome highlight the progress made. Nearly three quarters of the text of the Voluntary Guidelines were successfully negotiated, including critical issues such as the recognition and protection of customary tenure, the tenure of forests and fisheries and the protection of rights defenders responding to the critical issue of their criminalisation. Several controversial issues, such as those relating to investments in agriculture remain open, however. According to CIDSE, “The land belongs to those who work it. Acknowledging the right of small farmers and local communities to cultivate their own land is an important step towards food security, as their right to food should always have priority over land investments.”

The issue of land governance is of growing importance. As much as 227 million hectares of land in developing countries (about the size of Western Europe) has been sold or leased since 2001. The bulk of these have taken place in the last 2 years, an overwhelming majority in Africa. The increase in land grabbing is linked to the 2007-2008 food price crisis which has triggered the interest of investors and governments in agriculture because of its profit making potential. The demand for food, timber, carbon sequestration and mineral exploration, as well as agro-fuels directives in developed countries, are key drivers of land grabbing. Investors include national elites, foreign companies and international governments, including oil rich states and China looking to secure food for their populations.

New CAP proposals exclude development obligations

2011-10-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

The European Commission presented a draft proposal for a new Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) on 10 October for the period after 2013. The main aims of the draft are “to strengthen the competitiveness, sustainability and permanence of agriculture throughout the EU”, reads an official EU press release. Ten key points are stressed in this respect, including better targeting of income support, developing crisis management tools, greening agricultural production, stimulating rural employment and channelling additional funding towards research and innovation.

However, the Commission proposal does not mention Policy Coherence for Development (PCD). “Until now in the debates on the reform process, all EU institutions have made reference to take into account the principle that the CAP must seek to reduce its overseas impact through greater Policy Coherence for Development. Yet the Commission has not translated this into concrete measures in its proposals”, comments Oliver Consolo, Director of the Concord network.

Moreover, in a public hearing of the EP Development Committee (DEVE) taking place before the publication of the proposal, Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloş maintained that food security is a global concern that needs to be taken into account in all policies. However, “the widespread support from the European Parliament (EP) to include global responsibility for food security in the CAP reform to improve the policies’ impact on developing countries and the world’s poor has been ignored”, reads the Concord press release.

Calling on the EP and the Council to design a CAP mechanism that complies with the Lisbon Treaty provision of PCD, the European Development NGOs outlined a series of recommendations for this purpose, mainly for the creation of grievance and monitoring mechanisms. Farmer organisation in developing countries should be granted a space to be heard and even an EU Ombudsman for PCD should be instituted. In addition, a CAP Impact Monitoring System should “include an indicator specific to the objectives of monitoring the consistency between the CAP and its development and trade policies”, proposes Concord. In addition, unfair trading practices such as export subsidies should be phased out, yet the new reform proposal mentions no commitment to completely stop this practice.

The present draft opens the ordinary legislative proposal in which the three institutions — Commission, Council and European Parliament — will decide on the future of the European Common Agricultural Policy after 2013.

IMF-inspired labour laws in Romania: Hardship for workers

2011-10-19T03:21:00.000-07:00

Major changes in Romania’s labour laws, introduced at the behest of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, have stripped away key protections for the country’s workforce and are denying large numbers of workers the right to union representation. More people are now forced to take a second job to make ends meet as labour market conditions become more precarious and incomes stagnate. According to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the IMF prescription in Romania contradicts the positive signals about workers’ rights from its Washington Headquarters. The government has ignored the advice of the ILO despite promising to respect international labour standards.

“A small number of employers and foreign investors are getting the benefits of the government’s lack of concern for the men and women who produce the goods and provide the services that keep the economy running,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow. The new laws, which the Romania’s trade union movement are trying to have amended, exclude workers in the “liberal professions” from the right to union membership, and introduced a series of legal and procedural obstacles to remove workers’ collective bargaining rights. Government claims that the laws have reduced unemployment are not supported by its own statistics.

“Powerful corporate and financial interests are succeeding in turning back two decades of democratic progress for Romania’s workers. These laws are a threat to the country’s economic and social stability, yet the government is putting ideology ahead of the interests of its own citizens,” said Burrow.

Agenda for Change: In whose interest?

2011-10-18T02:36:00.000-07:00

The European Commission is seeking to attach more conditions to development aid and restrict it to fewer recipients. This is the message that is set out in the Commission Communication entitled ‘Agenda for Change’ adopted on 13 October. The most prominent innovation is the concept of ‘differentiated partnerships’ by which different countries will be eligible for different forms of assistance mechanisms. The Agenda emphasizes good governance as a more important prerequisite for development assistance and also focuses on the concept of inclusive growth — with development effects reaching those most in need.

This however seems to be counter to the goal included in the Age for Change of reducing the recipient countries. Middle-income countries where a large segment of the population lives below the poverty line would no longer be recipients of development aid. “Unfortunately the most important change in Piebalgs’ new agenda is that aid to the world’s poorest is being cut, diverting funds towards energy and private sector investments which are in the interest of the EU only, not the developing world,” says Concord Director, Olivier Consolo. Concord also highlights that poverty has not disappeared from countries now classified as middle income and these poor should not face reductions because of these categorizations.

Head of Oxfam International’s EU Office, Natalia Alonso, similarly points towards the negative implications this will have on the poor living in middle-income countries. Moreover, she calls attention to the limits of the private sector in its role in development. “We cannot sit on our hands and assume that the benefits of the private sector will simply trickle down and reach those most in need”, says Alonso. Concord also mentions that although the private sector can be beneficial for development, Official Development Assistance (ODA) should not be used “to guarantee private sector risk or to substitute public services.”

The Agenda for Change is accompanied by a paper on budget support outlining some of the implications it has on this modality of aid delivery. Oxfam International’s EU Office welcomes the EU determination to continue to use this system for poverty reduction objectives, but also warns against a politicization of aid that can result from more requirements. “We are surprised that the Commission suggests attaching more political conditions to recipient countries. Budget support must remain a poverty-reduction tool – not a political one”, stresses Natalia Alonso.

Actions in 70 countries to mark World Day for Decent Work

2011-10-07T01:33:00.000-07:00

With unprecedented public demand for decent jobs, and pressure mounting on banks and the finance industry, the 2011 World Day for Decent Work today features over 400 actions across more than 70 countries, according to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). More than 200 million people worldwide are unemployed according to official figures, and hundreds of millions more lack decent, secure jobs. “People’s rights at work are under attack as never before, and governments lack the vision and commitment to fix a global economy which is failing working people,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

Actions on the World Day for Decent Work this year aim at tackling “precarious work” – the deepening trend towards casual, temporary and insecure jobs, often with little legal protection. Young people and women in the workforce are most likely to be affected, with their incomes and earning potential suffering as a result. Decent work – rights at work, job creation policies, social protection and social dialogue involving unions and employers – is seen crucial to turning the global economy around and generating the tax revenues for governments to tackle the fiscal situation.

“With the G20 leaders soon to meet in France, we are looking to them to take the steps needed and to stop following the failed policies which put the vested interests of banks and finance ahead of people’s lives and livelihoods,” said Burrow, who is addressing a special conference in Amsterdam today to mark the World Day. Today’s events include some 50 activities across Japan, with marches, conferences and youth meetings in several African countries and meetings and mobilisations throughout Russia and Ukraine. A series of activities in Latin America includes initiatives by trade unions in Peru and Chile to get official government recognition of the World Day for Decent Work.

EU FTT plan is a historic opportunity

2011-09-28T06:08:00.000-07:00

Today, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso announced before the European Parliament that the Commission has adopted a proposal to set up a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) in the European Union. Civil society organisation such as the international alliance of Catholic development agencies CIDSE call on the Finance Ministers of all EU member states to endorse the plan when they meet on 5 October 2011, making sure sufficient money is earmarked for the fight against poverty and climate change. Bernd Nilles, Secretary General of CIDSE, qualified the initiative as “an important victory for justice and solidarity” being in sight.

The Directive would establish an EU-wide tax applied on a broad range of financial transactions ranging from stocks and shares to futures and derivatives in organised markets and over-the-counter trading. Unfortunately, the Directive remains vague about what FTT revenues should be spent on. CIDSE reckons it is inconceivable that they would simply go to replenish the EU budget or national coffers.

A closer look to the draft version of the Directive reveals a mixed picture. Positive elements are:

* Establishment of an EU-wide tax applied on a broad range of financial transactions ranging from stocks and shares to futures and derivatives in organised markets and over-the-counter trading.
* It will be difficult to evade the tax, as the FTT will be applied on the basis of residence. This means that one of the parties to the transaction should be authorised to act, or be registered, or reside, or have a branch, in a member state for it to be taxable.
* The Directive could also contribute to fiscal transparency by taxing transfers even between daughter concerns within the same mother company. Such transactions are notorious for being non-transparent and under-valued. Taxes on such transactions will be calculated on the basis of the market price, making it more difficult for parties to ‘fix’ the value of a transaction to suit their own purpose.
* EU member states must implement an FTT by 2014, rather than the earlier mentioned implementation by 2018 at the latest.

Negative aspects include:

* There is no clear stipulation that the revenues of the FTT should be used to tackle poverty and climate change. While the Directive does acknowledge that the call for the FTT also stems from the desire to generate additional revenue among others for ‘specific policy purposes,’ it merely states that the tax would create a new revenue stream for the EU and its Member States.
* Trading in currency and commodities are exempt from the FTT which could reduce its revenue raising potential and have unforeseen implications on these markets.
* The Directive also recommends a low tax rate for derivatives to reduce the risk of tax avoidance, evasion and abuse. Yet, many other measures could be put in place to prevent tax evasion, especially with regards to the issue of where a party to the transaction is established.

Trade unions praise G20 Labour Ministers

2011-09-28T02:32:00.000-07:00

The international trade union movement said Labour Ministers have set the standard for Finance Ministers and Leaders to follow as they prioritized employment and endorsed the social protection floor and rights for workers after their two day meeting in Paris, 26-27 September. ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow said that Labour Ministers have shown themselves to be champions of workers and the real economy where workers and employers are the actors, not bankers and rating agencies. Now the G20 Leaders and Finance Ministers must follow suit. The results of the meeting can be found in a Communiqué and the Conclusions endorsed by the Ministers.

“G20 Labour ministers have shown their Leaders the way to go. Now the Leaders must send the right instructions to their Finance Ministers, so that spending for jobs is increased while the G20 finally bring the financial markets under control as they promised to do when the crisis first broke three years ago. Complacency by G20 governments has meant no regulation of the financial sector and no action to meet the jobs crisis. We know that only workers will drive the world out of the crisis, not the bankers or the ratings agencies,” said Sharan Burrow.

The union movement also welcomed the creation of a task force on employment by the G20 Labour Ministers, and called for the group to put in place plans to build the green economy, tackle the severe crisis in youth employment, formalise informal economic activity and create sustainable jobs and businesses. OECD-TUAC General Secretary John Evans said Labour Minsters have set in place the basis for serious follow up to their work by establishing a task force on employment to be co-chaired by France and Mexico. “Its work needs to cover all the main challenges to employment at this time, from youth unemployment to the national employment targets that the G20 needs to establish. The union movement will devote maximum priority to working with the task force to help devise responses to the record levels of global unemployment,” said John Evans.

Trade unions further welcomed the Labour Ministers' endorsement of a social protection floor based on the ILO's four-part definition and workers’ rights. “When over 75 % of the world’s workers have inadequate social protection this is an economic as well as a social disaster and no more than now in times of great transitions. Developed countries built their social security systems when they were poor and coming out of the Great Depression of the 30s. These great social contracts became economic foundations as they work as economic stabilisers. When the finance ministers meet in Paris in October, they need to look at coordinated action for investment in jobs and social protection and to recognize the economic role of collective bargaining to reduce income inequality,” said Sharan Burrow.

The G20 Labour Ministers met following a tripartite dialogue with employers and unions. “A strong social dialogue with employers and unions laid the foundation for the G20 Labour Leaders discussion, which allowed workers to be put at the centre of recovery plans. Finance Ministers and Leaders need to take heed, and hear the voices of workers not just the bankers,” said Burrow.

G20 Labour Ministers in Paris: Addressing unemployment can boost economy

2011-09-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

The international trade union movement called on the G20 Employment and Labour Ministers meeting in Paris on 26-27 September to step up to the plate and ensure that the G20 leaders tackle the jobs crisis as the central priority. Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, ITUC said time is running out, the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in Washington failed workers, now it up to the Labour Ministers to stand up for working people. “With unemployment come worsening social problems that will cause tension and strikes.”

According to Burrow, by addressing unemployment and putting people back to work politicians can boost the economy. “If boosting the economy is the problem G20 leaders are most worried about, jobs and social protection is the solution,” she said. John Evans, General Secretary TUAC said targeted investment in social spending such as health, infrastructure and green jobs will create jobs in the real economy. “The G20 promised to put quality employment at the heart of the recovery in their response to the financial crisis in 2008 - 2009, but their premature withdrawal of support for jobs has meant three years later we see a jobs emergency,” said Evans.

Labour and Employment Ministers are meeting for the last time before the Finance Ministers in October and the Leaders meeting in November. The ITUC, TUAC and Global Unions are calling on G20 Employment and Labour Ministers to:

* Ensure that their leaders put employment as the central government priority;
* Insist that their governments develop alternative sources of finance to provide funding for employment policies including making domestic taxation more progressive, combating tax evasion and tax havens, introducing a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) and, for the Eurozone, “Eurobonds”;
* Set up investment in infrastructure and “green” jobs, skills development and other active labour market policies;
* Launch a G20 “Youth Pact” guaranteeing young people quality employment or education and training;
* Establish a G20 Working Group on Employment and Social Protection.

>> To read Sharan Burrow's statement to the G20 Labour Ministers click here.

>> To read the Global Unions statement to the Paris Meeting click here.

>> To read a joint ILO-OECD report on unemployment in the G20 countries click here.

Trade Union to IFIs and G20: Put job creation on top of agenda

2011-09-20T05:46:00.000-07:00

Global economy is facing a surge in unemployment as record numbers of people out of work risk tipping the world into a 1930s-style downturn. G20 Governments and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have failed to deliver on their promises to attack joblessness and instead have turned their attention to fiscal consolidation, as money markets increasingly dictate policy. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and its Global Unions partners are calling on the IMF, World Bank and G20 Governments to assume leadership and put a halt to destructive economic policies as austerity measures contribute to a renewed economic downturn.

In the twice-annual letter sent to Ministers of Finance and Executive Directors of the IMF and World Bank, ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow said austerity measures threaten to create several million more job losses, making it even more unlikely that deficit targets will be reached. "We need programmes to stimulate employment through infrastructure and climate related investments and public services. The IFIs have a responsibility to protect public services vital to societies' development, such as education and health care, and support the introduction of a social protection floor in all countries," explained Burrow.

The Global Unions warned that policies of fiscal consolidation should only be considered when economic growth is self-sustaining and unemployment is falling. Instead of cutbacks, the IMF should lead a co-ordinated effort to establish a financial transactions tax to pay for job recovery programmes and meet development and climate-finance commitments. Unless the IFIs move to regulate the global financial system and create a solid foundation for millions of workers, jobs will remain unstable and we will forever be on a crisis footing, according to the trade unions.

Global Unions also called on the IFIs to
* contribute efforts to achieve climate resilience and reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
* provide supplementary assistance for developing countries affected by the increasing cost of food;
* reverse policies that increase gender inequalities.

In a targeted message to the IMF, Global Unions called on it to stop promoting labour market de-regulation. The ILO's expertise on working conditions should guide policy instead. The World Bank needs to ensure consistency within the World Bank Group in support of core labour standards and to put in place effective safeguards to ensure compliance.

* The ITUC, Global Union Federations and TUAC statement to the 2011 Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank from 23-25 September in Washington DC can be downloaded >>> here.

http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/No_30_Global_Unions_Statement-2.pdf

Oil transparency must underpin negotiations over Libya

2011-09-01T03:14:00.000-07:00

Transparency of Libya’s oil wealth must be a key priority of Thursday’s negotiations over the country’s future, said Global Witness today. The meeting, which is to be co-chaired by UK Prime Minister David Cameron and France’s President, Nicholas Sarkozy, could mark a crucial step along the path to future peace and prosperity in Libya. With the UN in the process of ‘unfreezing’ $1.5bn of Libyan funds to the NTC, the National Transition Council, and with companies queuing up to do business in Libya, how the NTC and their partners manage Libya’s finances will set a precedent for decades to come.

"With billions of dollars now being unfrozen and returned to Libyans, the meeting on Thursday offers a great opportunity to put in place practices that will ensure Libya's wealth is managed well for the long-term," said Brendan O’Donnell, Senior Campaigner at Global Witness. “As hosts of the meeting on Thursday, the UK and France must ensure that the transparent management of Libya’s oil wealth is at the top of the agenda.” Given Libya’s recent past, the management of public wealth will be crucial to public perceptions of the trustworthiness of the transitional government. An important first step would be to publish all Gaddafi’s oil contracts, setting a precedent of openness from the outset.

Concrete transparency provisions should be written into the transitional constitution to ensure the just exploitation of Libya's natural resources. These should require the public disclosure of how Libya manages its oil sector and disclosure of all revenues associated with it. Public finances including unfrozen assets, funds raised against frozen assets, resource trading and aid should be made open to public scrutiny. The terms of existing oil contracts should also be disclosed and details of agreements made by the NTC with governments and companies involving sovereign funds or the exchange of cash, crude oil or 'IOUs' secured against frozen assets should be made public and open to scrutiny by Libyan civil society and NGOs. This is particularly important as the UN, EU and others start to unfreeze and return billions of dollars of Libyan assets held overseas.

All funds should be released through a transparent mechanism such as a strengthened Temporary Finance Mechanism which was set-up by the NTC and the Libya Contact Group to manage aid flows. Governments should assist the NTC to track down and recover the funds that Gaddafi and his cronies looted from the state, and punish those banks that accepted this money. Prevent new oil concessions should be brokered until an elected government is in place. Any deals at this time could raise concerns within Libya that international support for the NTC is driven by a desire for access to oil rather than for the benefit of the Libyan people. The NTC is likely to have to honour Qaddafi-era contracts in order to get oil revenues flowing. But no new deals for the exploration or exploitation of oil fields should be considered until an elected government can review existing rules and laws to ensure robust transparency and accountability, The Libya contact group should use its influence to ensure that companies in their markets do not attempt to broker deals at this time.

Note:
* In July this year Global Witness published a leaked document detailing $65bn worth of investments held by the Libyan sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority (see www.globalwitness.org). According to the document HSBC, Société Générale and Goldman Sachs were among the key western bankers for Colonel Gaddafi’s regime.

Pastoralism - Part of the answer to drought in Africa

2011-08-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

Mobile pastoralism is part of the solution to the drought in the Horn of Africa, according to the IUCN-hosted World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism (WISP). “This crisis was predictable and predicted,” says Pablo Manzano, who works with IUCN in its East and Southern Africa Regional Office and is Global Coordinator of WISP. “Irrigated crop farming and abandonment of pastoralism are being proposed as solutions in order to prevent future crises. But analyses on the subject often don’t take into account the ecological, economic and social factors that make pastoralism highly sustainable in drylands.”

In the current crisis in the Horn of Africa, media and economic experts are accusing pastoralism of being an ineffective livelihood that is periodically subjected to similar crises. Irrigated crop farming is proposed as a panacea but it deepens overuse of water resources and exacerbates conflicts. Livestock mobility is a much more rational land use, allowing the exploitation of patchy resources in drylands and is also an important tool for climate change adaptation.

Securing land tenure for pastoralist communities is needed to conserve resources so that droughts are countered and capital inputs are leveraged for development. Long-term strategies should be based on allowing people to move with their livestock across manmade boundaries, which have been key during other food crises. But even if the present crisis was predicted almost a year ago, no action was taken. Famines are more related to political turmoil than to the amount of rainfall, and they do not occur unless pastoral areas have other problems.

“Investments in drylands by government and international aid agencies have to be reoriented, taking into account local ecological conditions as well as local capacities,” adds Manzano. “Investments should include infrastructure to export pastoralist products, financial services for remote areas, high-quality adapted education, and skills for securing land rights, ideally adapting traditional management to modern legal frameworks. Most of these solutions have been adopted by pastoralists themselves in different parts of the world, often with no external help. It becomes clear from overwhelming evidence from around the world that to use investment to support pastoralism, rather than replacing it, is the only realistic solution.”

Multiannual Financial Framework of the EU

2011-08-09T07:34:00.000-07:00

On 29 June, the European Commission (EC) outlined its priorities for the next budgetary period. Overall, the communication was welcomed by development NGOs due to the EC’s plans to increase external spending by €14bn from 2014 to 2020. The extra funding allocated to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the EU’s commitments to eradicate poverty. The document also outlined a potential Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) to generate EU resources and named climate action as a core priority. There is also an underlying emphasis on the role of the private sector in development.

According to the EC communication, the Commission proposes that €70bn shall be allocated to external instruments, including the Development and Cooperation instrument (DCI) and the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENPI). In order to support the implementation of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy, the EC proposes the introduction of a pan-African instrument under the DCI, which “will focus on poverty eradication and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)”. For the European Development Fund (EDF), which is expected to remain outside of the MFF, it is proposed that an allocation of €30 billion be made.

CONCORD welcomed the Communication, stating “The European Commission has shown courage in difficult times. It’s putting its money where its mouth is on giving priority to development,” said Olivier Consolo, Director of CONCORD. The Communication also argued for poverty eradication to be rooted in the promotion of democracy, human rights and equality by respecting the UN charter and international law — an approach applauded by CONCORD.

The Communication draws on the current thinking that gives an increased orientation on the role played by the private sector, not only for the implementation of activities (on the grounds that this levers more resources for development) but also in designing instruments and strategies. The Communication calls for the creation of a new Partnership instrument with industrialised and emerging economies to support EU business benefit from global economic transformation. In addition, the EU calls for greater risk sharing and guarantees so as to promote private investment in innovative business and infrastructure in developing countries. Whilst this emphasis on the private sector is not wholly unexpected in times of fragile economic recovery, there is a need to ensure that the EU’s global approaches are consistent with the EU’s international development commitments.

An orientation debate on the MFF will take place 12 September and 15 November 2011 in meetings of the General Affairs Council. Following this, the proposal for regulatory financial instruments will be agreed before the end of the year.

Union call for emergency G20 Summit on financial markets

2011-08-08T07:28:00.000-07:00

As the collapse in world share values threatens to trigger renewed downturn and with it a surge in unemployment, union leaders have called on G20 leaders to convene an emergency Summit to take the initiative to regulate the markets and avert economic collapse. "Three years ago G20 leaders said they would never let the financial markets dictate economic policy again - sadly their actions were woefully inadequate, and we are now experiencing the consequences", stated ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow. "It is not too late; an emergency G20 summit must do what they promised then, and introduce effective regulatory measures backed by employment targets for their policies."

"Stock markets have responded predictably like panicking sheep to the vacuum of leadership from the G20" criticised TUAC General Secretary John Evans. "The only acceptable way to exit from this crisis is to stimulate growth and job creation yet the governments are talking of further austerity. The private sector will never generate jobs as long as companies see no reason to anticipate higher demand for their products. Decisive pro-employment measures are urgently needed."

Deutsche Telekom Social Responsibility Report conceals US union-busting

2011-07-10T04:47:00.000-07:00

Deutsche Telekom’s annual Corporate Social Responsibility Report, released earlier this month, hides the truth about the company’s aggressive anti-union campaign in its T-Mobile USA operations, undermining its claim to leadership in the field of social responsibility. The report mentions Deutsche Telekom’s commitment to ILO, OECD and UN Global Compact standards, but excludes any reference to the problems faced by its huge US workforce to which the company is trying to deny union membership. “Germany has been a powerful voice in favour of ILO standards at the G20 and elsewhere, but here we have a company in which the German government is the dominant shareholder, actively and deliberately violating these very rights in its overseas operations,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

T-Mobile USA management, supported by the German parent company, have engaged specialised anti-union lawyers to block employee’s attempts to get representation from the Communication Workers of America. The website of one of the firms openly advertises “union avoidance” as one of its specialties, listing T-Mobile as a “client it represents on a regular basis”. The company has launched a series of legal tactics to delay and frustrate election proceedings at the US National Labour Relations Board, rather than simply accept the worker’s wish for union representation as is allowed under US law. Groups of workers, most recently in Connecticut and New York, have also been made to attend management-organised “captive audience” meetings in recent days to convince them to change their decision to join the union. Efforts by the CWA to engage with T-Mobile management to ease the anti-union campaign have to date not succeeded, nor have discussions with the German parent company.

“I was with the T-Mobile USA workers on Long Island when they signed their union cards,” said UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings. “If these workers were in Germany, they would have become members of the union automatically, but T-Mobile USA management has launched a brutal intimidation campaign to keep the union out of the workplace and to scare the workers out of fighting for their rights.” Union representation in the US is established only when a majority of workers in a specific workplace indicate that they want it. Companies can then voluntarily recognise the union, or insist on a secret ballot supervised by the National Labour Relations Board. The NLRB has recently announced plans to streamline procedures, to avoid precisely the kind of tactics being used by T-Mobile.

CONCORD welcomes EU budget increase for development

2011-07-01T02:30:00.000-07:00

Proposals for the 2014 to 2020 EU budget released on 29 June by the European Commission, revealed a planned increase in external spending from €56 billion to €70 billion. CONCORD, the European NGO confederation for relief and development, welcomes the renewed commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. "The European Commission has shown courage in difficult times. It’s putting its money where its mouth is on giving priority to development," said Olivier Consolo, Director of CONCORD.

CONCORD welcomes in the EU budget:
* the proposal to include a clear commitment to the 0.7% GNI development aid targets along with a clear focus on poverty eradication based on democracy, human rights, equality and the respect for the UN Charter and international law.
* a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) to generate own EU resources.
* climate action as a core priority.

CONCORD calls:
* on Member States to support the proposal on development funding levels and to take responsibility at national level to meet their MDG commitments.
* for the new budget not to be used as an opportunity to cut aid to emerging and middle income countries where three quarters of the world’s poor live. Poverty eradication and fighting inequalities must be central to development cooperation.
* funds raised with a FTT must go to tackle poverty and climate change.
* for climate financing to be additional to official development assistance (ODA) commitments already made.

Civil Society Organisations are widely recognized as having a central role in development cooperation which must be translated by including them in the EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) negotiations. A CONCORD paper on the main MFF Priciples can be found >>> here.

FTT gains momentum in Europe

2011-06-29T01:30:00.000-07:00

EuroStep – Ahead of a European Council meeting last week, European Commission (EC) President José Manuel Barroso announced to table a communication on the imposition of a financial transactions tax (FTT) in the EU after the summer break. Following heated debates among the different EU institutions that were divided on this issue, Barroso’s announcement has been regarded as a significant breakthrough by FTT advocates. The European Parliament (EP) has continually advocated for an EU level FTT to make the financial sector actively contribute to the recovery of the current financial and economic crisis. Previously the EC has only supported such a tax only on a global level, thus stalling progress on an EU level FTT. The split between the EC and EP became specifically apparent when EU Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union Algirdas Šemeta called the EP ‘premature’ for actively supporting the introduction of an EU FTT.

Despite the EC’s continued efforts to advocate for the introduction of a FTT at global level, Šemeta has now announced “there [were] ways to implement a financial transaction tax in the EU while mitigating the main risks identified”, and that he would recommend this to other commissioners as well. Activists have argued that this change of opinion can largely be explained by the overwhelming support for an EU FTT in the public consultations and the pressure from trade unions and civil society movements.

With efforts to agree on a global tax in the group of 20 major economies (G20) being blocked due to significant opposition by some of the G20's members, the EU should take responsibility and move ahead with the introduction of the tax, Barroso said. “Our analysis shows that there is a strong case for deciding on a financial sector tax in the EU as a first step” whilst in parallel continuing “to work for a global agreement on a financial transaction tax”, the EC President stated.

G20 action plan fails to address root causes hunger

2011-06-24T03:23:00.000-07:00

According to CIDSE, the catholic development network, the G20 Agricultural Ministers’ Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture contributes little to tackling global hunger. The alliance says the plan is more concerned with mitigating the consequences of price volatility than with addressing its root causes. It is “a band aid for a big gaping wound; it won’t cure the ailing global food system,” as Gisele Henriques, CIDSE’s food expert said. “Although the recent spike in commodity prices has worsened the situation, we should not forget that even before the 2008 food price crisis there were over 800 million hungry. We must look beyond the markets for an answer to this injustice.”

The action plan, which has been significantly diluted during the negotiations on 22-23 June in Paris, aims at improving agricultural production, increasing market information and transparency, strengthening international policy coordination, improving and developing risk management tools for governments, firms and farmers, as well as improving the functioning of agricultural commodities’ derivatives markets. G20 Agricultural Ministers propose the establishment of emergency food stocks, necessary to address food crises, ignoring regulatory stocks which could resolve food price volatility in the mid-term. CIDSE urges the G20 to support the re-establishment of regulatory stocks, at local, national and regional levels, which would help curb the excessive volatility in prices for both consumers and producers. Yet matters of financial regulation of the food markets agricultural ministers left to their fellow financial ministers and central bank governors.

CIDSE emphasises that current production models must be reconsidered. A recent report by the UN Special Representative on the Right to Food demonstrates that agro-ecological innovations can double production in a period of 3 to 10 years and it is precisely this kind of production model that must be supported. This also means creating food policies which strengthen local production by small holder farmers, because they account for 75% of the world’s hungry. The G20 also failed to take serious its own inter-agency report on price volatility. This report, coordinated by the FAO and the OECD, underlines the negative role of biofuels on price volatility and recommends a rethink of policies which incentivise biofuels, adopted by many G20 States members. “The poor progress made at the Paris meeting confirms once more that the G20 is not the most legitimate forum to pre-determine decisions on global food security. It should reinforce more democratic multilateral bodies such as the FAO’s Committee on World Food Security instead,” said Henriques.

Rio+20 must bring paradigm shift

2011-06-22T02:49:00.000-07:00

EuroStep – Ahead of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNSCD) to be held in Rio in June next year, also known as Rio+20, civil society organisations have described the official preparatory processes as being too slow and weak in content. If UNCSD is to live up to its commitment to achieving sustainable development, a fundamental paradigm shift in the global economic structure is needed. Any policy that is made within the current system that does represent such a paradigm shift will ultimately be unsuccessful, Eurostep has warned.

According to Hannah Stoddart from the Earth Summit stakeholder forum, progress in the preparatory discussions has been slow, as “no global leaders have come forward with a compelling vision for the Summit, and it has received little press attention”. This lack of ambition may be explained by the general struggle of international actors to agree on multilateral accords, as was the case in the climate change conferences in Copenhagen and Cancún, the expert stated. These concerns have further gained in importance after the UN Commission on Sustainable Development failed to adopt an outcome document at its meeting in May 2011. In light of the international community’s failure to live up to its commitments on sustainable development there have been concerns among developing countries that developed countries may use the broad sustainability agenda of the conference to “rewrite and replace the sustainable development narrative”, including the ‘green economy’ concept “with an associated weaker emphasis on social concerns”, Stoddart warned.

Rio+20 takes place at a crossroads. Voices have however grown louder, accusing the international community of predominantly focusing on environmental aspects of sustainability, lacking a sufficient focus on poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Moreover, current policy proposals for UNCSD do little to change the macroeconomic structures that leave millions in situations of chronic poverty. Any initiatives aimed at promoting sustainable development within these structures will ultimately be unsuccessful, since they fail to address the roots causes of poverty. That being said, UNCSD also represents an opportunity for such changes to be made and for this reason Eurostep shall be monitoring the developments surrounding UNCSD and in particular the EU’s approach to sustainable development closely.

G20 agricultural meeting: Biofuels, food reserves and stock transparency need urgent attention

2011-06-21T07:42:00.000-07:00

The G20 must scrap their most damaging biofuel policies and demand more open information about food stocks as part of urgent measures needed to tackle global food price volatility. International agency Oxfam is also calling on G20 Agricultural Ministers meeting in Paris 22-24 June) to reconsider the case for food reserves so that countries can better handle the kind of price spikes that left an extra 150 million people hungry during the last food price crisis. Many poor people are continuing to be hurt by rising food prices.

An early draft of the G20 communiqué, leaked last week, was disappointing. Oxfam said it did not go far enough in trying to tackle the problems. Oxfam says that a recent expert report on price volatility into the G20 made it crystal clear that biofuels were part of the problem. The G20 must urgently remove the types of biofuels subsidies and mandates that are increasing price volatility and failing to tackle climate change. The G20 must have immediate contingency plans to adjust their biofuels targets when food supplies are endangered.

Oxfam also said the G20 must require major private sector traders and investors to provide governments with adequate and timely information on their food stocks in order to improve market transparency. In a new briefing paper, Oxfam says policy-makers should re-examine evidence from countries like Madagascar and Indonesia that show that properly designed food reserves combined with other measures could help developing countries to tackle food price volatility. Oxfam’s call comes with a warning that global grain stocks are again dropping alarmingly. When global cereal stocks fall below 15-20% of world consumption, price hikes and market break-down have followed. By the end of this year, Oxfam says, this ratio could be as low as 17%.

A global grain reserve of just 105 million tons would have been enough to help avoid the food price crisis in 2007-8, the paper said. The cost of maintaining this would have been $1.5bn “or just $10 for each of the extra 150 million people who joined the ranks of the hungry as a direct result of the last food price surge. The paper says that India managed to stabilize food prices in 2008 because the government made a massive purchase and release of rice and wheat. International institutions have warned G20 leaders that renewed food price volatility is now a high risk. However, the same institutions have summarily dismissed food reserves as one of the ways to stabilize prices,” report co-author Thierry Kesteloot from Oxfam said.

Oxfam acknowledged that in some cases food reserves may have been poorly managed in the past but that did not mean the policy itself was wrong – rather, it meant that the reserves themselves needed to be better implemented and governed. “The prevailing view that food reserves in themselves don’t work is unsophisticated and short-sighted. There are smart new ways that countries can maintain sufficient food reserves as part of a bundle of policies that could work to limit price surges. We’ve already seen the huge human cost of countries not having food reserves,” Kesteloot said. Oxfam says that G20 governments should agree to scale up national and regional reserves in developing countries and support public intervention of developing countries in buffer stocks managed in a durable, transparent manner. The G20 should commit technical and financial resources to establish these reserves and encourage other governments to do so.

South pledge more climate action than North

2011-06-19T01:47:00.000-07:00

A new report of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) shows developing countries have pledged to reduce carbon emissions more than industrialised nations, but the two combined fall short of a 2°C target. The report, based on an analysis conducted for Oxfam International, examines four recent detailed studies of countries’ mitigation pledges under the Cancún Agreements, for the purpose of comparing developed (Annex 1) country pledges to developing (non-Annex 1) country pledges. It finds that despite very diverse methodologies and assumptions, all four studies agree that developing country pledges exceed Annex 1 pledges. The three studies that estimate the total mitigation required for a 2°C pathway also find that even countries’ higher-level pledges fall short of the goal.

“There’s a false perception that we need to focus primarily on increasing ambition from emerging economies – these economies have put serious emission cuts on the table,” says Sivan Kartha, lead author of the report. “It’s the developed countries that need to actually reduce their emissions, and increase their commitment to provide finance and technology that will allow even greater reductions in developing countries, if we are to have any hope of keeping to a pathway that limits temperature rise to 1.5°C or 2°C.”

The studies also find that the Annex 1 pledges could be significantly diminished by several factors, such as lenient accounting rules on the use of surplus allowances, double-counting of offsets, and accounting methodologies for land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF). Kartha and co-author Peter Erickson note that one of the studies, by the United Nations Environment Programme, estimates that surplus allowances from the first Kyoto Protocol commitment period alone, for example, could diminish effort by 1.3 GtCO2e in 2020. If such loopholes are not closed off, Kartha says, “developed countries could use them to be in technical compliance with even the upper estimates of their pledges, while their emissions are actually growing between now and 2020, and possibly even beyond.”

The SEI study does not prescribe a specific allocation of effort, but it does cite the foundational principle of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.” Developed countries are responsible for more than 75% of historical carbon emissions, Kartha and Erickson note, and even today, under a consumption-based accounting, they are responsible for about 60% of global emissions. In terms of capability, they write, “it is clear that the great majority of financial and technological wherewithal resides in the North,” which controls about three-quarters of the world’s GDP. Given all this, they conclude, “it seems self-evident that the developed world should take responsibility for much more mitigation effort than the developing world, and that this effort must have both a domestic and an international dimension” – the latter involving financial and technological support to developing countries.

IMF’s loan conditions still punishing the poorest, Oxfam says

2011-06-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

With fuel costs on the rise and global food prices set to more than double by 2030, poor people are being hit hardest. Oxfam has major concerns about strings currently attached to IMF loans, especially for low income countries. Oxfam’s concerns, outlined in a submission to the IMF’s 2011 Review of Conditionality, are:
* An increasingly apparent return to “fiscal consolidation” and tighter fiscal targets after the crisis, which are preventing countries from accelerating progress to the MDGs
* Reduction in flexibility on inflation targets, requiring countries to take increasingly tough monetary and fiscal measures to offset the impact of renewed food and fuel price rises
* Evidence that social spending floors are not being taken seriously in program reviews and therefore having little effect on government spending
* Use of overall wage ceilings (in which social sectors are evidently included as they absorb most of the government wage expenditure in low income countries)
* Very slow and limited progress on the introduction of social protection measures, especially in low income countries
* Continued insistence in some countries on rapid abolition or reduction of fuel or food subsidies, before offsetting social protection measures are in place
* The continued introduction of regressive taxation measures (VAT, sales taxes)
* The lack of systematic analysis of the social incidence of tax and spending changes, as well as fuel and food price rises, on inequality and poverty

Oxfam is urging the IMF to:
* Increase fiscal space for spending in low income countries, by allowing fiscal deficits to remain in the 3-5% of GDP and inflation to remain in the 5-10% range
* Base its macroeconomic (fiscal and inflation) targets and social spending floors on spending levels which would allow the maximum number of countries to attain the MDGs
* Analyze at the earliest stage the impact of the social spending floors, including whether they will be sufficient to meet the MDGs, and why they are or are not being implemented
* Assess and present transparently to its Board the impact of overall wage ceilings on social sector real wage levels and bills across all low income countries with programs
* Conduct Poverty and Social Impact Analyses. A systematic analysis of the social incidence of tax and spending changes, as well as fuel and food price rises, especially their combined effects on inequality and poverty, especially the incomes and spending power of the poorest citizens, as well as the ability of countries to reach the MDG income and food poverty reduction targets
* Dramatically accelerate the introduction of social protection measures and increases in social protection spending, especially in low income countries
* Delay the abolition or reduction of fuel or foods subsidies until offsetting social protection measures are in place, and use increased levels of its own funding and other budget support to finance temporary resulting deficits
* Increase tax revenues by introducing more progressive taxation, focusing on tax avoidance by large corporations and high-income earners, and avoiding wherever possible the introduction of regressive tax measures (or exempting the basic foodstuffs consumed by the poor from such measures)

Further information:
* Find the Submission to the IMF’s Public Consultation >>> here.
* Find Information on the IMF’s conditionality review >>> here.

G20 must go beyond market tango to tackle global hunger

2011-06-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

CIDSE – Measures to reduce price volatility in agricultural markets is one of the issues G20 Agricultural Ministers will discuss when they meet on 22-23 June next week in Paris. As food price volatility persists, with prices now fluctuating around a level twice as high as the average level in the period of 1990-2006, the issue can no longer be ignored according, to The international alliance of Catholic development agencies CIDSE. This increasingly frequent volatility is a result of a complex web of factors with dire consequences for the world’s poorest consumers who spend 50 – 70% of their income on food. CIDSE welcomes the fact that curbing of price volatility is high on the G20 agenda, while warning that poverty in general, and access to food in particular, are structural issues that must be addressed in order to reduce the number of hungry people in the world.

In an open letter to G20 Ministers CIDSE says that in order to achieve global food security the G20 is right to aim at preventing excessive speculation and regulating commodity markets as well as addressing the issue of food reserves. However, the alliance argues that regulating markets is but one piece of the puzzle and that the G20 should also support measures to strengthen local small holder production whilst supporting the harmonisation of the various global food security initiatives towards a multilateral food governance within the UN. “Food security cannot be addressed through markets alone; it is not because of a lack of production that nearly 1bn people go hungry. Sufficient food is produced globally, but tremendous quantities go to waste after production, during processing, transport or on supermarket shelves,” said CIDSE’s food expert Gisele Henriques, who will be attending the G20 meeting in Paris.

As agriculture is the mainstay of 75% of the developing world’s poor, CIDSE believes food policies should strengthen local production by small holder farmers, who account for 75% of the hungry in the world. It is extremely worrying that aid to the agricultural sector has decreased from 18% of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 1979 to less than 4% currently. This trend must be reversed in favour of agricultural policies which support modes of production that develop and promote food and livelihood systems with greater environmental, economic and social resilience in face of climate change and future economic and food price crises.

CONCORD: EU should act against land grabbing in developing countries

2011-06-16T03:35:00.000-07:00

EuroStep – As a reaction to the European Commission’s 2007 Communication on “Advancing African Agriculture” (AAA), the European NGO confederation for relief and development (CONCORD) submitted a monitoring report to the European Parliament’s (EP) Development Committee, addressing the impact of land grabbing. Besides analysing the implications of EU and member state policies on the issue of land grabbing, the 2009-2010 monitoring report specifically focuses on three case studies from African countries, namely Uganda, Mozambique and Ethiopia. It further assesses the role of the European private sector and its linkages with state activities and scrutinizes the impact development assistance and trade and investment policies may have on land grabbing.

In light of increasing large scale land acquisitions that threaten the subsistence of local farmers in developing countries, the report calls on the EU to “initiate as soon as possible the needed international regulation to prevent such land acquisitions, including a legally binding agreement related to the proper regulation of financial and other actors active in agricultural investment”. It moreover stresses that such measures should entail direct references to the supremacy of human rights provisions, with stipulations for punishing human rights abuses by investors and states under international law. To this end, the EU should further “strengthen the implementation of human rights based land policies in ODA, particularly when supporting the implementation of the AU Land Policy Guidelines”, the report reads.

With regards to the EU’s recently adopted renewable energy targets, CONCORD calls upon the EU to scrap these targets and to freeze all policies encouraging “the use of agrofuels for the transport sector until and unless the [aforementioned] regulations … are in place”.

European Parliament: Food security high on the agenda

2011-06-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

EP press service – A new report on food security in developing countries by the European Parliament was presented in the development committee on 25 May. MEPs used the opportunity to highlight the importance for the EU to focus on combating hunger effectively. To this end, policies should support the development of local food production and infrastructure for distribution and formulate measures to address food speculation and land grabbing, Rapporteur Gabriele Zimmer stressed. The report, An EU policy framework to assist developing countries in addressing food security challenges, comes at a time when the subject of food security and the right to food are growing in importance, according to Rapporteur Gabriele Zimmer. In light of the upcoming G20 meeting that is expected to address the problem of price volatility in commodity markets, Zimmer called upon the world’s leading economies to tackle the widespread problem of poor nutrition in developing countries, nutrition defined as “high quality food supply”, with increasing food prices further aggravating the problem.

In the wider context of food security, it was also stressed that the ever popular Washington Consensus, where trade deregulation, liberalization and tariff cuts are the order of the day, should be rethought. To this end, Zimmer stressed the EU has an important role in this shift. The draft report also refers to the ever controversial concept of food sovereignty. It is defined in the report as “the capacity of a country or a region to democratically, implement its own agricultural and food policies, priorities and strategies”.

The report was welcomed by MEPs in the development committee as an important contribution to the current discussions on food security and sovereignty. Thijs Berman (S&D) pointed to the report’s call to tackle food speculation and land grabbing as a means to foster the right to food for everyone and stressed the necessity for the EU to fundamentally reform its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with the aim to abolish export subsidies, even though it was recognized subsidies have been reduced by the EU over time.

The same week, the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI), adopted a report, entitled “the Common Agricultural Policy by 2020”, calling for a reformed CAP policy that provides for food security and environmental protection, focuses on renewable energy and fosters the creation of new jobs. The report sets out the committee’s priorities for the current debate on the reform of the CAP, which is running in parallel with the discussions on the EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). As a major step forward, the report explicitly refers to the principle of Policy coherence for development and long term food security in developing countries, a clause that was welcomed by the NGO Confederation for Relief and Development (CONCORD). According to the report, “the EU [must] ensure consistency between the CAP and its development and trade policies” and urges the EU to “not jeopardize food production capacity and long term food security in [developing] countries and the ability of those populations to feed themselves, while respecting the principle of Policy Coherence for Development (PCD)”.

Greece: Financial crisis hits development organisations

2011-06-15T07:15:00.000-07:00

SocialWatch – The Hellenic Platform for Development has lost half of the dozen non-governmental organisations that used to integrate it. Many of them had to shut down due to the lack of finance to maintain their staff and to continue their operations, warned KOPIN, the national focal point of SocialWatch in Malta, which expressed its solidarity with that network. Due to the national and global financial crisis, the Greek national development agency Hellenic Aid is not in a position to honour the financial commitments it has made over the previous years to support the organisations working in the fields of global poverty eradication, education and humanitarian relief in Greece and many countries.

One of the organisations that have been hit by the Greek crisis is KOPIN’s partner European Perspective. Both have implemented a highly successful project called Mediterranean Development Network (MEDEVNET), together with the Local Council of Valletta, the National Platform of Maltese Non-Governmental Development Organisations (SKOP), the Migrants’ Solidarity Movement, the Cypriot NGO Future Worlds Center and other partners in Greece and Cyprus. This project was the first of its kind to build the capacities of and to establish networks between civil society organisations and local authorities in the three countries, to more effectively and, equally important, to jointly contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

In fact, the project’s activities saw the participation of over 60 Maltese individuals representing Maltese development and migration NGOs, local councils, ministries, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Malta-EU Steering & Action Committee (MEUSAC).

Some thoughts on a new managing director of the IMF

2011-05-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

Guest comment by Gabriele Köhler

There needs to be a transparent selection process for the next managing director of the IMF. Most commentators agree that transparently agreed technical qualifications must drive the selection criteria. However, the real issue is the far more controversial question of the managing director’s political and policy orientation.

At this time of resurgent austerity politics, it is vital to discuss how to make the IMF an institution that puts poverty eradication, employment, decent work, and the regulation of global financial flows back as its overarching rationale, in tune with its intent as conceived in 1944. The Articles of Agreement state as the purpose: “To facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade, and to contribute thereby to the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and real income and to the development of the productive resources of all members as primary objectives of economic policy.” (Article I point 2).

In light of this, it is vital to discuss how to change the “operating logic” of the IMF so as to enable governments – in South and North – to re-orient their fiscal budget expenditures towards expenditures on education, health, social assistance and social insurance, and care services, and to ensure that these services and transfers are of high quality and guaranteed for all citizens – and for migrants. It is vital for the IMF to use its commodity price stabilisation mechanisms to enable food price regulation at global, regional or national levels. It is vital to deepen the timid IMF discussions on tax administration and compliance and to move these towards structured tax reforms for progressive taxation, which would enable countries to universalise high quality social services - promised since the 1940s - and to implement innovative ideas such as the global social protection floor. For all this to be possible, it is also vital to re-assess debt sustainability from a qualitative rather than a quantitative approach fixated on artificially-pronounced debt ceilings.

The selection of a new IMF managing director is a good opportunity to advance such policy reorientations: many of the “emerging economies” – such as for example Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, India - have installed progressive socio-economic policies and illustrated how government deficits can be useful and sustainable if the expenditures are oriented to social goods and services, which have made a tangible difference for millions of people in their respective countries. They have also demonstrated how social expenditures, such as on social assistance, food price support, school meals, or employment schemes, can re-kindle post-crisis economic growth. They could share this experience with South and North.

So, an IMF managing director from the South could help with policy advances - provided she is attuned to this new, socially-oriented discourse, and can lead the IMF members in that new direction. A managing director from the North or the East with a human development policy leaning could be equally good, as long as she, or he, is committed to the interests of the global South, and to guide the member states in the direction of progressive policy decisions.

Gabriele Köhler is Development Economist and Visiting Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex (Contact: office@gabrielekoehler.net).

Trade unions: G8 Summit must deliver on jobs

2011-05-26T06:16:00.000-07:00

This week’s G8 Summit of World Leaders must deliver leadership to end the global jobs crisis, according to the world’s trade unions. Over 30 million people who lost their jobs due to the crisis are still unemployed. “Worldwide, employment has still not recovered from the 2008 financial fiasco, and too few governments are taking the jobs crisis seriously,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow, adding “the G8 and the G20 must lead the way to a surge in employment rather than the narrow and destructive focus on spending cuts which some countries are now following.”

The unions are calling on the G8 governments to meet their development aid promises, especially to Africa where the aid shortfall was a massive $14bn last year. They are also pointing to the backlash against poverty, corruption and incompetent economic strategies which triggered the “Arab Spring” and is likely to spread unless action is taken to generate decent jobs for tens of millions of young people around the world. “The backlash against dictatorships in the Arab countries arose out of the desperation of millions of young people facing a lifetime of unemployment. Many other countries, including democracies, have massive youth unemployment, and much wider social unrest is just around the corner unless governments face up to the task of job creation,” said TUAC General Secretary John Evans.

The trade unions are also insisting on a renewed push to tackle climate change, and for special action to assist Japan’s recovery from the devastating human and economic impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

For more information, see statement adopted at the OECD-TUAC meeting in Paris on 23 May 2011.

NGOs demand fair selection process after Strauss-Kahn resigns

2011-05-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

With the resignation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a global coalition of NGOs has called for an open and merit-based process to elect the next IMF head. The early departure of Strauss-Kahn means the 187 member governments of the IMF will have to select a new managing director during a time of grave economic uncertainty. It also reopens the debate over an anachronistic and unfair selection process. The NGOs, including the Bretton Woods Project, Oxfam, and the Third World Network, are calling for an end to the have end to the “gentlemen’s agreement” between Europe and the US, which ensures that the IMF Managing Director is always a European, and the President of the World Bank an American.

“The next IMF managing director must be chosen through an open, transparent and inclusive process, where selection is based on merit, not nationality, and with an effort to facilitate a leadership role from outside the European region,” said Bhumika Muchhala of the Third World Network. “It is time for the European and US governments to finally end the sordid tacit deal between the two regions that has maintained a de facto Northern leadership at both the Fund and the Bank.”

The NGO coalition called for an end to behind the scenes deals, a commitment to make sure votes are cast in public, and a requirement for the winning candidate to have the backing of a majority of member governments. Oxfam spokesperson Sarah Wynn-Williams said: “The only way to give the new IMF head legitimacy and authority is through open voting, with the winner backed by a majority of countries, not just a majority of shares. The time has come for the IMF to accept an open and merit-based approach to choosing its leaders.” Jesse Griffiths of the Bretton Woods Project said: “The head of the IMF must be – and be seen to be – independent of powerful governments, and well versed in the problems of low- and middle-income countries, where most IMF operations take place. They should display a commitment to reducing levels of global inequality and poverty.”

In 2009, the IMF agreed to “adopt an open, merit-based and transparent process for the selection of IMF management.” This confirmed a 2009 G20 commitment made in Pittsburgh that “the heads and senior leadership of all international institutions should be appointed through an open, transparent and merit-based process.” However, since then, two Deputy Managing Directors of the IMF have been appointed without such a process, both going to G7 country candidates. In October 2010, Naoyuki Shinohara, a Japanese national and was appointed, and in February 2011, Nemat Shafik, a British-Egyptian national and permanent secretary in the UK Department for International Development was appointed. At the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington in April, campaigners from more than 20 organisations published a paper entitled Heading for the right choice? A professional approach to selecting the IMF boss. There is also a new website (www.imfboss.org) which is tracking the IMF leadership selection process.

Mark Weisbrot and Jomo Kwame Sundaram on closing the development gap

2011-04-28T01:29:00.000-07:00

Strauss-Kahn backs ITUC unemployment analysis

2011-04-15T03:09:00.000-07:00

As the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and G20 finance ministers meet this weekend to discuss the state of the global economy and priorities for development cooperation, the international trade union movement is calling on the international financial institutions (IFIs) to change course in their policy directions and to pay as much attention to employment deficits as they do to fiscal deficits by taking coordinated action to support job creation as well as education and skills training.

Parallel to these meetings, ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow took part in a debate in Washington with IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Wednesday to voice trade union views about the IFIs’ responsibility to adopt economic recovery programmes consistent with a more equitable and sustainable growth and development model. Emphasizing the failure of G20 countries to reduce the number of unemployed, which is currently at the highest level ever recorded, Burrow said: “The G20 in 2011 must mark the defining moment that things start to change, or otherwise the world will see just another failure in global governance.” She challenged the G20 and all IMF member countries to incorporate employment targets into national economic programmes and to work in establishing a global social protection floor, for which she invited the IMF and the ILO to jointly develop sustainable financing mechanisms. Burrow further urged the IMF to recognize “the growing political momentum in favour of financial transactions taxes” and to support the FTT so that the financial sector makes a contribution to public revenue “to match the costs it imposes each time it triggers a crisis in the real, productive economy.” (>>> Burrow’s speech)

At the debate, Strauss-Kahn noted the record levels of unemployment and inequality and stated: “Just as we managed to tame inflation in the 1980s, this decade should be the one that takes full employment seriously once again.” To combat growing inequality, Strauss-Kahn emphasized the importance of “strong social safety nets combined with progressive taxation … investment in health and education, and collective bargaining rights … especially in an environment of stagnating real wages.” He spoke of the joint work that the IMF has undertaken with the ILO in the past year and said that “employment and equity are the building blocks of stability and prosperity,” which go “to the heart of the IMF’s mandate.” (>>> Strauss-Kahn’s speech)

End the US-led armed intervention in Libya

2011-03-24T02:36:00.000-07:00

Statement of Focus on the Global South

Focus on the Global South supports the democratic opposition in Libya that seeks to end the 43-year-old dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi. Focus shares the Libyan people’s desire to be free of a corrupt and repressive ruler who does not hesitate to employ massive force against his own people to hang on to power. Focus cannot, however, support the massive armed intervention launched by the United States, France, and Britain on Sunday, 20 March.

A “No Fly Zone” to protect civilians is one thing. An armed assault aimed at regime change is another thing altogether. The latter is the intent of the US/UK/French-led intervention, which, although displaying the fig leaf of a United Nations Security Council resolution, goes far beyond the defensive aims of a no-fly zone to cross over into aggression against Libya.

Firing on ground troops and pre-emptively and indiscriminately destroying anti-aircraft installations will bring about precisely that loss of life that the intervention ostensibly seeks to prevent. Civilians are being killed by the western assault when civilians were supposedly the very people the action was supposed to protect.

The fight for democracy waged by the Libyan people must be supported, but not by western military action that is an instrument of regime change. This action may ostensibly have humanitarian objectives, but its main objective is to reassert western hegemony in a region that is caught up in the winds of democratic change.

Owing to its support for authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, the US has lost much of its credibility among the Arab peoples. Indeed, the US may be said to be one of the targets of the Arab democratic revolution. In this context, the intervention in Libya for regime change is Washington’s belated attempt to appear as a pro-democratic force, shore up its tattered legitimacy, and remind the Arab nations of its strategic hegemony in the region. Yet the world will not miss the hypocrisy of a hegemony which shouts that it is supporting democracy in Libya while it stands on the side as a reactionary regime it has armed and supported, Saudi Arabia, has invaded and is crushing democratic forces in Bahrain.

The West’s “armed intervention for democracy“ will not advance the cause of democracy. Indeed, it will discredit it by associating democracy with a western show of force. The intervention in Libya risks stoking forces as powerful as the democratic movement: Arab nationalism and Islamic solidarity. It will end up creating conflicts among movements which should be complementary, and the only victor will be western hegemony.

We in Focus on the Global South call for an immediate end to the US/UK/French-led war on Libya.

We call on global civil society and on governments throughout the world to support the Libyan people’s struggle for democracy against Gaddafi.

We ask especially the democratic movements in Tunisia and Egypt to come to the aid of the Libyan people.

We call for an end to all efforts to maintain or reassert US hegemony in the Middle East.

22 March 2011

Deutsche Bank cancels interest in Jaitapur Nuclear Project India

2011-03-23T03:26:00.000-07:00

India’s Nuclear Power Corporation (NPCIL) encounters difficulties in raising funds for a new nuclear plant situated in an earth quake prone zone. Earlier this year, the company invited over a dozen large banks from around the world to participate in financing the construction of the world’s largest nuclear complex near the town of Jaitapur in Western India. While Germany’s Commerzbank turned down this invitation, other international banks such as BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Citibank and Deutsche Bank expressed interest in participating in the project.

Last week, people close to the situation confirmed to NGOs, enquiring about the possible role of Deutsche Bank in this project, that Deutsche has decided to cancel its participation in the bidding process for Jaitapur. “We welcome this decision of Deutsche Bank and call on other banks to follow suit,” says Heffa Schuecking, director of the German environment and human rights organization ‘urgewald’. Jaitapur is one of the world’s most controversial nuclear projects as it is located in a high risk zone for earthquakes. Only 17 years ago, an earthquake of over 6.3 on the Richter scale took place in the vicinity, killing some 9,000 people.

The Indian Government, however, ignored these risks during site selection for the project. According to Karuna Raina of Greenpeace India, “India not only has an alarming track record regarding nuclear hazards but also a complacent safety culture.” She points out, that in 1994 for example, the containment of the Kaiga nuclear power plant in the Indian State of Karnataka collapsed due to flawed construction. “It is astonishing that after ‘Fukushima’, the Indian government is still willing to gamble on Jaitapur being different. Responsible banks should back away from such highly irresponsible projects, especially when located in a earthquake zone; we expect banks to learn at least that lesson from the disaster in Japan” warns Yann Louvel, climate and energy coordinator of the international NGO network BankTrack.

Among the other banks that have been approached to finance Jaitapur are HSBC, Standard Chartered, Société Génerale, Crédit Agricole, Citibank and Santander. Financial advisor for the project is BNP Paribas. BankTrack, Greenpeace and urgewald have written to all banks asking them to dissociate themselves from this project.

Trade Union letter: G20 Finance Ministers on wrong track

2011-03-23T03:02:00.000-07:00

Trade unions are demanding a fundamental change in direction from the G20 Finance Ministers, who are ignoring the desperation of hundreds of millions of people without decent jobs or social protection. The union concerns are set out in a letter being sent by national trade union centres in G20 countries to their Finance Ministers. According to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), jobs with fair wages are central to achieving economic recovery, but the G20 Finance Ministers are doing nothing to promote employment, focusing instead on keeping financial markets happy and allowing banks to regain control of the economy. They will have to do much better than this when they meet again in Washington in mid-April.

“The promises made by the G20 leaders at the beginning of this crisis to avoid a jobless recovery are not being followed through. Ministers dealing with labour and development issues cannot realise the ambition for sustainable job growth while their Finance Ministry colleagues are pushing in the opposite direction. We are looking to the French G20 Presidency to help fix this deepening incoherence in international policy. The alternative would be yet more inequality, massive youth unemployment and a stagnating global economy, with terrible social consequences,” said John Evans, General Secretary of the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD.

Please find the letter >>> here.

Appeal to G20: Stop Gambling on Food & Hunger

2011-02-18T10:05:00.000-08:00

More than 100 civil society organizations from all over the world have sent an appeal to the G20 Finance Ministers meeting this weekend under the French presidency in Paris. The appeal urges the G20n for immediate action on financial speculation on food commodities. The document says:

Over the past few years, price hikes in basic foods have created dramatic shortages in many of the world’s poorest countries. In 2008, the world saw a major crisis with skyrocketing prices over a short time span for crops like rice, wheat and corn. Food riots erupted in 25 countries and more than 100 million people were added to the world’s undernourished and starving.

Now, with food prices rising again, a similar crisis could be just around the corner. We urge political leaders and heads of government in the European Union, United States and elsewhere to act immediately to avoid the repetition of such a scenario. While developing solutions to hunger and malnourishment in the world is a huge challenge, reining in financial speculation on agricultural commodities is of paramount importance. With global financial markets still in turmoil, agricultural commodity ‘futures’ have become increasingly attractive to financial investors and speculators. Enormous amounts of capital are flooding these markets, causing sudden food price spikes that can be lethal for low-income families in developing countries. Increased volatility caused by the influx of ‘hot money’ into and out of commodity markets is also causing havoc for farmers, who cannot predict what price their crops will command from one month to the next.

At the moment, action to crack down on excessive speculation in commodity markets is being considered in the US and EU, and in both places there are opportunities to implement reforms that would stabilise food prices. The G20 governments have also identified it as a top priority. This political context represents an historic opportunity to secure a sustainable relationship between financial markets and agricultural markets.

The financial services industry has already spent billions of Euros trying to persuade governments not to limit speculation. These lobbyists represent a small but powerful group of vested interests who are profiting from an activity that is fundamentally harmful to the vast majority of people.

We call on governments and parliamentarians to listen instead to the millions of consumers, workers, farmers, businesses, religious groups, academics, international development activists and others who believe effective controls over financial speculation on agricultural commodities is necessary to defend the world’s poorest people and the world’s food producers from exposure to sudden food price hikes and extreme price volatility.

Rules are needed in several key areas. These include ensuring full transparency and supervision of financial markets in food commodities, imposing strict limits on the level of participation by purely financial actors in commodity futures markets, and banning financial institutions from buying up physical stocks in food and farmland.

This is an urgent matter. Not only because of the live discussions in the US, EU and G20, but mostly because prices in agricultural and food markets are becoming more volatile with each passing month. Unless steps are taken to stop excessive speculation, it is only a matter of time until a disastrous new chapter in the global food crisis begins.

* Please find the signatories >>> here.

Finance Ministers in Paris: Early acid test for G20

2011-02-18T07:38:00.000-08:00

The world’s leading economies must act now to stop the price of basic foods from surging further out of the reach of poor people. They must also commit to a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) to help millions of people hit by the economic crisis and climate change. International agency Oxfam has welcomed the promise of action on these issues from France, the current G20 chair. Oxfam says that this week’s Finance Ministers’ meeting in Paris, on Feb 18-19, is an early acid test as to whether the G20 can turn words into action.

“Finance ministers will define the G20’s development credentials this weekend. They could make or break Sarkozy’s pledges to tackle the food price crisis and push through an FTT,” said Oxfam spokesperson Luc Lampriere. “The G20’s money ministers must now plan how exactly they will deliver on these promises – or otherwise G20 leaders will be left looking like emperors with no clothes.” Oxfam is seeing mounting impacts on poor people as a result of the economic crisis and food price hikes. Countries are being affected differently, but in general poor people are having to spend more of their limited income on food, and are therefore eating less, less often, and in some case less nutritious food. “We see anecdotal evidence of people slipping into food insecurity and malnourishment,” Lampriere said.”We hear about affected rural communities cutting back on health spending and having to sell productive animals earlier than they normally would in order to buy food.”

On a Financial Transaction Tax, Oxfam says: “This is the zeitgeist tax, a popular and progressive policy worth as much as $400bn a year. It would be small change from those who can most afford it but make a big difference to those who most need it. A financial transaction tax would be like a breath of fresh air clearing away the stench of bankers’ bonuses and offering hope to those trapped by the economic crisis,” he said. Oxfam is calling for an average tax of 0.05% on share, currency, bond and derivative deals. Recent research for Oxfam shows that 56 of the poorest countries in the world face a combined $65bn hole in their budgets as a result of the economic crisis. Oxfam also wants the G20 to endorse a recent finding by the UN High Level Advisory Group on Climate Finance (AGF), that at least $12 billion a year can be raised from levies on international transport, particularly on shipping.

WSF 2011: Getting to grips with landgrabbing

2011-02-09T02:12:00.000-08:00

By Gisele Henriques*)

At the 10th World Social Forum, the issue of land grabbing has undoubtedly emerged as one of the most discussed among the hundreds of civil society organisations which have come to Dakar to mobilise and share experiences on their respective struggles. Official data on land grabbing and its magnitude remains elusive and the actual numbers of hectares involved is contested. The FAO estimates that of the land grabs taking place today about 70% is occurring in Africa, the same continent facing the greatest food security challenges. In response CIDSE member Misereor, together with Caritas Senegal, FIAN and NAD sponsored a three day event with partners from Africa, Asia and Latin America, to expose the realities behind this phenomenon and the consequences for local communities.

There are various forces driving the scramble for land. Mining and appropriation of forest resources are not particularly new occurrences. Neither is the acquisition of land by international corporations for plantations, such actions were common in Latin America in the 70s and 80s. What is different now is the rate in which it is happening and the fact that land grabbing is being sanctioned in the name of supporting a green economy. Evidence suggests that one third of the land grabs today are going for the production of agro-fuels, most notably jatropha, maize and sugar for ethanol. These will be supplied to meet the EU’s commitment of blending at least 10% agro-fuels to reduce the use of non-renewable energy sources. According to Ruth Hall of the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies in South Africa, some 5 million hectares have already been grabbed in Africa, to satiate Europe’s thirst for ‘green’ energy. Whilst reduced dependence on non-renewable energy sources is a worthy cause, the commitment has created a business for agro-fuels. This business is having disastrous consequences for small farmers who are being pushed off their land and loosing access to their resources, livelihoods and capacity to feed themselves. It is estimated that the amount of corn used to fill a 4x4 could feed an adult for a year.

In addition to agro-fuel production which displaces food production, oil rich nations and Asian economic powers like China and Korea, are acquiring land to produce food for their own populations. The World Bank estimates that 37% of all the land grabbed globally is going to supply these markets. The land grabbing process is largely legal and is usually sanctioned by governments, who have been encouraged to attract foreign investment if they are to develop”. Globally, there is a generally accepted notion that Africa is a “sleeping giant”, a continent not yet maximizing its economic potential. Land is widely deemed as an abundant resource which could be traded and commoditized to meet the demands of the international market, in turn eradicating poverty in the continent. Evidence suggests just the opposite is taking place. Small farmers, who are deemed unproductive by their government, are finding themselves squeezed off their land and forced into contract servitude. This so-called, ‘empty and vast’ territory is actually their land, which they steward for future generations. Examples for Madagascar, DRC, Benin, Uganda, Nepal, Cambodia, Brazil and Argentina demonstrate that this phenomenon is taking place all over the world.

*) Gisele Henriques is CIDSE Policy and Advocacy Officer on Food, Agriculture and Sustainable Trade (FAST)

New European Social Watch Report: Time for Action

2011-02-05T02:13:00.000-08:00

The second European Social Watch Report was launched in Brussels with a roundtable discussion at the European Parliament. The event was chaired by Irish MEP Proinsias De Rossa, who was labour minister and head of country delegation to the Social Summit in 1995, when Social Watch was created. From its mere title, “Time for Action: Responding to Poverty, Social Exclusion and Inequality in Europe and Beyond”, the European Social Watch report reflects the Egyptian political crisis as a true demonstration of its findings.

The report points out that 17% of people in the European Union live below the poverty line. Social Watch looks at Europe's approaches to addressing poverty, social exclusion and inequality both inside the EU and in the wider world. The report examines the issues from different angles, including employment, healthcare, housing and financial exclusion. Since “one child in five is born and grows up with economic and social deprivation” and “twenty per cent of young people are currently living at risk of poverty in the EU”, Mirjam van Reisen argues in the report summary that the policies in place to address poverty and social exclusion are “weak” and “have come under pressure in the aftermath of the financial crisis”.

“The fiscal constraints that developing countries have experienced in previous decades resulting from IMF policies are now confronting European countries” says the report, and as a consequence “the ability of governments to implement their national and international obligation to guarantee social security has been compromised”. Social Watch Europe analyses the reality for groups of people particularly vulnerable to poverty and social exclusion, such as migrants and the Roma. Special attention is given to gender and poverty, as well as the young and old who are more vulnerable to social exclusion. It concludes by calling for a universal standard for social protection. It also concludes that if the EU is to play the global role that it claims then the EU must also establish its own “social floor”.

The Report is available >>> here.

World Social Forum 2011 Dakar: A new direction to tackle global challenges

2011-02-04T01:40:00.001-08:00

The world needs a new direction, rather than small course-adjustments. This motto brings CIDSE, members and partner organisations from around the globe to the 2011 World Social Forum (WSF) in Dakar. Between 6 and 11 February the international alliance of Catholic development agencies and partners will discuss the profound changes needed to tackle issues such as hunger, climate change and global financial instability. The World Social Forum offers an alternative and more democratic model of leadership, where people are at the heart of solutions to global challenges.

“Governments have not put in place just and adequate policies to tackle the multiple crises the world faces”, said Bernd Nilles, Secretary General of CIDSE who will attend the forum. “Rising food prices, unresolved climate negotiations, global economic imbalances... they are all symptoms of our failure to act on global challenges. The World Social Forum demonstrates that people want the world to take a new course. It is time that politicians sit up and listen to their ideas.”

The World Social Forum (WSF), designed as an alternative to the World Economic Forum, provides a powerful antidote to a system which puts money rather than people first. In Dakar, CIDSE, its members, and partner organisations will join thousands of people from all over the world to plot out strategies to achieve pro-poor policies in the short term, and find answers to fundamental questions for our future.

More than 250 Economists Call for Trade Reforms to Allow Capital Controls

2011-02-01T08:53:00.000-08:00

In a letter delivered 31 January, more than 250 economists urged the Obama administration to reform US trade rules that restrict the use of capital controls. The statement reflects growing consensus among economists that capital controls, while no panacea, are legitimate policy tools for preventing and mitigating financial crises. Signatories include several economists who have been generally supportive of free trade but are critical of the capital control restrictions (e.g., Arvind Subramanian, Senior Fellow of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and Nancy Birdsall, President of the Center for Global Development), as well as former IMF officials (e.g., Olivier Jeanne of Johns Hopkins University) and a Nobel laureate (Joseph Stiglitz).

The United States has trade or investment agreements with 52 countries that restrict the use of capital controls and allow private foreign investors the right to sue governments that violate these restrictions. Several additional deals are in the works, including:
* U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement. Status: pending congressional approval.
* Trans-Pacific Partnership. Status: Trade negotiators from the United States and eight other countries will meet for a 5th round of talks in Chile on 15 February.
* Investment treaty with China. Status: The U.S. government is expected to soon complete a review of its model Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), which will accelerate negotiations with China, India, and several other countries. Presidents Obama and Hu “reaffirmed their commitment” to these ongoing negotiations in a 19 January joint statement.

Kevin Gallagher, Boston University professor and research associate at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University (GDAE), and Sarah Anderson, director of the Institute for Policy Studies Global Economy Project, initiated the statement. In 2009, Gallagher and Anderson examined this issue as members of the Investment Subcommittee of the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Economy Policy. “It’s in the US interest to allow other governments the authority to apply sensible capital controls,” says Anderson. “In a globalized world, expanding the policy options to combat financial crisis makes sense for US businesses, workers, and the environment.” “US trade treaties are inconsistent with the emerging consensus in the economics profession and among the international financial institutions that capital controls are a legitimate part of the toolkit,” says Gallagher. “The US and its trading partners should have all the possible tools available to prevent and mitigate future financial crises.”

>>> Click here for the full statement and list of endorsers.

Global Wage Report: Call for collective bargaining, minimum wages and social protection

2010-12-15T23:36:00.000-08:00

The just published second ILO’s Global Wage Report 2010/2011, Wage policies in times of crisis, confirms that global wages have stagnated during the crisis. Excluding questionable figures for China and adjusting for inflation, global wage growth slowed from 2.2% in 2007 to only 0.8% in 2008 and 0.7% in 2009. While these world averages remained slightly positive, wages actually decreased in many countries. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has welcomed the Report. “Today’s report reinforces what unions around the world have been saying about the economic crisis and the policy responses that governments need to put in place,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow. “Even workers who remained employed during the crisis experienced flat or falling pay.”

Over-reliance on exports and consumer borrowing for economic growth has proven to be unsustainable. To achieve a meaningful economic recovery, countries need to increase domestic demand based on rising wages and a more equal distribution of income. The ILO emphasizes three policy solutions in today’s report: inclusive collective bargaining, legislated minimum wages, and social protection programmes.

In addition to providing new data on wages during the crisis, the report also presents a longer-term analysis of low pay, defined as being below two-thirds of a country’s median wage. Since the late 1990s, the incidence of low pay has increased in two-thirds of the countries for which figures are available. However, the ILO found that low pay is much less prevalent in countries with higher levels of union membership. “Unions are part of the solution, in terms of ensuring that wages rise along with productivity and that these gains are shared fairly,” said Burrow.

* See also >>> Making the case for progressive universalism

Foundation for climate deal laid in Cancún

2010-12-11T09:37:00.000-08:00

Governments at the UN climate talks in Cancún, Mexico, managed to approve a series of tangible if modest steps that sets up a "global climate fund" to help poor nations, create a mechanism to share clean technologies, protect tropical forests and help the poor adapt to impacts ranging from storms to rising sea levels, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The UN climate talks are off the life-support machine, following a last-minute agreement that gives the Kyoto Protocol a lifeline, says international agency Oxfam.

The deal’s Climate Fund will be designed by a committee with a strong voice for developing countries, which should ensure that life-saving finance will be delivered to those who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The Climate Fund will be a major channel for adaptation finance, helping to plug the gap in adaptation funding, so that vulnerable communities have the resources they urgently need. Meanwhile, the emissions cuts pledged after Copenhagen have been set as a minimum, with an expectation to raise them according to the demands of climate science.

Oxfam International’s Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs said: “Negotiators have resuscitated the UN talks and put them on a road to recovery. This deal shows the UN negotiations can deliver.” But many of the most difficult issues remain. According to Oxfam, we will not be able to offer a safe future for vulnerable women, men and children unless governments realize that we swim together or sink together. Our challenge is to elevate our vision and commit to the deep emissions cuts that are urgently needed.

“The progress in Cancún puts talks back on track and revives hopes that a wider, legally binding treaty that sets concrete and credible targets to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions is possible in the future,” also says Stewart Maginnis, IUCN’s Director of Environment and Development. "Under Mexico’s strong leadership and guidance, governments in Cancun have ensured that confidence in the UNFCCC process is being rebuilt, which brings us a step closer to that final deal.”

Adaptation, finance and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) were some of the key issues the 194-nation talks moved forward on. According to IUCN, today’s deal is a move in the right direction, but in the end, only an equitable, comprehensive and legally binding agreement will bring the much needed international commitment to manage the climate crisis.

The inclusion of REDD as part of the Cancún deal is a key step towards resolving the issue of climate change, says IUCN. Other NGOs have strongly opposed it. However, “reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while at the same time conserving forest natural resources on which millions of vulnerable people depend is a win-win solution for people and nature,” says Maginnis. “It has been one of the most promising developments in the negotiations so far, and now this further push by governments makes REDD an integral part of the climate deal.” IUCN welcomes the recognition of women within the deal struck on REDD. Women make up 70% of the world’s poor and provide up to 90% of the food in forest-dependent communities. They depend on forest resources for gathering fuelwood, forest fruits, vegetables and medicines.

Civil society and trade unions on EU-India Free Trade Agreement

2010-12-10T07:46:00.000-08:00

As the EU-India Summit meets in Brussels today, civil society organisations and trade unions have reiterated their views on a draft free trade agreement. A broad civil society alliance called on the European Commission and the Indian Government to immediately halt the ongoing free trade negotiations between India and the EU. More than 240 concerned civil society groups signed an open letter, in which they warned that the talks would damage the livelihoods of millions of people in both India and Europe, exacerbating poverty and undermining economic and social development.

The proposed agreement would undermine people’s rights to food, to health and to gender just and social development. “The EU persistently puts pressure on India to open up its market to European dairy and meat products, while the EU continues to export these products at prices far below production costs with the help of subsidies”, said Armin Paasch, trade expert of the German Catholic Bishops’ Organisation for Development Misereor. “Around 90 million people are working in the dairy sector in India, most of them being small scale farmers or herders and 70 percent being women. Their livelihoods would be severely threatened if subsidized EU exports are permitted to flood the Indian market”, said Paasch.

Tightened intellectual property rights (IPR) would limit India’s ability to provide affordable medicines for the treatment of HIV-AIDS, malaria and cancer, not only for Indian patients but worldwide. “It is outrageous for Europe to undermine the Indian drug industry’s capacity to provide affordable and safe medicine to the poor. Despite massive protests the EU continues to insist on data exclusivity and other provisions, which would hinder timely production and delivery of generics”, said Rebecca Varghese Buchholz, trade policy advisor at Traidcraft, UK. “This example illustrates the corporate capture of the negotiation agenda: public health objectives are pushed aside in the interest of pharmacy industry profits.”

Representatives from Indian and European civil society groups claim that the behind-closed-door negotiations must be made more transparent – and be accountable to wider interests in society. “The EU-India summit is another example of the lack of transparency and undemocratic nature of the negotiations. Neither civil society groups nor Members of the European Parliament are allowed to attend the annual summit of political leaders from either region. At the same time, the 11th EU-India business summit will be held bringing together the European and Indian high level business and political representatives to network and shape a joint agenda,” explained Ska Keller, Member of the European Parliament. “This is unacceptable; the broad resistance against the FTA shows that people on both sides are no longer willing to leave the decision-making on their future in the hands of the business and political elite.”

The EU-India summit coincides with the official international human rights day. As civil society, “we believe that December 10 presents a timely opportunity to halt free trade talks until coherence of all provisions with human and women rights obligations can be guaranteed”, urged Barbara Specht, advocacy officer of the gender network WIDE. “Instead of profit interests the negotiations should be guided by gender and social justice and sustainable development objectives.”

“As we have said since talks started in 2007, any agreement must contain a comprehensive and effective chapter on sustainable development entailing the commitment of both parties to the attainment of decent work, including respect for fundamental workers’ rights,” insisted ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow. “A social chapter is essential so that an agreement could lead to growth, development and the creation of decent and productive employment,” stated ETUC General Secretary John Monks. “And trade unions must have rights and mechanisms to be able to raise issues under the procedures of the agreement.”

“The impact on the textiles sector stands to be particularly great unless effective measures to protect workers’ rights,” said ITGLWF General Secretary Patrick Itschert. “Our Indian and European affiliates are united in insisting on a strong social chapter.” Trade unions are also concerned at proposals to include provisions on the temporary cross-border movement of workers in the agreement – unions have always stated that trade agreements should not contain provisions to regulate migration. Should any such articles nonetheless be included, these must provide for full respect for national labour law and existing collective agreements in order to ensure that migrant workers receive employment conditions no less favourable than those of nationals.

Reflection group on global development launched

2010-11-16T04:02:00.000-08:00

An alliance of civil society groups, networks and foundations, including Third World Network, Social Watch, DAWN, the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation, Global Policy Forum, terre des hommes, and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, has launched the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives. The group (>>> www.reflectiongroup.org) consists of about 15 leading civil society activists, experts and academics from around the globe. The group will assess conventional and alternative models of development and well-being, reconsider development goals and indicators, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), draw conclusions for future development strategies and provide specific policy recommendations for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development 2012.

The Group starts its work at a crucial point in time – fast approaching the 2015 deadline for the MDGs, while preparing for the 2012 Conference on Sustainable Development. Today’s unprecedented coincidence of global crises – economic, financial, food and climate – reveals the dead end to which the dominating models of development have led. “It is now time to break old ground, to draw lessons from these crises and to fundamentally rethink our goals and measures of development and social progress – in North and South”, says Jens Martins who is a group member. “The time between the Summits 2010 and 2012 provides a unique window of opportunity to reconsider the current development paradigm and to develop strategies towards a holistic, rights-based approach of global development and well-being.”

Four meetings of the Reflection Group are scheduled to take place throughout 2011. The expected outcome will be presented in a report to be published prior to the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

Group Members
Barbara Adams (Global Policy Forum, US), Beryl d’Almeida (Abandoned Babies Committee, Zimbabwe), Alejandro Chanona Burguete (National Autonomous University of México), Chee Yoke Ling (Third World Network, China), Ernst Ulrich von Weizsaecker (Germany), Filomeno Santa Ana III (Action for Economic Reforms, Philippines), George Chira (terre des hommes India), Gigi Francisco (Development Alternatives with Women for the New Era, Philippines), Henning Melber (Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Sweden), Jorge Ishizawa (Proyecto Andino de Tecnologias Campesinas, Peru), Karma Ura (Centre for Bhutan Studies, Bhutan), Roberto Bissio (Third World Institute/Social Watch, Uruguay) Victoria Tauli-Corpuz (Tebtebba Foundation, Philippines), Yao Graham (Third World Network-Africa, Ghana), Jens Martens (Global Policy Forum Europe, Germany), Hubert Schillinger (Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation, Germany), Danuta Sacher (terre des hommes Germany)

ActionAid International: G20’s temporary ceasefire

2010-11-13T08:55:00.001-08:00

As the G20 in Seoul discussed the ‘currency wars’, ActionAid International called on world leaders to remember the poor and vulnerable that will be most affected by their decisions. Soren Ambrose, ActionAid International’s International Finance policy expert said from Seoul: “The G20 leaders may sign a temporary ceasefire in Seoul, but the ‘currency wars’ will persist. Leaders must acknowledge that a ‘system’ of massive deficits, surpluses, and accumulation of dollar reserves, with developing countries subsidising the US economy, is simply no longer sustainable.

According to Ambrose, the casualties in this war will be the developing countries that can’t defend against hot money flows and the threat of rising prices. The G20 leaders must act now to aim for a lasting peace by examining new proposals for a neutral world reserve currency that can end the distortions before next year’s summit.

Trade unions see mixed outcome of G20 Seoul Summit

2010-11-13T08:42:00.000-08:00

Trade unions have welcomed the recognition by the G20 that decent jobs are at the heart of the recovery and their commitment to provide social protection for the most vulnerable, while expressing deep concern about the global consequences of premature austerity measures. “Unions now want to see real action to fix the bitter and unprecedented social crisis of global unemployment between now and the G20 meetings in France in 2011, and remain opposed to slashing fiscal deficits in the short-term before employment is back on track,” stated ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow. “We are worried that without coordinated investment in jobs and social protection, the G20 stands to become a transmission belt for communicating recession from one G20 country to another, ultimately damaging the entire global economy.”

“The global economy is far weaker than the G20 admit and far from reassuring the financial markets, a headlong rush to austerity and cutting deficits prematurely will further depress investment, and hit sovereign debt ratings as current growth forecasts are downgraded,” explained TUAC General Secretary John Evans. “Governments are trying to talk up growth by calling for structural reform, but the Seoul Action Plan looks too much like the old agenda of reducing benefits and weakening job protection and will sap the confidence of households. We need a G20 action plan for jobs that promotes fairer income distribution and a demand-led recovery.”

In Seoul, the 50-strong global trade union delegation discussed trade union demands with the summit host President Lee Myung-bak and many other heads of government as well as the chiefs of major international institutions and the European Commission. “G20 Labour Ministers must now meet as soon as possible to discuss best-practice measures for decent work and the ILO’s Global Jobs Pact, and how to stop a recurrence of the labour market inequalities that were a major causative factor in bringing about the crisis,” Burrow added.

Trade unions welcome the G20 commitment to engage with unions in the G20 process, while at the same time warning that the G20 remains unduly tilted towards the narrow self-interest of the financial community. Unions warn that without genuine financial reform, the introduction of a financial transactions tax and an end to tax havens, the resources needed for investment in jobs, development and tackling climate change will be lacking. While the Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth is important, it does not compensate for the absence of concrete commitment of resources for the Millennium Development Goals or for the establishment of a global social protection floor, Trade Unions pointed out. Great hopes have been set into the French G20 Presidency for 2011.

G20: Take Action on Financial Transaction Taxes

2010-11-10T02:50:00.000-08:00

A global alliance of 183 organisations from 42 countries has just released the following open letter to the G20 Heads of State and Government meeting to their fifth summit later this week in Seoul:

International Civil Society Statement to the G-20 Leaders Summit in Seoul

We, the undersigned 183 civil society organisations from 42 countries collectively representing over 200 million people, urge G20 leaders to make concrete progress towards the introduction of an internationally coordinated financial transactions tax (FTT) at the upcoming summit in Seoul.

Our organizations have long advocated that such taxes are a practical way to generate revenues needed to fill domestic and international financing gaps, discourage the type of short-term financial speculation that has little social value but poses high risks to the economy and serve as a desperately-needed and sustainable source of financing for health and development. In recent months, the case for an FTT has been strengthened with new inputs from sometimes unexpected sources. Several developments have contributed to building a solid foundation for going beyond discussion of options to implementation:

IMF research commissioned by the G-20 recognizes technical feasibility of FTTs
At the 2009 Summit in Pittsburgh, the G20 charged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with preparing a report on various financial sector taxation options. While the IMF report delivered in June 2010 favoured an alternative approach (devoting only 3 of its 74 pages to FTTs), it did confirm the administrative feasibility of this option. A follow-up IMF technical paper has pointed out that most G20 countries have already implemented some form of transaction tax, and offered useful information on how to design the taxes to make them most effective. The paper also confirmed that such taxes can generate substantial revenues.

A report by the ‘Leading Group on Innovative Financing’ endorses one form of FTT
In July 2010, a group of international finance experts confirmed the feasibility of taxing financial transactions, with a view to financing international commitments for health and development made to developing countries. The experts had been commissioned to produce a feasibility study for a group of 12 governments -- Germany, UK, Japan, France, Belgium, Korea, Norway, Senegal, Brazil, Spain, Austria and Chile. These countries are part of the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development, comprised of 60 nations (including 75% of G20 member states). In their report, the experts point to foreign exchange transactions between banks as the easiest option for collecting a solidarity tax. They calculated that an extremely small tax of only 0.005% on such transactions would generate $33bn per year.

European Union and UN High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing consider FTT
Meanwhile, the European Commission is considering the possibility of introducing an FTT at European level, following the support shown by the European Parliament earlier this year. A European Commission report notes that, depending on the rate and coverage, an FTT could potentially generate more than $1 trillion per year. The FTT is also being addressed by a workstream of the High Level Advisory Group of the UN Secretary General on Climate Change Financing (AGF). The Group, made up of heads of state, high-level officials from ministries and central banks, and other finance experts, is expected to release a report on climate finance options this week.

The need for FTTs has grown more urgent

FTTs are one of the few available options that could generate the enormous financial resources required to pay for the continuing costs of the global financial and economic crisis, including reducing the unacceptably high rate of job loss, and to achieve key development, health, education and climate change objectives in developing countries. Several hundred billion dollars worth of untapped revenue could potentially be harnessed. This new financing is required in addition to official development assistance in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Alternative financial sector taxes as proposed by the IMF would fall far short of the volume required. At the same time, the potential benefit of FTTs to enhance market stability is of equal interest as the world has become more aware of the dangers posed by automated high-frequency trading that increasingly predominates in financial markets. Even extremely low transactions tax rates would reduce the incentive for such speculative activities.

At the recent UN Summit on Millennium Development Goals, French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a very welcome vow to press for an international agreement on FTTs during his term as G-20 chair in 2011. There is, however, no reason to delay. We call for G-20 action on this critical issue to begin in Seoul.

The complete list of signatories can be accessed >>> here.

South Centre: The missing issues on the G20 agenda

2010-11-09T03:35:00.000-08:00

The hopes of a rapid global economy recovery have recently been dashed by renewed turmoil in the world economy. The sovereign debt problems in several European countries, the gyrations in currency exchange rates, volatility in capital flows, and the war of words among major economies over “trade sanctions” and “competitive devaluations” are some of the many troubling signs of a new crisis that may be worse than the 2008-9 crisis triggered by the US sub-prime mortgage problem.

A new South Centre report, Why the IMF and the International Monetary System Need More than Cosmetic Reform, authored by the Centre's Special Economic Advisor, Yilmaz Akyüz argues that these recent problems reflect the lack of international mechanisms to prevent financial crises that have global repercussions and that threaten to spill over to the trading and economic systems. The report points out that:
* There are no effective rules and regulations to bring inherently unstable international financial market and capital flows under control.
* There is no multilateral discipline over misguided monetary, financial and exchange rate policies in systemically important countries despite their strong adverse international spillovers.
* National and international policy makers are preoccupied primarily with resolving crises by supporting those who are responsible for these crises, rather than introducing institutional arrangements to reduce the likelihood of their recurrence. Through such interventions, they are creating more problems than they are solving, and indeed sowing the seeds for future difficulties.

The South Centre report is being issued on the eve of the G20 Summit 10-12 November in Seoul. The G20 has established itself as the forum to deal with the financial crisis. According to the report, however, the G20 and the IMF agendas do not include some of the most important issues that need to be addressed to deal adequately with the financial crisis or prevent future crises. The missing issues include enforceable exchange rate and adjustment obligations, orderly sovereign debt workout mechanisms and the reform of the international reserves system.

Developing countries are especially vulnerable to the effects of the global financial problems, and they also have limited capacity to respond to shocks. They thus have a special interest in the reform of the international financial and monetary system, including the IMF. The reforms should lead to the establishment of an orderly and equitable international monetary and financial system. However, if this does not materialise, developing countries should find ways and means of protecting themselves and looking after their interests through regional mechanisms. These include arrangements regarding regional currencies and exchange rate mechanisms, intra-regional provision of international liquidity, policy surveillance and regulation of financial markets and capital flows.

Global solutions are better than such regional arrangements and developing countries should strive to realise them. But if major economic powers do not cooperate in building the new global system, it is definitely better to have the regional arrangements than to have a “non-system” in which the developing countries continue to be the victims of global financial crises.

Please find the report >>> here.

ITUC calls on World Bank to complete overhaul of Doing Business

2010-11-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

The 2011 edition of the World Bank’s Doing Business report includes a welcome first step for revising the report’s past practice of encouraging countries to dismantle labour and social regulations, which it did by granting its best ratings to countries with the lowest levels of workers’ protection. Doing Business 2011 has removed the “Employing Workers Indicator” (EWI) from the “Ease of Doing Business Index” and country rankings, although the basic data from which the EWI is calculated remains in an annex to the report. The Bank has furthermore, according to Doing Business 2011, “instructed staff not to use the [EWI] indicators as a basis for providing policy advice or evaluating country development programs or assistance strategies”.

ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow invited the Bank to complete the process of overhauling Doing Business. “By considering labour regulations only from the view of whether they are deemed to be good for business, the World Bank has caused enormous damage to workers by advising borrowing countries through its highest-circulation publication that labour standards should be dispensed with,” said Burrow. “The global economic crisis has made clear that well-designed and enforced labour regulations and social protection are essential for securing employment and for providing adequate income for those who lose their jobs. The Bank should carry through on the positive step it has made in Doing Business 2011 by removing the EWI from all future editions and, instead, adopting policies on labour issues that recognise and reward the importance of adequate labour regulations and comprehensive social protection.”

The ITUC noted that even though Doing Business’s annex on “Employing Workers” speaks positively of countries that provide financial support for reduced working time programmes designed to prevent lay-offs or that have increased unemployment benefits, the report penalizes countries that require any sort of contribution by employers for unemployment insurance, workmen’s compensation, old-age pensions, maternity leave or other social protection programmes. Through its “Paying Taxes Indicator”, which has not been modified in Doing Business 2011, the Bank continues to advocate that business should be exempt from all forms of taxation, whether it be corporate income tax, property tax, social security contributions, property tax, capital gains tax or financial transactions tax. Doing Business 2011’s top ten best performers for their very low total tax rate on business include Timor Leste, Vanuatu, Maldives, Macedonia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Georgia.

World unions ask G20 Finance Ministers: Where are the Jobs?

2010-10-26T06:34:00.001-07:00

International trade unions have accused G20 governments of being complacent in their claim this week that – according to the G20 Finance Ministers Communiqué – “global economic recovery continues to advance”. “G20 Finance Ministers have to look beyond the comfort zone of Wall St and the City of London, to the reality that millions of people are still losing their jobs and are now being made to suffer further austerity whilst the benefits accrue to the very banks and financiers who caused the global crisis in the first place,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow. According to ITUC, the world economy is not out of the woods yet, and the commitments made by the G20 in London and Pittsburgh to put employment at the centre of decision-making are not being met. The G20 leaders’ meeting in Seoul next month must put jobs back on the G20 agenda.

While the Communiqué of the Finance Ministers meeting in Gyeongju, South Korea, talk about the need for international cooperation and coordinated responses to the crisis, there is scant evidence of governments working together, except to reinforce their apparent determination to achieve “fiscal consolidation” to appease the financial markets rather than to get growth into the global economy and put people back to work. The proposal by the US administration to set limits for both trade surpluses and deficits were watered down in the Ministers’ conclusions and now will have to be revisited in Seoul. “Whatever the mechanism, more balanced global growth that is consistent with falling unemployment has to be achieved by surplus countries expanding domestic demand more rapidly - not just through adjustment by deficit countries” said Burrow.

The Ministers also agreed to “complete financial repair and regulatory reforms without delay” – a statement challenged by the unions on the basis that work has hardly started to fully implement the measures which are required. In addition, their reference to the “importance of partnership between governments and business to promote economic growth beyond the crisis”, gives rise to further concern about the undue influence of business on the global agenda. The G20 should be establishing a broad based task force on jobs that includes all social partners instead of developing a cosy relationship with business elites that gives them a fast track to press for more of the labour market deregulation that led to the rising inequality before the crisis, said John Evans, General Secretary of the OECD Trade Union Advisory Committee.

The commitment to increase developing country influence on decision-making at the International Monetary Fund is welcomed by the unions, however the target date of January 2014 for this to be completed means that the current industrial-country bias at the IMF will remain in place for at least three years more. The Ministers’ reference to the IMF promoting “structural reform” is of great concern, given that this has always been understood to include further weakening of labour laws, such as the sweeping deregulation currently being pushed by the IMF on Romania. – A top-level international delegation of trade union leaders will press their concerns on these and other key issues in meetings with G20 leaders at their Summit in Seoul next month.

G20 must create new Seoul development consensus

2010-10-12T07:02:00.001-07:00

Growth is necessary but not sufficient to lift poor people out of poverty, international agency Oxfam said as it published a briefing paper calling on the G20 to agree an historic new Seoul development consensus to help the world’s poorest. The paper, The Making of a Seoul Development Consensus, shows that people living in extreme poverty largely missed out on the benefits of growth in the last two decades of the 20th century. The poorest received only 1.5% of the $1.9trillion additional global gross domestic product (GDP) even though they accounted for a third of the world’s population at the start of the period. Today, the poorest 40% get just 5% of the world’s income.

By contrast, the poorest have been hit hard by the recent global slump with the World Bank estimating that 64 million have been pushed into poverty by the crisis and the poorest countries suffering a $65bn fiscal hole, forcing them to make cuts to health, education and agriculture spending. This comes at a time when millions of poor people are already struggling as a result of increased food prices and extreme weather linked to climate change.

G20 officials are meeting in Seoul on Thursday and Friday this week to lay the foundations of the G20’s approach to development ahead of the Heads of State summit next month. Jasmine Burnley, Oxfam policy adviser and co-author of The Making of a Seoul Development Consensus, said: “These startling statistics show the scale of the failure of the discredited Washington consensus and the need for G20 leaders to break with the past and provide real global economic leadership in tackling poverty. Economic growth is vital to help poor people escape poverty, but history teaches us that it is not enough on its own. We need to see a new Seoul Consensus that not only drives economic growth but is sustainable and ensures the poorest receive a fair share of the benefits.

“The G20 should ensure that investment in agriculture, free health care and education are stepped up, not reduced in response to the economic crisis. Malaria alone costs Africa $12bn each year in lost revenue and improvements in education are clearly linked to increases in GDP. In this way helping the poorest will boost the global economy to the benefit of all.”

Oxfam is calling on G8 countries to meet their existing promises to increase overseas aid. It also wants the G20 to take action to fix the hole in poor countries’ budgets by introducing a financial transaction tax on the banks, hedge funds and other institutions whose greed did so much to cause the economic crisis. Burnley said: “It cannot be right that while banks have received trillions in state bailouts poor countries are left without any alternative but to slash essential services to the poor as a result of a crisis they did nothing to cause. Taxing the financial sector is the fairest way to protect the poorest from the damage done by the global financial elite.”

* Please find the report >>> here.

Global Witness: British banks complicit in Nigerian corruption

2010-10-12T06:34:00.000-07:00

British high street banks have accepted millions of pounds in deposits from corrupt Nigerian politicians, raising serious questions about their commitment to tackling financial crime, warned Global Witness in a new report, International Thief Thief. By taking money from corrupt Nigerian governors between 1999 and 2005, Barclays, NatWest, RBS, HSBC and UBS helped to fuel corruption and entrench poverty in Nigeria. What is so extraordinary about this story is that nearly all of these of these banks had previously fallen foul of the UK banking regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), in 2001 by reportedly helping the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha funnel nearly a billion pounds through the UK. These banks were supposed to have tightened up their systems but as this report now shows, a few years later, they were accepting corrupt Nigerian money again.

There is no sign that the FSA has taken any action this time. Global Witness's new report is based on analysis of court documents from litigation in London by the Nigerian government to get funds returned from the UK that were stolen by two former state governors. British banks made it possible for Dieypreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State and Joshua Dariye of Plateau State to bring their corrupt loot into the UK. "Banks are quick to penalise ordinary customers for minor infractions but seem to be less concerned about dirty money passing through their accounts," said Robert Palmer, campaigner at Global Witness. "Large scale corruption is simply not possible without a bank willing to process payments from dodgy sources, or hold accounts for corrupt politicians," he added.

One of the banks profiled in the report is RBS, now majority owned by the taxpayer. RBS allowed former governor Alamieyeseigha to receive bribes and bring Â£2.7m into the UK. An English High Court judge found that at least Â£1.56m of these funds were bribes paid by a state contractor called Ehigie Edobor Uzamere, currently a Nigerian senator, in order to win a contract to build a fence around the governor's official lodge. Global Witness has asked RBS whether it carried out adequate checks on its customer and his funds, but has not had a reply.

Global Witness is concerned that banks and the FSA have yet to take this problem seriously enough. Anti-money laundering regulations require banks to identify their customers and the source of funds, but they are not being adequately enforced. Banks need to get much better at checking where the money is coming from and whether it was obtained through corrupt practices. The banks in this report may not have broken the law, but corrupt money still entered the UK and so our financial system is still complicit in corruption. This is an ongoing problem, as shown by the action taken against HSBC by the US regulators last week. They required HSBC's American arm to overhaul its due diligence systems following violations of US anti-money laundering laws and inadequate monitoring of transactions and customers, including ‘politically exposed persons' - ie the foreign senior officials who could be involved in corruption.

The British coalition government plans to abolish the FSA. Whatever body replaces it must take corruption seriously. The government and the new regulator must send a clear signal to the financial sector that corrupt money is not welcome. And the banks themselves must demonstrate much more clearly the steps they are taking to stop dirty money entering the financial system.

* Please find the report >>> here.

Climate funds bypass hardest hit: Oxfam calls for a new global climate fund

2010-10-07T03:36:00.001-07:00

The poorest people who need the most help to adapt to a changing climate are largely being bypassed by the small amount of climate funds now being disbursed, says a new Oxfam report published today at the UN climate change talks in Tianjin, China. The report, Righting Two Wrongs: Making a New Global Climate Fund Work for Poor People, shows that negotiators must create a Global Climate Fund that vulnerable populations in poor countries can access so that they are not left behind in proposed climate solutions. The study brings together evidence, which shows that in recent years:

* Less than a tenth of climate funds disbursed to date are estimated to have been for adaptation to help poor people in developing countries who are bearing the brunt of climate impacts.
* The world’s 49 poorest countries have received about one-eighth – $450m out of $3.5bn – of funding from the Global Environment Facility.
* Only $220m has been donated to fund adaptation plans (known as NAPAs) in the Least Developed Countries – just one tenth of the $2bn estimated total plan costs.

Oxfam is calling for a new Global Climate Fund to be set up at the UN climate summit in Cancún in December to govern public funds pledged by developed nations under the Copenhagen Accord. This fund must help address the failure to get adequate climate investments to poor people who bear the brunt of climate change’s impacts. “Righting Two Wrongs” calls for a new fund and broader finance system that is seen as legitimate by both developed and developing countries and that is representative, equitable, accountable, accessible, transparent and efficient. Poor governments must be able to directly access the fund and at least half of the money should be spent helping poor and vulnerable people adapt to a changing climate. In addition, a number of accountability measures are recommended, including ensuring that poor countries and women have an equal say in how the fund is managed and spent and that the fund is transparent as to where the money is going.

* Please find the report >>> here.

IMF and World Bank annual meetings: Global unions’ call

2010-10-05T04:11:00.000-07:00

Concerned by the faltering pace of global economic recovery, which has yet to produce a real recovery for millions of workers and unemployed men and women, the ITUC and its Global Unions partners have called upon the 2010 Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the IMF (8-9 October in Washington) to reject austerity programmes and to support job-focused stimulus measures and investments in quality public services to assist in the global economic recovery. “The World Bank and the IMF must pay greater attention to the underlying problems that explain stagnant and declining real wages, including widespread violation of workers’ rights,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow. “Redressing the declining income of working people and closing the gender pay gap should be major objectives of both institutions. The IFIs must work to build a more balanced and robust global economic recovery, which means that they should encourage and support countries that adopt labour and social protection policies aimed at reducing inequality.”

In a statement released on 5 October, the international trade union movement points out that austerity conditions applied in recent IMF loans have already been felt by working people, including the rapidly declining quality of public services that will cause long-term harm to countries’ development. Noting that the IMF’s lending capacity was tripled in 2009 in order to combat the global economic crisis, Burrow stated: “The Fund should use its vastly expanded financial resources to encourage countries affected by the global crisis to deploy counter-cyclical fiscal policies over longer periods of time until they have fully emerged from recession situations. Furthermore, the situation of Greece and other countries underscores the need for an effective sovereign debt restructuring mechanism that can be used by countries with unsustainable debt levels.”

A renewed recession potentially looming on the horizon threatens to further slow progress in attaining the UN Millennium Development Goals, already severely compromised due to negative economic growth in 2008-2009 and failures to meet aid commitments. Moreover, many countries have not moved forward with necessary regulations of risky financial activities – the kind that led to financial collapse in 2008. Global Unions call on the IMF to assist in the design and implementation of a financial transactions tax (FTT) as an effective and just means to generate revenue to repair damage caused by the financial crisis (including unacceptably high rates of joblessness) and to fulfil major international development and climate change finance commitments.

* Please find the Global Unions’ statement >>> here.

Call for a “Greenpeace of Finance”

2010-10-05T03:59:00.000-07:00

Last week, French Green MEP Pascal Canfin launched a call for the establishment of a “Greenpeace of finance” to counter the powerful lobby groups which can dominate EU decision-making over reform of the financial sector. Strong civil society involvement is essential for ensuring that there is a democratic debate over EU policy in this area, he argued. “No NGO in Europe is capable of producing specific expertise like Greenpeace can on nuclear or Amnesty International can on human rights. We need a Greenpeace of finance,” Canfin said.

According to Canfin, “Historically the banking sector isn't a traditional action area for NGOs. The newness of the topic means that they do not spend very much money developing expertise in the area”. He called also for former bankers and traders to become involved.

A consultation was held between MEPs and civil society organisations (CSOs) on this issue under the title “Make Finance Work”, with the aim of exchanging experiences and building joint capacities to influence financial regulation, and of planning joint campaign activities for sustainable finance. Parliament offered to provide funding for the establishment of a “Finance-Watch” umbrella network for an initial period of six months, after which the CSOs would be expected to continue its running on their own. It was stressed by participants that funds would be needed to finance detailed academic studies which could serve as relevant input for drafting legislation, as this is a proven way to affect policy change.

However, despite official recognition by the EU of the importance of an “open, transparent and regular dialogue” with civil society, CSOs often claim that the EU institutions marginalise them and refuse to engage with their demands for greater openness. One notable example is the EU’s bio-fuels policy: last week five environmental groups wrote an open letter to the European Commission demanding that it live up to the Lisbon Treaty’s requirements for transparency over this issue. “We are worried that a pattern of scientific obfuscation and intransparent working is emerging within the Commission regarding the impact of the European Union’s bio-fuel policies,” reads the letter.

Massive protest in Brussels rejects European austerity plans

2010-09-29T08:58:00.001-07:00

More than 100,000 trade unionists from throughout Europe took to the streets of Brussels on 29 September to oppose austerity measures which, if governments do not change direction, will have disastrous social and economic results. Parallel national protests taking place across Europe include a general strike in Spain, and demonstrations in Italy, France, Portugal, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany, Cyprus, Serbia, Poland, Finland and Ireland. Protests already held in Bucharest and Prague brought together more than 20,000 and 40,000 people respectively.

John Monks, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) which organised the Brussels march, said “Trade unionism is on an unstoppable march for progress, equality and justice, determined to build from the debris of the current crisis, a new, better society where those who are too big to fail cannot be allowed to continue to ignore those who they have regarded as too small to matter.” Along with the actions in Europe, trade unions from across the world are planning events to call for jobs, public services and regulation of banking and finance in the lead up to the World Day for Decent Work, on 7 October.

Tens of thousands of US trade unionists will take part in a rally in Washington DC on 2 October, organised by “One Nation Working Together”, a grassroots coalition advocating the creation, protection and advancement of good jobs. “During this economic downturn, creating good jobs and helping those who have lost their jobs are defining issues not only for Americans – but for all workers throughout the world. We need a global economic recovery that works for all working people,” said Rich Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, which is organising the Washington march along with dozens of civil and human rights organisations.

More than 100 events have already been registered on the World Day for Decent Work website, which tracks activities organised by trade union organisations in the lead up to and during 7 October itself. A major international conference the following week in Geneva will focus on countering the threat to quality public services posed by the growing obsession of governments to implement austerity measures without proper regard to the consequences on social cohesion and employment.

“Working people and those seeking jobs are justified in their anger at having the costs of the crisis forced upon them while bankers, financiers and speculators once again reap the spoils at the expense of the real economy. Tens of millions of jobs have been lost, and 100 million people pushed into absolute poverty in the developing world. Governments, especially the G20, pledged to regulate the finance sector, to create jobs and put the world economy on a sustainable and productive pathway. Yet they are not showing the common will needed to meet these goals. We will continue and step up the pressure until they do,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

The cost of hunger and a summit failure

2010-09-27T04:38:00.001-07:00

A new ActionAid report has revealed that hunger could be costing poor nations $450bn a year - more than ten times the amount needed to halve hunger by 2015 and meet Millennium Development Goal One. The report, Who’s really fighting hunger? shows the real dates countries will meet MDG1 and scores nations on their efforts to fight hunger. Is was released to coincide with world leaders meeting at the UN in New York to discuss progress on the Millennium Development Goals.

As the UN Millennium Development Goals summit closes in New York, ActionAid’s Chief Executive Joanna Kerr says: “With the world still reeling from a global food crisis and the threat of another looming, world leaders should have initiated an emergency response here at the summit. Instead for yet another year nearly a billion people will go to bed hungry and the world will be $450 billion poorer.”

According to ActionAid, UN summits will continue failing to deliver so long as leaders keep making empty promises on too many issues. With only five years to go, concerted action on the goals most off track is the only way forward. “Spreading yourself too thin never gets the job done.”

Unions call for IMF and ILO: Work for jobs and recovery

2010-09-11T01:43:00.001-07:00

At a major conference organised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Oslo on 13 September, a high-level international union delegation led by ITUC President Michael Sommer and ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow will be arguing that priority must be given to maintaining economic stimulus policies, and achieving a real and sustained economic recovery with jobs at the centre.

"Achieving durable recovery means that the labour market imbalances and inequalities that were a major cause of the crisis must be tackled and prevented. Therefore, recovery must not be built on deregulation but can succeed only if based on policies that can improve well-being for people – on better and more available social protection, on collective bargaining, on higher minimum wages, on more progressive taxation, on green jobs – policies encapsulated in the Global Jobs Pact of the ILO," said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow, adding “Furthermore, a financial transactions tax is needed to help provide the resources to carry out those policies.”

The Conference comes shortly after the release of the OECD’s Interim Economic Assessment that signals a likely slowdown in growth to 1.5% in the G7 economies in the second half of the year.

* A link to an ILO/IMF background document on the conference can be found >>> here.

Ecofin meeting: Not the end of Robin Hood Tax debate

2010-09-09T02:14:00.000-07:00

The recent meeting of the EU ministers for economy and finance (Ecofin) could not find an agreement on the implementation of the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) also known as Robin Hood Tax. But according to Peter Wahl of weed Germany, “this is not yet the end of the discussion”. The official communiqué says: “Ministers will further discuss the issue at an informal meeting in Brussels on 30 September and 1 October." This is confirmed by a statement of the German finance minister Schäuble who said (according to the German edition of the Financial Times) that the implementation of the tax was not for sure but there would be a chance for which one must fight. The British finance minister Osborn said instead: "This has been discussed since decades and will continue to be discussed for decades."

Unofficial sources said that Greece would have joined the camp of the proponents which by now consists of Austria, Belgium, France, and Germany.

The president of the EU Commission (the executive of the Union) Barroso said in a speech at the European Parliament yesterday: "I am also defending taxes on financial activities and we will come with proposals this autumn." It is unclear what he means by "financial activities". It could be the "Financial Activities Tax" as proposed by the IMF, but it could also be something else. Probably the opacity is by intention in order not to occur partisan between the big shots Germany and France on the one hand and the UK at the other.

France announced to raise the issue of the FTT again in the G20, although the Toronto summit had refused the FFT.

As the Germans had announced that in case that an implementation at EU level would not be possible - and the statement of Osborn points very much in that direction - an implementation in the Euro Zone should be considered. The finance minister of Luxembourg, Luc Frieden, opposed this and said the FTT "in the Euro zone only is not acceptable."

Despite the political differences on the subject Peter Wahl still sees a window of opportunity for the FTT:

“The differences between the elites are obvious. They are not capable to come to an agreement in either direction. Pressure from civil society should therefore continue. This is also important in those countries, where the government is in favour of the FTT, in order to prevent a retreat. There are some major countries such as Italy and Spain where the government is silent. There, pressure should try to reach a positive attitude.
The option of the implementation in the Euro zone should be looked at more in detail. The Europeans should prepare for the October Ecofin and the proposal announced by the Commission. At global level, the UN conference on the MDGs and the General Assembly and the G20 summit in Seoul could be further landmarks for campaigning.”

Stand-Up Against Poverty

2010-09-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

Fiscal holes and black holes threaten MDGs

2010-08-25T04:21:00.001-07:00

A just published report for Oxfam by Development Finance International, The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on the Budgets of Low-Income Countries, examines the impact of the global financial crisis on the budgets of low-income countries, especially their spending to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The crisis created a huge budget revenue hole of $65bn, of which aid has filled only one-third. As a result, after some fiscal stimulus to combat the crisis in 2009, most Low income Countries (LIC) (including those with IMF programs) are cutting MDG spending, especially on education and social protection. They have also had to borrow expensive domestic loans, and increase anti-poor sales taxes. Almost all LICs could absorb much more aid without negative economic consequences (whereas they have much less space to borrow or to raise taxes).

The report therefore urges the international community to make strong new aid commitments at the Millennium Summit in September 2010, funded by financial transaction taxes or other innovative financing:

* the IMF to encourage LICs to spend more on MDG goals and on combating climate change and to report regularly on such spending;
* and LIC governments to increase spending on social protection and education; taxation of income; property and foreign investors; and efforts to fight tax avoidance.

The authors of the report, Katerina Kyrili and Matthew Martin from Development Finance International warn: “If these changes are not made, the fiscal hole caused by the crisis risks becoming a ‘black hole’ into which the MDGs, and the lives and education of many of the world’s poorest citizens, will disappear.“

UN Summit should endorse financial transactions tax

2010-08-23T04:07:00.000-07:00

The International Trade Union Federation (ITUC) is calling on governments to commit to introducing a financial transactions tax (FTT) at September’s United Nations Development Summit to help tackle global poverty and accelerate action on jobs and climate change. The UN Summit, to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), will take place against a background of growing global unemployment and inequality and major set-backs on economic development in countries across the globe. An FTT could raise between US$200bn and US$900bn depending on the way it is structured and the level at which it is set, according to the ITUC submission which is being sent by its national affiliates to governments in preparation for the Summit. Even a small percentage of the funds raised by an FTT would help put in place a social protection floor, which would give a major boost to tackling poverty. The submission sets out the case for putting an FTT at the centre of an overall package of measures which would also tackle corporate tax evasion and ensure effective regulation of banks and finance.

According to the trade union body, instead of simply focusing on spending cuts, governments need to increase revenues to ensure employment, public services and development aid. Parts of the finance sector are awash with money, just two years after taxpayers had to bail out poorly regulated banks. An FTT would not solve all the world’s problems, but it would certainly be a good starting point by moving capital from speculative profiteering to kick-starting the real economy and helping avoid a double-dip recession which would have horrendous consequences for the poorest countries in particular, trade unionists say.

HIV and AIDS: Trade unions press for rights-based approach to combat pandemic

2010-08-04T04:16:00.000-07:00

International trade union movement is calling for governments to push ahead with a rights-based approach to tackling the HIV and AIDS pandemic, following the 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna at the end of July. “While there are some positive signs concerning HIV and AIDS prevalence in some countries, millions of HIV-positive people have no access to treatment, millions more are at high risk of infection and there are disturbing signs of increasing incidence in several countries. We have to overcome the stigma and discrimination which are still common around the globe, and allocate sufficient resources to stop the spread of the virus and ensure that treatment is available to all those affected. We are especially concerned that the global economic crisis, and cuts to public expenditure on health in particular could undermine the progress which has been made,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

Stressing the importance of action at the workplace in fighting the pandemic, the trade union delegation at the Vienna Conference highlighted the adoption of a Recommendation on HIV-AIDS and the World of Work by the ILO at its June Conference this year. The ILO Recommendation, the first ever international human rights instrument to focus explicitly on HIV and AIDS and the world of work, was adopted by an overwhelming majority of ILO delegates. It clearly establishes the importance of action at the workplace, including voluntary testing and counselling protection against discrimination, and focuses on the need for engagement with those most vulnerable and at risk.

Trade union participants from the ITUC, Global Union Federations and national representatives from across the world, including Argentina, Cameroon, Canada, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guyana, Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda, the UK, Ukraine and Zimbabwe joined the ITUC’s Austrian affiliate the OeGB which hosted the trade union delegation to the Vienna Conference, which was attended by more than 20,000 participants in total.

For further information:
* Global Unions AIDS Programme (GUAP), Statement to the Vienna AIDS Conference

Oxfam: G8’s summit of shame fails poor people

2010-06-26T09:43:00.001-07:00

As the G8 Summit comes to a close, international agency Oxfam criticized the leaders for their failure to deliver on their promises and for trying to divert attention by cobbling together a small initiative for maternal and child health. “No maple leaf is big enough to hide the shame of Canada’s summit of broken promises,” said Mark Fried, spokesperson for Oxfam. “The G8’s failure will leave a sad legacy of kids out of school, denied medicines for the sick, and no food for the hungry.”

With total G8 aid frozen, their five billion dollar commitment to maternal health will likely be taken from vital areas such as education and food, cautioned Oxfam. “This year the headline is maternal health, last year it was food. With overall aid frozen, the G8 are just shuffling the same money around to different pots,” said Fried. “The only promise that counts is the Gleneagles one to increase aid by $50 billion by 2010 and that is the one they have abandoned today.”

At the last G8 Summit, donors pledges $22 billion over three years to support agriculture in developing countries, but Oxfam calculates that at most $6 billion of this is new money and they are double counting it to pay for other initiatives, such as helping poor countries cope with climate change. “There are a billion hungry people in the world but it seems the G8 are out to lunch. Instead of new money for old promises, we got old money, re-pledged, recycled and renamed,” said Fried. “Oxfam asks France, as next year’s G8 host, to offer real accountability and resuscitate the G8’s flagging commitment to the world’s poor.”

As focus now shifts to the G20, Oxfam is encouraged by the place development issues have garnered on the agenda, and called on leaders to give poor countries a seat at the table. “The G20 mustn’t repeat the G8’s mistake of only inviting Africa for the photo ops,” said Fried. Oxfam also urged the G20 to adopt a financial transaction tax to raise the funds necessary to fight poverty and climate change. "After the scandal of the G8's broken promises, the G20 now has the chance to stand up and deliver for the world's poor,” said actor and Oxfam Global Ambassador Bill Nighy in Toronto. "A Robin Hood Tax on banks is a simple but brilliant idea to raise hundreds of billions of dollars to help millions of poor people who have been hit hardest by global economic downturn, hunger and climate change."

EU aid own goals pushing MDGs out of reach

2010-06-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

EU Member States are missing their official development aid targets and jeopardising global efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals, reveals a new report published today by CONCORD, the European confederation of development NGOs. The report, Penalty against Poverty: More and Better EU aid can score Millennium Development Goals, is being released as EU leaders are set to meet in Brussels next week to agree their common position for the United Nations’ MDG Summit in New York this September.

‘Penalty against Poverty’ finds that EU development aid in 2009 amounted to €49bn or 0.42% of national income – €1bn less than 2008 levels. Official estimates for 2010 put total EU aid at 0.46% of national income, far short of the 0.56% target for 2010 agreed by member states back in 2005. In real terms, this represents a shortfall of €11bn in funding with some of the EU’s biggest economies – Italy (€4.5bn), Germany (€2.6bn) and France (€800m) – amongst the worst offenders.

“EU aid efforts are being crippled by a crisis of commitment. In 2005 EU leaders committed to allocating 0.7% of their national income to fight global poverty but 5 years later they are well off-track on aid and abandoning their international commitments on aid effectiveness”, said Hussaini Abdu, Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria. “We are not asking them to get more ambitious about fighting poverty, just keep their existing promises on aid quality and quantity”, he said

The annual AidWatch report notes that although inflated aid figures continued to decline compared to 2008 levels, a staggering €3.8bn of inflated aid – or 8% of the total EU amount – was reported in 2009. This includes €1.4bn for debt cancellation, €1.5bn in student costs and €0.9bn spent on refugees in donor countries – making real EU development aid only 0.38% of European GNI.

“EU aid is €19bn short of what was promised to developing countries by 2010 to help them meet the MDGs – more than half the estimated extra €32bn required per year globally to meet the hunger goal alone”, said Justin Kilcullen, President of CONCORD. “This is very disappointing from a bloc that calls itself a leader on global development”, added Eduardo Sánchez, President of the Spanish NGO platform. “Europe’s credibility as a global leader on development is at stake. If EU leaders are serious about regaining the trust of poor countries, they must come up with an ambitious MDG action plan next week”, said Elise Ford, head of Oxfam International’s EU office.

Representing over 1,600 European NGOs, CONCORD calls on EU governments to keep their promises to deliver more and better EU development aid. EU leaders must commit to legally-binding yearly timetables stating how aid targets will be met and find new ways to raise money for development such as a financial transaction tax which would bring estimated yearly revenue of €215bn - €1tr at no extra cost to the tax payer. Europe must put an end to the inflation of aid figures and place developing countries and their citizens at the centre of efforts to meet the MDGs.

Trade unions warn G20 finance ministers against inaction

2010-06-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

As G20 finance ministers and central bankers meet in Busan, Korea, on 4-5 June 2010, with proposals to introduce new taxes on banks and other financial institutions high on their agenda, trade unions are calling for a firm and comprehensive G20 agreement to re-regulate global finance, including the introduction of a financial transaction tax. “Current proposals to introduce new bank taxation and new limits on bank loans in a strengthened Basel II agreement fall far short of the bold and ambitious action that is needed to deliver the necessary changes and quell the rising tide of public anger caused by speculative pressure on countries like Greece and Portugal,” said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder. “We need a real hands-on approach to banking supervision and to excessive bankers’ pay, and to shielding commercial and retail banking from irresponsible shadow banking and speculation.”

“Concerns about preciously guarded national sovereignty or disrupting the slow economic recovery are misplaced,” stated TUAC General Secretary John Evans. “On the contrary, regulation is key to attaining recovery. Such concerns can be addressed by well-designed and coordinated international cooperation, and G20 Finance Ministers should instruct the Financial Stability Board to undertake comprehensive modelling to pave the way for the creation of a financial transaction tax at global or regional level.”

“The reports by the Financial Stability Board and its members released in the past year reveal the extent to which governments and supervisory authorities have lost control over global finance,” UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings emphasised. “It is essential that all derivatives and alternative investments, including hedge funds and private equity, should be brought under the scrutiny of proper regulation and public authorities. Moreover, worker representation in bank and insurance risk management systems needs to be enhanced.”

See trade union statement to the Financial Stability Board >>> http://www.ituc-csi.org/trade-union-statement-to-the-4th.html

G20 must seize this moment to make the world a fairer place

2010-06-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

A global bank tax to help poor countries survive the economic crisis must be urgently agreed, Oxfam said ahead of the G20 meeting of finance ministers in Busan, South Korea. International development agency Oxfam is pressing for a bank tax that will raise a minimum of $200 billion per year globally to help pay for the impact of the crisis on the poorest and for the costs of climate change, and which will raise the same amount for rich countries to spend on domestic priorities.

Oxfam spokesperson Mark Fried said: “This is a once-in-a generation opportunity for the G20 to reshape the global economy in favor of poor people. We can never return to a situation where the greed of the richest takes precedence over the needs of billions. However the G20 chooses to structure the tax, it should bail out not banks, but the world's poorest people. A financial sector tax is the best option to deliver the scale of resources needed to recover from the financial crisis. The G20 must now seize the moment and deliver a tax that will to raise resources to tackle poverty and climate change. Finance ministers meeting this week must agree a roadmap for taxing the financial sector, and close the deal at their upcoming Canada summit.”

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave its preliminary report on a financial sector tax to G20 finance ministers in April. The IMF proposal is two taxes to repay the costs of the global economic crisis and to pay crises to come: a levy payable by all financial institutions, and a tax on their profits and pay. The G8 has broken its promise of $50 billion in aid to poor countries by 2010, and 50,000 more children in Sub-Saharan African countries died last year because of the financial crisis.

Climate cash must not increase developing countries' debt

2010-06-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

Oxfam has warned that the $100bn a year pledged by rich nations to help fight climate change could fail the poorest people, if recent moves to deliver climate cash as loans continue. A new report, Climate Finance Post-Copenhagen: The $100 billion questions, comes up as UN climate negotiations re-open for the first time since last year’s summit in Copenhagen. Whilst recognizing the need for some limited cut-rate loans to help poor countries develop in a low carbon way, the international agency strongly opposes the use of loans to help communities adapt to climate impacts.

Oxfam’s concerns come at a time when it is becoming clear that a significant proportion of the first installments of climate cash, to be delivered between 2010 and 2012 will be loans not grants. “At a time of economic emergency, when several poor countries are slashing critical health and education budgets to avoid a debt crisis, rich countries are considering saddling them with climate debt for a situation they did not cause and are worst affected by,” said Oxfam’s Senior Policy Advisor Antonio Hill. “It’s like crashing your neighbor's car and then offering a loan to cover the damages,” he added.

The report lays out a clear road map for how rich countries can not only meet their $100bn a year promise, but also double it by 2020 in line with actual needs. It suggests new and innovative sources from which to raise the cash, to ensure that governments do not raid it from existing and future aid budgets. These include:
* $100bn a year from a global Financial Transactions or ‘Robin Hood’ tax on banks – a small tax of 0.05% that could raise $400bn a year for health, education and climate change.
* $20-$30bn a year through the creation of emissions trading programs for international aviation and shipping; this would cap the amount of carbon emissions that could be produced by these industries, then charge them for each unit of carbon used.
* $75bn a year in fixed contributions from rich countries according to their historic responsibility for carbon emissions and ability to pay; this could be raised through the money from domestic emissions trading (or cap-and-trade) programs or taken from budgets currently used for subsidizing fossil fuels and carbon-heavy industry.
* $16bn a year by 2012 from the IMF in the form of low-interest loans for low-carbon development - using $120bn of rich country Special Drawing rights (SDRs) as capital, ‘green bonds’ could be issued, raising $40bn per year that can be made available as low-cost loans for clean energy investments in developing countries. Of the $40bn loaned every year, the net transfer (or savings) benefiting developing countries is $16bn.

The report also highlights the need for public sources of climate cash, to ensure the world’s poorest are not excluded from investments in their future. Whilst huge sums are needed from big business to create a global green economy, it is unlikely that companies will invest in small-scale projects with little or no financial return, designed to help poor people adapt to climate change, such as planting mangroves and developing irrigation systems. As 80% of food produced in poor countries is grown by women farmers, relying on market forces to deal with climate impacts could pose grave threats to world hunger.
Oxfam is calling on negotiators in Bonn to deliver and report openly on climate cash in 2010. A clear framework for raising and doubling the $100bn pledge in public money must be agreed by the Mexico summit in December this year.

Download the report >>> here.

Commissioner Barnier’s bank levy proposal

2010-05-31T03:07:00.000-07:00

The EU commissioner for Internal Market, Michel Barnier, also responsible for the EU package on financial reforms, issued an official communication last week on a European project of a bank levy with some relevance for the debate on the FTT. Peter Wahl has analyzed the proposal:

Very interesting is that Barnier makes clear, that he considers the bank levy not as a tactical manoeuvre to kick the FTT off the agenda. Speaking of "levies or taxes whose purpose is to recoup the public funds committed during the current crisis to stabilise the banking system or to tackle excessive risk- taking or speculation," he declares: "The examination of such measures should continue in parallel as a useful complement to the preventive funds that are considered in this Communication."

This corresponds to the position of France (Barnier is French) to consider both a bank levy and the FTT. Barnier had spoken out before a commission of the European Parliament in favour of the FTT.

There is some more quite progressive language in the Communication. For instance: "Political support is growing for applying the so-called "polluter pays" principle, known from environmental policy, also in the financial sector so that those responsible for causing it will pay for the costs of any possible future financial crisis."

The communication also takes on board the critique, that the bank levy would increase moral hazard: "The Commission recognises that this is a major concern which needs to be addressed by making it clear and unambiguous that shareholders (up to the value of their investment) and creditors (excluding depositors which are guaranteed by deposit guarantee schemes) must be the first to face the consequences of a bank failure and that resolution funds must not be used as an insurance against failure or to bail out failing banks, but rather to facilitate an orderly failure."

Barnier also is aware of the risk that a bank levy would be passed on to the clients: "It should also be avoided that increased costs are passed on to bank customers in the form of higher charges." Furthermore, the bank levy should be part of a broader framework of regulation which is able to "mitigate the implicit guarantees associated with institutions deemed ‘too big to fail’.

The communication makes already some proposals on the size of the revenues (2%-4% of GDP) and other details.

A detailed draft will be presented in October and the legislation process should start in 2011. The communication is also meant as an input to the G20 finance ministers meeting in Seoul in June.

Of course, it is by now only an official declaration of political will, and during the further process attempts will come up to water it down. Nevertheless, its general tone reflects the deep shock of the Euro crisis and an increasing awareness of European political elites, that they have to do more than they did by now.

Trade Unions’ Message to OECD Ministers: Beat the Jobs Crisis First!

2010-05-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

In a statement to the OECD Ministerial Meeting 27-28 May 2010, trade unions urge governments to put jobs, social cohesion, progressive taxation and green growth at the heart of recovery strategies. Global unemployment has risen by 34 million since the crisis began and many millions more workers who cannot find regular employment are not recorded as unemployed. We cannot afford a lost decade of stagnant labour markets and with it a lost generation of youth shut out from productive activity.

Union leaders including Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO United States, Sharan Burrow, President of the International Trade Union Confederation and the Australian Council of Trade Unions and John Evans, General Secretary of TUAC will be taking part in the OECD Ministerial Council as members of the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD. This is the first time that unions and employers have been invited to the full Ministers’ meeting. Union leaders will be taking part in the OECD Forum running on 26-27 May.

The union leaders will argue that rising public deficits across OECD countries must be addressed by growth-expanding demand that leads to an increase in output and jobs. Financing fiscal consolidation through cuts in public services, in social security and pensions would only prolong the jobs crisis and risk a social crisis. OECD governments must change the policies of the past two decades that led to the crisis – financial deregulation, rising income inequality and global imbalances. They must muster the same level of political will that was used to save the global banking system to beat the global jobs crisis.

“Working people need the right skills for tomorrow’s global economy, they need a socially ‘just transition’ to the green economy, and robust labour market institutions, including collective bargaining, to produce fairer income distribution”, says John Evans of the TUAC. “They need progressive tax reforms and stepping up work on tax evasion to protect public finances”. The TUAC Statement also calls for a global financial transactions tax to help pay for the cost of the crisis and to finance the Millennium Development Goals and climate change policies.

EU report on climate change fast-track financing

2010-05-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

The European Union is failing to give full details about its €7.2bn pledge for immediate climate finance needs in developing countries. This is the EU’s contribution to the $30bn committed by rich countries in Copenhagen to help poor countries curb their emissions and adapt to a changing climate over the next three years. EU finance ministers meeting on 18 May in Brussels were expected to endorse a progress report on whether and how this money is being delivered.

Oxfam warned the EU is not being transparent enough. The report does not provide clarity on how much each EU member state will pay, on how much it will cover mitigation or adaptation projects, and critically, if this money will come on top of existing commitments to provide 0.7% of national income for overseas aid. Neither is the EU revealing the degree to which funds will be disbursed bilaterally instead of through multilateral channels such as the United Nations, nor how the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people will benefit.

Leaders in Copenhagen agreed ‘fast-start’ finance would be “new and additional”. Oxfam says this means money for climate action in poor countries must come on top of rich countries’ commitment to provide 0.7% of their national income as overseas aid. However, the EU is still divided on how to interpret “additionality”, and it is not alone. The US claims that President Obama’s budget request for climate change finance in 2011 is $1.9bn, but from all appearances that includes double-counting of cash from commitments on food security made at last year's G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy.

Tim Gore, Oxfam International’s EU Climate Change Policy Advisor, said: “By not being fully transparent about its financing pledges, the EU is undermining trust with developing countries at a very delicate stage of the game. We need an open dialogue about how to guarantee that climate cash comes on top of money already committed for schools and hospitals. There’s no point trying to cover that up. The most important thing is to be honest about the challenges. If there are difficulties, it is better to be open. We expect the EU to address the current shortcomings in a full report later this year, which details how the money will be spent. In a global climate deal, annual reporting is a must”.

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2010-05-01T06:47:00.000-07:00

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Spain contributes €45m to the Adaptation Fund

2010-04-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

Spain has become the first country to make a significant contribution of €45m (ca US$60m) to the United Nations Adaptation Fund. This contribution will help the ground-breaking facility set up under the Kyoto Protocol to finance climate change adaptation projects and programs in developing countries. “I am truly delighted by the Spanish contribution. The adaptation needs of developing countries are immense and require substantial financial resources. Every contribution will help strengthen the efforts and work of the Adaptation Fund, which is now fully operational and ready to finance concrete adaptation projects in developing countries. Spain has sent a strong message to the developing countries that it is serious about its commitment to help them adapt to climate change”, says Farrukh Iqbal Khan, Chairman of the Adaptation Fund Board. “I hope other developed countries would now follow suit by making contributions and thereby helping Adaptation Fund to fulfil its mandate.

Apart from its size, the contribution is noteworthy in that, in accordance with the rules of the Adaptation Fund, the money will be disbursed at the sole discretion of the Adaptation Fund Board to meet the most pressing funding needs of developing countries, without any conditions superimposed by the donor.

The Adaptation Fund is a self-standing fund established under the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Climate Change Convention, which gets its funding from a two percent share of proceeds of all Certified Emission Reductions issued under the Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism projects and other sources of funding. The Fund is designed to finance concrete climate change adaptation projects and programs based on the needs and priorities of developing countries.

“Rich countries must follow the example of the Spanish government and channel cash for immediate adaptation needs through the UN Adaptation Fund. That’s the best way to ensure developing country ownership over adaptation planning, and will help regain much needed trust in the UN climate talks,” said Oxfam International. "We expect all governments to guarantee that longer-term climate financing will be additional to their overseas aid commitments. With such an announcement, as current holder of the rotating EU Presidency, Spain could demonstrate that the EU is serious about increasing financial support which rises to the challenge of growing climate impacts in poor countries.”

EEAS proposal is contrary to Lisbon Treaty

2010-04-27T01:36:00.001-07:00

A recently obtained legal opinion of a UK-based law firm states that High Representative Catherine Ashton’s proposal for the set-up of the European External Action Service (EEAS) is inconsistent with the EU treaties’ provisions concerning development co-operation. A coalition of European development organisations, including Eurostep, CDSE, CONCORD and others, is urging EU member states, the European Commission and the European Parliament to reject the proposal and ask for a legal review.

The EU Treaties clearly state that “Union development cooperation policy shall have as its primary objective the reduction and, in the long term, the eradication of poverty” (Article 208, TFEU). NGOs are concerned that allowing the EEAS, under the command of the High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, to take over some of the Commission’s responsibility for development puts this primary objective in jeopardy.

“Lawyers confirm that the proposed set-up of the EEAS, which mixes intergovernmental policy areas like foreign and security policy and common policy areas of the European Community such as development policy contradicts the EU treaties,” said Bernd Nilles, Secretary General of NGO network CIDSE. “The EEAS supports intergovernmental policy and we are deeply concerned that the common EU development budget might be used to pursue national, economic and security interests. The HR’s proposal fails to recognise this imperative as there is no indication that safeguards will be put in place to ensure that development objectives will be protected. In so doing, the proposal goes against the spirit of the Treaties.” Simon Stocker, Director of Eurostep, commented: “The EU is the largest donor in the world. The politicisation of EU aid would undermine the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.”

The revised proposal has been discussed and approved by EU foreign ministers in Luxemburg on Monday 26 April. However, the European Parliament, which has expressed concerns over the proposal, must give its approval before it can come into effect.

IMF must help keep poor countries keep up spending

2010-04-21T07:43:00.000-07:00

Poor countries are being forced to cut back on their economic crisis-response spending too soon, international agency Oxfam said on the eve of the Spring Meetings of IFIs, calling on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to take steps to reverse this trend. These countries need to massively increase social spending, as the economic crisis pushes millions of people further into poverty and the Millennium Development Goals deadline approaches. Instead, budget data from 56 poor countries surveyed by Oxfam - including detailed breakdowns of social spending in just over half of these countries - shows that poor countries have had to slash education, health, agriculture and social protection spending:

* Budgets in 2010 are being cut on average by 0.2% of GDP.
* Two thirds of the countries for which social spending details are available (18 out of 24) are cutting budget allocations on one or more of the priority social sectors of education, health, agriculture and social protection.
* Education and social protection are particularly badly affected, with average spending levels in 2010 lower even than those in 2008.

Rich countries are failing to provide the support needed to prevent these cuts. Oxfam has found that the economic crisis has left 56 poor countries with a combined ‘fiscal hole’ (that is, a shortfall in budgetary revenue) of $65bn in 2009 and 2010. Despite promises by the G20 and donor countries to help poor nations survive the crisis, just 13% of this revenue gap has been filled by grants. Given this failure by the international community, poor countries were forced to resort to expensive domestic borrowing to finance spending in 2009; now they are cutting spending prematurely to avoid a new debt crisis. This comes on the heels of the OECD’s report that development aid fell $3.5bn in 2009, and World Bank calculations that 50,000 more children in Sub-Saharan African countries may have died last year because of the financial crisis.

Oxfam also called for a change in IMF rules so that it can give grants, funded by gold sales, to finance a massive increase in poor countries’ health and education spending. At present, the IMF’s Articles of Agreement only permit it to give loans. “The IMF and G20 also need to endorse Financial Transaction Tax which, at rates of around 0.05% per currency transaction, would raise hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Otherwise, this poor country fiscal gap risks becoming a black hole into which the education, health and future prospects of the world’s poorest will disappear,” said Oxfam in Washington DC.

IMF: Swinging back to capital controls

2010-04-20T04:27:00.000-07:00

In response to the IMF's recent recognition of the positive potential for capital controls, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) on the eve of the Spring Meetings in Washington released a paper that indicates that capital controls can play an important role in developing countries by helping to insulate them from some of the harmful effects of volatile and short-term capital flows. In a February paper, the IMF concluded that "there may be circumstances in which capital controls are a legitimate component of the policy response to surges in capital inflows." The Fund's Global Financial Stability Report released last week was less sanguine about capital controls, but the net result is that the IMF appears more open to supporting capital controls than in the past.

The CEPR paper, Capital Controls and Monetary Policy in Developing Countries, written by CEPR economist Jose Antonio Cordero and Juan Antonio Montecino, looks at both the theoretical and empirical literature on capital controls. Short-term capital flows may be very volatile; they react quickly to sudden changes in investors' moods, external events, and to perceptions of governments' macroeconomic policy decisions. In 2007 net debt flows to the developing world were more than 6.5 times as large as they were in 2003; yet, in 2008 these flows were at less than half their 2007 level. Short-term debt flows, which almost quadrupled between 2003 and 2007, turned negative in 2008.

A surge of capital inflows, especially short-term and/or speculative inflows, can cause the domestic currency to appreciate. This can reduce competitiveness in the country's tradable goods sector, slow economic growth, and harm economic development by increasing the volatility and hence uncertainty of international prices. Capital flows can also cause enormous damage when they are reversed, with large capital outflows leading to a financial crisis. This was a major cause of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1999, and also harmed many countries in 2008-2009.

The paper concludes that capital controls can provide an alternative to an inflation-targeting with floating exchange rate regime, or a "hard peg" fixed exchange rate regime (which has been shown to have other severe disadvantages, as in Argentina, Brazil, and Russia in the 1990s). With capital controls, it may be possible for the government to maintain a more stable and competitive exchange rate while keeping inflation in check. The authors look at controls on capital inflows in Malaysia (1989-1995), Colombia (1993-1998), Chile (1989-1998), and Brazil (1992-1998). They also consider the case of Malaysia's controls on outflows in 1998-2001.

Trade union statement to G20 Labour Ministers

2010-04-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

As forecasts warn of a continuing rise in unemployment on top of the additional 34 million people worldwide who have become unemployed due to the economic crisis, trade union leaders from the G20 countries will urge for more action on jobs when they meet with G20 Labour and Employment Ministers on 19 April in Washington DC. The union delegation will present Ministers with a Global Unions statement, Beating the Jobs Crisis, setting out the steps which G20 governments need to take. The Statement calls for measures across six main areas, to:

* Maintain fiscal stimulus and focus on job creation: there must be no exit from fiscal stimulus until adequate growth levels have been attained, the danger of a further slump averted and there is self-sustaining recovery in jobs. The size, duration, coordination and targeting of stimulus packages must maximise creation of decent jobs including ‘green’ jobs;

* Strengthen social protection: existing social protection measures must be increased, including extending the level and period of unemployment benefits and supporting youth through determined government action. Globally, a social protection floor for all needs to be ensured;

* Provide support for the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): G20 governments should agree on an Action Plan to implement the G20 Pittsburgh commitment to achieving the MDGs. Decent work needs to be placed at the heart of development assistance, and in low income countries, strategies for the creation of quality employment based on policies of sustainable industrialisation have to be put in place;

* Support a just transition towards a low carbon economy: proposals need to be developed to ensure that the job creation potential of mitigating climate change is maximised;

* Help build a sustainable labour market model: measures are required to combat labour market, income and gender inequalities, and these need to be at the centre of the post-crisis policy framework; and,

* Re-skill and upgrade the global workforce: the G20 skills strategy must build quality skills and employment, through a new surge in vocational education and training that engages the trade unions and employers, makes lifelong learning a reality for all and focuses, in particular, on prioritising skills for ‘green’ jobs.

The Labour and Employment Ministers conference is being held as follow up action to the Pittsburgh G20 leaders’ meeting in September 2009, and is due to make recommendations to the G20 leaders’ meeting in Toronto in June. “In Pittsburgh G20 leaders said that they would put quality employment at the heart of the recovery but we don’t see this happening yet – the signs are that workers will have to pay for bailing out the bankers through public expenditure cuts, job insecurity and wage reductions. Governments have to urgently refocus their action to create decent jobs. If they don’t, the risk of a social explosion is likely to become a reality,” said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder.

The union delegation will also be calling on the G20 to continue focusing on employment issues beyond the Washington meeting, for example through a task force which would include trade union involvement. Through the ITUC Regional Organisation for the Americas, TUCA, the trade union movement is also putting its case to G20 member-countries Brazil, China, India and Russia, whose leaders are meeting in Brasilia on 16 April.

How to get a climate deal back on track?

2010-04-12T04:09:00.001-07:00

As UN climate negotiators head back to Bonn to find a way forward after the controversial December 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) is releasing a report to call attention to some of the more notable results of the summit, to reinforce the reasons why a UN climate process is so critical, and to point to some possible ways forward to success at Cancun in November 2010. IFG's new report, Safe Passage to Cancun - Getting a UN Climate Deal Back on Track, summarizes the main messages from a recent public event in Washington DC providing analysis and perspectives on the outcomes of Copenhagen.

The Copenhagen Accord’s emission cuts amount to maybe only half of what science says is needed to avoid climate catastrophe. Cancun must achieve more than “climate anarchy,” where each country does only what it desires, free from any comprehensive framework of agreed rights and responsibilities. Any agreements allowing such high temperature increases are irresponsible, non-governance of our global commons; we need better. New, bold and cooperative measures will be needed to drive complex global solutions. Fortunately, the opportunities to re-imagine and re-create our collective trajectory are truly rich. Such perspectives are especially urgent for informing the United States climate policy community, general public, and politicians alike, if we are to bridge the North-South gap in search of global climate solutions.

The main messages emerging from the report include:
* Nations must set a science-based global carbon budget, then fairly share the remaining atmospheric space.
* Climate finance governed by climate authorities is a litmus test for North-South trust building.
* Technology cooperation needs intensified engagement to drive smart innovation farther and faster.
* Indigenous peoples’ issues are gaining ground but still need to consolidate protections for their rights.
* Leaving behind the US—until it gets its act together—could help the rest of the world move ahead.

German government decided on bank levy

2010-03-31T08:28:00.000-07:00

The German government decided today to introduce a bank levy. During a period of 10 years an amount of approximately €1.2bn shall be raised per year. All banks - i.e. also savings and cooperative banks - will have to pay the fee. However, the bulk of the amount (900bn) should come from the systemically relevant big banks. The revenues would go into a special fund. The fee should not be tax deductable. The government also decided rules which allow for breaking up banks which are "too big to fail" and new rules on the liability for managers.

The French minister of finance, Christine Lagarde, participated in the meeting of the German cabinet and said that France would introduce a similar levy. However, the revenues would not go into a special fund but into the current budget.

The civil society alliance for the Financial Transaction Tax came up with strong critique on the decision:
* The revenue is too small.
* It is only for future crises and not for paying for the burden of the present crisis.
* It has no regulatory effect.

Thus, the reasons for introducing the FTT continue to exist. Therefore the alliance will continue to pressure for the FTT. All three opposition parties in the Bundestag reject the decision.

UNCTAD presses for economic governance reform

2010-03-30T07:49:00.001-07:00

Substantial reforms – more than mere "window dressing" – should be pursued nationally and internationally to prevent opaque financial instruments, speculation, and the build-up of large financial imbalances between countries from causing a repeat of the current global recession, UNCTAD's Secretary-General urged last weekend. Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi told the 122nd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) that "the crisis provides a rare opportunity to forge a more balanced and inclusive global economy through two channels: measured government intervention and strategic policy action at the national level, and better coordinated and more inclusive economic decision-making at the international level."

In a statement Supachai said UNCTAD is concerned that with the worst of the financial crisis apparently over, "talk of reforming the financial sector, particularly at the international level, has become a good deal more muted. UNCTAD strongly believes that the crisis could have been prevented if there had been stronger governance mechanisms to regulate financial innovation and the build-up of various imbalances at the national and international levels. Moving forward on this reform agenda to create a new pattern of balanced and sustainable growth will require bold thinking."

Well-defined rules, with a transparent and fair system for judging infractions, should be "orthodoxy" for the international financial system as they are for the international trading system, Supachai said. "[I]t is … imperative to provide for an institutional framework for better international coordination of financial regulation and supervision… Such an agreement would hopefully address the current potential for regulatory arbitrage," he added. "Equally important is to reshape international monetary arrangements that help avoid the build-up of large current-account imbalances and their counterpart – large unbalanced asset positions across countries."

Supachai said that continued global dependence on a single reserve currency is becoming a concern, reviving the idea that an equitable system of special drawing rights (SDRs) might eliminate the need for developing countries to hold vast reserves of dollars as protection against reverses in their capital flows. These reserves "now represent a considerable opportunity cost for development," the Secretary-General said. Countries also could tackle large build-ups of reserves through regional arrangements such as the Chiang Mai Initiative, whose multilateralized currency swap agreement came into effect on 24 March. He also called for reform at the IMF "so that it can focus most properly on what its founders intended: the avoidance of contractionary macroeconomic responses to financial shocks and instability."

Agribusiness and the right to food

2010-03-30T03:00:00.000-07:00

“Agribusiness can play a key role in realizing the right to food. But States have to give more support to their small producers and push corporations to change their pricing and standards policies”, said the UN Special Rapporteur on Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, as he presented his second annual report to the UN Human Rights Council on 5 March 2010. His report concludes that in an increasingly globalized food sector dominated by large transnational corporations, smallholders have a very limited number of buyers, and are in a deeply unequal bargaining position in respect of a fair price for their crops. In these circumstances, sourcing and pricing policies of commodity buyers have a huge and sometimes negative impact on the right to food. This situation partly explains why smallholders in developing countries are the single most important group of those suffering hunger in the world today.

To address this situation and the specific needs of smallholders, the Special Rapporteur makes a series of recommendations to the agribusiness corporations and the States. According to the report, States have a number of tools they could use to strengthen the position of smallholders and allow them to reap a larger proportion of the food dollar in their transactions with buyers. In particular, De Schutter said “States could support the establishment of farmers’ cooperatives through appropriate legal frameworks, capacity building programs or tax incentives, thus enhancing the capacity of small producers to obtain higher prices when they seek to sell their produce. These organizations present many advantages in terms of services and information, and help the producers to implement the increasingly complex norms and requirements of buyers and public authorities active on regional and global food markets.

The UN Special Rapporteur also called on States to act against unfair practices of corporations, excessive concentration in the food chain, or abuses of dominant position acquired by certain actors. National competition laws play a fundamental role here. “Competition law as it currently stands is not appropriately tailored to the circumstances that weaken the bargaining position of smallholders”, he explained. “States where suppliers are based should extend the reach of their competition laws to foreign buyers whose abuses affect national sellers, developing regional responses if they are concerned about being vulnerable as a small economy.”

Noting that the pressure to produce at low prices was increasing on suppliers, leading to repress wages of agricultural workers and to the casualization of this workforce, the Special Rapporteur also made a number of recommendations on this issue. States must establish a clear legal framework with robust enforcement mechanisms. But in addition employers have a responsibility to respect the right to food, even where laws are insufficiently protective of agricultural workers or where the existing labour legislation is inadequately monitored: agribusiness companies must not contribute, directly or indirectly, to human rights abuses through their relationship with suppliers.

Please find the full report >>> here.

EU Council : Lack of agreement on a Financial Transaction Tax

2010-03-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

Brussels-based NGOs are deeply disappointed that European leaders have failed to agree on the introduction of an EU wide Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) at the EU Spring council on 25-26 March. The international alliance of Catholic development agencies CIDSE says a mini tax on short-term and high-risk transactions would stabilise the current financial system and generate millions of Euros badly needed to alleviate poverty and combat climate change. CIDSE campaigned for the inclusion of an EU wide adoption of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) on socially unproductive and speculative trading on financial markets in the run up to the Council.

Yesterday, while European leaders were arriving in Brussels to attend the Council, CIDSE, along with a coalition of development, environmental and health organizations, staged a ‘tug of war’. It saw bankers on the one side and Robin Hood, the symbol of a massive ongoing popular campaign demanding the adoption of a FTT, on the other, with EU leaders in the middle to decide if money should go to speculators or to people and the planet (see photo).

The European Parliament has asserted unequivocal support for robust and properly resourced EU action to tackle poverty and climate change and asked EU member states to agree on a financial transactions tax to help developing countries cope with the effects of the global financial and economic crisis. Despite broad public support and the backing of the European Parliament EU leaders have failed to come to terms on the FTT.

Europe must play its part in rescuing the MDGs

2010-03-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

A group of powerful women from the front-line in the fight against poverty have appealed to European leaders to ensure health and education for all people by rescuing the Millennium Development Goals. Testifying at the European Parliament, the ‘W8’ – a group brought together by Oxfam from Mali, Georgia, Thailand, Nicaragua, The Philippines, Bangladesh, Malawi and India – backed Oxfam’s call for Europe to adopt a “rescue package” to get the MDGs back on track.

The MDGs, signed by world leaders in 2000, commit to halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. With development aid faltering, the ability of poor countries to meet poverty goals is increasingly at risk. In a report to the UN general assembly this month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said progress on the MDGs was being stymied by unmet commitments, inadequate resources and a lack of focus and accountability.

This comes in the wake of a warning by the European Commission that Europe’s international credibility was being undermined by Member States’ failure to stick to aid commitments; now €13bn ($17.6bn) short of 2010 targets. Oxfam spokesperson Elise Ford said: “With the MDGs teetering on the edge of failure, Europe can play a key role in rescuing the goals and at the same time salvaging its own international reputation. Without a European rescue package which includes a new credible plan to meet aid commitments, citizens in the poorest countries won’t get the most basic education and health care, and European leaders will not be able to hold their head high on the global stage.”

Responding to the W8’s call for a MDGs rescue plan, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said: “With only five years to go, the need for concerted action to achieve the MDGs is becoming increasingly urgent. Last year’s global economic crisis has further aggravated the situation for billions of poor people around the globe. It is both timely and necessary to remind leaders of the promises they have made and the crucial necessity of their continuing commitment.”

Leonor Magtolis Briones of Social Watch Philippines said: “We have traveled to Brussels to appeal to European leaders not to abandon their promises to support health and education in developing countries. We see the desperate human cost of lack of basic services first-hand. A dramatic focus of political will and ambition and concrete actions plans are needed. If Europe agrees a strategy to achieve the MDGs, and world leaders to back it at the UN MDGs Summit in New York in September, 2010 could go down in history as the turning point in the fight against poverty.”

ActionAid report on biofuel consumption in Europe

2010-03-04T08:49:00.000-08:00

Up to 100 million more people could go hungry if Europe commits itself to a huge increase in biofuels consumption in order to meet new European Union legislation, ActionAid says in a new report titled Meals per gallon: the impact of industrial biofuels on people and global hunger. The legislation states that 10% of transport fuels must come from renewable sources by 2020. EU member states will fill almost all of their renewables targets by using industrial biofuels – fuels made on an industrial scale from agricultural crops, including important staple foods. The vast majority of industrial biofuels are made from maize, wheat, sugar cane and vegetable oils such as palm oil, soy and rapeseed.

In its report ActionAid calculates that by 2020 biofuel consumption in the EU will jump nearly four-fold and that two thirds will be imported, mainly from the developing world. As well as diverting food away from the people who need it most, this will push up prices. It is estimated that for every 1% rise in the price of food, 16 million more poor people become hungry. ActionAid also says that most industrial biofuels do not save greenhouse gas emissions when compared to the fossil fuels they are replacing. The increasing use of biofuels is resulting in massive land use change, often in carbon rich habitats such as tropical rainforests. Using extra fertiliser to grow biofuels releases nitrous oxide, one of the most powerful greenhouse gasses.

Report author Tim Rice said: “Miracles do not grow on trees, or from any other plants for that matter. Using crops to fuel cars increases hunger while failing to help stop climate change. The huge expansion in industrial biofuels use must be stopped. To meet the EU deadline, the UK government is now writing its national action plan which will set out its strategy for renewable energy for the next ten years. This plan must not commit the UK to any further increase in industrial biofuels.”

To meet the EU 10% target solely from biofuels, the total land area directly required to grow industrial biofuels in poor countries could reach 17.5m hectares, well over half the size of Italy. ActionAid has already found that increased biofuel use is having disastrous impacts on the developing world. Multinationals are acquiring land on a colossal scale. Across developing countries as a whole, EU companies have already acquired or are in negotiations for at least 5m hectares. This has led to displacement of people, lack of consultation and compensation, broken promises about wages and job opportunities, and food scarcity.

ActionAid is calling on EU member states to ensure they do not lock in industrial biofuels into their 2010 national action plans. The charity also says that transport and energy consumption must be reduced, targets and financial incentives for industrial biofuels ended and more support given to small-scale sustainable biofuels in the EU and elsewhere.

ITUC at UNCSW: Raising Voices for Working Women

2010-03-01T04:26:00.000-08:00

More than 100 women representing trade unions from around the world will be demanding improved rights for working women at the 54th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW), which begins today in New York. The delegation includes members from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Public Services International (PSI), Education International, and UNI Global Union.

United Nations member states will be evaluating what progress has been made towards achieving gender equality—and identifying remaining challenges—15 years after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. “The Beijing+15 commemoration at this session of the commission is hardly a cause for celebration,” said Diana Holland, chair of the ITUC Women’s Committee. “Workers today are faced with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, with women particularly hard hit by unemployment, precarious work and increased burdens of unpaid family care.”

Trade unions will be presenting seven main recommendations. These include calling on governments to: adopt a strong political declaration reaffirming the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action as the basic framework underpinning gender equality policies, and to apply the International Labour Organization's Global Jobs Pact and the ILO Resolution on Gender Equality at the Heart of Decent Work to all economic recovery strategies. The unions will hold a workshop on “Women in the Global Economy in a Time of Crisis” on 4 March. A second event will feature the release of trade union “Alternative Reports to Government National Reports”. These alternative reports from Canada, Turkey, Ghana, and Trinidad and Tobago will provide a reality check by highlighting the real situation of working women and their families on the ground.

For the joint trade union statement and more information, discussion and regular updates from the trade union delegation, visit the UNCSW blog at: http://unioncsw.world-psi.org

Dancing the Robin Hood Tax

2010-02-25T07:09:00.000-08:00

Broken promises: Aid shortfall of $21bn

2010-02-17T09:04:00.000-08:00

Aid to developing countries in 2010 will reach record levels in dollar terms after increasing by 35% since 2004. But it will still be less than the world’s major aid donors promised five years ago at the Gleneagles and Millennium+5 summits. Though a majority of countries will meet their commitments, the underperformance of several large donors means there will be a significant shortfall, according to a new OECD review. Africa, in particular, is likely to get only about $12bn of the $25bn increase envisaged at Gleneagles, due in large part to the underperformance of some European donors who give large shares of official development assistance (ODA) to Africa.

In 2005, the 15 countries that are members both of the European Union and of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) committed to reach a minimum ODA country target in 2010 of 0.51% of their Gross National Income (GNI). Some will surpass that goal: Sweden, with the world’s highest ODA as a percentage of its GNI at 1.03%, is followed by Luxembourg (1%), Denmark (0.83%), the Netherlands (0.8%), Belgium (0.7%), the United Kingdom (0.56%), Finland (0.55%), Ireland (0.52%) and Spain (0.51%) – all figures are in 2004 dollars and relate to net ODA. But others will fall short: France (0.46%), Germany (0.40%), Austria (0.37%), Portugal (0.34%), Greece (0.21%), and Italy (0.20%).

Other DAC countries made varying ODA commitments for 2010, and most, but not all, will fulfil them. The United States pledged to double its aid to sub-Saharan Africa between 2004 and 2010. Canada aimed to double its 2001 International Assistance Envelope level by 2010 in nominal terms. Australia aimed to reach $A4bn. New Zealand plans to achieve an ODA level of $NZ600m by 2012-13. All four countries appear on track to meet these objectives. Norway will maintain its ODA level of 1% of its GNI, and Switzerland will likely reach 0.47% of its GNI, exceeding its previous commitment of 0.41%. Japan’s Gleneagles promise was to give $10bn more over the period 2005 – 2009 than if they had stayed at their 2004 base-line. In 2008 it was still $4bn short of this undertaking. Japan’s ODA for 2010 is not yet known, and the OECD calculations are based on an assumption that it will maintain the same level as in 2008.

Overall, these figures result in additional aid of $27bn from 2004 to 2010, but a $21bn shortfall between what donors promised in 2005 and the OECD estimates for the 2010 outcome. Of this shortfall, $17bn is the result of lower-than-promised giving by the donors and $4bn is the result of lower-than-expected GNI because of the economic crisis. All these figures are estimates based on countries’ national 2010 aid budget plans where available and on early GNI estimates.

Barroso II should put development at the heart of its agenda, CIDSE says

2010-02-10T03:03:00.000-08:00

Following last year’s approval of the Lisbon Treaty and the election of a new European Parliament, 2010 has begun with the appointment of President Barroso’s newly selected European Commission (EC) line-up. CIDSE, an international alliance of Catholic development agencies, while wishing the new Commission success, points to the need for ambitious and fair policies. In the next five years leading up to the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) these should benefit both citizens at home and people living in poverty in developing countries to ensure our common future.

“In light of the recent food, economic and climate crises, which have left poor countries struggling with dire consequences, which will be felt for many years to come, it is imperative that the new Commission reaffirms the EU’s leadership in development cooperation by placing poverty eradication at the heart of its agenda and, crucially, ensures the coherence of all EU policies with this goal,”. Recent studies show that the EC is not meeting this goal with only 44% of its aid money going to poor countries in comparison to the average 65% rate of EU member states.

One of the main priorities of the Commission, and Development Commissioner Piebalgs in particular, should be to not only push EU member states to stick to their aid commitments but also to promote innovative and predictable sources of development and climate finance. “After having firmly declared his support for financial transaction taxes during his EP hearing, we expect Commissioner Piebalgs to match words with deeds. The Commission should urge EU member states to promptly implement these taxes,” said Bernd Nilles, CIDSE Secretary General.

Furthermore, the EU must adopt a policy framework for food security that focuses on the potential of small scale farming for development, a framework which is supported rather than undermined by the EU's own trade and agricultural policies. According to Nilles “the appointment of a climate commissioner presents an important opportunity for the EU to rethink and reinvigorate its engagement in international climate negotiations. The Commission must work with its member states to reach out to its negotiating partners and ensure that 2010 secures the fair, effective and binding climate agreement that both science and justice demand.” Credible and coherent policies on domestic climate mitigation efforts and support to developing countries are crucial to protect the world’s most vulnerable people from the impacts of the climate crisis.

Economists launch blog on “Triple Crises” in finance, development, and environment

2010-02-04T00:42:00.000-08:00

On February 1, new voices joined the policy debate on the global crises in finance, development, and the environment. The “TripleCrisisBlog,” with an initial roster of economic analysts from nine countries, was launched by the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University (USA), India’s Economic Research Foundation (ERF), and the Washington office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation. The initiative is chaired by GDAE’s Kevin P. Gallagher and ERF’s Jayati Ghosh.

“Crises are not new to the world economy nor to developing countries,” Gallagher and Ghosh write in their introductory post. “Indeed, our current predicament is a convergence of at least three crises: in global finance, development, and environment. These areas are seemingly disparate but actually interact with each other in forceful ways to reflect major structural imbalances between finance and the real economy; between the higher income and developing economies; between the human economic system and the earth’s ecosystems. This blog seeks to contribute to a more open and global dialogue around these three crises: about how they interact, and how they can collectively be solved.”

The TripleCrisisBlog starts with a wide diversity of analysts from the global North and South. In addition to Gallagher and Ghosh, the roster includes: Jeff Madrick, Sanjay Reddy, Mehdi Shefaeddin, Charles Abugre, Martin Khor, Alejandro Nadal, Matias Vernengo, Adil Najam, CP Chandrasekhar, Jim Boyce, Ilene Graebel, Gerhard Schick, Timothy A. Wise, Lyuba Zarsky, and Frank Ackerman. Ghosh and Gallagher will co-chair the project, with Wise serving as "managing editor."

Visit the TripleCrisisBlog >>> here.

ActionAid welcomes Sarkozy’s stance on financial reform

2010-01-31T07:19:00.000-08:00

ActionAid welcomed French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s announcement that France plans to use its presidency of the G20 next year to create a new international monetary system. In a new report, Fruits of the Crisis: Leveraging the Financial & Economic Crisis of 2008-2009 to Secure New Resources for Development and Reform the Global Reserve System, ActionAid and Third World Network note that the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) could be used as an innovative financing tool to meet developing countries’ urgent requirements for development, climate adaptation, and counter the impacts of the global financial crisis.

Creative use of SDRs could complement measures such as the proposed financial transaction tax and levies on bunker fuels and aviation to raise the sums urgently needed. With international co-operation, SDRs would mobilise more resources than existing proposals for innovative financing. The report includes recommendations to build on the G20’s innovative use of SDRs to address the global crisis. It calls for mobilising the resources represented by the idle SDRs allocated to rich governments, and for easing the conversion of and use of SDR proceeds by developing countries.

In line with Sarkozy's speech to business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the report concludes that SDRs could also be a key part of reform measures that would address the causes of the global financial and economic crisis. In a climate of financial reform, with increasing volatility in the US dollar’s value and level of trust, SDRs may be the best option as an international reserve currency.

The new report analyses proposals for reform to the global monetary system from the United Nations and a range of economists and has been authored by Soren Ambrose of ActionAid and Bhumika Muchhala of Third World Network and is available >>> here.

Aid agencies sound the alarm on the militarization of aid in Afghanistan

2010-01-27T02:53:00.000-08:00

As Foreign Ministers gather in London for a major conference on Afghanistan, leading aid agencies warn that the international militaries' use of aid as a “non-lethal” weapon of war may even be putting Afghans at greater risk. A US army manual for commanders in Afghanistan and in Iraq defines aid as a non-lethal weapon designed “to win the hearts and minds of the indigenous population to facilitate defeating the insurgents”. The Afghan government estimates international forces have already spent $1.7bn on “aid” in Afghanistan. The US military alone has budgeted an additional $1bn for the coming year – more than Afghanistan’s state budget for agriculture, health and education combined.

In their new report, Quick Impact, Quick Collapse, the eight international agencies show their concern that the militarization of aid is putting ordinary people on the frontlines of the conflict. Afghans say that the military places them at greater risk when they build schools and clinics which then become targets of armed opposition groups. The agencies say that “quick impact” projects provide a quick fix rather than sustainable development. Military-led humanitarian and development activities are driven by donors’ political interests and short-term security objectives and are often ineffective, wasteful and potentially harmful to Afghans. International guidelines agreed by ISAF and the UN state that “the military is primarily responsible for providing security, and if necessary, basic infrastructure and urgent reconstruction assistance limited to gap-filling measures until civilian organizations are able to take over.”

The agencies call on the 70 countries participating in tomorrow’s London Conference to rethink the militarized approach to aid and shift their focus towards a long-term aid strategy based on meeting the real needs of Afghans. The agencies say that the distribution of aid is heavily biased in favor of areas where the troop presence is strongest rather than distributed according to need. The needs of people in more secure areas and vulnerable populations, particularly Afghans displaced by the conflict and other factors as well as returnees are being overlooked.

The agencies say that over the last eight years there have been many places where significant progress has been made in health, education and rural infrastructure, but these have been driven by Afghans’ needs, carefully planned by development experts and implemented in partnership with communities and local government. The excessive influence of short-term military goals over aid policy is part of a larger flaw in the US-led strategy. “Troop-contributing countries overemphasize military issues and sideline the critical challenge of promoting genuine development and good governance,” says Farhana Faruqi-Stocker, managing director of Afghanaid. “This imbalance matters, not only because of the resulting human cost, but also because poverty and weak, corrupt government are key drivers of conflict, and must be effectively addressed if there is to be sustainable peace and development.”

* The paper, Quick Impact, Quick Collapse, can be downloaded >>> here.

Obama bank reforms: Major step in the right direction, trade unions say

2010-01-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

US President Barack Obama’s announcement of plans to restructure banks as a key component of comprehensive financial regulatory reform is a major step in the right direction, which other governments must rapidly commit to match through similar laws, according to the international trade union movement. Linking the banking sector’s “binge of irresponsibility” to the deepening unemployment crisis, Obama has proposed a series of urgently-needed reforms, including an end to the practice of banks using depositors’ money to engage in the kind of high-risk speculative operations, such as hedge funds and private equity, which helped plunge the world into recession.

“While tens of millions of people are losing their jobs, the very same bankers and financiers who poisoned the global economy with their greed and arrogance are once again playing their dangerous game of financial roulette. They show no interest in helping solve the crisis, only in lining their own pockets with even bigger bonuses than before. This has to stop, and other governments must also move to take them on quickly and with the same determination as President Obama is showing,” said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder. News of multi-billion dollar bonuses, even in banks which had to be rescued by taxpayers, is a particularly ugly feature of the financial economy and has caused widespread outrage. On top of this, the “leveraged buyout”, where corporate takeovers are financed through massive debt, and employees often lose their jobs as a result, remains a feature of the world economy.

The US proposals are aimed at tackling one of the key causes of the world recession, and need to be implemented quickly and as a central pillar of overall reform, including action on bonuses and measures to limit purely speculative practices across the finance sector. “We need a clear and globally coherent regulatory framework to make sure that banking practices serve the real economy. A financial transactions tax to reduce speculation and provide funds to help pay the costs of the crisis and generate sustainable and decent jobs and development must also be part of the package,” said John Evans, general secretary of the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD.

ONE: Creative thinking urgently needed to tap alternative sources of climate finance

2009-12-20T09:47:00.000-08:00

An agreement of $10bn a year in fast track financing for the next three years and $100bn a year by 2020 for poor countries to cope with climate change must come over and above existing aid promises, Africa advocacy group ONE said after the Copenhagen climate summit. Currently these sums will largely be subtracted from promised resources to help these same countries fight poverty. But climate change is putting additional stress on poor countries – which is why they need additional funds to cope with it – on top of existing and promised aid levels,” said Jamie Drummond, Executive Director of ONE UK.

“Promises of aid made by the G8 in Gleneagles in 2005 must not be lost in Copenhagen. Without a clear commitment that these climate funds are additional, the dollar amounts are next to meaningless. This debate over ‘additionality’ might seem arcane, but within the details lie billions of dollars - and very real impacts on millions of lives,” Drummond said. “Without this additionality, Copenhagen adds up to nothing. It is not clear how a cap on two degrees will be achieved, but it is very clear that much more can and must be done, including harnessing the potential of African and other developing countries to be renewable energy hubs and help capture carbon through growing trees."

ONE supports the African proposal for an interim target of $50bn by 2015 on top of existing and promised aid to help the poorest countries – many of them in Africa – with pressing adaptation needs. The Copenhagen Accord mentions a High Level Panel to assess how alternative sources of funding can contribute to raising genuinely additional funds. ONE says this urgent High Level Task Force should be convened immediately and with links to the highest political level to look into alternative sources of climate finance to complement additional public funding from rich countries. These sources could include: revenue from aviation and shipping, international auctioning of emissions allowances, a financial transactions tax and the proposal to use the IMF’s own currency, known as Special Drawing Rights. ONE also highlighted the need for accountability and transparency for these new funds.

Betrayal or breakthrough?

2009-12-20T05:02:00.000-08:00

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