Business cannot be the solution to hunger

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

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

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

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

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

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

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) have called on the EU to listen to its partners in ACP countries and to concentrate on a pro-development approach in negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The EPAs are a new trade arrangement between Europe and the ACP (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific) countries which aim at putting their trade relationships in conformity with WTO rules. However, there is concern that EPAs could require ACP countries to open their economies unsustainably beyond their world-level commitments. As of now only the Caribbean region has confirmed its intention to sign a regional full EPA, possibly in October, although the date of signature has already been postponed several times. Negotiations with African and Pacific nations have been tense all along and could not be finalised before the end of 2007, the WTO-imposed deadline. As a result interim EPAs were agreed upon with 20 individual African and Pacific countries.

"While the European Commission sees interim EPAs as a stepping stone for regional full EPAs, many aspects of the agreements as currently proposed risk undermining ACP countries," said Guy Ryder, ITUC general secretary. "We urge the European Commission to show flexibility in the negotiations so as to ensure that EPAs contribute to the development prospects of ACP countries instead." In particular, trade in services, investment, public procurement, competition policies and intellectual property should not be imposed in the negotiations, and the EU should not demand that ACP countries open up to 80% of their markets to imports. Instead, EPAs need to become real instruments for the development of ACP countries and fully support endogenous regional integration processes as defined by ACP states.

Indeed, trade agreements struck between the EU and individual ACP countries regardless of the regional context might fragment already weak regional integration processes. In place of such deals, trade unions support the inclusion of development benchmarks in the EPA texts. These would reflect the development priorities of the ACP countries at both national and regional levels and make the realisation of trade liberalisation contingent on the level of economic and social development of each country in its process of regional integration. "Equally important is the call for strong, effective and operational social and labour chapters as full part of EPAs," said Ryder. "Trade can never be fair if comparative advantages are based on the exploitation of workers when they are not allowed to organise."

"The social chapter should also help to ensure that European multinationals in ACP countries engage in social dialogue with union representatives and use socially and environmentally responsible practices including vis-à-vis their local suppliers and partners," added John Monks, ETUC general secretary. "In addition, the EU should finance technical cooperation to help ACP countries with the implementation of ILO labour standards, to increase the focus and impact of development assistance on gender equality as well as to support trade unions' activities and build their capacities."

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

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

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

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

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

NGO recommendations ahead of Doha

On August 30, civil society organisations monitoring the review process of the
Financing for Development (FfD) published a document, Key Recommendations for the Doha Draft Outcome Document which calls for “a package of new, concrete, monitorable measures, coupled with a strong and explicit political commitment to implement them”. The FfD conference is scheduled to take place on 29 November-2 December 2008 in Doha. The recommendations, which have 60 signatories including Eurostep, Action Aid and Oxfam International, include binding timetables to reach the UN target of 0.7% of GNI to ODA by 2015 at the latest, making use of the proceeds from emissions trading for international measures to combat global warming, expanded debt cancellation and the removal of aid conditionalities.

The document highlights that “it has now become clear that agriculture, food security and food sovereignty need to be put back on to the development agenda”. It also stresses the need to address the challenge of financing climate adaptation and mitigation, to allow “democratic and equitable participation of all countries in global and national-level policy-making” and to recognise gender concerns and women’s participation as integral to effective policy-making.

Calls on the EU to pass the €1bn food facility and save 1 billion people on the brink of starvation

SAAPE, a South-Asian alliance of civil society organizations and social movements, speaking for millions of small and marginalized farmers in the region, yesterday called on the European Union to use the €1bn fund as an immediate and essential response to the global food price crisis driving millions into destitution and hunger. At the occasion of a special meeting of the European Parliament’s development committee on the €1bn fund with high-level guest-speakers, such as the heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP), SAAPE welcomes the ambitions by the European Commission and MEPs like Gay Mitchell and Thijs Berman to use the €1bn to fund agricultural development in developing countries.

“On moral grounds, the EU must pay back to small farmers in developing countries the €1bn € it has saved by way of farm export subsidies", said Prerna Bomzan, Programme Co-ordinator for the SAAPE-Eurostep EU advocacy initiative in Brussels. Even with food prices reaching an historical peak, throughout the developing world poor small scale farmers can barely survive from what they harvest. “The additional funds will help in boosting our agriculture in a sustainable, humane and regenerative way”, said Sarath Fernando with the Movement for National Land and Agricultural Reform in Sri Lanka. “And we also urge the EU not to give in to demands by multinational companies to implement an industrial agriculture system, based on mono-culture, hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers and genetically-modified organisms, which is the very reason for the current deadly crisis”.

With severe droughts leading to crop failures from Australia to Latin America, the loss of arable land to an obscene biofuel production and famines in Africa making the headlines again, the call for help seems to be more urgent than ever. Especially at a time when, according to latest UN and World Bank announcements, aid to poor nations has slumped and more people suffer from extreme poverty than previously thought. As an answer to the food price crisis SAAPE favors food sovereignty. “It is the inalienable right of peoples to define and implement their own agricultural policies, which are ecologically, socially and economically appropriate to their unique circumstances”, said Prem Dangal with the All Nepal Peasants’ Federation that was a forerunner in enshrining the Right to Food Sovereignty in the country’s interim constitution in 2006. Empirical evidence shows that farmers, who have maintained their right to choose their mode of production, have all over the world found distinct approaches to secure food safety and have managed to feed themselves and their families sufficiently.

SAAPE is a regional alliance of civil society groups and social movements from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, working together towards poverty eradication by combating the harmful socio-economic policies of globalization and neo-liberalization. Further information can be found at: www.saape.org.np.

World Bank’s Doing Business: Endorsing unacceptable labour standards

The just published 2009 edition of World Bank’s highest-circulation publication, Doing Business, rewards countries that have not ratified ILO conventions for being the world top performers for “employing workers”. Doing Business 2009 also repeats the practice of making unsubstantiated claims of causality between its “employing workers” indicator, which gives the best ratings to countries having the lowest level of mandated workers’ and social protection, and positive economic outcomes, even though the Bank’s own internal watchdog unit found no evidence of any relation between the two. Last June, the Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group declared that, “no significant association emerged between … [the Doing Business indicator on] employing workers and employment” and blamed the publication for making “overstated claims of the indicators’ explanatory power”.

Doing Business 2009 falsely asserts that, “An economy can have the most flexible labor regulations as measured by Doing Business while ratifying and complying with … the ILO core labor standards”. In reality, none the countries designated by Doing Business 2009 as the top four for employing workers ratified all of the International Labour Organization’s core labour standards (CLS) conventions. Two of the top four countries ratified not a single one of the eight CLS conventions and a third ratified only two of out of eight. “The Bank should draw the appropriate lessons from its own evaluation unit, which found the methodology of Doing Business to be flawed in identifying labour standards and contributions to social programmes as nothing more than obstacles to investment. The mandate to determine the Bank’s policy recommendations for developing countries’ labour regulations and social protection should be taken away from Doing Business,” said Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

The World Bank and IMF have used the Doing Business indicators in numerous country-level policy reports to advise governments to dismantle workers’ protection or reduce funding for social safety nets. In some cases, countries have been forced to comply with the recommendations through loan conditions, even if such measures work at cross-purposes with the Bank’s stated goal of eliminating poverty. For example, Doing Business supports the reduction of the minimum wage in Brazil because increases applied by the current government have meant that it exceeds the low threshold that Doing Business deems acceptable for business owners. However, the World Bank’s 2008 Country Partnership Strategy for Brazil highlights “increases in the minimum wage” as one of the causes of a significant decline in poverty and of the fact that Brazil’s income inequality, which used to be among the highest in the world, “is finally eroding”. At the same time that the Bank recognizes that Brazil has succeeded in making strides towards reduction of poverty, which the Bank formerly described as its “overarching goal”, the institution’s highest-circulation publication promotes measures that would increase poverty in the country.

On the other hand, Doing Business has lauded Belarus for its top-ranking “employing workers” indicator, even though the ILO has condemned the authoritarian regime’s curtailing of workers’ rights as a violation of the CLS. The violation led to the European Union withdrawing trade preferences under the Generalized System of Preferences. “By endorsing unacceptable labour standards that have resulted in reduced access for Belarus exports to the world’s largest market, one wonders how much of a service Doing Business and the World Bank are actually rendering to those who wish to ‘do business’ in the country,” said the ITUC’s Guy Ryder.

Doing Business 2009 continues the practice of the first five editions in making unsubstantiated assertions linking the Doing Business labour indicators to positive economic outcomes, using as references unpublished studies and internal “working papers” prepared by Doing Business staff, none of which can be verified by credible researchers or the ILO. Stated Ryder: “It is surprising that, even after the Bank’s own evaluation unit found no links of causality between the indicators and employment and criticized Doing Business for making such claims, the Bank’s highest circulation publication continues repeating the same assertions. This will do nothing to enhance the World Bank’s aspiration to be a global ‘depository of knowledge’ on development issues.”

New guide on China's overseas dam industry

International Rivers has just published a new guide for concerned groups and dam-affected communities: The New Great Walls: A Guide to China’s Overseas Dam Industry. Chinese companies and financiers are key to hundreds of new dams around the world, particularly in Southeast Asia and Africa, but also in countries like Pakistan and Albania. With Chinese dam companies and financial institutions now outpacing their competitors overseas, this guide provides helpful tools for engaging with the Chinese dam industry on issues of social and environmental responsibility. The guide addresses the question: what can communities impacted by these projects do to protect their rights, and advocate for rivers targeted for dams built by China?

The guide includes a “who’s who” among Chinese companies and financiers; information about policies and commitments Chinese companies and financiers should follow; a map of China’s major overseas dam projects; analysis of the reasons behind the global expansion of China’s dam industry; an action guide for how to address problematic dams built by Chinese companies and financiers, and who to contact for help. Please find the as PDF file >>> here. Hard copies may be ordered free of charge by e-mail >>> nicole@internationalrivers.org.

Last-ditch diplomacy: Agenda for Action still needs action, says Oxfam

According to Oxfam International, last-minute negotiations pushed by developing country and European ministers at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness have secured commitments to improve international aid. The world will now be watching to ensure all donors implement the Accra Agenda for Action and go further to make aid more responsive to the priorities of developing countries. “The stage is set for important improvements in the way aid is delivered. But the Accra Agenda needs to be backed by urgent action if it is to live up to its name. It won’t have any impact on the lives of people living in poverty unless its promise is put into practice,” said Oxfam International head of delegation Robert Fox. “This agreement must be a floor, not a ceiling. We encourage all donors to go further in accelerating the pace of reform.”

A compromise agreement was reached among official negotiators on Wednesday, without any time-bound targets. But developing country and European ministers arriving in the Ghanaian capital argued for specific commitments and dates for action. Developing countries and non-governmental organisations have pointed to the urgent need to reform aid to prevent waste and give developing countries more control.

“There is much more that can and must be done to improve quality, but equally important we need to boost the quantity of aid if we are going to end poverty and improve access to health care, education and clean water,” said Robert Fox. “At the UN meetings later this month on the Millennium Development Goals and the November meetings on development finance, donor countries have to get serious about scaling up aid to meet the enormity of the challenge. With more and better aid, we can make a real difference.”

Civil society statement in Accra warns urgency for action on aid

Over 600 representatives from 325 civil society organisations and 88 countries have met in Accra to debate what actions must be taken to reform aid, and finalize their recommendations to the Third High Level Forum (HLF3) on Aid Effectiveness starting today. CSOs have engaged energetically with the preparatory processes for Accra over the last year. Although they have welcomed these opportunities, they are very disappointed that the Accra Agenda for Action as it stands promises little change. Since the Paris Declaration of 2005, donors in particular have made very slow progress in making aid more effective. Too much aid remains driven by donors' priorities and interests rather than by the national priorities defined by developing countries.

CSOs call on officials present in Accra to respond with urgency. What is needed in Accra are clear time-bound commitments to deliver real results for people on the ground, towards the eradication of poverty, inequality and social exclusion. This is a political not a technical challenge, and should be treated as such. The Accra HLF must also deliver real measurable and time-bound commitments to address some of the problems which are not adequately dealt with in the Paris Declaration. Donors must take responsibility for improvements which only they can deliver (e.g. untying aid and improving medium-term predictability of aid) and all governments must increase the democratic accountability and transparency of their use of aid resources, policies and activities.

If the Accra High Level Forum is to be seen as a credible response to the serious challenges of making aid more effective, the Accra Agenda for Action must at a minimum:

* Commit to broadening the definition of ownership so that citizens, civil society organisations and elected officials are central to the aid process at all levels.
* Set time-bound and monitorable targets to:
- Stop short-term aid and commit to ensuring that 80% of aid is committed for at least 3-5 years by 2010.
- Reduce the burden of conditionality by 2010 so that aid agreements are based on mutually agreed objectives.
* Set a more ambitious target to make all technical assistance demand-led by 2010.
* Commit to end tied aid, including food aid and technical assistance, by 2010.
* Commit donors and recipients to make the aid system more accountable by developing and implementing new standards for transparency by 2009 which ensure that accurate, timely, accessible and comparable information about aid is proactively communicated to the public.
* Commit to improve the monitoring of aid effectiveness by adapting existing Paris indicators and by integrating new indicators from the Accra Agenda for Action by 2009; by supporting independent and citizen-led monitoring and evaluation systems and by agreeing an inclusive evaluation process to assess the impact of Paris on poverty reduction, gender equality, human rights and environmental sustainability.

Please find the full statement at www.betteraid.org.

Aid Effectiveness: US and Japan are blocking progress, says Oxfam

Ahead of an international conference this week to reform aid, a battle is emerging over the future direction of aid and development. The High Level Forum (HLF) on Aid Effectiveness – in Accra, Ghana, from 2 to 4 September – is part of a process that began three years ago in Paris to make aid more effective and give developing countries more control. Representatives of donors and recipient governments are meeting today to reach consensus on a communiqué (the Accra Agenda for Action). But differences risk derailing much-needed aid reform.

“Urgent action is needed at Accra but progress in raising the bar is being blocked. While some countries are willing to move ahead in setting more aggressive targets, others, including the US and Japan, are dragging their feet,” said Oxfam International head of delegation Robert Fox. “Many donors want changes that will hand a lot more power, a lot more quickly, to effective developing country governments. The US and Japanese governments don’t. This isn’t just a food-fight between bureaucrats. Until you solve the political question of who should shape development, you cannot solve the problems of poverty and inequality.”

An OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) survey on progress in reforming aid, to be released this week, shows that where recipient governments have improved their management of aid, donors have still not kept their commitments to give them more control and improve aid efficiency. Rich countries’ insistence on using separate procedures to manage aid wastes both time and money, said Oxfam. In Mozambique, for instance, donors were spending a staggering $350m a year on 3,500 technical consultants, more than four times the annual salaries of 100,000 Mozambican public-sector workers. “One of the best ways to support developing countries that are working hard to reduce poverty is to channel funds directly to their governments – yet right now, a tiny proportion of global aid is delivered in this way. Recent reviews of aid to governments in Rwanda, India and Zambia show that it is helping get many more children into school and assuring many more people get proper healthcare when they are sick. Governments need direct aid to pay for the salaries and training of millions more teachers and health workers,” said Robert Fox.

Accra: Decent Work essential to effective development aid

Trade unions will press the case for Decent Work as a primary benchmark in development aid at the international conference on aid effectiveness, being held in Accra, Ghana from 2–4 September. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which is fielding a delegation of international and Ghanaian trade union representatives at the forum, is working with other civil society organizations to ensure that democracy, the creation of decent jobs, gender equality and a range of other key concerns are fully integrated into future aid strategies. The unions are also strongly backing moves to stop donor countries unilaterally imposing onerous conditions into aid packages, especially as these “conditionalities” often contradict democratic decisions taken by national governments and undermine democratic ownership and overall progress on development.

The Ghana Forum needs to focus on how international aid can support and promote decent work, which will not only directly benefit workers and their local communities, but help ensure that the assistance provided will have real impact in tackling poverty and generate lasting economic development. The union delegation in Accra will press for this and for real progress on ensuring the economic empowerment of women through development aid as well as action to create employment for young people.

“Development aid has an important contribution to make in tackling the massive challenges confronting the world community. Making sure that aid is truly effective is a key part of the overall transformation in global economic relations, which the world so badly needs. Trade unions have a unique and pivotal contribution to make in ensuring aid effectiveness and accountability alongside their broader role as major actors in civil society as guarantors of democracy, equality and sustainable development,” said Guy Ryder of ITUC. - Following a preparatory meeting in Accra on 30 August, the trade union delegation will take place in a two-day gathering of civil society organizations to finalise common positions to put to governments at the High Level Forum. The ITUC is a member of the International Steering Group of civil society organizations.

Call for private banks to withdraw from Bangladesh coal mine

Over 100 civil society organizations from 31 countries are calling on financial backers to withdraw their support of the Phulbari coal project in Bangladesh, citing egregious human rights abuses and environmental concerns associated with the project. Last week, a letter was sent on behalf of these organizations to major financial institutions including UBS, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and FRM Corp./Fidelity Investments. Each of these financial institutions holds or manages shares in Global Coal Management Resources (GCM) which established a wholly owned subsidiary, Asia Energy Corporation, to develop the project. “The Phulbari coal project is a disaster waiting to happen,” said Joanna Levitt from the International Accountability Project (IAP), a signatory to the letter and advocate for people uprooted and threatened by development projects and policies. “If implemented, the project could risk the impoverishment of tens of thousands of people—turning current farming households into landless wage-labourers who will be forced to compete for limited jobs, either in the agricultural sector or entirely different economic sectors.”

"The project is a deadly threat to food security, energy security and human security in Bangladesh,” said Anu Muhammad, Member Secretary of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Port and Power in Bangladesh and Economics Professor at Jahangirnagar University. “It will destroy fertile land, and desertification and dewatering will affect more than 256 sq km around the mine. About 75% of the coal from the mine will be exported from the country and it will uproot hundreds of thousands of people. The project will increase poverty and unemployment and will create a floating population of displaced people, including many children and women."

The civil society letter cites many human rights abuses associated with the project including: the indiscriminate shooting of local residents opposing the mine; the arrest and torture of local leaders; non-compliance with the right of Indigenous Peoples to give their free, prior and informed consent to project; the threatened displacement of over 200,000 people; and massive environmental risks, including to the Sundarbans, a UNESCO protected mangrove forest. Enclosed with the letter to the banks was the final draft of a forthcoming report from IAP and Bank Information Center (BIC) which critically examines the potential social impacts the coal mine would have on the local population. The report, An Assessment of the Draft Resettlement Plan Prepared by Global Coal Management/Asia Energy Corporation, concludes that that over 200,000 Bangladeshis will be impacted by the project, many of whom will be forcibly relocated, losing vitally important farm land and access to economic livelihood. As land scarcity is already a major issue in Bangladesh, this forced displacement will also likely lead to increased conflict in the project area.

Civil Society at OECD High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra

In the first week of September, more than 800 representatives of multilateral and bilateral donors, developed and developing country governments, and civil society organisations (CSOs) will gather in Accra, Ghana, for the OECD-DAC (Development Assistance Committee)’s Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (2-4 September). Just prior to the forum, a civil society parallel Aid Effectiveness Forum will bring together more than 400 CSOs from 30 August to 1 September, to discuss and finalise their recommendations to the High Level Forum (HLF) decision-makers. At the last High Level Forum, held in Paris in March 2005, donors and governments signed onto “The Paris Declaration”, a five-year plan for reform of aid practices. The Accra HLF will review progress on these commitments, but equally importantly, the Forum may also establish an agenda for deepening these reforms over the next two years, leading to a successor Declaration to be agreed in 2011 in Beijing, China.

The Reality of Aid Secretariat noted in its 2008 report, "The reality of aid in 2008 is that it continues to fail to promote human development for the eradication of poverty, based on the core values of human rights, democracy, gender equality and environmental sustainability. This is despite the appearance of progress in the form of high-profile debt cancellations, new aid pledges, and the signing of the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness." Civil society welcomed the Paris Declaration and its principles, but questions its narrow and limited focus on technical reform of aid delivery – the efficiency of moving money from donor accounts to those of governments in developing countries. Experiences of aid on the ground raise questions as to whether much has actually changed in aid practice, pointing to weak commitments to untie aid, persistent high numbers of conflicting policy conditions attached to aid, and limited use of developing country systems. They have called for deeper and more far-reaching aid reform and its measurement.

The signs are not good. When donors and governments come together in Accra to measure their progress, for example, there is not one single indicator that explicitly relates aid reform measures to improvements in human development, in gender equality and women’s rights, or in the ability of people to claim their rights. However, the HLF in September is a unique opportunity to set in motion ambitious actions for meaningful aid reform. Civil society organisations in support of Better Aid have high expectations of the donors and government officials who will gather in Accra in early September. They stress the need to see concrete commitments to positive reform.

Pastoralists and climate change in the East Africa: Oxfam hints at investment needs

In a new report, Survival of the fittest, Oxfam calls for governments and development partners in the East African region to invest in more sustainable development polices in arid and semi-arid (ASAL) areas, which will ensure pastoralists to cope with the impact of climate change. The ASALs of East Africa occupy over 70% of the Horn of Africa. This ranges from 95% of the total land area in Somalia and Djibouti, to more than 80% in Kenya, 60% in Uganda, and between 30–60% in Tanzania. Despite the suitability of mobile livestock herding to the vast arid lands that cover East Africa, and the evidence of its productivity and value, many pastoralist people are among the poorest and most vulnerable in Africa.


All too often the direct economic value generated by pastoralists is not retained in their communities, and the indirect value is un-rewarded and even unacknowledged by decision-makers. In Kenya, pastoralists provide the majority of the meat consumed in country, and livestock production from pastoralists contributed up to 10% of the GDP in 2002 and 25% in 2001. The livestock sector accounts for 90% of employment in ASAL, and as custodians of the dryland environments inhabited by Kenya’s world-famous wildlife areas, contribute to a tourist trade worth more than 50 billion Kenya Shillings ($700m) every year. In Uganda, up to 80% of the population derive their livelihoods from subsistence agriculture and livestock production, producing 85% of the milk and 95% of the beef consumed in the country, while the livestock sector contributes 7.5% of Uganda’s GDP annually, and in 2002, exports of hides and skins to Europe and Asia earned the country $10m. In Tanzania, pastoralists dominate the livestock sector, owning 99% of the livestock, and the sector contributes 6.1% to the national GDP. Through their land use system, pastoralists in Ngorongoro make a significant contribution to the $900m from tourism annually.

The report decries years of political and economic marginalization, inappropriate development policies, an increase in resource competition and abnormal climatic events that have reduced the ability of some pastoralists to maintain a sustainable livelihood. “Whether increasing climate change will see a worsening of their current situation or whether pastoralists will be able to adapt and even take advantage of the opportunities it may bring will depend on how these environmental and developmental challenges are tackled by both national governments and international donors, and the extent to which pastoralists themselves are involved in the process,” Paul Smith-Lomas of Oxfam added.

Governments in the region have historically had little economic and political interest in promoting development in ASALs, as they tend to see pastoralists as a ‘minority vote’ that isn’t worth winning. Kenya’s Minister of Development of Northern Kenya and Arid Lands, Hon. Mohammed Elmi, agrees with the findings of the report, adding “pastoralists make a significant contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) in many East African countries, provides majority of the meat consumed and provides a livelihood for tens of millions of people who live in ASALs. They have been adapting to climate variability for millennia and their adaptability ought to enable them to cope with this growing challenge. However, their adaptability cannot be realized without government support and investment.”

Pastoralists are the custodians of dry land environments, providing services through good rangeland management including biodiversity conservation and wildlife tourism. Beyond the provision of basic services like health care and education, there must also be an injection of investment into the pastoral economy across East Africa. Improving market access for pastoral products and developing marketing opportunities are essential to the ability of pastoralists to get the best value for their products. In the next 10–15 years climate change will mean a continuation of current trends including successive poor rains, an increase in drought-related shocks, and more unpredictable and sometimes heavy rainfall events,” Hon Elmi said.

Oxfam is calling for more appropriate development policies, and for those who are struggling and those no longer able to make a living from pastoralism, there must be a social welfare system in place. “Cash payments in place of food aid will enable the members of pastoralist communities to meet their basic needs in terms of food, health care, and education. Cash transfers, when combined with other suitable interventions, have the potential to empower pastoralists and ex-pastoralists to make their own investment choices. For example, a household might choose between restocking themselves with livestock, investing in alternative livelihoods such as fishing, or experimenting with more cultivation. Communities must be at the heart of efforts to build their resilience to climate change because adaptation is inherently local. It will only work if local people are leading the process,” Paul Smith-Lomas said. The threat of climate change should be a catalyst for providing these investments.

International AIDS conference leaves 2010 goal of universal access at risk, Oxfam says

The International AIDS Conference concluded yesterday without a clear plan or any new impetus to reach the 2010 target of universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care, said international agency Oxfam. “To say we are disappointed is an understatement. Has the AIDS Conference become just another expensive gab-fest?” asked Robert Fox of Oxfam International. “Rather than rally the troops, officials from government and UN agencies talked about 2015 as being good enough and seemed happy to let the 2010 goal slide. How many will suffer and die if that happens?”

In 2005, the G8 set the goal of achieving universal access to HIV/AIDS services by 2010, which was endorsed and expanded by African leaders to cover malaria and tuberculosis the following year. Yet AIDS 2008 ended without a plan to achieve it. Annie Lennox, singer and Oxfam global ambassador, said: “AIDS is an emergency. There is no time to waste. Millions of the world’s most vulnerable people are counting on governments to make good on the promise for 2010. In Vienna two years from now, the world will ask: ‘What have you done to end this calamity?’” Lennox implored. “How many people will you have placed on treatment? How many female condoms will you have distributed? How many health workers will you have trained?”

“That we have achieved progress in expanding treatment and prevention is welcome news,” Fox said. “But the air of complacency from officials is profoundly disturbing. The message from people on the front lines of this pandemic stands in sharp contrast. They know that funding is inadequate, health systems are weak, and medicines are far too expensive. And the reason is lack of political will among donors, developing country governments and the big pharmaceutical companies.” Oxfam health adviser Dr. Mohga Kamal-Yanni said: “Officials tried to gloss over the real problems of getting AIDS-specific funding to strengthen health systems, which was the major policy outcome in Toronto two years ago. Universal access must mean access to comprehensive health services for all.”

World Bank governance reform risks falling behind

Later this month a coalition of Oxfam International, Eurodad, Bank Information Center, Bretton Woods Project and the New Rules for Global Finance Coalition will appeal to World Bank President Robert Zoellick to use the actual opportunity for an ambitious reform of the institution. In an open letter the NGOs express concern that the governance reform process moving ahead at the World Bank risks falling very short of the imperatives of a new systemic reality. The letter says:

“We urge that any reform be substantial, resulting in fundamental changes that would allow the Bank to fight poverty in a far more effective, equitable and transparent manner. For this to happen there must be a true partnership between developing and developed countries.

Key to this is a commitment to parity of voice between developed, and developing and transition countries within an agreed timeframe. This would also need to be accompanied by other measures such as a transparent, merit-based election process for the president, and a consolidation of European power at the Bank’s board.

The quota reforms voted in at the IMF earlier this year were far from adequate. We believe it is important that any notion of parallelism between the IMF quota and World Bank votes be dropped in favour of the clear recognition that the World Bank has a very different purpose from the IMF. As the World Bank/IMF 2008 Spring Meeting Development Committee Communiqué stated, the Bank’s development mandate means it is distinct in nature.

Failure to achieve this deeper, systemic reform would leave the Bank vulnerable to irrelevance in the evolving structures of global financing and policy. For this reason, we urge you to use the Bank governance reform as an opportunity to promote a vision for the Bank which conforms more closely to the dramatically changed global context than the one currently being envisaged.”

Endorsements of the letter should be sent to Jeff Powell at Bretton Woods Project (jpowell@brettonwoodsproject.org)

Olympics: Shameful IOC inaction on labour rights

Campaigners in Hong Kong, backed by the Play Fair 2008 global coalition, have confronted the International Olympic Committee for its failure to act on widespread exploitation of workers in the manufacture of Olympics-branded products. Convening in front of the cultural center on the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade (see photo) protesters showed the IOC that their lack of commitment to basic worker rights is unacceptable. “Five years have passed since we first called on the IOC to stand up for the workers who make Olympics products, but it is still business as usual for them. Once again, money is pouring in to the coffers of the Olympics movement, but the workers who create the wealth are still being ripped off,” said Guy Ryder, general secretary of the 168-million member International Trade Union Confederation, a Play Fair partner organization.


A clear “road map” of concrete steps that the IOC needs to take to live up to its responsibility to prevent labour rights violations in Olympic supply chains has widespread support, yet the IOC has refused to take action. According to Play Fair 2008 activists, the IOC has refused to commit staff or resources to constructively follow up on the many outstanding issues – including poverty wages, child labour and excessive overtime – shown to exist in Olympic supply chains. “Instead of acting properly on the reports by Play Fair, which gave clear evidence of the labour violations, the IOC simply passed the buck to the Beijing organizers, leaving the root problems unsolved,” said Esther de Haan, from the Clean Clothes Campaign.

Play Fair’s research into factories in China producing Olympics merchandise revealed numerous violations of international labor standards and Chinese law. Excessive overtime, poverty wages and poor working conditions remain common in the Olympic products and sportswear factories. The IOC never followed up properly on the 2007 report and has not taken any action to make sure that Olympic-branded products would not be made with sweatshop labour.

While the IOC has failed to act, companies in the sector are showing signs of recognizing the extent of the problem and the failure of traditional corporate social responsibility. At a meeting in Hong Kong, at the beginning of July, Play Fair organizations and sportswear companies agreed to form a working group to address some of the root causes of bad labour conditions in the sector. Also, some national Olympic Committees are willing to work on the issue. The IOC is very clearly lagging behind and has taken no steps to address the labour conditions in their supply chain.

Collapse of Doha: Time for a paradigm shift

The Doha Round of trade negotiations has collapsed once again, perhaps definitively this time. Whatever should come next, it is clear that the new dynamics in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) mean that developed countries can no longer force through a bad deal. The breaking point in the end was the conditions under which the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) could be used. The SSM provides countries with the right to increase tariffs to curb an import surge in order to protect a domestic industry from short-term swings in global markets, which is a crucial instrument for developing countries to promote their food and livelihood security and rural development. Whilst China and India vigorously defended the right of developing countries to use the SSM, the US condemned their position as placing the talks in the ‘gravest jeopardy’.

Civil society organisations and social movements have asserted over the last months and weeks that the Doha deal as it was proposed would not solve the food and energy price crisis and would in fact exacerbate it by making food prices more volatile and increase developing countries’ dependence on imports; it would furthermore severely restrict the policy space open to developing countries for pursuing agricultural and rural development. As highlighted by Bernd Nilles, Secretary-General of the Catholic solidarity network CIDSE in Brussels, “the right to protect small agricultural producers in developing countries was the litmus test of the Doha Round negotiations ability to deliver development outcomes.”

Whilst the collapse of the Doha Round has demonstrated once again the weaknesses of the WTO, it also showed the increased representation and weight of developing countries such as India and Brazil and that their interests can no longer be overruled. According to a CIDSE statement, the importance of a multilateral trading system should not be undermined as bilateral and regional trade agreements result in the implementation of advanced liberalisation arrangements, previously rejected at the WTO, that often have even more serious negative implications for developing countries. Rather than a return to rhetoric, CIDSE calls on governments and on EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson to now break away from a ‘business as usual’ approach in order to negotiate trade agreements that are equitable and socially just.

After G8 leaders failed at summit: Pressure piled on UN now

The 2008 G8 Summit in Japan failed to tackle the grievous problems facing the world that are hitting poor people first and hardest, said international agency Oxfam at the summit's end. Leadership must now be shown at key UN meetings on poverty in September and on climate in December. Oxfam International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs said "never was more urgent action needed by the G8 than this week in Japan. Accelerated climate change, runaway food prices and growing poverty are depriving millions of people of their livelihoods and, in many cases, their very lives. Several governments championed steps to tackle the crucial issues sitting on the G8 agenda, but in the end this summit did not deliver the breakthroughs that are so urgently needed. The consensus reached was shallow at best, especially on climate.”


* On climate change, the G8 endorsed among other things a commitment to halve global carbon emissions by 2050 - but with no agreed baseline year or mid-term targets - and a $6bn pledge to the World Bank for climate investment funds that will come out of existing aid budgets.
* On the food crisis, the G8 promised to reverse the decline in aid to agriculture - but without any numbers - and to support the UN's plans to tackle the crisis. It also pledged to ensure that biofuels would be produced in a way that would be compatible with food security and to accelerate the development of second-generation biofuels.
* On Africa and development aid, the G8 reaffirmed previous promised to provide $50bn in new assistance, half to Africa, by 2010 - although it offered no details on who would do what to reverse the decline in aid since 2006. It also repeated the promise it made 12 months ago to spend $60bn for health.

Oxfam International chief policy adviser at the G8, Max Lawson, said: "The G8 leaders' clumsy attempt to backtrack on their aid promises has backfired. With two years to go to the 2010 deadline, G8 leaders now have to deliver the $50bn in new assistance they pledged at Gleneagles. The world takes these promises seriously even if the G8 leaders do not." On current trends, Oxfam said the G8 will fall $30bn short of the 2010 promise, which could cost as many as five million lives, most of them among the 30,000 children who die each day from causes related to extreme poverty. "The G8 failed to rise to the challenge of a world in crisis, a world that is demanding serious action. We must see renewed leadership in September at the UN Emergency Summit on Poverty and in December in Poland at the vital UN climate talks," Hobbs said.