Environment and development at Rio+20: Splitting them up again?

The Rio+20 Summit will fail if it agrees to current proposals, which risk worsening the divide between environment and development efforts, warned anti-poverty and environmental campaigners. Agreement on Sustainable Development Goals is expected to be one of the major outcomes from the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, which starts on 20 June in Rio de Janeiro.  

The UN has already begun to deliberate on the post 2015 global development framework, starting with a review of lessons learnt from the existing Millennium Development Goals and options for after they expire in 2015. The current proposal on the table in Rio would effectively create a second process for global goals in the post-2015 period. A separate process focused on the environment will not provide the solution urgently needed to end poverty and inequality while protecting the planet, said international agency Oxfam and the international campaigns, Beyond 2015 and the Global Campaign against Poverty (GCAP).

“Ending poverty and protecting the environment are inextricably linked and cannot be addressed in isolation. The current proposals are a recipe for diluted commitment, duplicated effort, and dispersed focus,” said Antonio Hill of Oxfam. “The world’s poorest people, who still suffer a lack of quality healthcare and education, are also denied their fair share of water, land and clean air. Poor people will be the first to lose out if Rio+20 fails to aim for one set of goals for one planet. We need a single guiding framework whose purpose is to end poverty and restore the living world that sustains us all. “

The groups believe that commitment in Rio to a single process that brings together the Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 development framework could represent a landmark agreement to eradicate poverty and ensure prosperity for all by sharing the Earth’s limited resources. But the move could fail if this integration does not happen from the start. The groups also warn that the success of any future goals hinge on the progress made towards ending poverty through the Millennium Development Goals. “Governments in Rio are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while 1.4 billion people still live in poverty, in a daily struggle for food, water and energy. For these people environment and development are not separate choices. We need a race to deliver the existing Millennium Development goals, and a single framework to succeed them,” said Rajiv Joshi from GCAP.

The cost of hunger and a summit failure

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.”

Stand-Up Against Poverty

Fiscal holes and black holes threaten MDGs

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

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.

EU aid own goals pushing MDGs out of reach

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.

IMF must help keep poor countries keep up spending

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.

Europe must play its part in rescuing the MDGs

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.”

Bretton Woods II? We Need a Second UN Finance and Monetary Conference

Closing Remarks by Jens Martens to the Civil Society Forum Doha

1. Let me start with a quote from the Draft Outcome Document:
“The environment for Financing for Development has improved over the past 6 years, primarily due to a significant improvement in domestic savings of developing countries but also because of a sustained expansion in world trade, record private capital flows, higher remittances, a reduction in debt burdens especially in heavily-indebted poor countries and a reversal in ODA from earlier declines. The development impact of these flows is enhanced by a commitment to free market principles, including the rule of law, respect for private property, open trade and investment, competitive markets and efficient, effectively regulated financial systems. These principles are essential to economic growth and prosperity and have lifted millions out of poverty and have significantly raised the global standard of living.” (para 2bis)

This paragraph is not agreed and hopefully will never be agreed, but I am wondering: Do the delegates who drafted these sentences live in a parallel universe, when they praise the “efficient and effectively regulated financial systems” that have lifted millions out of poverty? At least additional 75 million people are forced to live in hunger and poverty this year due to the global food crisis. What would they think when they had to read these sentences?

2. The world faces an unprecedented crisis of the current financial and economic system. But the negotiations on the Doha outcome document seem to continue as if nothing has happened. We miss any sense of urgency in the negotiations. What we need now is creative thinking and collective multilateral action instead of following the business as usual and muddling through approaches of the past.

3. Two weeks ago, the leaders of the 20 most powerful countries of the world met in Washington as the G-20. After three and a half hours they adopted a declaration on “Financial Markets and the World Economy” – a preliminary “to-do-list” to solve the current financial crisis. Without doubt, some of the 47 announced measures might be useful and necessary. But the G-20 failed to really address the root causes of the crisis. Instead, they primarily intend to stabilize the current financial system – a system that has been characterized for the last 20 years as “casino capitalism”. But we don’t need better rules for the casino. The casino has to be closed down!

4. That the Washington summit took place at the level of the G-20 and not the G-7 or 8 reflects the changing realities of the world and is a step in the right direction. But it would be a grave mistake to stop there and to exclude 172 governments and the global civil society from the decision making process about the future financial and economic system.

5. About 20 years ago the G-7 took the lead in promoting the Washington Consensus and its neo-liberal ideology of deregulation and privatization – the same ideology that caused the current crisis. We don’t need a new Washington Consensus of the new G-20, which primary goal is to stabilize the present system, without taking into account the needs and demands of the people who are most affected by the crisis and the structural causes of this crisis.
(The G-20 leaders made “a commitment to free market principles, including the rule of law, respect for private property, open trade and investment, competitive markets, and efficient, effectively regulated financial systems.”)

6. What we need instead is a new global consensus, name it New York, Geneva or Nairobi Consensus, of the G-192 – the members of the United Nations. This is the reason, why we are here in Doha at a conference of the United Nations.

7. We are not naïve. We are aware of the weaknesses and limitations of the UN. Its decision making process is painfully slow and its results are based on the lowest common denominator. This was the reason, why many Civil Society Organisations declared in Monterrey 6 years ago that they are not part of the Monterrey Consensus. The Monterrey Conference was important, but its outcome didn’t respond adequately to the urgency of the economic and social situation in the world. Since then, the situation has become even worse.

8. However, the UN is the only universal forum that is inclusive, the forum where nearly all governments of the world have voice and vote, and where civil society organizations have participatory rights. Therefore it’s worth to fight for the strengthening of the UN.

9. This brings me back to the draft outcome document of the Doha conference. The existing draft is weak and the negotiations proceed again painfully slow. But the text contains at least a few elements – although not agreed yet - which could bring incremental progress, for instance
* the upgrading of the United Nations Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters to an intergovernmental body of the UN (para 8)
* the proposal for new ad hoc forums to explore sovereign debt work-out mechanisms and the possibility of crafting permanent debt mediation or arbitration procedures (para 46), and particularly
* the proposal to convene a major international conference, under the UN auspices, to review the international financial and monetary architecture and global economic governance structures ( one of 4 and my favourite versions of para. 58).

The adoption of this paragraph would in fact mean to bring not only the global discourse but also the decision making process on the reform of the economic and financial system back to the United Nations.

10. You may ask, why back to the UN? Was it ever there? Yes, 64 years ago, when the first United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference took place – better known as Bretton Woods Conference. The preparation of this conference took nearly 3 years and the conference was attended by delegates from 44 countries – by the way more than twice the membership of the G-20.

What we need now is a second United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. Doha could mark the first step towards it.

Business cannot be the solution to hunger

While the US Congress is currently finalizing a $700bn bailout for financial firms, seems the UN General Assembly cannot mobilize the $72bn a year needed to realize targets set to end world poverty and hunger. "Money is on offer freely to reward the failures of the private sector in Washington. But in New York the pleas from poor countries, representatives from marginalized communities, and UN agencies, for a massive injection of finance to address the food crisis, appear to be falling on deaf ears”, said Colm Ó Cuanacháin, International Head of Campaigns at ActionAid International.

Adding to the conundrum, governments gathered in New York are turning to the private sector for financial help to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals, through a series of parallel meetings here. Public Private Partnerships are being announced as the new way forward for development, but with a total lack of transparency and accountability, and with no regard to the costs for poor countries. Corporate partnerships are being pedaled as positive supports for development, rather than profit oriented business relationships. Is it states that are responsible for fulfilling human rights, and if governments need to rely on companies to provide support, they have a duty to regulate the activities of these companies.

The British NGO War on Want attacked premier minister Gordon Brown for claiming that support for the summit from UK companies including mining giant Anglo American and Wal-Mart, including its British subsidiary Asda, can help achieve the development goals. War on Want research has revealed that Anglo American operations abroad are fuelling conflict and human rights abuse in developing countries. And in addition to Wal-Mart’s notorious anti-union practices, War on Want has found workers still paid less than half a living wage producing clothes for Asda in Bangladesh.

MDG week in New York: We have arrived in a multi-polar world

“The basic message of this week is that the world must find a new model of collective leadership following the collapse of US authority”, writes Jeffrey Sachs (see photo) from the Earth Institute at Columbia University in the FT’s MDG Blog today. “Like many crises, the fundamental decline of US leadership has been apparent for years, but it had proceeded gradually. Then, like a weak bank hit by a depositor panic, the collapse happened suddenly and in plain view.

At the UN, the world grappled with poverty, disease, hunger, and climate change in the near total absence of US leadership. This was pathetically underscored by President Bush, whose speech to the UN on Wednesday was filled with “terror,” “terrorists,” and “terrorism” 31 times, but didn’t include a single mention of “climate,” “environment,” or the “Millennium Development Goals” (MDGs). By the time of the UN’s MDG Summit Day yesterday, the US was simply nowhere to be seen, neither in the plenary sessions nor in the breakout events.”
>>> Full text

MDG Summit in New York: Additional $150bn per year needed

Ahead of a crucial meeting in New York this week to assess the state of the world’s fight against global poverty, international agency Oxfam called on world leaders to redouble their efforts to fight the impact of rising food and fuel prices – and the attendant economic slowdown from eroding real gains in poverty reduction. The latest UN estimates suggest that the number of malnourished people worldwide has increased by 75m, to 925m, reversing progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving world hunger by 2015. Higher food prices indirectly affect progress towards many of the other Goals as well, not least because hunger negatively impacts on peoples’ ability to work, stay healthy and for children to go to school.

Alison Woodhead, Oxfam International’s spokeswoman in New York said: “In the face of these new and daunting challenges we need a dramatic shift in political will and ambition. This meeting must deliver concrete plans on how to keep these anti-poverty targets in our sights.” Around 90 Heads of State and Governments, along with the CEOs of the world’s biggest businesses and hundreds of anti-poverty organizations, are expected to gather in New York on September 25th for the High-Level Event on the Millennium Development Goals, which will be hosted by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Oxfam is calling on them to treat this as an emergency summit and step up their efforts in the fight against poverty.

According to Oxfam, Leaders must not just reissue empty promises, with their fingers crossed behind their backs. “This is a poverty emergency that requires exactly the same attention and response as the financial crisis grabbing the headlines”, Woodhead said. Remarkable progress is possible, even in the poorest countries. In Rwanda the number of children dying from malaria has been cut by two-thirds in the last two years alone. A boy born in Tanzania today is 25% less likely to die by his first birthday than his sister born just four years ago. However on current trends, Oxfam warns that the MDGs will not be achieved. An additional $150bn per year is needed by 2010 to meet all the goals, less than double the amount spent ($85bn) to bail out a single insurance group, AIG.

This week, Oxfam and other international agencies launch a major new campaigning action called ‘in my name’, calling on citizens to hold their leaders accountable for promises made in the year 2000. The initiative brings together dignitaries such as Queen Rania of Jordan, Mary Robinson and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and celebrities from all continents including Rahul Bose, will.i.am, Angelique Kidjo, Wyclef Jean, Annie Lennox and Sergio Mendes.

Oxfam welcomes 'Call to Action' on poverty at Davos

International agency Oxfam welcomed the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's 'Call to Action' to end world poverty made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, but warned that concrete proposals must emerge at the UN meeting in New York in September this year to turn the rhetoric into reality.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, rock star Bono, Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan joined Ban in a joint call for urgent action to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, progress on which is sorely lacking in most areas. A number of companies also supported the call.

Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam GB, who is attending the meeting, said: "There is no reason and no excuse for the enduring and obscene levels of poverty in the world. Concerted action from political leaders in response to the demands of global citizens could overturn this inequity. Today's call is welcome, but it will only be meaningful if it is followed by concrete proposals and genuine action from all the major players. We must look back this in years to come and see it as a turning point, not a talking shop."

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) include halving extreme poverty, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015. All the world's governments and leading development institutions have agreed to them. Stocking: "These goals are ambitious but they were chosen precisely because they are reachable. Frankly they are the absolute minimum that we ought to achieve. They are non-negotiable and yet here we are, half way through the time we have to deliver on them, too far away from too many of them. Leaders gathered here in Davos, and those around the world watching the meeting, must redouble their efforts to make sure we don't miss this target, for our own sakes, as well as the sake of future generations."

New EU ‘MDG contract’ lacks focus on health and education

A new EU plan to make development aid more predictable is not sufficiently focused on improving health and education in poor countries, the Dutch organisation Oxfam-Novib has complained. Officials at the European Commission are currently discussing the possibility of basing part of aid to African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries on a six-year scheme whereby money is paid directly into the national coffers of recipients. The scheme has been dubbed an 'MDG contract', in reference to the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals of reducing extreme poverty by 2015. Yet while the MDGs primarily relate to health and education, the Commission has proposed that its contract should also concern issues such as energy, infrastructure and investment climate. These have at most a tenuous link to the goals. Sylvia Borren, director of Oxfam-Novib, described the inclusion of these issues as "very worrying", especially as the Commission has been reluctant to prioritise health and education in its aid plans for the ACP.

Out of more than 60 country strategy papers that the Commission has drawn up for the ACP, the number that recommend making health or education the central focus are in single figures. This is despite how countries such as Zambia and Madagascar explicitly asked the Commission to concentrate on these sectors. Borren was speaking at a seminar in Brussels organised by Europe External Policy Advisers (EEPA). Despite her reservations about the Commission's proposal, she recognised that long-term predictable funding is essential to deal with the chronic shortage of health and education workers in poor countries. Oxfam has estimated that over 4 million doctors and nurses and 2 million teachers are required to address such problems as infant mortality and illiteracy. A key question for the Commission is whether its proposed contract will help to train and pay the health workers and teachers that are urgently required (>>> EEPA briefing paper).