Global Unions: Policy shift needed at IFIs

Responding to concerns about a possible implosion of the financial sector and a major global economic slowdown, the ITUC and its Global Unions partners called on the 2008 Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to mandate significantly increased assistance from the two institutions to countries that seek to protect their workers and citizens, particularly the most vulnerable, against the shock of an economic crisis. If there is no firm and coordinated policy response, the dramatic rise in financial and economic uncertainty since mid-2007 will lead to increased unemployment, declining living standards and higher poverty, particularly affecting women, in many countries, according to ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder.

In a Global Unions statement released on 11 April, the international trade union movement urges the IMF and World Bank to shift their focus from promoting deregulation, including labour market deregulation using the Bank's Doing Business report, in favour of policies promoting the creation of decent work. Global Unions set out a policy agenda for the international financial institutions (IFIs) that could support, rather than dictate to, developing countries.
Specifically, Global Unions call on the IFIs to assist countries that seek to control destabilizing capital flows, require emergency financial assistance to overcome balance of payments problems, that strive to improve social protection, and that extend workplace protection and labour rights to unprotected workers.

Global Unions are encouraging the IMF, in particular, to adopt measures to help cushion states against the global slowdown, such as assistance to offset the impact of higher food and fuel prices, an emergency credit facility for countries in financial difficulty, and measures to protect against destabilizing speculative capital movements. "Just a year ago, the IMF would have been content to let market forces resolve a crisis like this," said Ryder, "but at the recent G7 meeting, even the managing director of the Fund recognized the importance of a coordinated fiscal stimulus response to the current global economic slowdown."

The statement sees a role for the IMF not only in responding to the current crisis, but in preventing new ones. In the statement, Global Unions call on the IMF to take a lead role in developing new international regulatory frameworks to control the largely unregulated activities and new financial instruments that helped set off the crisis.

IMF/WB Spring Meeting: Don’t forget poverty, says Oxfam

Poverty should be at the top of the agenda at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington this weekend, said international agency Oxfam. With the global economy facing a crisis, Oxfam said the emphasis on the rich world must not eclipse action in developing countries, where rapidly rising food prices and increasingly erratic weather linked to climate change are wreaking havoc. Elizabeth Stuart, senior policy advisor at Oxfam said: "Global economic uncertainty, high food prices, more frequent floods, drought and other impacts of climate change all pose a serious threat to vulnerable people in developing countries. The situation requires urgent action and more money from rich countries and yet, aid levels have fallen for a second straight year."

Oxfam is calling for immediate action from donors and national governments to ensure that the poorest consumers are protected against high food prices and price volatility on food markets worldwide. "The New Deal on targeting world hunger from President Zoellick (>>> Zoellick's Newest Blueprint) is welcome. Past policies prescribed by the World Bank which fast-tracked liberalisation, including in the agriculture sector, have left many countries more vulnerable. Poor countries need the flexibility to support and protect small-scale farmers," said Stuart. While rising prices pose a serious threat to poor people, they may also be an opportunity. Efforts must be made by all actors to ensure that poor rural producers and farm workers can access the potential benefits of higher prices. The crisis should spur much-needed reform and increased investment in small-scale agriculture.

The World Bank has also a vital role to play in fighting climate change and helping poor nations adapt to its impacts, said Oxfam. But any new climate funds that Bank manages need to be linked to the UN climate process. "It's very encouraging that donors want to give more money to redress the devastating problem of climate change. But in doing so, they mustn't undermine the ongoing UN negotiating process," Stuart said.

The new Managing Director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, will be looking to give a facelift to the institution this week. But Oxfam says the governance reform that will be rubber-stamped is a long way from what is actually needed. "This reform would be perfect if the Fund wanted to become completely irrelevant," said Stuart. "By continuing to suppress the voices of so many countries IMF bosses are ensuring that more stakeholders will walk away. You can't talk of real reform when the seven richest members hold more than 40% of the vote."

Patchy progress: Aid and accountability under the Paris framework

(Eurodad) A major new civil society report, Turning the Tables: Aid and accountability under the Paris framework, shows that the world’s rich countries have only made patchy progress in making aid more effective for helping the poor, despite high-profile commitments to reform aid. The report, by Eurodad in collaboration with nine other African and European NGOs, showcases fresh evidence from seven developing countries. It reveals that some development agencies have introduced new policies and procedures, but many are slow to change.

2008 is a critical year for evaluating how aid is helping tackle global poverty and inequality. It is time to review the commitments that 61 rich countries and multilateral agencies signed up to in Paris three years ago. This agreement was a step in the right direction, but donors still have a long way to go to implement their pledges for a more effective, transparent and accountable aid system. “Aid is still too often dominated by rich country agendas and spent on their consultants. When those programmes fail to produce results, nobody is held accountable”, said Lucy Hayes from Eurodad, the European Network on Debt and Development. “Donors such as the European Commission and European governments must deliver on their aid commitments. They have the power and the major responsibility to take the first steps to making their aid money work better for poor people”.

The report is based on case studies that have been carried out in Niger, Mali, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Honduras, Nicaragua and Cambodia. The report highlights current successes and failures by European donors, and sets out recommendations for changing practices. Some of the findings include:
1. Heavy bureaucratic procedures by the European Commission continue to hamper its aid, and make its payments very unpredictable.
2. France has been financing its aid to Mozambique by recycling its debt service.
3. Spanish debt relief to Honduras is boomeranging back to benefit Spanish companies and organisations.
4. The World Bank is still using its aid to try and force controversial economic reforms in Mali.

“It is very hard for us to see what aid is coming into our country,” said Christian Lawrence, from the Campaign for Good Governance in Sierra Leone, “Donors are not transparent enough about their aid and do not account to citizens in developing countries. Without good information about the money coming in, we cannot scrutinise whether it is being well spent”.

Alternative Ecofin endorsed Ljubljana Declaration

At the same time that the European Council for Economic and Financial Affairs (Ecofin) met in an informal meeting behind closed doors, trade unions, civil society groups and critical scholars have organised a public conference on the current economic and social policies of the European Union. In this Alternative Ecofin they made it clear that, contrary to the official view, the Union is in critical social and political difficulties. This is mainly due to the choice of policies which are harmful for the majority of the people in the Union and benefit only a small but powerful minority. The Alternative Ecofin challenged the assertion that there is no alternative to an increasingly neo-liberal policy and presented and discussed proposals for alternatives in various fields. They insist that broad public discussion must go on and this will contribute to the emerging of new relations of forces and power which are needed for a change towards a policy for a democratic, social and sustainable Europe. Find the full text of the Declaration if Ljubljana >>> here.

World Bank accused to hijack climate change

According to AlterNet/Reuters developing countries and environmental groups accused the World Bank of trying to seize control of the billions of dollars of aid that will be used to tackle climate change in the next four decades. "The World Bank's foray into climate change has gone down like a lead balloon," Friends of the Earth campaigner Tom Picken said at the end of a major climate change conference in the Thai capital. "Many countries and civil society have expressed outrage at the World Bank's attempted hijacking of real efforts to fund climate change efforts," he said.

Before they agree to any sort of restrictions on emissions of the greenhouse gases fuelling global warming, poor countries want firm commitments of billions of dollars in aid from their rich counterparts. The money will be used for everything from flood barriers against rising sea levels to "clean" but costly power stations, an example of the "technology transfer" developing countries say they need to curb emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide. As well as the obvious arguments about how much money will be needed - some estimates run into the trillions of dollars by 2050 - rich and poor countries are struggling even to agree on a bank manager.

At the week-long Bangkok conference, the World Bank pushed its proposals for a $5-10bn Clean Technology Fund, a $500m "adaptation" fund and possibly a third fund dealing with forestry. However, developing countries want climate change cash to be administered through the existing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), which they feel is much less under the control of the Group of 8 (G8) richest countries. "Generally we have been unpleasantly surprised by the funds," said Ana Maria Kleymeyer, Argentina's lead negotiator at the meeting. "This is a way for the World Bank and its donor members to get credit back home for putting money into climate change in a way that's not transparent, that doesn't involve developing countries and that ignores the UNFCC process," she said.

EU development aid cut in 2007 unacceptable, Michel and Schiltz say

According to Reuters news agency, development aid from the European Union's 27 countries fell last year. EU aid amounted to €46.1bn ($72bn) in 2007, down about €1.7bn from 2006, officials said, adding that other major donors had also failed to fulfil their pledges. "2007 was a serious failure for financial aid to development," EU aid and development Commissioner Louis Michel wrote together with Luxembourg's aid minister Jean-Louis Schiltz, in a letter (>>> full text). "The major donors - EU member states, United States, Canada and Japan - failed to fulfil their financial pledges," they wrote ahead of the annual publication of world aid figures by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Aid relief from major donors had grown in previous years thanks to debt relief packages for countries such as Iraq and Nigeria.

The EU prides itself as being the world's largest aid donor. "The EU is still the biggest donor in the world, with Official Development Assistance amounting to €93 per citizen," the official said, adding aid was equivalent to €53 per person in the United States and €44 in Japan. But Michel and Schiltz said last year's cut in Europe was unacceptable. "These €1.7bn could have contributed to changing people's lives," they wrote in the letter, which was also published by a number of European newspapers. The EU executive estimates that the amount could have financed 4,500 schools or 1,200 hospitals.

"It is time for Europeans and other major donors to act," Michel and Schiltz wrote. As part of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, EU member states pledged to allocate 0.7% of their Gross National Income (GNI) to development assistance by 2015. Aid reached 0.38% of the bloc's GNI last year, below the EU interim target for 2006 of 0.39% - which the bloc did fulfil in 2006. EU states should make multi-annual plan to increase their aid, the letter said.

Is Sarkozy planing to cut aid?

On the occasion of President Sarkozy’s state visit in the UK last week, Oxfam has attacked his plans to go back on France's promise to increase aid to poor countries. There are rumors that France - the first G8 country to sign up to the UN target of delivering 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) as foreign aid by 2012 - is set to abandon that commitment. Instead the President is likely to propose an extension of the deadline to 2015, a decision that will represent a serious breach of promise for the millions of people in poor countries who rely on French aid. It will also send out a dangerous message to other rich country governments who came together at Gleneagles in 2005 to 'make poverty history' that they are free to break their aid commitments with impunity.

"President Sarkozy's plans to break promises on aid are morally indefensible and politically inept," said Sébastien Fourmy of Oxfam France - Agir ici. "If France breaks its 0.7% pledge, millions of people will be let down in their fight against poverty." France has consistently shown leadership on the vital issue of ending world poverty and fighting suffering in Africa. It was at the heart of the G8 decision to increase aid by $50bn per year by 2010 and was the first G8 country to set a timetable to meet the 0.7% of GNI, by 2012. This decision would represent a real fall from grace for a country that has historically been such an aid champion.

President Sarkozy met with Gordon Brown on Thursday morning to discuss issues such as closer cooperation on immigration and nuclear power, as well as the possible deployment of additional 1,000 French troops in Afghanistan. But it was also expected that Brown wanted aid and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals to be high on the agenda. In the end the two politicians outlined a range of common initiatives from the reform of the UN Security Council to an increased collaboration on defense and new nuclear power stations. They also announced to increase spending on education in Africa by an additional €1.27bn (£1bn) by 2010 (>>> joint communiqué).

This year's aid figures will show that overall levels of aid have fallen for the second year in a row and that progress towards the promises made in Gleneagles in 2005 has been minimal. A negative signal from France could send a very negative signal to other rich nations and especially EU member states in terms of breaking Gleneagles promises with impunity. Currently French Overseas Development Aid is 0.47% of GNI - a very tiny part of the French budget. It is set to fall for the second year in a row when figures are announced in early April. The cost to France of meeting its aid promises is just only 127 € per person, just under half what the average citizen spends on perfume.

IMF governance reform negligible and needs to go much further

As the Board of Directors of the International Monetary Fund met last Friday to agree on reform of the institution, Oxfam International has warned that the proposal for discussion means minimal change in the organization’s structure.
The Board signed off on a “quota formula” that will decide the share of votes that each country receives. But Oxfam warned that the poorest countries will not see any real increase in their voting share. After years of debate, a proposal that gives only a small increase in quota share for a handful of developing countries - and none for the rest – is more than disappointing. Also, this proposal must be the beginning of a longer debate that will give poor countries a bigger say in the decision-making process. This cannot be the end of the line, Oxfam said.

“The Europeans need to give up their overly-dominant position. It’s unacceptable that Ireland, Greece and Luxembourg are about to see an increase in their voice, while poor countries that make up 70% of the IMF's work, gain nothing,” said Oxfam International’s Elizabeth Stuart. Oxfam warned that the proposal on the table will barely increase the minuscule voice of Sub-Saharan Africa – which includes South Africa and 39 other countries – at the IMF. The G7 grouping of industrialized countries meanwhile, will keep more than 45% of the quotas in the Fund.

“The proposal under discussion does not represent the long-overdue reform that was promised. The new Managing Director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, should use his influence on shareholders to bring about the necessary reform to the way the institution is run. The IMF needs to come into the twenty-first century,” Stuart said. The final decision will be voted on and passed on by Finance Ministers as part of the spring meetings on April 12-13 in Washington. However, the decision is likely to be a rubber-stamping exercise on what is agreed this week.

Protest Rallies Against Turkish Dam All Over Europe

Critics of the ill-conceived Ilisu Dam in Turkey today held protests and rallies all over Europe in front of government buildings, banks and companies involved in the dam project. Actions were planned for Paris, Milan, Rome, Perugia, Berlin, Stuttgart and other German cities today, March 14, to mark the International Day of Action for Rivers, Water and Life. At least 77 organisations from 20 countries, including France, Germany and Italy, are all urging the governmental and financial institutions to withdraw from the project.

The protesters' case against the dam was bolstered by revelations in a new report that environmental and social conditions are not being followed. Indeed, the report – written by a committee of experts hired by European governments – shows that the social and environmental risks of the project are as great as anticipated by NGO critics. The experts found that Turkish officials in charge of the project were completely unfamiliar with the additional social and environmental requirements, which were conditions of loans to the project from European financial institutions. Among their findings were that 200 additional experts would have to be hired for the resettlement plan alone, that plans to create an archaeological park with monuments from the flooded area are unlikely to attract tourists, and that those monuments cannot be transported without risk of destruction and damage. The experts also revealed that key environmental studies are missing.

The planned Ilisu Dam is extremely controversial because of its massive negative environmental, social and cultural impacts. At least 55,000 people would have to be displaced for the project and a 10,000-year-old town would be flooded. Last year governments of Germany, Austria and Switzerland granted export credit guarantees for the project. They justified this support by attaching environmental and social conditions to the contracts, claiming that the project would then adhere to international standards. But Heike Drillisch from the German organisation World Economy, Ecology & Development (WEED) asserts, “The European governments try to continue with business as usual and negotiate new deadlines with the Turkish officials. In reality, the report reveals the fiasco the European governments entered into by approving the export credit guarantees for Ilisu.”

Governments and companies must deliver on EITI

Governments and companies signed up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) must now deliver concrete results towards making revenues and payments from oil, gas and mining transparent and accountable, said the global civil society coalition Publish What You Pay (PWYP). Seven resource-rich countries were approved as EITI candidates by the EITI Board in Accra, Ghana last month, bringing the total number of EITI candidate countries to 22. PWYP is a global coalition of over 300 civil society organisations campaigning for transparency and accountability in the extractive industries. PWYP is represented on the multi-stakeholder EITI Board through various member organisations, such as Oxfam, Global Witness, Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana, La Rencontre pour la Paix et les Droits de l'Homme, and Secours Catholique.

“We will hold all candidate countries to the same standard of civil society engagement in the EITI implementation and validation process,” said Bennett Freeman, an EITI Board member representing Oxfam America and Oxfam International. “In some countries in particular, fundamental reforms will be necessary to allow civil society to play its rightful role as envisioned by the EITI.” The seven new candidate countries are: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, the Republic of Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste. The following 15 countries were accepted as EITI candidates in September 2007: Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Niger, Nigeria, Peru, and Yemen.

“Companies, too, need to step up to the plate and fulfil their end of the bargain,” said Corinna Gilfillan of Global Witness. “It is unacceptable that only 3 of the 37 oil, gas and mining companies that have endorsed the EITI have complied with the requirement to report on steps taken to meet the EITI transparency principles.” These 3 companies are Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and StatoilHydro.

PWYP called on governments to move forward swiftly with implementation, and urged the EITI to carefully monitor country progress and to provide the necessary support and technical assistance. All countries have a 2 year period in which to become validated as fully compliant with the EITI criteria or face losing their candidate status. PWYP also welcomed the creation of an EITI working group to develop effective EITI responses in instances when civil society participation is threatened. “Transparency activists, including some EITI Board members, have faced threats, harassment and, in some cases, even imprisonment in places such as Gabon, Angola, and the Republic of Congo,” said Radhika Sarin, International Coordinator of PWYP. “Civil society participation is intrinsic to the EITI process, and the EITI must have a zero-tolerance policy on this critical issue.”

Social Watch: New Gender Equity Index

The economic dimension is the next challenge towards global gender equity. More than half the women in the world live in countries that have made no progress towards gender equity in recent years. That is one of the findings of the Gender Equity Index (GEI) 2008 that Social Watch launched here as a contribution to the 52nd Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women that will end next March 8, the International Women’s Day. The GEI, developed and calculated by Social Watch, ranks 157 countries in a scale where 100 would imply complete equality between women and men in education, participation in the economy and in decision-making bodies (empowerment).

Yet the highest-ranking country in the world (Sweden) has an index of 89 and the world average if of 61. Finland (85) and Norway (84) follow Sweden in the table, and after that come Germany and Rwanda, both with 80. While the first four countries are among the richest of the world, Rwanda is one of the poorest. German Women are obviously better educated and live longer than those in Rwanda. What the index shows is that the gap separating their condition from those of men is similar. “The GEI for 2008 clearly shows that income alone is no guarantee for gender equity”, emphasizes Social Watch coordinator Roberto Bissio. Countries with very high per capita incomes, such as Luxembourg or Switzerland, have the same equity level as Mozambique, a country with a much lower income level.

For the first time this year, the GEI is able to show recent evolution (last five years) in 133 countries. While there is no enough evidence yet to show the evolution of very populous countries like China and India, the indicators do show that progress towards gender equity is difficult and vulnerable to regressions. Education is the dimension that is closer to complete equity, with a global average of 90. But in education more countries are regressing than those making progresses. Empowerment is the dimension where most countries are showing progress, but it is also the one where the global average is the lowest, reaching only 35 points out of 100. In terms of the economy, there are as many countries where women make progress as countries regressing.

The economic dimension of the gender equity index measures gaps in women's participation in the labour market and in the salaries earned by them as compared to men. Among the 15 top places in economic participation, the Nordic countries – Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Finland - share the honour with ten of the poorest countries in the world: Mozambique, Burundi, Rwanda, Cambodia, Ghana, Viet Nam, Uganda, Madagascar, Kenya and Guinea. At the root of most of the national regressions in the total GEI the index points out to setbacks in the participation of women in the economy. This is the case of Eastern Europe, the region presenting the biggest reversions in this area. Latvia, Belarus, Slovakia or Macedonia, all of them countries that used to enjoy high levels of female participation in the economy are now to be found in the group of those regressing.

According to Genoveva Tisheva, managing director of the Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation and a member of the Coordinating Committee of Social Watch, “in Eastern Europe women are more often unemployed after the completion of a higher educational degree”. Tisheva argues that “legal and regulatory measures should ensure access to the labour market of young women and other groups of women with less bargaining power and from vulnerable groups”. Tisheva warns that the global trends of trade liberalization “have made of women one of the most flexible participants in the labour market, subjected to deregulation, informalisation, lowering of the social and labour standards”.

Affirmative measures such as gender quotas for political participation in elected bodies and pro-equity regulations in the labour market are behind most of the success stories of countries making progress in the Gender Equity Index.

Find more information about the Gender Equity Index and the complete statistical tables >>> here.

Friends of the Earth launched 'Big Ask' climate campaign across Europe

A Europe-wide climate campaign launched this week by Friends of the Earth Europe and the Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke aims to get governments and the European Union to commit to annual cuts in emissions to fight climate change. The Big Ask brings together Friends of the Earth groups from 17 European countries each of which is asking its government to introduce legally binding annual emission cuts. Together they are asking the European Union to force all member states to cut their emissions year-on-year. Thom Yorke launched the European campaign in Brussels where he presented a symbol of the Big Ask to the European Environment Commissioner, Stavros Dimas. Thom Yorke has supported the Big Ask campaign in the UK where thanks to two years of campaigning from Friends of the Earth, a ground-breaking climate change bill is currently being made law. Now he is bringing the campaign to the rest of Europe.

Around Europe people are being asked to send a message to their politicians asking them to commit to annual cuts in emissions. Individuals can find out more about their national campaign at the Big Ask website. Different activities took place across the continent to mark the start of the European campaign. In Finland activists raised awareness with snowman rallies in 22 towns and cities while in the Netherlands activists built a dyke in front of the parliament building and invited politicians and celebrities to fill the gaps with sand-bags. At a European level Friends of the Earth Europe wants to see annual emission reductions for all member states and a strong compliance system to guarantee that these cuts really take place.

The Big Ask calls on the European Union to commit to at least 30% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions within Europe by 2020 and 90% by 2050. Friends of the Earth Europe has criticised the European Union's recent proposal to cut emissions by only 20% by 2020 and for giving no guarantee that these targets will be met.

Former French minister chosen as Ban’s Special Advisor on Innovative Financing for Development

With official development assistance (ODA) still insufficient to achieve global anti-poverty targets by 2015, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed France’s former foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy to develop and promote new sources of funding, citing the urgent need to fill this critical gap. Douste-Blazy, appointed as Ban’s Special Adviser on Innovative Financing for Development, currently serves as Chairman of the Executive Board of UNITAID – the international drug purchase facility hosted by the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

A doctor by profession, he has held ministerial posts in the French Government in health, culture and foreign affairs. During his tenure as France’s foreign minister, Douste-Blazy strongly advocated for the creation of UNITAID and the implementation in France of a solidarity levy on airline tickets aimed at supporting the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Among his tasks in his new post will be to promote UNITAID and other sources of innovative financing for the achievement of the MDGs and to ensure they are coordinated with the global development agenda. “We are halfway in the timetable with the deadline in 2015, but we are not halfway in terms of results,” Douste-Blazy told reporters last week in New York. “The truth is we are late.”

Douste-Blazy is planning to convene next year the first-ever world conference devoted solely to innovative financing, which will focus on the development funds provided by citizens, local and regional authorities, foundations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), economic and social representatives, faith groups and the private sector.

European business: Greening or greenwashing the economy?

At the 6th European Business Summit in Brussels last week, environment campaigners accused companies involved in the event, titled 'Greening the economy', of being anything but green themselves. With an action and exhibition, Friends of the Earth Europe, Corporate Europe Observatory and Transnational Institute exposed the greenwashing practices of the businesses taking part. The campaigners 'greenwashed' the corporate social responsibility reports of high-profile companies taking part in the summit. The action was designed to expose companies' efforts to attain environmental credentials when in reality their operations have detrimental effects on the environment and local communities worldwide and contribute significantly to global warming.

"If the organisers of the European Business Summit seriously want to discuss a greener economy, why do they invite the most polluting companies and sectors?" asks Paul de Clerck, Corporate Campaign Coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe. "That an event titled 'Greening the economy' is dominated by dirty laggards instead of green leaders is hypocritical." The European Business Summit (EBS) is an annual high-level conference organised by BUSINESSEUROPE, the lobby organisation of big European companies. During the EBS, business leaders and CEOs meet with European commissioners and top national politicians. This year's event was attended by eight European Commissioners, including Commission president Barroso. The summit provides a floor to some of the most polluting companies in the world and some of the worst performers in their sectors.

Among a host of environmentally dubious companies taking part, sponsoring or attending the summit, the green groups drew particular attention to some for the environmentally harmful impacts of their business behaviour:
* BMW and Volvo: For producing the least fuel efficient cars of the 20 top-selling brands in Europe
* E.on: For owning three of the most polluting power stations in Europe
* Fortis: For investing in controversial companies such as Freeport McMoRan, operator of the world's most polluting gold mine
* Gazprom: For owning the controversial Sakhalin II oil and gas project, which threatens the survival of the last 100 Western Grey Whales
* Lufthansa and KLM: For downplaying the fact that aviation has by far the greatest climate impact of any mode of transport
* Shell: For continuing the climate-polluting practice of gas-flaring in Nigeria and harming the environment and local communities near its refineries around the world.

Debt relief: What’s been achieved since the Birmingham G8?

University of Birmingham is holding a conference on 16 and 17 May to support the city's celebration of the 10th anniversary of Birmingham's G8 meeting in 1998. The 1998 G8 meeting is particularly remembered for the human chain formed around Birmingham city centre by 70,000 people to demand debt cancellation for the world's poorest nations from the G8. Ten years on is an appropriate moment to reflect on impacts, innovations, outstanding problems and priorities for the next decade. Taking part in the conference will be a wide range of analysts of debt and development issues, aid practitioners and policy makers, from recipient and donor countries and multilateral organisations. The programme is organised by theme, with keynote speeches, panels and breakout groups.

The conference has three objectives: to assess the impact of debt relief in poor countries; to analyse problems in debt relief processes and their underlying causes; to discuss reform priorities and innovations. It will be an academic conference with a difference since it kicks off a weekend of events culminating in a high publicity gathering at the International Conference Centre in Birmingham’s city centre on 18 May, organised by Jubilee Debt Campaign with support of Birmingham City Council. Submitted papers that address the conference objectives, including issues underlying debt relief problems, are welcomed. Papers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds are invited. The organisers also welcome short research briefs (e.g. describing research recently begun), so that upcoming research is publicised at the conference.

Contacts: debtconf@contacts.bham.ac.uk (for papers and abstracts) and sarah@jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk

ILO convention to protect domestic workers gets ITUC support

Already grouping over one hundred million workers worldwide, the largely female domestic labour force is continuing to grow in line with the rising demand for these services. Whilst contributing to improving the quality of life and living standards of others, domestic workers themselves remain confined within an invisible and very poorly protected segment of the labour market. Although a vital link in the economic chain, they are often deprived of their basic rights and confronted with exploitation and ill-treatment.

Calling on its affiliates to rally to the cause, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is urging the countries represented on the ILO Governing Body to support the proposal to draw up an International Convention specifically to protect domestic workers. Excessive working hours, low wages, inadequate or no social security, sexual harassment, physical abuse, unscrupulous employment agencies, no trade union rights, forced labour – the inventory of abuses drawn up in the document to be submitted to the members of the ILO Governing Body, which will meet in Geneva from 6 to 20 March, highlights the cruel lack of decent work among this category of particularly vulnerable workers, often excluded from national labour legislations and, until now, ignored by international law. "For the international trade union movement, ensuring better protection for domestic workers is one of the keys to promoting decent work, which is at the heart of our action," declared Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the ITUC.

EU fuelling human right disaster in Indonesia

Palm oil production for food and agrofuels is resulting in widespread human rights abuses in Indonesia according to a report released by a coalition of international environmental groups. Losing Ground exposes the huge social problems being fuelled by EU targets to increase the use of agrofuels (often called biofuels) in transport. The report follows new research released last week which revealed that converting peatlands for palm oil in Indonesia releases 423 times more carbon than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels. According to Adrian Bebb, Friends of the Earth Europe agrofuels campaigner the report shows that as well as being bad for the environment, fuels from palm oil are a disaster for people. “MEPs should listen to the evidence and reject the proposed 10% target at the forthcoming debate on this in the European Parliament. Instead of introducing targets for more agrofuels the EU should insist that all new cars are designed to be much more efficient. Governments must also take a strong position against the target and do their bit to reduce transport emissions by improving public transport and making it easier for people to walk and cycle."

The report by Friends of the Earth, Sawit Watch, and LifeMosaic reveals that oil palm companies often use violent tactics to grab land from indigenous communities with the collusion of the police and authorities. Previously self-reliant families, who were able to meet their own needs from the forest around them, complain of being tricked into giving up their land with the promise of jobs and new developments. Instead they end up locked into debt and poorly paid work, while the bounty of the rainforest is replaced with monotonous oil palm plantations. Pollution from pesticides, fertilisers and the pressing process is also leaving some villages without clean water.

The European Commission has recently proposed a target for 10% of road transport fuel to come from agrofuels by 2020 in an attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, despite mounting evidence that agrofuels fail to deliver such reductions. These targets will fuel a huge expansion in the amount of land used to grow oil palm. Since 2005, Friends of the Earth, Sawit Watch and LifeMosaic have worked closely together on a project aimed at bringing impartial information to communities affected by oil palm plantations in Indonesia, enabling them to make informed decisions about their land and their futures.

Mexico: New ITUC report on core labour standards

Coinciding with Mexico’s trade policy review at the WTO, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) released a new report on the country’s core labour standards. The report highlights that despite the binding nature of the ILO core labour standards that Mexico has ratified, both in law and in practice the country is in breach of those conventions. Furthermore Mexico has only ratified six of the eight core labour standards of the ILO. The report points out that violations regarding trade union autonomy are constant and that many obstacles prevent the effective right to form an independent union. There are numerous examples of government interference in trade union affairs. The ILO’s supervisory bodies have urged the government of Mexico many times to amend its legislation on the right to strike, given the existing broad restrictions on its effective application.

According to the ITUC survey, legislation against discrimination is not enforced adequately in the country and there is a substantial gap between women and men in terms of remuneration, reaching 50% in many sectors. Sexual harassment is a common practice at the workplace, yet is not adequately addressed by the government. Official figures show that there are at least 3 million child workers between the ages of 6 and 14 in Mexico. The ITUC report draws attention to the high degree of drop-out from school in order to go to work. Access to schooling in a language other than Spanish is frequently unavailable, preventing many children of indigenous origin from completing their education. Forced labour, including of children takes place in Mexico, again particularly affecting indigenous people.

UN members must make decent work a prime commitment, say Global and European trade unions

On the occasion of the 46th session of the United Nations Commission for Social Development, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC) call for agreement on a strong resolution to go forward to the UN General Assembly, asserting the crucial importance of full employment and decent work in the fight against poverty. Trade unions welcome the UN Commission's decision to focus on 'full and productive employment and decent work' as its 2007-2008 priority. Alarming trends in unemployment in the wake of the current global market turmoil and the threat of recession - revealed in the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) new Global Employment Report 2008 - mean urgent action is needed.

A 20-strong trade union delegation in New York is telling the UN Commission that it is crucial for it to agree on a hard-hitting message identifying decent work as a central objective, to be integrated systematically into social, economic and development policies at national, regional and international levels. While global growth in recent years has brought new jobs, many of them are low-paid and low-quality, leaving many working poor unable to support themselves and their families. Worldwide, an estimated 195 million people are likely to be unemployed in 2008.

Policies should aim at quality jobs, education, and skills development, to address youth unemployment and enable people to escape from precarious or informal work – many of them women. Financial resources are key to success, and must be raised through progressive taxation regimes and development cooperation funding. Decent work further entails the full respect of trade unions’ rights to organise and bargain collectively, a lesson all the more important for governments because unions are central actors in achieving greater income equality through fighting poverty and increasing the purchasing power of low-income workers, the trade unions say in a statement.

Food security as key: New biofuels report

If developing countries, particularly commodity producers are to benefit from biofuels sector development, they should consider strategic policy options that do not jeopardise their capacity to maintain sustainable food supply for their populations, according to a new study released by the Common Fund for Commodities at an international forum on biofuels held recently in Kuala Lumpur. “Fundamentally, there is a link between poverty reduction and biofuels sector development that can be promoted,” said Ambassador Ali Mchumo, the managing director of the Common Fund in Amsterdam.

“Both the outcome report and the study offer an assessment of the lifecycle costs and benefits of intensified biofuels production, while providing future outlook; and an attempt to identify the likely challenges and opportunities for commodity producers in developing countries in the coming years,” he said. The Biofuels study is the latest in the Commodity Issues Series commissioned by the Amsterdam-based intergovernmental organisation, whose mandate under the United Nations is to support developing countries that are commodity-dependent to improve and diversify commodities production and trade. It outlines a number of policy recommendations, specifically targeted to commodity-dependent developing countries, interested in broader bio-energy ventures and diversification.

The report further underscores the importance of astute policy formulation around four major areas that are pertinent in the ongoing debate about diversification policies for biofuels sector development, including food security issues and others, such as: energy security; rural and social development; climate change mitigation; export growth and diversification. At the forum in Kuala Lumpur, where member countries represented in the Common Fund were gathered for their annual meeting, prominent international experts made presentations demonstrating how different approaches work in the context of different countries and regions. In the report, the experts, including the lead author of the study, expanded on the potential food security implications of policies that have been undertaken by a number of countries and offered practical experiences gained in various biofuel initiatives in Brazil, India, Madagascar, Peru, Indonesia, as well as in Malaysia.