DAC Peer Review: Praising Luxembourg’s aid commitment

According to the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD, Luxembourg is a generous and committed donor. Its aid rose in real terms by almost 12% from 2006 (constant $291m) and 2007 (constant $325m) to 0.90% of its Gross National Income (GNI), making Luxembourg the third most generous donor in percentage terms. Every year since 2000 Luxembourg has achieved an aid to national income ratio of at least 0.7%. It has also promoted international efforts to strengthen the quality and increase the volume of aid. Luxembourg has improved the management of its aid programme, creating a strong foundation for more effective aid.

Luxembourg has opened regional offices in five priority countries and is translating its international commitments into practice. Its second generation of multi-year co¬operation programmes with ten priority countries makes aid more predictable. Luxembourg’s ambitious programme is coherent and well structured thanks to an efficient use of financial and human resources, the OECS says. Aid allocations are concentrated and aligned to the expressed needs of a few priority countries, which are the world’s least developed. It also works with a small number of multilateral organisations which share Luxembourg’s aid objectives. Its record in implementing humanitarian assistance is exemplary in many respects and follows the lines of internationally agreed principles. Luxembourg’s developing country partners appreciate the open and flexible manner in which it engages in policy dialogue and implements its aid programme.

At the same time, however, the Grand Duchy faces challenges in implementing the aid effectiveness agenda: it could do more to use partner country administrative systems and could co¬operate in new ways with other donors. Ensuring that its staff has the necessary competencies, and that it has access to other needed expertise is a constant challenge. In addition, the Development Co¬operation Directorate needs to enhance its capacities to become a learning organisation. Like other donors it will be a challenge for Luxembourg to shore up public and political support for meeting aid effectiveness commitments and taking risks such as engaging in difficult environments, including fragile situations.

The Development Assistance Committee, which groups major aid donors that are members of the OECD, issued its Main Findings and Recommendations on Luxembourg as part of a series of examinations of members' aid policies and programmes. The Peer Review, led by Finland and Spain took place on 3 June 2008. The Luxembourg Delegation attending the review meeting was headed by Mr Jean¬ Louis Schiltz, Minister for Co-operation and Humanitarian Action. The DAC Chair will present the findings from the review in Luxembourg in September 2008 during the annual Assises de la coopération (development co¬operation forum).

World Bank’s own evaluation group slams Doing Business report

Following the publication last Thursday of a report by the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) that is heavily critical of the World Bank's own publication "Doing Business," the ITUC has urged the Bank to definitively remove the topic of labour standards from the mandate of "Doing Business," the Bank's headline annual publication. "In view of the damage being done by this report to workers' protections worldwide, the World Bank should formally prohibit its staff from using "Doing Business" to formulate policy recommendations for labour market reforms in client countries or to determine access to Bank funds," said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder.

The IEG report on "Doing Business" (DB) found no relation between the level of employment in different countries and the DB's notorious "employing workers" indicator, which gives the best ratings to countries that have the lowest level of labour regulations. On the other hand, the IEG observes that "a surprising number of small island states" having almost no labour rules - some of which are not even members of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) - were considered by DB to be best performers for their labour legislation. The IEG also notes that the DB "paying taxes" indicator, which penalizes countries having any kind of mandatory employers' contributions for pensions, accident insurance, maternity benefits, and so on, tended to give best scores to notorious tax-haven countries.

World Bank staff have used these indicators since the first edition of DB was published in October 2003 to advise developing countries to do away with wide swathes of regulations, including those which protect workers, purportedly in order to make their economies more friendly to doing business. However, the IEG found no relationship between the overall DB indicator or the "employing workers" indicator and any genuine improvement in economic performance, such as higher growth, investment or employment rates. By rewarding countries having the lowest level of regulation, DB frequently gave some of its best scores to countries known as serious violators of workers' rights, including Belarus, Georgia and Saudi Arabia, all have which have severely restricted or even prohibited trade union activities.

The ITUC asked the World Bank, in addition to immediately stopping the use of the DB labour indicator in its analyses and policy documents, to launch an investigation into how the DB labour indicator was so widely used throughout the Bank, despite repeated warnings that its methodology was inherently flawed and would lead to rewarding violators of workers' rights. The ITUC repeatedly warned the World Bank on its DB report. The ILO issued similar analyses highlighting the methodological flaws starting in 2007.

The World Bank chose to ignore the warnings, and instead incorporated the DB indicators into its general labour market strategy, issued by the Bank's Human Development Network, and into its Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA). The CPIA is used by the World Bank to determine developing countries' overall level of eligibility to accessing Bank assistance.

The ITUC's most recent critique of the Doing Business report can be found >>> here.

ILO Declaration: Social Justice for a Fair Globalisation

Following two successive years of debate, the ILO's annual International Labour Conference adopted a major Declaration on "Social Justice for a Fair Globalisation". According to Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the declaration “speaks of the need to make a different reality possible. In place of our world of income inequality, high levels of unemployment and poverty and the growth of unprotected work, the adoption of this Declaration demonstrates a common commitment to build a world based on social justice."

The Declaration provides for regular review by the ILO of the components of decent work, which are now codified as inseparable and inter-related. It comprises, in particular, many paragraphs confirming the mandate for the ILO - deriving from its Constitution - to examine all economic, financial and trade policies, since they all affect employment. It is clearly the ILO's role to evaluate those employment effects in order to place employment and decent work at the heart of economic policies. Achieving this will require the ILO to make a strong and effective impact on the activities and policies proposed by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organisation.

Other parts of the Declaration emphasise gender and non-discrimination, and call for a new package of international labour standards to be promoted everywhere, in particular the "governance" standards, covering tripartism, employment policy and labour inspection, in addition to the core labour standards. Freedom of Association and Collective bargaining are now formally codified as the enabling rights for the realisation of Decent Work for all. Governments are put on notice to put in place effective country programmes in order to attain decent work. The role of the ILO in achieving the extension of social security to all is emphasised, as well as a basic income for all in need, a minimum living wage and safe and healthy working conditions. A follow-up implementation plan is to be discussed at the next ILO Governing Body meeting in November 2008.

Rich countries offered little in Bonn climate talks

The second of eight planned UN meetings to strike an urgent new deal in 2009 to tackle climate change ended in Bonn today with little to show. "No-one expected miracles but ending two weeks of talks with so little progress will be difficult to explain to poor people who are already being hit by climate change. This was an under-whelming contribution to tackling what the UN describes as the biggest challenge facing humanity," said Oxfam's climate change adviser Antonio Hill.

The meeting heard that accumulated climate change funding, since the UN Climate Convention (UNFCCC) was signed, amounts to around $3.6bn in total. By comparison, the UNFCCC estimates that up to $67bn per year will be needed for adaptation by 2030, and Oxfam estimates that it will cost at least $50bn a year - more if global emissions do not peak by 2015 and drop steeply thereafter. Hill said: "Rich countries showed almost zero leadership in Bonn. The EU sat in silence as developing and other countries called for a new approach to deliver the money and technology required to help poor countries adapt to climate change and ensure a low-carbon, zero-poverty future.

"There is a big gap between developing countries, who want cuts and funding shared equitably between rich and poor nations and rich countries such as the US, Canada and Japan, who continue to downplay the scale of need. Climate change is the background spectre to the current global crises in oil prices, energy access, food security and the biofuels fiasco. The poor are being hit first and hardest but no one is untouched. The next UNFCCC meeting in Accra in August must show more progress than this. The EU especially must both respond to proposals already tabled and propose new ones or risk losing its vital leadership role."

Meanwhile, last week's announcement by Japan of 60-80% cuts by 2050 remains clouded in uncertainty. Japan's emissions are approximately 15% above its 1990 levels and growing, while under the Kyoto Protocol it pledged to reduce to 6% below 1990. Unless it starts reducing its overall emissions now, and achieves cuts of at least 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020, Prime Minister Fukuda's vision for 2050 will be dashed within a year.

World Day against Child Labour: New ITUC action guide

On the occasion of the World Day Against Child Labour today, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is launching a new Mini Action Guide on Child Labour, providing campaigning tools and direct support to trade unions to fight against child labour. According to the ILO, some 218 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are involved in child labour. Many of these children work long hours, often in dangerous conditions. The guide highlights the fact that some 69% of working children are involved in agriculture compared with 9% in industry. The Asia-Pacific region accounts for the largest number of child labourers with 122 million, followed by sub-Saharan Africa (49.3 million) and Latin America and the Caribbean (5.7 million). With 26%, the proportion of children engaged in economic activities in sub-Saharan Africa is currently the highest of any region in the world. Child labour can also be found in many industrialised countries.

The World Day Against Child Labour this year is emphasizing education as a key factor in the eradication of child labour. The day will be marked around the world with activities to raise awareness that education is the right response to child labour. Around 72 million children of primary school age are not enrolled in school. There are also many who are enrolled but who do not attend regularly or who drop out. Good quality education and training is necessary for children if they are to acquire the skills necessary to succeed in the labour market; such education and training is also important to economically and socially excluded children and youth so that they can lift themselves out of poverty. Wherever children miss out on education, poverty will continue from one generation to the next, explains the mini guide.

To fight against child labour, the guide gives advice on issues such as using collective bargaining, participation in tripartite dialogue, promoting international labour standards, joining the Global March Against Child Labour and the Global Trade Union Alliance to Combat Forced Labour and Trafficking, and campaigning for the ratification and implementation of the ILO Conventions No. 138 and No.182.

The ITUC is closely linking its work in the Global March Against Child Labour and the newly-emerging Global Trade Union Alliance to Combat Forced Labour and Trafficking. The ILO estimates that up to 50% of all forced labour victims worldwide are children. Increasingly, children are becoming forced child labourers as a result of human trafficking. Children in in-house domestic work, in rural agriculture or isolated estates, in mining, brick making, textiles and fisheries are particularly vulnerable to this “worst form of child labour” as specified in ILO Convention 182.

For more information on IPEC (International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour) click >>> here.
To read the full ITUC mini action guide click >>> here.

Groups oppose World Bank Climate Funds

More than 121 groups released a statement last week opposing the World Bank's proposed 'Climate Investment Funds' to address climate change and its impacts. The statement was released during the United Nations climate change talks in Bonn, Germany and coincided with a US Congressional Hearing on the Clean Technology Fund. "With their long-term record of massive fossil fuel financing, the World Bank is spectacularly unqualified to control climate funds," said Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth US in Bonn. "The World Bank climate funds could undermine the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is the right place to manage this kind of funds," she added.

"There is no definition of the word 'clean' in the so-called Clean Technology Fund," said Janneke Bruil of Friends of the Earth International, one of the statement's signatories. “For example, ‘clean coal’ is a false solution: it has nothing to do with renewable energy," she added.

The statement released today notes that it is "highly inappropriate to issue loans for adaptation" to climate change, because it means further indebting poor countries as they adapt to climate change caused by the industrialised countries, which are providing the loans. The statement concludes by urging industrialised country governments not to support the World Bank initiative and calls on developing country governments to raise these concerns with donor countries, the World Bank and other institutions.

Rome summit: Much more needed says Oxfam

This week’s UN summit in Rome was an important first step in tackling the food crisis but greater action is now needed to resolve the crisis says Oxfam. “Recognizing you have a problem is the first step toward solving it. Leaders of the richest countries have acknowledged the importance of aid to agriculture after 25 years of decline. They have pledged money to provide immediate aid to those that need it. But a crisis like this, with so many contributing factors, needs a wide-ranging plan to resolve it and rich countries can’t continue to ignore their own trade and agriculture policies,” said Barbara Stocking, CEO, Oxfam GB.

The final communique acknowledges that biofuels offer both ‘opportunities and challenges’ and recommends more research into their impact. However, in the meantime, biofuels will continue to have a devastating impact on millions of poor people and recent estimates suggest that demand for biofuels is responsible for 30 percent of the global food price rise. Oxfam is calling on the EU and US to end their compulsory biofuel targets.

The communique also suggests that concluding the current WTO agreement will solve the crisis. Oxfam disagrees and argues instead that current WTO proposals do not give developing countries the flexibility they need to respond to volatile markets and short term rises and falls in prices. “Concluding a trade deal as it is currently framed will hurt poor farmers and consumers, not help them. Trade rules must protect poor people in times of both high prices and low. Developing countries need the ability to feed their people and support the poorest, most marginalized farmers to gain from current high prices. The current crisis illustrates starkly that what we need is not business as usual but deep reform of the international trading system," said Stocking.

The UN Task Force set up to deal with the food crisis must listen to representatives from the developing world’s 400 million small-holder farmers. These farms are not only important in feeding their nations but also providing economic development and must be part of any solution to the crisis. US$6bn has been pledged this week but this is less than half of the $14.5bn that Oxfam estimates is needed to provide immediate assistance to at least 290 million people threatened by rising food prices until the end of 2008. It is unclear whether the US$6bn is new money or comes from existing aid commitments, and what is the time frame for its delivery. (The money pledged this week includes: France €1bn (US$1.5bn), Spain €500m (US$800m), Islamic Development Bank US$1.5bn, World Bank US$1.2bn, African Development Bank US$1bn.)

“The baton of responsibility now passes to the G8 and its finance ministers meeting in Japan next week. As the world’s most powerful countries they must provide more money to deal with the immediate impact of the current crisis but also tackle some of the contributing causes by ending compulsory biofuels targets and providing more long term aid for to agriculture,” said Stocking.

For more information see >>> WDEV Dossier "The New Face of Hunger"

EIB at 50: Civil Society hopes for reforms

Environment and social campaign groups from across Europe marked the 50th anniversary celebrations of the European Investment Bank (EIB; see photo) this week by pointing out to the European Union's house bank that “Life begins at 50 - we hope.” The EIB has attracted sustained criticism from civil society organisations in Europe and across the world because of its non-transparent institutional nature, its lack of binding environmental and social standards—especially in its increasing lending activities in Africa, Asia and Latin America—and its continuing support for major fossil fuel extraction projects that undermine the bank's recent improved record in funding renewable energy projects. Desislava Stoyanova, co-ordinator of Counter Balance: Challenging the European Investment Bank, a new coalition of European NGOs concerned at the lending practices of the EIB, said: “We hope that the EIB has grown out of its youthful indulgences, backing dodgy projects without being accountable to anyone. Now that it’s entering middle age, the EIB will hopefully slow down and start to behave more responsibly.”

The EIB loaned EUR 48 billion of taxpayer-backed cash last year. At a series of actions in Luxembourg unofficially run in tandem with the EIB’s annual meeting of its board of governors, Counter Balance campaigners distributed spoof newspapers (“Luxemburger Wahl”) showing how things could look in the brave new world of the EIB’s more sustainable, small-scale, community-driven future. Anders Lustgarten of Counter Balance, in his ‘for one day only’ role of head of policy at the EIB, laid out a positive new vision for the EIB at two public press conferences in Luxembourg. The EIB’s ‘new’ policies include: phasing out its major involvement in fossil fuels and extractive industries; providing effective aid support in line with EU policies that prioritises people on the ground; ruling out potential funding support for the nuclear industry; ensuring that its future investments in the transport sector are ‘carbon negative’.

Prince Kumwamba, of Congolese NGO ACIDH which has criticised the EIB over its role in the highly controversial Tenke Fungurume copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said: “These changes at the EIB sound absolutely wonderful, and are at long last in line with what Southern communities and economies really need, rather than some huge oil field or open cast mine that creams off our natural resources with little accruing to us except clean-up costs. When these policies become reality, we will truly have something to celebrate.”

See for further information: Everyone's Investment Bank website: http://www.eib50.org/

Ruggie report falls short of expectations

Today, John Ruggie, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for business and human rights, is to present his Protect, Respect and Remedy: a Framework for Business and Human Rights report to the UN Human Rights Council. John Ruggies report identifies grave deficits in the current human rights regime that represent an obstacle to protection to individuals and communities against corporate-related human rights violations. He notes “escalating charges of corporate-related human rights abuses”, regarding this as “the canary in the coal mine, signalling that all is not well”. The Ruggie Report regards the governance gaps created by globalization as the root causes of the “business and human rights predicament. These governance gaps provide the permissive environment for wrongful acts by companies of all kind without adequate sanctioning and reparation”. Ruggie sees the fundamental challenge as identifying “how to narrow and ultimately bridge the gaps in relation to human rights”.

Nevertheless, according to a background paper written by Jens Martens of Global Policy Forum, the Report does not respond to the global governance gaps it notes with global governance solutions. Instead, it is limited to what its author deems politically achievable. This above all includes incremental steps towards observing human rights at national level, especially in Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) and in export promoting via Export Credit Agencies (ECAs). Ruggie is in favour of strengthening judicial capacities to hear complaints and enforce remedies against corporations. He recommends the corporations themselves to observe due diligence regarding respect for human rights and gives some practical recommendations in this context.

However, Ruggie categorically rejects the UN Norms or any other global legal instrument to establish the human rights duties of corporations. Neither does the report address calls by human rights organisations for a UN special procedure (e.g., independent expert or group of experts) on business and human rights or a proposed International Advisory Centre offering governments of developing countries legal support vis-à-vis transnational corporations. Thus Ruggies report, Martens concludes, falls way short of the expectations of civil society organisations. With his principled pragmatism approach, Ruggie formulates what he feels is politically feasible given the forces that be in society but does not state what would be desirable and necessary to protect human rights.

New report reveals: €75bn missing for world’s poor

On 26-27 May 2008, European Development Ministers will meet at the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) in Brussels to discuss aid and development. Yet as a new report by NGOs campaigners across Europe reveals, European governments’ aid efforts are continuing to fail the poor to the tune of €75bn. The report, No Time to Waste, published by CONCORD, the European confederation of relief and development NGOs whose members represent over 1,600 NGOs supported by millions of citizens across Europe, reveals that on current trends the European Union (EU) will have given €75bn less in aid by 2010 than it promised, threatening progress on the UN Millennium Development Goals set for 2015. If the recent record of slow progress continues, Europe will find it harder to meet its target with every year that passes.

The official statistics, released by the OECD in April, showed that European aid fell sharply in 2007, with Belgium, France and the UK recording falls of 10-30%. According to the OECD, “most donors are not on track to meet their stated commitments to scale up aid and will need to make unprecedented increases to meet the targets they have set.” CONCORD’s report has found that European governments continue to “inflate” their aid statistics with debt relief and refugee costs. The report reveals that the 15 older Member States provided only 0.33% of their gross national income as genuine aid in 2007 – continuing to miss the target set for 2006 of 0.39% of GNI.

The report says the EU must also roll up its sleeves on the quality of its aid, making it accountable and transparent. The EU has committed to make aid work better by making it more predictable, better coordinated, and aimed at promoting gender equality and women’s’ empowerment, but NGOs are concerned that these targets are not being met and that more ambitious commitments are needed. 2008 is a crucial year for aid, testing the credibility of European governments. At the High Level Ministerial Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, Ghana this coming September, the EU will review its progress against crucial commitments made in 2005 in Paris.

When European Ministers will meet next week, members of CONCORD and campaigners of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) will stand outside the Council of the European Union in Brussels holding a huge banner to raise their voices against the continuing massive aid gap during. European NGOs join the OECD and the European Commission in calling on European governments to honour their promises and commit to clear, measurable, binding timetables setting out the year-on-year aid increases in aid that are necessary for the MDGs to be met.

Banks urged to stop fuelling harmful agrofuel boom

Many major European banks are funding the rapid expansion of agrofuel production in Latin America, leading to large scale deforestation, increasing human rights abuses and threatening food sovereignty, according to a new report of Friends of the Earth Europe, titled European financing of agrofuel production in Latin America. The report - amid global worries about the increasing impacts of rising food prices - calls for an end to investments by European banks in harmful agrofuel projects. Agrofuels have been blamed as a major factor driving up food prices. According to the UN and the World Bank, 100 million more people are currently facing severe hunger due to higher prices for basic foods.

The report documents how major European banks, such as Barclays, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Axa, HSBC, UBS and Credit Suisse are investing billions of Euros in the production and trade of sugar cane, soybeans and palm oil in Latin American countries. Fuels from sugar cane, soybeans and palm oil are increasingly used in Europe. Their large scale production in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia is extremely controversial as it leads to the destruction of the Amazon and other valuable ecosystems, as well as to the contamination of drinking water. Large scale plantations (see photo with burning sugarcane) also lead to human rights violations against peasants, with working conditions on some plantations in Brazil classed as modern slave labour. At the same time agrofuel companies are making record profits, enabled by loans, investments and other financial support from private banks.

All major European banks have invested billions of Euros over recent years in agrofuel producing companies such as Cargill, Bunge, ADM, Cosan and Brasil Ecodiesel. Several of these companies have been involved in, and convicted of, illegal activities in Latin America. Some examples of European banks’ involvement: In 2007 Deutsche Bank owned 35% of the shares of Brasil Ecodiesel. Bunge currently has credit facilities worth more than 1€bn from banks such as Barclays, BBVA, BNP Paris, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, KBC and Credit Suisse. In 2007 Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse provided financial services totalling more than 1€bn to Cosan.

Friends of the Earth Europe says banks should immediately stop their investments in such harmful agrofuel development. The NGO is also calling on the European Commission to revise its plans for a mandatory 10% target for the use of agrofuels in transport by 2020, which it says will exacerbate the problems associated with the production of agrofuels.

Health insurance is no substitute for rich country aid, NGOs say

As governments from all over the world meet in Paris to discuss social health protection in developing countries, a group of NGOs has issued a report warning that health insurance continues to exclude the poor. The argument that health insurance could fill financing gaps to ensure health care in poor countries is now being strongly promoted by northern governments and international institutions. The paper, Health insurance in low income countries: Where is the evidence that it works?, says that while these insurance schemes can have a positive effect on the accessibility and on reducing catastrophic health expenditure for parts of the population, they can also pose a threat to equity and efficiency of health systems.

In its report, the NGOs argue that even insurance mechanisms made specifically for developing countries often exclude the poorest and most vulnerable groups. NGOs argue that most health insurance schemes developed for the poor seem unable to finance a comprehensive benefits package. Therefore poor people often continue to depend on the ability to pay 40% of their health needs – out-of-pocket – even when they are a member of an insurance scheme. “Far from being a magic bullet, health insurance schemes can exclude the poorest from health services. The money for health must not come from the pockets of poor people. The best way for countries like France and Germany to provide healthcare for the poor is by delivering on the aid they’ve promised,” said Luc Lampriere of Oxfam France - Agir Ici.

NGOs also call on countries and donors to respect their commitment to boost investments in health care. Only about a third of sub-Saharan African countries are allocating ten per cent or more of their national budgets to the health sector – despite a previous commitment known as the Abuja target, to invest 15 percent spending on health. The report says that all countries and donors should evaluate insurance mechanisms not just in terms of advantages to the populations they serve but also with regards to the contribution they make towards universal access.

“Health Insurance mechanisms are often promoted based on the assumption that they can fill financing gaps and contribute positively to universal coverage. But without significant public funding for the health sector and strong government stewardship, insurance mechanisms can actually increase inequity,” said Nicolas Guihard of Médecins du Monde. A specific focus is needed, the report continues, on the needs of vulnerable groups, such as women, poor and elderly people, and people living with HIV, who are most likely to be excluded by insurance mechanisms must also remain at the centre of any schemes and the overall debate.

Trade unions at CSD: Food prices, green jobs and decent work

A 50 member trade union delegation commenced its work at UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) in New York this week by asking member countries to consider ‘decent work’ a vital part of any agenda for sustainable agricultural and rural development. Trade Unions, one of nine Major Groups under Agenda 21, are meeting with governments and international agencies this and next week to review progress made towards Sustainable Development since the 2002 World Summit in the following theme areas: agriculture, desertification, drought, land, rural development and Africa.

Initial remarks prepared for the Opening Session, Thierry Dedieu, Confederal Secretary of the ‘Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT) reminded that although world attention is focused on the disastrous effect of escalating food prices, the major players in the agricultural industry, the millions of waged and informal workers that bring the food to our tables, should not be forgotten. “The ILO Agenda for Decent Work is critical for the agricultural sector,” said Dedieu. “Large segments of the industry currently encompass all aspects of precarious employment; unacceptable pay levels, unhealthy & unsafe work, insecure employment prospects, and numerous other substandard terms and conditions. In 2007, for example, over 170,000 agricultural workers died because of their work. During the next two weeks, trade union delegates will report on progress made by trade unions to render industries related to agriculture and rural development more sustainable,” he said. “We have been able to bring health and safety to millions of workers through worksite negotiations and international Framework Agreements, at the same time as we continue to promote such international agreements as ILO Convention 184 on Health and Safety in Agriculture.”

Green & Decent’ employment policies in agriculture and the global food system can yield a high payoff as solutions to deal with drought, desertification and rural development, especially when combined with energy conservation and environmental protection, he said. A progress on a ‘Green Jobs’ report by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) will be unveiled in a high-level luncheon with country delegates next week.

Trade unions at the CSD will also highlight the need to integrate climate change, water issues, as well as public and occupational health as key cross-sectoral issues. Trade unions will encourage the CSD to harness the full participation of workers and trade unions in decision-making for workplace solutions and in building support for the aggressive policies that are needed at the community level. See >>> information kit

Oil industry undermines emissions reduction, says FoE

Oil companies have the potential to achieve more than 10% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 without using agrofuels, reveals a report launched last week by Friends of the Earth Europe. Released on the day Shell and BP announced combined quarterly profits of 14.4billion US dollars, Extracting the truth: Oil industry efforts to undermine the Fuel Quality Directive uses industry's own data to show how oil companies are falsely claiming that the target proposed by the European Commission in revisions to the Fuel Quality Directive is unachievable. It shows that at least 10% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could be realised through reduced gas flaring, improved energy efficiency and fuel switching at refineries, and without the need for agrofuels which can have negative environmental and socials impacts and have not been proven to reduce emissions overall.

Friends of the Earth Europe's report calculates that reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of between 10.5% and 15.5% are possible through measures including less flaring and venting, energy efficiency improvements and fuel switching in refineries. The report comes at a time of record profits for oil companies and increasing attempts to portray themselves as environmentally responsible. In 2007, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, TOTAL, BP and ENI together earned together over 125billion US dollars.

The analysis puts oil industry attempts to obstruct the Fuel Quality Directive in the context of increased 'greenwashing'. Behind the scenes oil companies are lobbying against environmental legislation whilst in public they use advertising to suggest that they are reducing emissions. In 2007 Shell was found guilty of misleading advertising for an advert in which it claimed it used waste CO2 to grow flowers. A FoE speaker said: “Oil companies are not serious about their environmental performance. While they brand themselves as environmentally responsible, their CO2 emissions continue to rise. In reality the emissions of almost all of them are rapidly increasing and they are all investing heavily in energy-dirty tar sands, while their investments in renewable energy remain negligible or decrease.”

PWYP: Companies must go beyond their rhetoric

In the wake of a recent report published by Transparency International, showing that leading oil and gas companies should be doing more to fight corruption and poverty in resource-rich countries, Publish What You Pay calls on companies to publicly disclose how much money they pay to governments for the right to extract. “The report’s key findings and recommendations reaffirm longstanding demands by PWYP for greater transparency of revenue flows earned by resource-rich governments from extractive industries. Without this information, citizens cannot track how the revenues are being reinvested back in the country,” said Radhika Sarin, International Coordinator of PWYP.

In the 2008 Report on Revenue Transparency of Oil and Gas Companies, TI, a key member of the PWYP coalition, evaluates how 42 international and national oil and gas companies publicly report their operations in a total of 21 countries. Of those companies, only a third are categorised in the findings as ‘high’ performers and only a selected group report on a country-by-country basis, a reporting format identified as best practice. “The fact that leading oil and gas companies can retain competitive advantage while still reporting their operations on a country-by-country basis sets a standard for others to follow. It's time for companies to go beyond their rhetoric and start disclosing payments in the disaggregated format that citizens want," said Sarin.

The report recommends that:
* Companies should proactively publish what they pay to governments on a country-by-country basis;
* Governments, stock exchanges and regulatory agencies should urgently consider mandatory reporting for companies operating in-country and abroad;
* Governments from oil and gas producing countries should introduce legislation mandating revenue transparency by all companies operating in their territories;
* Regulatory agencies and companies should agree to publish information in a uniform and accessible format.

The recommendations show that encouraging companies to report their revenues transparently is not the only mechanism to achieving the overall goal of responsible government spending. Governments in both resource-rich countries and those who are home to oil and gas companies, in addition to regulatory agencies should introduce legislation mandating revenue transparency by all companies. “This report is an invaluable advocacy tool. PWYP coalitions around the world will be using the findings to challenge companies, governments and regulatory authorities over their responsibility to reduce corruption and in turn poverty,” said Ingilab Ahmadov, Director of the Public Finance Monitoring Center in Azerbaijan.

Rethink unfair EU trade deals, says new Oxfam study

The EU will do irrevocable damage to the development prospects of some of the poorest countries in the world unless it overhauls free trade deals due to be finalised this year, said Oxfam in a report published today. In Partnership or Power Play?, released at the XII UN Conference on Trade and Development in Ghana, Oxfam presents the first comprehensive analysis of the proposed texts. It concludes that, if finalised, these Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) would hurt poor people and undermine development across Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP).

According to the study, the cost will be enormous: annual losses from tariff cuts of $360m for Africa alone, and a further €9bn for compliance for all the countries involved. Not to mention the loss of independent trade policy, badly needed to promote development and protect livelihoods. Oxfam's analysis reveals that promised transition periods for liberalisation of up to 25 years have only been offered to a few countries, for handful of products. Furthermore, developing countries have been granted very limited scope to retain any protection and they have had to use it for agricultural products on which the EU still pays big trade distorting subsidies. Strict intellectual property rules proposed by the EU would deepen the digital divide and challenge traditional farming methods, including seed saving. They are offset by very weak EU commitments to helping poor countries access new technology.

The EU wants to finalise deals on goods by mid-2008 and wind up negotiations on services, investment and other areas over the following year. Yet legal experts say that deals initialled at the end of 2007 are not legally binding and could be revised. Ministers, MPs, trade and development experts and academics have all questioned the current approach. "In a fair deal, Europe would fully open its markets to all exports without demanding reciprocation. It would give developing countries the policy freedom to govern in the public interest and pursue regional integration on their own terms. And it would assist these countries to become more competitive, generate decent jobs and access new technologies," said an Oxfam representative at UNCTAD XII.

The report recommends:
* A thorough independent evaluation of what has been initialled before any deal is signed
* Adaptation of existing EU preference schemes to ensure that no ACP country is left worse off if it doesn't conclude an EPA
* Renegotiation of problematic aspects of the initialled deals
* ACP countries decide whether to negotiate on services, investment and other trade-related issues
* Additional support from the EU to tackle infrastructure and competitiveness constraints in the ACP
* ACP countries take stock within their regional blocs, fully consulting all affected parties including workers, producers and businesses

ActionAid: UNCTAD must be allowed to fully act on its mandate

According to ActionAid, UNCTAD as the apex trade and development body at the UN must be allowed to fully deliver its mandate without any hindrance from the developed countries. The pursuit of deliberate policies by the developed world through institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the WTO over the years has relegated UNCTAD role of working to secure just trade and development policies for developing countries.

ActionAid condemns moves by the EU and the USA at this conference to further marginalise UNCTAD from the international trade and development agenda. For instance these countries are resisting G77 (Group of Developing Countries) demands to create a commission on globalisation. “UNCTAD XII must at the end of this conference be able to provide practical solutions that can be used to end the miseries of commodity dependent farmers, particularly in Africa”, says Aftab Alam Khan ,ActionAid’s international coordinator on Trade policy. “This would immensely contribute to the development of the commodity dependent Nations who are also among the Highly Indebted and Poor Countries (HIPC)”, he adds.

Amina Salifu, a woman farmer from Northern Ghana says, “The government must put in policies to ensure that the commodity boards are made stronger and where we have none they be set up to prevent us from losing our only source of livelihood”. In addition, to help stem the rising food prices, food aid needs to be increased and sourced locally or regionally, added the NGO. Countries need to be assisted to build up staple food stocks, procuring them from poor farmers in country, where possible. ActionAid believes a lasting solution to the pressures on food supply must include increased investment in smallholder agriculture, and action to reduce the devastating effects of climate change on developing country food production.

Trade unions on UNCTAD XII: Decent work and development

As trade ministers and Heads of State come together in Accra, Ghana to decide on the priorities for the UN’s Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for the next four years, trade unionists are calling for the UNCTAD XII Conference to endorse a strong UNCTAD agency as the main forum where discussions on the interlinkage between trade and development take place. “The development gains of trade depend largely on positive linkages between trade and employment, and on the capacity of trade to create decent jobs for people that currently are deprived from access to employment that provides a decent living”, said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder. “UNCTAD should put full and productive employment and decent work at the heart of the trade and development discussion. Mainstreaming decent work in UNCTAD’s work would be a logical follow-up to the UN’s earlier commitments to prioritise decent work, and a first step towards providing essential policy coherence between UN agencies.”

A trade union delegation will participate in the meetings and will be lobbying for the key issues that should be taken up in UNCTAD’s future work programme, as summarised in an ITUC statement. The statement says that especially in a time where the benefits of trade and globalisation and the distribution of these benefits are being questioned, UNCTAD constitutes a crucial forum that needs to be strengthened. In particular, the statement calls for a reinforcement of the analytical strength and the independent research capacity of UNCTAD.

The ITUC strongly supports the creation of an UNCTAD Commission on Globalisation, which could take up numerous vital issues related to globalisation and development. These include employment impact assessments of trade liberalisation; the problems created by Export Processing Zones with regard to competition on the basis of labour standards; the gender impacts of trade liberalisation; and the policies that need to be developed to address income inequalities.

Aid system not able to tackle impending food crisis, say CARE and Oxfam

According to Oxfam and CARE the international aid system was not fit for purpose and called for fundamental changes in order to tackle the challenge of food price hikes and impending food crises in East and West Africa. The call comes at the end of a conference on how best the world can address global hunger attended by some 30 leading UN and aid agencies in Rome. "Food riots have pushed global hunger onto the political agenda but the aid business will not be able to tackle global hunger while it remains stuck in the past, seeing food crises as one-off events and not tackling the underlining problem - chronic poverty. The world has become much better at sending in teams to save lives but it seems incapable of doing what is needed to prevent crises happening in the first place," said Barbara Stocking, Oxfam's Chief Executive.

CARE and Oxfam warned that besides the impact of food price hikes there are also early signs of impending food shortages in East and West Africa. These potential disasters could be averted if the world takes immediate action. In East Africa the March to May rainy season has been slow to start, triggering concern that another widespread humanitarian crisis might strike for the second time in less than three years. Although there has been some rain over the last week, CARE and Oxfam are particularly concerned about hunger striking the poorest in southern Somalia and the Somali Region of Ethiopia and in West Africa there are worrying warnings of increased hunger hot spots in Mauritania and Niger.

Acting earlier not only saves more lives but makes economic sense. In 2004 and 2005 early warnings alerted world donors that in West Africa, Niger needed aid to avert famine. There was no immediate response, and it was not until television cameras showed emaciated children dying that the world acted. The cost of the delay was high in human life and in economic terms. The UN estimated that acting earlier would have cost $1 a day to prevent a child suffering from malnutrition. Because of delay it cost $80 to save a malnourished child. Another area of concern is the inefficiencies and high costs resulting from self-interest on the part of those delivering aid. Shipping surplus food aid thousands of miles provides a boon to shipping companies, but also increases the cost of delivering food anywhere from 50% to 100%.

CARE and Oxfam are calling for more aid of the right kind in the right place at the right time. Specifically, the organizations want:

* Appropriate aid delivered according to needs: The nature of food insecurity and vulnerability needs to be better understood in order to design more appropriate responses.

* Alternatives to emergency relief, including food aid, to be delivered when appropriate, for example cash for work and other cash transfer schemes. Often food is available during a food crisis. The issue is that it is too expensive for the hungry to buy it. Buying food aid locally can help stimulate the local economy and keep farmers in work. Chronic and cyclical problems need to be addressed through social protection mechanisms, such as social insurance and assistance.

* Support development of poor country governments' capacity to respond to chronic crises: National governments need to invest in the social protection of their citizens, implement 'safety net' programmes (cash for work schemes or targeted assistance to the vulnerable) for populations at risk of hunger, intervene before livelihoods collapse. Donors need to commit resources to support the establishment of local response and safety net mechanisms, e.g. the donors backed 'Productive Safety Net Programme' ensuring predictable assistance to eight million people in Ethiopia. Mechanisms allowing more effective monitoring and coordination of international aid against hunger need to be established within the UN system, and with NGOs.

Disaster risk reduction is a key factor in preventing future crises. Many weather-related crises are cyclical and preparedness and risk reduction strategies can reduce the loss of valuable agricultural production, but this requires a substantial change in emphasis from donors, who will need to make an investment before public support has been mobilized by images of starvation.

* On the recent food price crisis CARE and Oxfam called for: Increase donor and national government investment in small-scale agriculture in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most African governments have failed to meet their 2003 promise to allocate at least a tenth of their spending to agriculture and they are now reaping the consequences. Countries such as Malawi and Zambia have shown the way, moving from dependence on food aid to become cereal exporters in recent years. Greater international support is needed. It is important that humanitarian organizations ensure that women can access the opportunities that are created.

Large-scale growth in biofuels demand has pushed up food prices and so far there is little evidence that it is reducing overall carbon emissions. Natural carbon sinks such as rainforests and grasslands are being destroyed to make way for new biofuel plantations and biofuel crops are displacing food production. Countries driving biofuel demand need to monitor the impacts of their policies on global food security and provide financial support for affected countries. Mandatory targets need to be reassessed in terms of likely impact on emissions and negative social and environmental side effects in developing countries, including higher food prices, land grabs and labour rights abuses. Developing countries need to integrate their biofuel strategies with food security policies to address issues such as land allocation and crop use.

* Ensure financial services such as insurance and credit are available to poor farmers. In Thailand, for example, small producers are going to the wall because banks will not lend them money to manage between harvests.

* Allow space for national trade policies to manage food security and rural development and to support the poorest and most marginalised farmers to gain from current price rises.

* Recognise that climate change is going to exacerbate these problems, requiring urgent mitigation and adaptation response

* Eliminate trade-distorting export agricultural subsidies, export restrictions and price controls. This will correct distortions in world markets and pave the way towards a long-term solution to unstable food prices.

"There is clearly a lot that governments and aid agencies must do to tackle hunger," said Jonathan Mitchell, CARE's emergency response director. "What emerged from this conference is that humanitarian and relief agencies are committed to new solutions. We now need aid agencies to be held accountable and for donor governments to get behind these changes."

The full report can be found here.

Rethinking food crisis solutions

In the midst of a commodity prices boom, high volatility in the oil marker, and record high food prices, the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) sets a new agenda for global food production. A new report suggests that modern agriculture will have to change radically if the world is to avoid social breakdown and environmental collapse. See Al Jazeera's video: