ReportWire

Tag: Economy & Trade

  • Energy Efficiency Is Law in Chile but Concrete Progress Is Slow in Coming

    Energy Efficiency Is Law in Chile but Concrete Progress Is Slow in Coming

    [ad_1]

    The Municipal Theater building, the main artistic and cultural venue in Santiago, the capital of Chile, was lit up with LED bulbs in order to show local residents the benefits of energy efficiency to reduce costs and provide bright lighting. CREDIT: Fundación Chile
    • by Orlando Milesi (santiago)
    • Inter Press Service

    SANTIAGO, Dec 08 (IPS) – The Energy Efficiency Law began to gradually be implemented in Chile after the approval of its regulations, but more efforts and institutions are still lacking before it can produce results.

    In Chile, the energy sector accounts for 74 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, producing 68 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. For this reason, energy efficiency is decisive in tackling climate change and saving on its costs.

    The law passed in February 2021 and its regulations were issued on Sept. 13 of this year, but full implementation will still take time. The law itself states that its full application will take place “gradually”, without setting precise deadlines.

    For example, the energy rating of homes and new buildings is voluntary for now and will only become mandatory in 2023. In addition, only practice will show whether the capacity will exist to oversee the sector and apply sanctions.

    The aims of the law include reducing the intensity of energy use and cutting GHGs.

    According to the public-private organization Fundación Chile, energy efficiency has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 44 percent – a decisive percentage to mitigate climate change in this long, narrow South American country of 19.5 million people.

    “For the first time in Chile, we have an Energy Efficiency Law. This is a key step in joining efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, since energy efficiency has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases by 35 percent,” the Foundation’s assistant manager for sustainability, Karien Volker, told IPS.

    The law sets standards for transportation, industry, mining and the residential, public and commercial sectors. Land transportation accounts for an estimated 25 percent of the energy used in Chile and the 250 largest companies operating in the country consume 35 percent of the total.

    Volker underscored that the law incorporates energy labeling, the implementation of an energy management system for large consumers and the development of a National Plan.

    “Upon implementation of the law, a 10 percent reduction in energy intensity, a cumulative savings of 15.2 billion dollars and a reduction of 28.6 million tons of CO2 are expected by 2030,” she said.

    She also argued that the law will push large companies to meet minimum energy efficiency standards, which will change the way they operate.

    “New homes with energy efficiency certifications will raise the standard of construction in Chile and push builders to innovate,” said Volker.

    She added that “the transportation sector will also be positively impacted by establishing efficiency and performance standards for vehicles entering Chile.”

    Buildings with the new standards will consume only one third of the energy compared to the current ones.

    In Chile, 53.3 percent of electricity is generated with renewable energy: hydroelectric, solar, biomass and geothermal. The remaining 46.7 percent comes from thermoelectric plants using natural gas, coal or petroleum derivatives, almost all of which are imported.

    The refrigerators currently sold in Chile must have a mandatory label indicating their energy efficiency, where the highest A++ and A+ levels are labelled in green to demonstrate the savings they provide. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS
    The refrigerators currently sold in Chile must have a mandatory label indicating their energy efficiency, where the highest A++ and A+ levels are labelled in green to demonstrate the savings they provide. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

    Negative track record on energy efficiency

    But in the recent history of this South American country the experience of energy savings has not been a positive one. There was total clarity in the assessment of the situation and concrete suggestions of measures to advance in energy efficiency, but nothing changed, said engineer and doctor in systems thinking Alfredo del Valle, a former advisor to the United Nations and the Chilean government in these matters.

    Del Valle told IPS that between 2005 and 2007 he acted as a methodologist for the Chilean Ministry of Economy’s Country Energy Efficiency Program to formulate a national policy in this field.

    “With broad public, private, academic and citizen participation, we discovered almost one hundred concrete energy efficiency potentials in transportation, industry and mining, residential and commercial buildings, household appliances, and even culture,” he explained.

    However, he lamented, “Chilean politicians fail to understand what politicians in the (industrialized) North immediately understood 30 years earlier: that it is essential to invest money and political will in energy efficiency, just as we invest in energy supply.”

    Although a National Energy Efficiency Agency was created 12 years ago, “nothing significant is happening,” said Del Valle, current president of the Foundation for Participatory Innovation.

    To illustrate, he noted that “the public budget for energy efficiency in 2020 is equivalent to just 10 million dollars compared to an investment in energy supply in the country of 4.38 billion dollars in the same year.”

    According to the expert, “we need a new way of thinking and acting to be able to carry out social transformations and to be able to create our own future.”

    Boric’s energy policy

    The Energy Agenda 2022-2026 promoted by the leftist government of Gabriel Boric, in office since March, states that “energy efficiency is one of the most important actions for Chile to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality.”

    The document establishes actions and commitments to be implemented as part of the National Energy Efficiency Plan. Published at the beginning of this year, it proposes 33 measures in the productive sectors, transportation, buildings and ordinary citizens, according to the Ministry of Energy.

    “With all these measures, we expect to reduce our total energy intensity by 4.5 percent by 2026 and by 30 percent by 2050, compared to 2019,” the Agenda states.

    The plan announces an acceleration of the implementation of energy management systems in large consumers to encourage a more efficient use in industry, “as mandated by the Energy Efficiency Law that will be progressively implemented.”

    According to the government, by 2026, 200 companies will have implemented energy management systems.

    The authorities also announced support to micro, small and medium-sized companies for efficient energy use and management and will support 2000 in self-generation and energy efficiency.

    “Although as a country we have made progress in the deployment of renewable energies for electricity generation, we have yet to transfer the benefits of renewable energy sources to other areas, such as the use of heat and cold in industry,” the document states.

    Cambia el Foco is the name of the program promoted by Fundación Chile that included educating students to raise awareness about the need for energy efficiency. CREDIT: Fundación Chile
    Cambia el Foco is the name of the program promoted by Fundación Chile that included educating students to raise awareness about the need for energy efficiency. CREDIT: Fundación Chile

    Improvement in housing quality

    In Chile there are more than five million homes and most of them do not have adequate thermal insulation conditions, requiring a high use of energy for heating in the southern hemisphere winter and cooling in the summer.

    The hope is that by making the “energy qualification” a requirement to obtain the final approval, the municipal building permit, the quality of housing using efficient equipment or non-conventional renewable energies will improve. This will allow greater savings in heating, cooling, lighting and household hot water.

    In four years, the government’s Agenda aims to thermally insulate 20,000 social housing units, install 20,000 solar photovoltaic systems in low-income neighborhoods, recondition 400 schools to make them energy efficient, expand solar power systems in rural housing, improve supply in 50 schools in low-income rural areas and develop distributed generation systems up to 500 megawatts (MW).

    In recent years, the Fundación Chile, together with the government and other entities, has promoted energy efficiency plans with the widespread installation of LED lightbulbs along streets and in other public spaces. It also promoted the replacement of refrigerators over 10 years old with units using more efficient and greener technologies.

    One milestone was the delivery of 230,000 LED bulbs to educational facilities, benefiting more than 200 schools and a total of 73,000 students, employees and teachers.

    The initiative made it possible to install one million LED bulbs, leading to an estimated saving of 4.8 percent of national consumption.

    Meanwhile, the campaign for more efficient cooling expects the market share of such refrigerators to become 95 percent A++ and A+ products, to achieve savings of 1.3 terawatt hours (TWh – equivalent to one billion watt hours).

    That would mean a reduction of 3.1 million tons of CO2 by 2030.

    An old refrigerator accounts for 20 percent of a household’s electricity bill and a more efficient one saves up to 55 percent.

    There are currently an estimated one million refrigerators in Chile that are more than 15 years old.

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Corruption: Europe Doing Nothing – Part II

    Corruption: Europe Doing Nothing – Part II

    [ad_1]

    While corruption levels remain at a standstill worldwide, in Western Europe and the European Union, 84% of countries have declined or made little to no progress in the last 10 years, report finds. Credit: Shutterstock.
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Dec 07 (IPS) – “Western Europe and the European Union remains the highest scoring region in the world’s corruption index, progress has halted and worrying signs of backsliding have emerged.”

    This is how Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) report introduces its section: A Decade of Stagnating Corruption Levels In Western Europe Amidst Ongoing Scandals.

    The report shows that while corruption levels remain at a standstill worldwide, “in Western Europe and the European Union, 84% of countries have declined or made little to no progress in the last 10 years.”

    An excuse

    The COVID-19 pandemic has given European countries “an excuse for complacency in anti-corruption efforts” as accountability and transparency measures are “neglected or even rolled back.”

    Transparency International further explains that “weakening good governance and checks and balances heightens the risk of human rights violations and further corruption.”

    The Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

    According to the 2021 ranking, the Western Europe and European Union average holds at 66, and these are the region’s most signalled States:

    • Countries like Poland (56) and Hungary (43) have backslid, with harsh crackdowns on rights and freedom of expression.
    • Others still near the top like Germany (80), the United Kingdom (78) and Austria (74) faced serious corruption scandals.
    • Denmark (88) and Finland (88) top the region and the world (alongside New Zealand), with Norway (85) and Sweden (85) rounding out the top.
    • Romania (45), and Bulgaria (42) remain the worst performers in the region.
    • Switzerland (84), Netherlands (82), Belgium (73), Slovenia (57), Italy (56), Cyprus (53), and Greece (49) are all at historic lows on the 2021 Index.

     

    For each country’s individual score and changes over time, as well as analysis for each region, see the region’s 2021 CPI page.

    In short, in the last decade, 26 countries in the region have either declined or made little to no significant progress.

    Allowing corruption to fester

    On this, Flora Cresswell, Western Europe regional coordinator of Transparency International said:

    “Stagnation spells trouble across Europe. Even the region’s best performers are falling prey to major scandals, revealing the danger of inaction. Others have allowed corruption to fester, and are now seeing serious violations of freedoms…

    … Nor does the region exist in a vacuum: lack of national enforcement in Europe means corruption is exported globally as foreign actors utilise weak laws to hide money and fund corruption back home.”

    In the last decade, 26 countries in the region have either declined or made little to no significant progress, it warns.

    Since its inception in 1995, the Corruption Perceptions Index has become the leading global indicator of public sector corruption. The Index uses data from 13 external sources, including the World Bank, World Economic Forum, private risk and consulting companies, think tanks and others.

    The scores reflect the views of experts and business people. (See: The ABCs of the CPI: How the Corruption Perceptions Index is calculated.”

    Europe waters down a law to clean up business

    The European Justice ministers on 1 December 2022 agreed on a proposal for a law to make companies accountable for the damage they cause to people and the planet.

    In response, Oxfam EU’s Economic Justice Policy Lead, Marc-Olivier Herman, said:

    “Today, European countries watered down a landmark proposal to clean up business and stop corporate abuse. It is a loss for the women and men who work in terrible conditions around the world to make the goods that end up in our shopping trolleys. The only ones celebrating today is the regressive business lobby.”

    The original proposal was already a far cry from the game-changer law we expected. Now, after EU countries played their part, it is only weaker, warns Herman.

    Many loopholes

    “There are more and more loopholes allowing companies to escape their obligations to clean up their business.”

    “The financial sector can continue to bankroll human rights violations and damage to the planet without being held accountable as it remains up to each European country to decide whether they want to make banks and other financial players clean up business.”

    Anti-Corruption?

    The 2022 International Anti-Corruption Day on 9 December, states that the world today faces some of its greatest challenges in many generations – challenges which threaten prosperity and stability for people across the globe. The plague of corruption is intertwined in most of them.

    An outstanding world body fighting crime: the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), reveals the following findings about the consequences of corruption:

    Two Trillion US dollars in procurement is lost to corruption each year (OECD 2016)

    89 billion US dollars a year is lost to corruption in Africa, close to double its 48 billion US dollars in foreign aid (UNCTAD 2020).

    What else is needed to fight this human rights violation?

    Part I of this story can be found here: Corruption: The Most Perpetrated –and Least Prosecuted– Crime – Part I

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Corruption: The Most Perpetrated and Least Prosecuted Crime – Part I

    Corruption: The Most Perpetrated and Least Prosecuted Crime – Part I

    [ad_1]

    Multinational companies bribing their way into foreign markets go largely unpunished, and victims’ compensation is rare, according to new report. Credit: Ashwath Hedge/Wikimedia Commons
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Dec 06 (IPS) – In these times when all sorts of human rights violations have been ‘normalised,’ a crime which continues to be perpetrated everywhere but punished nowhere: corruption is also seen as a business as usual. A business, by the way, that relies on the wide complicity of official authorities.

    “Corruption attacks the foundation of democratic institutions by distorting electoral processes, perverting the rule of law and creating bureaucratic quagmires whose only reason for existing is the solicitation of bribes.”

    Such a widespread ‘plague’ continues to be more and more exported by the business of the top trading countries as reported by the UN on the occasion of the 2022 International Anti-Corruption Day on 9 December.

    Corruption weakens and shrinks democracy, a phenomenon that is now more and more extended (See IPS Thalif Deen’s: The Decline and Fall of Democracy Worldwide).

    Such a shockingly perpetrated practice –which is rightly defined as a “crime”, — not only follows conflict but is also frequently one of its root causes.

    “It fuels conflict and inhibits peace processes by undermining the rule of law, worsening poverty, facilitating the illicit use of resources, and providing financing for armed conflict,” as highlighted on the occasion of this year’s World Day.

    Corruption fuels wars

    Corruption has negative impacts on every aspect of society and is profoundly intertwined with conflict and instability jeopardising social and economic development and undermining democratic institutions and the rule of law, the UN warns.

    Indeed, “economic development is stunted because foreign direct investment is discouraged and small businesses within the country often find it impossible to overcome the “start-up costs” required because of corruption.”

    Imposed by private business

    It is perhaps useless to say that corruption is a practice widely committed by all sectors of private businesses.

    In fact, in several industrialised countries, every now and then, some news shows the facades of zero-equipped hospitals and schools being inaugurated by politicians ahead of their electoral campaigns.

    Shockingly, too many involved politicians get proportionally punished, if anytime, after extremely lengthy and mostly unfruitful legal processing.

    Disproportionate impact

    For its part, the World Bank considers corruption a major challenge to the twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity for the poorest 40 percent of people in developing countries.

    “Corruption has a disproportionate impact on the poor and most vulnerable, increasing costs and reducing access to services, including health, education and justice.”

    The World Bank explains that corruption in the procurement of drugs and medical equipment drives up costs and can lead to sub-standard or harmful products.

    “The human costs of counterfeit drugs and vaccinations on health outcomes and the life-long impacts on children far exceed the financial costs. Unofficial payments for services can have a particularly pernicious effect on poor people.”

    Bribery exported

    A global movement working in over 100 countries to end the injustice of corruption: Transparency International, which focuses on issues with the greatest impact on people’s lives and holds the powerful to account for the common good, reveals additional findings.

    Its report: Exporting Corruption 2022: Top Trading Countries Doing Even Less than Before to Stop Foreign Bribery, warns that despite a few breakthroughs, “multinational companies bribing their way into foreign markets go largely unpunished, and victims’ compensation is rare.”
    “Our globalised world means companies can do business across borders – often to societies’ benefit. But what if the expensive new bridge in your city has been built by an unqualified foreign company that cuts corners?

    “Or if your electricity bill is criminally inflated thanks to a backroom business deal? The chances of this are higher if you live in a country with high levels of government corruption.”

    Public officials who demand or accept bribes from foreign companies are not the only culprits of the corruption equation. Multinational companies – often headquartered in countries with low levels of public sector corruption – are equally responsible.”

    Twenty-five years ago, the international community agreed that trading countries have an obligation to punish companies that bribe foreign public officials to win government contracts, mining licences and other deals – in other words, engage in foreign bribery. Yet few countries have kept up with their commitments, it adds.

    Everybody is complicit

    “Much of the world’s costliest forms of corruption could not happen without institutions in wealthy nations: the private sector firms that give large bribes, the financial institutions that accept corrupt proceeds, and the lawyers, bankers, and accountants who facilitate corrupt transactions,” warns the World Bank.

    Data on international financial flows shows that money is moving from poor to wealthy countries in ways that fundamentally undermine development, the world’s financial institution reports.

    Worse than ever before…

    Transparency International’s report, Exporting Corruption 2022, rates the performance of 47 leading global exporters, including 43 countries that are signatories to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention, in cracking down on foreign bribery by companies from their countries.

    “The results are worse than ever before.”

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Rich Nations Doubly Responsible for Greenhouse Gas Emissions

    Rich Nations Doubly Responsible for Greenhouse Gas Emissions

    [ad_1]

    • Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Hezri A Adnan (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
    • Inter Press Service

    KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 06 (IPS) – Natural flows do not respect national boundaries. The atmosphere and oceans cross international borders with little difficulty, as greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other fluids, including pollutants, easily traverse frontiers.

    Yet, in multilateral fora, strategies to address climate change and its effects remain largely national. GHG emissions – typically measured as carbon dioxide equivalents – are the main bases for assessing national climate action commitments.

    Hezri A AdnanAssessing national responsibility
    Jayati Ghosh, Shouvik Chakraborty and Debamanyu Das have critically considered how national climate responsibilities are assessed. The standard method – used by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – measures GHG emissions by activities within national boundaries.

    This approach attributes GHG emissions to the country where goods are produced. Such carbon accounting focuses blame for global warming on newly industrializing economies. But it ignores who consumes the goods and where, besides diverting attention from those most responsible for historical emissions.

    Thus, attention has focused on big national emitters. China, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa and other large developing economies – especially the ‘late industrializers’ – have become the new climate villains.

    China, the United States and India are now the world’s three largest GHG emitters in absolute terms, accounting for over half the total. With more rapid growth in recent decades, China and India have greatly increased emissions.

    Undoubtedly, some developing countries have seen rapid GHG emission increases, especially during high growth episodes. In the first two decades of this century, such emissions rose over 3-fold in China, 2.7 times in India, and 4.7-fold in Indonesia.

    Meanwhile, most rich economies have seen smaller increases, even declines in emissions, as they ‘outsource’ labour- and energy-intensive activities to the global South. Thus, over the same period, production emissions fell by 12% in the US and Japan, and by nearly 22% in Germany.

    Jomo Kwame SundaramObscuring inequalities
    Only comparing total national emissions is not just one-sided, but also misleading, as countries have very different populations, economic outputs and structures.

    But determining responsibility for global warming fairly is necessary to ensure equitable burden sharing for adequate climate action. Most climate change negotiations and discussions typically refer to aggregate national emissions and income measures, rather than per capita levels.

    But such framing obscures the underlying inequalities involved. A per capita view comparing average GHG emissions offers a more nuanced, albeit understated perspective on the global disparities involved.

    Thus, in spite of recent reductions, rich economies are still the greatest GHG emitters per capita. The US and Australia spew eight times more per head than developing countries like India, Indonesia and Brazil.

    Despite its recent emission increases, even China emits less than half US per capita levels. Meanwhile, its annual emissions growth fell from 9.3% in 2002 to 0.6% in 2012. Even The Economist acknowledged China’s per capita emissions in 2019 were comparable to industrializing Western nations in 1885!

    Several developments have contributed to recent reductions in rich nations’ emissions. Richer countries can better afford ‘climate-friendly’ improvements, by switching energy sources away from the most harmful fossil fuels to less GHG-emitting options such as natural gas, nuclear and renewables.

    Changes in international trade and investment with ‘globalization’ have seen many rich countries shift GHG-intensive production to developing countries.

    Thus, rich economies have ‘exported’ production of – and responsibility for – GHG emissions for what they consume. Instead, developed countries make more from ‘high value’ services, many related to finance, requiring far less energy.

    Export emissions, shift blame
    Thus, rich countries have effectively adopted then World Bank chief economist Larry Summers’ proposal to export toxic waste to the poorest countries where the ‘opportunity cost’ of human life was presumed to be lowest!

    His original proposal has since become a development strategy for the age of globalization! Thus, polluting industries – including GHG-emitting production processes – have been relocated – together with labour-intensive industries – to the global South.

    Although kept out of the final published version of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, over 40% of developing country GHG emissions were due to export production for developed countries.

    Such ‘emission exports’ by rich OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries increased rapidly from 2002, after China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). These peaked at 2,278 million metric tonnes in 2006, i.e., 17% of emissions from production, before falling to 1,577 million metric tonnes.

    For the OECD, the ‘carbon balance’ is determined by deducting the carbon dioxide equivalent of GHG emissions for imports from those for production, including exports. Annual growth of GHG discharges from making exports was 4.3% faster than for all production emissions.

    Thus, the US had eight times more per capita GHG production emissions than India’s in 2019. US per capita emissions were more than thrice China’s, although the world’s most populous country still emits more than any other nation.

    With high GHG-emitting products increasingly made in developing countries, rich countries have effectively ‘exported’ their emissions. Consuming such imports, rich economies are still responsible for related GHG emissions.

    Change is in the air
    Industries emitting carbon have been ‘exported’ – relocated abroad – for their products to be imported for consumption. But the UNFCCC approach to assigning GHG emissions responsibility focuses only on production, ignoring consumption of such imports.

    Thus, if responsibility for GHG emissions is also due to consumption, per capita differences between the global North and South are even greater.

    In contrast, the OECD wants to distribute international corporate income tax revenue according to consumption, not production. Thus, contradictory criteria are used, as convenient, to favour rich economies, shaping both tax and climate discourses and rules.

    While domestic investments in China have become much ‘greener’, foreign direct investment by companies from there are developing coal mines and coal-fired powerplants abroad, e.g., in Indonesia and Vietnam.

    If not checked, such FDI will put other developing countries on the worst fossil fuel energy pathway, historically emulating the rich economies of the global North. A Global Green New Deal would instead enable a ‘big push’ to ‘front-load’ investments in renewable energy.

    This should enable adequate financing of much more equitable development while ensuring sustainability. Such an approach would not only address national-level inequalities, but also international disparities.

    China now produces over 70% of photovoltaic solar panels annually, but is effectively blocked from exporting them abroad. In a more cooperative world, developing countries’ lower-cost – more affordable – production of the means to generate renewable energy would be encouraged.

    Instead, higher energy costs now – due to supply disruptions following the Ukraine war and Western sanctions – are being used by rich countries to retreat further from their inadequate, modest commitments to decelerate global warming.

    This retreat is putting the world at greater risk. Already, the international community is being urged to abandon the maximum allowable temperature increase above pre-industrial levels, thus further extending and deepening already unjust North-South relations.

    But change is in the air. Investing in and subsidizing renewable energy technologies in developing countries wanting to electrify, can enable them to develop while mitigating global warming.

    Hezri A Adnan is adjunct professor at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Can Asia and the Pacific Get on Track to Net Zero?

    Can Asia and the Pacific Get on Track to Net Zero?

    [ad_1]

    • Opinion by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana (bangkok, thailand)
    • Inter Press Service

    BANGKOK, Thailand, Nov 29 (IPS) – The recent climate talks in Egypt have left us with a sobering reality: The window for maintaining global warming to 1.5 degrees is closing fast and what is on the table currently is insufficient to avert some of the worst potential effects of climate change. The Nationally Determined Contribution targets of Asian and Pacific countries will result in a 16 per centincrease in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 from the 2010 levels.

    Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

    The Sharm-el Sheikh Implementation Plan and the package of decisions taken at COP27 are a reaffirmation of actions that could deliver the net-zero resilient world our countries aspire to. The historic decision to establish a Loss and Damage Fund is an important step towards climate justice and building trust among countries.

    But they are not enough to help us arrive at a better future without, what the UN Secretary General calls, a “giant leap on climate ambition”. Carbon neutrality needs to at the heart of national development strategies and reflected in public and private investment decisions. And it needs to cascade down to the sustainable pathways in each sector of the economy.

    Accelerate energy transition

    At the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), we are working with regional and national stakeholders on these transformational pathways. Moving away from the brown economy is imperative, not only because emissions are rising but also because dependence on fossil fuels has left economies struggling with price volatility and energy insecurity.

    A clear road map is the needed springboard for an inclusive and just energy transition. We have been working with countries to develop scenarios for such a shift through National Roadmaps, demonstrating that a different energy future is possible and viable with the political will and sincere commitment to action of the public and private sectors.

    The changeover to renewables also requires concurrent improvements in grid infrastructure, especially cross-border grids. The Regional Road Map on Power System Connectivity provides us the platform to work with member States toward an interconnected grid, including through the development of the necessary regulatory frameworks for to integrate power systems and mobilize investments in grid infrastructure. The future of energy security will be determined by the ability to develop green grids and trade renewable-generated electricity across our borders.

    Green the rides

    The move to net-zero carbon will not be complete without greening the transport sector. In Asia and the Pacific transport is primarily powered by fossil fuels and as a result accounted for 24 per cent of total carbon emissions by 2018.

    Energy efficiency improvements and using more electric vehicles are the most effective measures to reduce carbon emissions by as much as 60 per cent in 2050 compared to 2005 levels. The Regional Action Programme for Sustainable Transport Development allows us to work with countries to implement and cooperate on priorities for low-carbon transport, including electric mobility. Our work with the Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade also is helping to make commerce more efficient and climate-smart, a critical element for the transition in the energy and transport sectors.

    Adapting to a riskier future

    Even with mitigation measures in place, our economy and people will not be safe without a holistic risk management system. And it needs to be one that prevents communities from being blindsided by cascading climate disasters.

    We are working with partners to deepen the understanding of such cascading risks and to help develop preparedness strategies for this new reality, such as the implementation of the ASEAN Regional Plan of Action for Adaptation to Drought.

    Make finance available where it matters the most

    Finance and investment are uniquely placed to propel the transitions needed. The past five years have seen thematic bonds in our region grow tenfold. Private finance is slowly aligning with climate needs. The new Loss and Damage Fund and its operation present new hopes for financing the most vulnerable. However, climate finance is not happening at the speed and scale needed. It needs to be accessible to developing economies in times of need.

    Innovative financing instruments need to be developed and scaled up, from debt-for-climate swaps to SDG bonds, some of which ESCAP is helping to develop in the Pacific and in Cambodia. Growing momentum in the business sector will need to be sustained. The Asia-Pacific Green Deal for Business by the ESCAP Sustainable Business Network (ESBN) is important progress. We are also working with the High-level Climate Champions to bring climate-aligned investment opportunities closer to private financiers.

    Lock in higher ambition and accelerate implementation

    Climate actions in Asia and the Pacific matter for global success and well-being. The past two years has been a grim reminder that conflicts in one continent create hunger in another, and that emissions somewhere push sea levels higher everywhere. Never has our prosperity been more dependent on collective actions and cooperation.

    Our countries are taking note. Member States meeting at the seventh session of the Committee on Environment and Development, which opens today (29 November) are seeking consensus on the regional cooperation needed and priorities for climate action such as oceans, ecosystem and air pollution. We hope that the momentum begun at COP27 and the Committee will be continued at the seventy-ninth session of the Commission as it will hone in on the accelerators for climate action.

    In this era of heightened risks and shared prosperity, only regional, multilateral solidarity and genuine ambition that match with the new climate reality unfolding around us — along with bold climate action — are the only way to secure a future where the countries of Asia and the Pacific can prosper.

    Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Black Fraud-Days and the Shocking Cost of Staying Fashionable

    Black Fraud-Days and the Shocking Cost of Staying Fashionable

    [ad_1]

    Around 7,500 litres of water are used to make a single pair of jeans, equivalent to the amount of water the average person drinks over seven years. Credit: pexels
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Nov 25 (IPS) – Please take a quick look at this short report before rushing to shop on a Black Friday, Christmas sales and all those long chains of big discounts and wholesales, most of them are fake, as often denounced by consumers organisations that report that the business usually inflates prices before launching such deals.

    Just a couple of figures to start with: the fashion industry is responsible for more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.

    Consequently, it is widely believed that this business is the second major producer of greenhouse gases, just after the other industries using fossil fuels.

    And it is a big business, which is estimated as valued at upward of 3 trillion dollars.

    Did you know all this?

    Now back to its worrying impacts. According to the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and other UN agencies, and non-governmental organisations worldwide:

    Wastewater: The fashion industry is responsible for producing 20% of global wastewater and 10% of the global carbon emissions – more than the emissions of all international flights and maritime shipping combined,

    Seven years of needed drinking water for an average person are consumed for producing just one single pair of blue jeans: 7.500 litres,

    Enough water to quench the thirst of five million. According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), some 93 billion cubic metres of water, is used by the fashion industry annually,

    Around half a million tons of microfibre, which is the equivalent of 3 million barrels of oil, is now being dumped into the ocean every year, polluting the oceans, the wastewater, and toxic dyes,

    Plastic microfibres: The textiles industry has recently been identified as a major polluter, with estimates of around half a million tonnes of plastic microfibers ending up in the world’s oceans as polyester, nylon or acrylic are washed each year,

    A truckload of abandoned textiles is dumped in landfill or incinerated every second, according to the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, partner of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). This means that of the total fibre input used for clothing, 87% is incinerated or sent to landfill.

    Dangerous working conditions: Fashion is often a synonym for dangerous working conditions, unsafe processes and hazardous substances used in production, with continued cruel abuses of modern slavery and child labour, and the exploitation of underpaid workers.

    Fast fashion, fast money, fast destruction

    The business of fashion years ago ‘invented’ what is known as ‘fast fashion,’ i.e, nice-looking clothing and footwear at low-price.

    In fact, the dominant business model in the sector is that of “fast fashion”, whereby consumers are offered constantly changing collections at low prices and encouraged to frequently buy and discard clothes.

    Many experts, including the UN, believe the trend is responsible for a plethora of negative social, economic and environmental impacts and, with clothing production doubling between 2000 and 2014, it is crucially important to ensure that clothes are produced as ethically and sustainably as possible.

    The consequence is that it is estimated that people are buying 60% more clothes and wearing them for half as long.

    “New season, new styles, buy more, buy cheap, move on, throw away waste, and emissions of fast fashion are fueling the triple planetary crisis,” UNEP warned on 24 November, just one day before the usual ‘Black Friday.’

    According to the world’s leading environmental organisation, the annual Black Friday sales on 25 November are a reminder of the need to rethink what is bought, what is thrown away, and what it costs the planet.

    “Sustainable fashion and circularity in the textiles value chain are possible, yet this century the world’s consumers are buying more clothes and wearing them for less time than ever before, discarding garments as fast as trends shift.”

    A big alliance versus a big business

    In a bid to halt the fashion industry’s environmentally and socially destructive practices, and harness the catwalk as a driver to improve the world’s ecosystems, 10 different UN organisations established the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, which was launched during the 2019 UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi

    Elisa Tonda, Head of the Consumption and Production Unit at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), one of the 10 UN bodies involved in the Alliance, explained the urgency behind its formation:

    “The global production of clothing and footwear generates 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and, with manufacturing concentrated in Asia, the industry is mainly reliant on hard coal and natural gas to generate electricity and heat.”

    “If we carry on with a business-as-usual approach, the greenhouse gas emissions from the industry are expected to rise by almost 50% by 2030.”

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Cattle Turn Into New Currency Amid Inflation in Zimbabwe

    Cattle Turn Into New Currency Amid Inflation in Zimbabwe

    [ad_1]

    Forty-year-old Admire Gumbo has invested in cattle back home in Zimbabwe’s rural Mwenezi district. The picture shows Gumbo’s cattle in Mwenezi. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/ IPS.
    • by Jeffrey Moyo (mberengwa)
    • Inter Press Service

    MBERENGWA, Nov 25 (IPS) – In 2007 as inflation walloped the Zimbabwean currency, rendering it valueless, then 54-year-old Langton Musaigwa of Mataruse village west of Zimbabwe in Mberengwa district switched to cattle as his currency.

    He wasn’t alone; scores of other villagers in his locality followed suit.

    In no time, cattle became a new currency as the Zimbabwean dollar went down the drain, pounded by inflation.

    “We had no choice. It appeared cattle was the only money we could stare at and not the real Zimbabwean bank notes, which were now losing value every day as prices skyrocketed,” Musaigwa told IPS.

    Many villagers like Musaigwa, pummeled by inflation then, found the panacea in their livestock like cattle.

    The cattle, said Musaigwa, could be traded by villagers for any valuable goods or services.

    One such villager whose life was saved by her cattle is 67-year-old Neliswa Mupepeti hailing from the same village as Musaigwa.

    “I fell sick very seriously and was no longer able to walk on my own. I had to use one of my cows to pay a local school headmaster to transport me using his car to Zvishavane to get medical treatment in 2008,” she (Mupepeti) told IPS.

    Then, Zimbabwe’s inflation peaked at 231 percent.

    Zvishavane is a Zimbabwean mining town located in the country’s Midlands Province, south of the country.

    Fourteen years later, inflation has resurfaced in the southern African country, and cattle have again turned into a currency as people evade the worthless local currency.

    But from 2009 to 2013, during the country’s unity government that followed the disputed 2008 elections, Zimbabwe enjoyed some currency stability because authorities allowed the use of the USD and many other regional currencies.

    Many Mberengwa villagers, like Musaigwa and Mupepeti, had been visited by inflation before, and they know the survival tricks.

    “We have just had to return to using cattle as our money. I can tell you I have recently managed to buy a cart and a bicycle using just one cow here because villagers can’t accept the local currency. Many don’t have the popular USD, and cattle have become the readily available currency,” said Musaigwa.

    Zimbabwe’s inflation currently stands out at 257 percent, according to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, with the local currency ever falling against international currencies like the USD.

    As cattle turn into currency, just a single cow in Zimbabwe ordinarily costs about 400 US dollars.

    In order to store the value of their worth, many Zimbabweans who can at least access US dollars, like Mwenezi district’s 67-year-old Tinago Muchahwikwa, whose children working abroad send him money for personal upkeep, have had to buy more cattle.

    “Money, either USD or any other currency – tends to lose value at any time, but cattle, for as long as they are well-fed and regularly treated for any diseases, remain with their value, and one can trade them off when a need arises,” Muchahwikwa told IPS.

    For Muchahwikwa, cattle are the currency he can rather trust than any money, worse the Zimbabwean dollar, he said.

    Even for 40-year-old Admire Gumbo, a Zimbabwean based in Cape Town in South Africa, investment in cattle has become the way to go back in his village home in Mwenezi as Zimbabwe contends with an inflation-ravaged currency.

    “Back home, the money I send is buying cattle because when I settle back home, I don’t want to suffer. As my herd of cattle increases, that also means the increase of my own worth in terms of money,” Gumbo told IPS.

    A worker at a grape farm in Cape Town, Gumbo bragged about owning a herd of 15 cows that he had bought back home.

    As many like Gumbo surmount inflation in Zimbabwe using cattle, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has been on record saying livestock accounts for 35 percent to 38 percent of this Southern African country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

    Faced with a collapsing Zimbabwean dollar, cattle seem to have become a more stable currency than the local currency for many, like Gumbo.

    “I have made sure my mother buys cattle for me and not keep the money when I send cash to her because of the risks faced by the local currency back home, which has kept losing value, meaning even if one changes money from Rands to Zimbabwean dollars, it won’t make any sense as the manipulated exchange rate there would still mean one remains with nothing meaningful,” said Gumbo.

    For agricultural experts, with inflation ravaging Zimbabwe’s currency, cattle have become the alternative currency.

    “Inflation has meant that many people now abhor the local currency and rather prefer foreign currencies like the USD, but many have no access to the USD, and cattle have become the readily available currency,” Steven Nyagonda, a retired agricultural extension officer in rural Mwenezi, told IPS.

    To Nyagonda, as long as cattle are well-fed, it means they gain more weight and, therefore, more value if one wants to trade them off.

    Pummeled by inflation here, even urban dwellers like 51-year-old Kaitano Muzungu are having to hoard things like solar panels, which they trade off with cattle in the villages while they shun the worthless local currency.

    “When I get the cattle on trading off my solar panels in the villages, I feed the cattle in order to increase their weight so that I sell them to butcheries in the city in Harare in USD to business people here, save the profits and keep ordering solar panels to keep trading in the villages where I get cattle currency,” Muzungu told IPS.

    With cattle currency gaining traction across Zimbabwe, entrepreneurial Zimbabweans have formed cattle banks, where investment in cattle has become a sensation.

    According to Ted Edwards, who is the chief executive officer of Silverback Asset Managers, one emerging cattle bank in Zimbabwe, they have established a unit trust investment vehicle where Zimbabweans can invest in cattle using the local currency.

    In this model, when a cow produces offspring, the value of that calf is added to the client’s portfolio, meaning a rise in worth for a particular cattle investor.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Asia: the Power of Connections and their Consequences

    Asia: the Power of Connections and their Consequences

    [ad_1]

    • Opinion by Simon Commander, Saul Estrin (london)
    • Inter Press Service

    LONDON, Nov 24 (IPS) – In our recent book, “The Connections World: The Future of Asia”, published by Cambridge University Press in October 2022, we argue that mutually beneficial links between dynastic business houses and political elites have been important drivers behind Asia’s extraordinary renaissance. Yet, these close ties now threaten future economic growth.

    That is because the ubiquitous Asian corporate structures of Business Groups systematically work with politicians in Asia to create excessive market power and overall concentration. They have proven remarkably adept at entrenching themselves.

    Although, by concentrating resources in relatively few hands, this was quite an effective engine of growth in the past half century, the limitation of competition and brake on innovation threatens future progress.

    The pervasive and highly resilient networks of connections running between businesses and politicians have provided a common backbone to Asian development and have cut across political systems. We characterize these networks as the Connections World.

    That world comprises a web of interactions between businesses and politicians/political parties that are highly transactional and commonly contain significant degrees of reciprocity.

    Thus, politicians look to firms to make campaign or personal contributions; pay bribes; provide jobs for family or associates whilst also providing reciprocal favours, such as creating jobs in regions or at moments that are politically advantageous.

    At the same time, businesses look to politicians for protection from foreign or domestic competition; to supply subsidies, loans and/or public sector contracts. All parties benefit from these interactions, creating a stable political economy equilibrium.

    These arrangements have served Asia well over the past half century, with Asia’s share of the world economy rising from 9% in the 1970s to nearly 40% now. However, the connections world will provide a less supportive foundation for growth in the future for a variety of reasons. Neither politicians nor business groups have sufficient interest in stimulating competition, whether through the entry of domestic or foreign multinational as competitors.

    Moreover, because Asian business groups are often highly diversified, with the control of the oligarch or dynasty enhanced by cross-holdings and ownership pyramids, their economic consequences must be measured not only by the traditional measures of market power, but also by overall levels of concentration as, for example, indicated by the share of total revenues for the largest five firms relative to GDP.

    To put this in context, while the market concentration ratio (CR5) of the largest US firms, mainly in tech sectors, is often high, the five-firm overall concentration ratio is only around 3%. The comparable figures across Asia in 2018 are much higher, as can be seen in Figure 1. The CR5 in South Korea exceeds 30% and even in very large economies – India and China – it exceeds 10%.

    The findings are even starker when we consider the largest ten firms (CR10). In the US, this is only around 4% but in South Korea exceeds 40% and in India and China exceeds 15%.

    Looking forward, the consequences of the connections world will be far less propitious, not least because growth will have to rely increasingly on innovation. The existing networks are, for the most part, ill-suited to promote innovation which thrives on an open ecosystem of science universities and business parks, capital funders, lawyers and entrepreneurs and a healthy willingness to risk and lose.

    Moreover, the connections world crowds out new entrants, soaks up capital and skilled workers and managers and suppresses the competitive environment so essential for the trial-and-error process at the heart of much successful innovation. Even when the business groups themselves are innovative, there is relatively little innovation going on in the wider economy.

    What should be the policies and other measures that could address the shortcomings of the connections world? Central to the policy menu for loosening the grip of entrenched business will have to be measures designed to induce the transformation of business groups into more transparent and better governed businesses, while also radically weakening the links between politicians and business.

    This will not happen naturally because the mutual benefits from market entrenchment and political connections outweigh any gains to the current players from reform. The required policies will need to include changes to corporate governance that undercut pyramidal ownership structures, mergers and cross-holdings, that impose inheritance taxes and shift to new types of – and targets for – competition policy.

    Some of those policies were successfully introduced in the USA under Roosevelt. More recently, Israel has adopted criteria in competition policy for overall, as well as specific market, concentration levels, while South Korea has placed high inheritance taxes at the heart of their raft of policies to weaken the vice-like grip of their gigantic business groups.

    At the same time, measures need to be adopted aimed at limiting the discretionary scope and incentives for politicians to leverage their connections for personal or family benefit. Although hard to achieve, incremental improvements, such as through audited registers of interests, can start to affect behaviour.

    In short, although many commentators have already declared the 21st century to be Asia’s, that is far from predetermined. Unless the sorts of policies that we propose are introduced to roll back the tentacles of the connections world, many Asian economies will in fact find themselves unfavourably placed to exploit their potential in the coming decades.

    Simon Commander is Managing Partner of Altura Partners. He is also Visiting Professor of Economics at IE Business School in Madrid.
    Saul ESTRIN is Professor of Managerial Economics at LSE and previously Professor of Economics and Associate Dean at London Business School.

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Open Veins of Africa Bleeding Heavily

    Open Veins of Africa Bleeding Heavily

    [ad_1]

    • Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Ndongo Samba Sylla (dakar and kuala lumpur)
    • Inter Press Service

    DAKAR and KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22 (IPS) – The ongoing plunder of Africa’s natural resources drained by capital flight is holding it back yet again. More African nations face protracted recessions amid mounting debt distress, rubbing salt into deep wounds from the past.

    With much less foreign exchange, tax revenue, and policy space to face external shocks, many African governments believe they have little choice but to spend less, or borrow more in foreign currencies.

    Ndongo Samba Sylla

    Most Africans are struggling to cope with food and energy crises, inflation, higher interest rates, adverse climate events, less health and social provisioning. Unrest is mounting due to deteriorating conditions despite some commodity price increases.

    Economic haemorrhage

    After ‘lost decades’ from the late 1970s, Africa became one of the world’s fastest growing regions early in the 21st century. Debt relief, a commodity boom and other factors seemed to support the deceptive ‘Africa rising’ narrative.

    But instead of long overdue economic transformation, Africa has seen jobless growth, rising economic inequalities and more resource transfers abroad. Capital flight – involving looted resources laundered via foreign banks – has been bleeding the continent.

    According to the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, the continent was losing over $50 billion annually. This was mainly due to ‘trade mis-invoicing’ – under-invoicing exports and over-invoicing imports – and fraudulent commercial arrangements.

    Transnational corporations (TNCs) and criminal networks account for much of this African economic surplus drain. Resource-rich countries are more vulnerable to plunder, especially where capital accounts have been liberalized.

    Jomo Kwame Sundaram

    Externally imposed structural adjustment programs (SAPs), after the early 1980s’ sovereign debt crises, have forced African economies to be even more open – at great economic cost. SAPs have made them more (food) import-dependent while increasing their vulnerability to commodity price shocks and global liquidity flows.

    Leonce Ndikumana and his colleagues estimate over 55% of capital flight – defined as illegally acquired or transferred assets – from Africa is from oil-rich nations, with Nigeria alone losing $467 billion during 1970-2018.

    Over the same period, Angola lost $103 billion. Its poverty rate rose from 34% to 52% over the past decade, as the poor more than doubled from 7.5 to 16 million.

    Oil proceeds have been embezzled by TNCs and Angola’s elite. Abusing her influence, the former president’s daughter, Isabel dos Santos acquired massive wealth. A report found over 400 companies in her business empire, including many in tax havens.

    From 1970 to 2018, Côte d’Ivoire lost $55 billion to capital flight. Growing 40% of the world’s cocoa, it gets only 5–7% of global cocoa profits, with farmers getting little. Most cocoa income goes to TNCs, politicians and their collaborators.

    Mining giant South Africa (SA) has lost $329 billion to capital flight over the last five decades. Mis-invoicing, other modes of embezzling public resources, and tax evasion augment private wealth hidden in offshore financial centres and tax havens.

    Fiscal austerity has slowed job growth and poverty reduction in ‘the most unequal country in the world’. In SA, the richest 10% own over half the nation’s wealth, while the poorest 10% have under 1%!

    Resource theft and debt

    With this pattern of plunder, resource-rich African countries – that could have accelerated development during the commodity boom – now face debt distress, depreciating currencies and imported inflation, as interest rates are pushed up.

    Zambia’s default on its foreign debt obligations in late 2020 has made headlines. But foreign capture of most Zambian copper export proceeds is not acknowledged.

    During 2000-2020, total foreign direct investment income from Zambia was twice total debt servicing for external government and government-guaranteed loans. In 2021, the deficit in the ‘primary income’ account (mainly returns to capital) of Zambia’s balance of payments was 12.5% of GDP.

    As interest payments on public external debt came to ‘only’ 3.5% of GDP, most of this deficit (9% of GDP) was due to profit and dividend remittances, as well as interest payments on private external debt.

    For the IMF, World Bank and ‘creditor nations’, debt ‘restructuring’ is conditional on continuing such plunder! African countries’ worsening foreign indebtedness is partly due to lack of control over export earnings controlled by TNCs, with African elite support.

    Resource pillage, involving capital flight, inevitably leads to external debt distress. Invariably, the IMF demands government austerity and opening African economies to TNC interests. Thus, we come full circle, and indeed, it is vicious!

    Africa’s wealth plunder dates back to colonial times, and even before, with the Atlantic trade of enslaved Africans. Now, this is enabled by transnational interests crafting international rules, loopholes and all.

    Such enablers include various bankers, accountants, lawyers, investment managers, auditors and other wheeler dealers. Thus, the origins of the wealth of ‘high net-worth individuals’, corporations and politicians are disguised, and its transfer abroad ‘laundered’.

    What can be done?

    Capital flight is not mainly due to ‘normal’ portfolio choices by African investors. Hence, raising returns to investment, e.g., with higher interest rates, is unlikely to stem it. Worse, such policy measures discourage needed domestic investments.

    Besides enforcing efficient capital controls, strengthening the capabilities of specialized national agencies – such as customs, financial supervision and anti-corruption bodies – is important.

    African governments need stronger rules, legal frameworks and institutions to curb corruption and ensure more effective natural resource management, e.g., by revising bilateral investment treaties and investment codes, besides renegotiating oil, gas, mining and infrastructure contracts.

    Records of all investments in extractive industries, tax payments by all involved, and public prosecution should be open, transparent and accountable. Punishment of economic crimes should be strictly enforced with deterrent penalties.

    The broader public – especially civil society organizations, local authorities and impacted communities – must also know who and what are involved in extractive industries.

    Only an informed public who knows how much is extracted and exported, by whom, what revenue governments get, and their social and environmental effects, can keep corporations and governments in check.

    Improving international trade and finance transparency is essential. This requires ending banking secrecy and better regulation of TNCs to curb trade mis-invoicing and transfer pricing, still enabling resource theft and pillage.

    OECD rhetoric has long blamed capital flight on offshore tax havens on remote tropical islands. But those in rich countries – such as the UK, US, Switzerland, Netherlands, Singapore and others – are the biggest culprits.

    Stopping haemorrhage of African resource plunder by denying refuge for illicit transfers should be a rich country obligation. Automatic exchange of tax-related information should become truly universal to stop trade mis-invoicing, transfer pricing abuses and hiding stolen wealth abroad.

    Unitary taxation of transnational corporations can help end tax abuses, including evasion and avoidance. But the OECD’s Inclusive Framework proposals favour their own governments and corporate interests.

    Africa is not inherently ‘poor’. Rather, it has been impoverished by fraud and pillage leading to resource transfers abroad. An earnest effort to end this requires recognizing all responsibilities and culpabilities, national and international.

    Africa’s veins have been slit open. The centuries-long bleeding must stop.

    Dr Ndongo Samba Sylla is a Senegalese development economist working at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Dakar. He authored The Fair Trade Scandal. Marketing Poverty to Benefit the Rich and co-authored Africa’s Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story. He also edited Economic and Monetary Sovereignty for 21st century Africa, Revolutionary Movements in Africa and Imperialism and the Political Economy of Global South’s Debt. He tweets at @nssylla

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • A Looming Debt Crisis is Threatening Global Health Security. It is time to Drop the Debt

    A Looming Debt Crisis is Threatening Global Health Security. It is time to Drop the Debt

    [ad_1]

    • Opinion by Jaime Atienza, Charles Birungi (geneva)
    • Inter Press Service

    GENEVA, Nov 21 (IPS) – In this moment of profound challenge in international relations, it was understandable that the conclusion of the G20 meeting left leaders feeling relieved that the meeting took place without a breakdown. Leaders were justifiably proud too of important steps forward they made including the launch of the new pandemics fund.

    But G20 leaders did not manage to resolve the fiscal crisis that threatens many low-and middle-income countries, and which risks undermining global health security because it is driving countries to slash investments in essential health services.

    As the world approaches the end of 2022, no resolution mechanism to properly resolve the debt crisis has been established by either the IMF or the G20. In 24 months, the “G20 common framework” has delivered a debt relief agreement for just one country, Chad.

    UNAIDS report “A pandemic triad” shows how growing debt burdens across developing countries are impairing their ability to fight and end AIDS and COVID, and their readiness for future pandemics. Half of the low-income countries in Africa are already in debt distress or at high risk of being so.

    Across the world, the 73 countries which are eligible for the Debt Service Suspension Initiative have been recorded as spending on average four times as much on debt servicing as they have been able to invest in the health of their people. Only 43 of those countries have seen even a temporary suspension – totalling less than 10% the money they continued to pay back.

    Two thirds of people living with HIV are in countries that received absolutely no support from the Debt Service Suspension Initiative at all during the critical 2020-2021 period. The seven Debt Service Suspension Initiative eligible countries with the largest population of people living with HIV – Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia – saw their public debt levels grow from 29% in 2011 to 74% in 2020.

    According to the World Bank, “interest payments will constrain the capacity of low-income countries to spend on health, on average by 7%, and in lower middle-income countries by 10%, in 2027.”

    110 out of 177 countries will see a drop or stagnation in their health spending capacity and are not set to be able to achieve pre-COVID spending levels by 2027.

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, deficits increased worldwide, and debt accumulated much faster than they did in the early years of other recessions including the Great Depression and the Global Financial Crisis. The scale is comparable only to the twentieth century’s two world wars.

    Government expenditure cuts are expected to take place across 139 countries in the coming years. In the case of the 73 countries that were eligible to the Debt Service Suspension Initiative, primary expenditures are expected to decline an average of 2.8% of GDP between 2020 and 2026.

    This comes at a moment when economic forecasts have been downgraded by the IMF for a fourth time in a year. Austerity will mean dangerous reductions in health expenditure. To even restrain the damage will require a systemic reprioritization of public resources towards health systems.

    There is a direct correlation between deepening fiscal problems and worsening health outcomes.

    The COVID-19 crisis is dragging on. The impacts of the war in Ukraine on the global economy are making things worse. The HIV response is in danger, with the promise to end AIDS by 2030 under threat.

    The world is not prepared today for the pandemics of to come. The international response to resolve the health financing crisis is nowhere close enough. Even as developing countries struggle with the debt crisis, the Ukraine war has led several donors to cut aid.

    But there is a way out. With bold action, the health and development financing crisis can be overcome. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s Bridgetown Agenda for action on debt, expansion of multilateral finance and effective SDR reallocation sets out the order of magnitude of response required.

    There is an urgent need for debt cancellation for countries in fiscal distress, and for an effective and fast mechanism to deal with debt restructuring at scale. Health and education must be central considerations in debt negotiations.

    Vital too is an expansion of the use of existing Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) from high income countries for investments in lower income countries of at least twice the 100 billion committed.

    The G20 leaders’ work has not ended in Bali. The consequences of an unresolved debt crisis, and the lack of additional resources, would be disastrous for lives, livelihoods and health security. We don’t have time. No one is safe until everyone is safe.

    Jaime Atienza is the Director of Equitable Financing at UNAIDS. Charles Birungi is the Senior HIV Economics, Finance and Policy Advisor.

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • G20 Summit, a Missed Opportunity to Tackle Global Cost of Living Crisis

    G20 Summit, a Missed Opportunity to Tackle Global Cost of Living Crisis

    [ad_1]

    • Opinion by Matti Kohonen (london)
    • Inter Press Service

    The G20 summit motto was “Recovering Together, Recovering Stronger” yet the Joint Declaration failed to deliver any alternatives to the wave of austerity engulfing the world. It ignored the option of raising enough tax revenues from large corporations, taxing the wealthy and tacking illicit financial flows and tax abuses which alone accounts for over US$200 billion of tax revenue lost per year due to profit shifting in the global South.

    For one, the summit blocked any progress towards the negotiations of a UN Tax Convention that would address the issues of corporate tax abuses and illicit financial flows, as denounced in an open letter from the Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD).

    In an open letter denouncing this inaction to tackle corporate tax abuses and IFFs, delivered to embassies of Indonesia, India and Brazil, Lidy Nacpil from the Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) said that the summit blocked “any progress towards the negotiations of a UN Tax Convention that would address the issues of corporate tax abuses and illicit financial flows,” but there was no reaction.

    Making matters worse, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) failed to deliver on mandates to publish country-by-country reporting before the summit. This would have allowed to monitor the performance of mechanisms to prevent for example multinational companies shifting profits to tax havens and avoid paying taxes.

    The data was only published on 17 November, a day after the summit, which was too late to hold the G20 leaders accountable. According to Alex Cobham, Director at the Tax Justice Network, “without the transparency data, neither the Tax Justice Network nor any other independent research can evaluate how much each government is losing to multinationals’ corporate tax abuse, or any progress made to curb tax losses in recent years.”

    But that is not everything since the summit did not confront the hidden offshore wealth and kleptocracy problem. Maira Martini from Transparency International said that the G20 members “in recent years have dragged their feet, unable to agree on key measures and failing to implement even those to which they had already committed. In the meantime, the corrupt have consolidated wealth and power, allowing them to attack everything from sustainable development to global security to democracy.”

    In an open letter released ahead of the Bali summit, Transparency International representatives from across G20 countries called on their governments to take immediate action against cross-border corruption. The Joint Declaration stated its support towards implementing Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations for improved financial transparency, but does not say that beneficial ownership registries should be public, a critical element to enable stakeholders and the authorities to uncover hidden assets.

    Also the declaration included regional efforts related to signing of the Asia Initiative Declaration in July 2022 on tax and financial transparency in Asia. However, it did not specify whether this initiative would create a stronger standard than the current OECD transparency standard, or simply implement an OECD standard in the Asian regional context.

    Positively, the Bali Joint Declaration made a link between increased beneficial ownership information and tackling natural resource crimes, but offered no specific proposals to address this issue. Indonesia loses an estimated US$4 billion in Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) each year due to illegal, unregulated and underreported (IUU) fishing alone, while Africa loses an estimated US$11.5 billion to this illicit activity. It would be vital that beneficial ownership information on all vessels and fishing companies is collected on a public registry, to hold those responsible for illicit fishing activities accountable.

    Between 75 and 95 million people are expected to be thrown into extreme poverty this year as a result of the pandemic and the effects of rising inflation and the war in Ukraine, according to the UN. Many other are struggling to make a living and feed themselves as governments around the world are resorting to painful austerity measures.

    The G20 had an opportunity to offer solutions to these crises and a lifeline to struggling nations. Unfortunately for all of us, they have failed.

    Matti Kohonen is executive director, Financial Transparency Coalition.

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • The United Kingdoms, USAs and Russias Great Game: A History Lesson about War and Greed

    The United Kingdoms, USAs and Russias Great Game: A History Lesson about War and Greed

    [ad_1]

    • Opinion by Jan Lundius (stockholm)
    • Inter Press Service

    STOCKHOLM, Nov 16 (IPS) – The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
                                             William FaulknerLike most armed conflicts the Ukrainian war intends to establish hegemony over a certain area, in rivalry with other usurpers. Russian propaganda pinpoints the US and EU as Russia’s main adversaries, while Ukraine is portrayed as a pawn in these nations’ international yearnings. Such a scenario is not new.

    The Great Game was a political and diplomatic confrontation between British – and Russian Empires, which continued for most of the 19th and parts of the 20th centuries. Britain’s role was eventually taken over by the US. The Great Game mainly affected Mesopotamia (Iraq), Persia (Iran), and Afghanistan, though it had, and still has, repercussions on a wide range of neighboring territories.

    Britain originally feared that the Russian Empire’s ultimate goal was to dominate Central Asia and reach the Indian Ocean through Persia, thus threatening Britain’s Asian trade links and its domination of India.

    Britain posed as the World’s first free society, declaring its adherence to Christian values, respect for private property, and democratic institutions. Claims bolstered by an advanced industry, fueled by steam power and iron, as well as an ever increasing use of oil. English leaders assumed their nation had a God-given task to spread “civilization” and that such a worthy cause permitted them to exploit the earth’s natural resources, as well as the world’s labor force. Similarly to the Brits, the Russians, the Yankees, and the French considered themselves to be “civilizing forces”.

    The quest for dominion was carried out in a traditional manner – pitching internal fractions against each other and let them do most of the fighting. Nevertheless, this strategy eventually led to direct clashes between “world powers”. Britain strived to convince the Russian army that it did not have a chance against the British war machine. The UK, France and Italy felt threatened by a growing influence of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. Accordingly, these nations supported an increasingly weakened Ottoman Empire, intending it to remain a buffer zone blocking Russia’s expanding war fleet from the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.

    As part of this policy, Britain and France provided arms and money to anti-Russian insurgents in Chechnya, thus contributing to an enduring tradition of Chechen terrorism against Russia. After a minor scuffle between the Russian – and Ottoman Empires, Russia occupied the Principate of Wallachia (Romania), prompting France and Great Britain to attack Crimea with a huge military force.

    The Crimean War (1853-56) proved that the Tsar’s army was no match for the allied forces. Russia was humiliated and its expansion towards the European mainland and meddling in Persia and Afghanistan were halted. Instead people living on the steppes of Central Asia and Siberia continued to be subdued and forced to join the Russian Tsardom.

      The Crimean disaster had exposed the shortcomings of every institution in Russia – not just the corruption and incompetence of the military command, the technological backwardness of the army and navy, or the inadequate roads and lack of railways that accounted for the chronic problems of supply, but the poor condition and illiteracy of the serfs who made up the armed forces, the inability of the serf economy to sustain a state of war against industrial powers, and the failures of autocracy itself.

    The meddling of imperialists in other nations’ affairs was gradually worsened by efforts to secure fossil fuels for their own benefit. Refined petrol was originally used to fuel kerosene lamps and became increasingly important when street lighting was introduced. After 1857, oil wells drilled in Wallachia became very profitable, inspiring a search for new oilfields in the east. In 1873, the Swede Robert Nobel established an oil refinery in Azerbaijan, adding Russia’s first pipeline system, pumping stations, storage depots, and railway tank cars. At the same time, Calouste Gulbenkian assisted the Ottoman government to establish the oil industry in Mesopotamia. Gulbenkian eventually became the world’s wealthiest man.

    Profit from these endeavors increased through assembly-line mass production of motor vehicles, introduced by Henry Ford in 1914. However, the main reason for gaining control of oil was belligerent. The English First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, realized that if the British navy was fuelled by oil, instead of coal, it would be irresistible: “We must become the owners or at any rate the controllers at the source of at least a proportion of the supply of natural oil which we require.” In 1914, Churchill feared that this could be too late – the Germans were already on their way to conquer the Middle Eastern oil fields. Together with the Ottomans they were finishing the Berlin-Baghdad railway line, which would it make possible for the German army to transport troops to the Persian Gulf and onwards to Persian oilfields.

    Germany and its allied Ottoman Empire lost World War I and the Berlin-Baghdad railway never reached the Persian Gulf. In accordance with the so-called Sykes-Picot Agreement Arab territories of the former Ottoman Empire were divided into French and British “spheres of influence”. In 1929, the newly formed Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), a joint endeavor of British, French and American oil interests, brokered by Gulbenkian, received a 75-year concession to exploit crude oil reserves in Iraq and Persia, and eventually in what would become the United Emirates.

    Access to oil continued to be a major factor in World War II. The German invasion of USSR included the goal to capture the Baku oilfields, which had been nationalized during the Bolshevik Revolution. However, the German Army was defeated before it reached the oil fields.

    The Germans had pursued a relatively benign policy towards the USSR’s Muslim population of Caucasus and neighboring areas. This was after the war taken as an excuse for Stalin’s treatment of “treacherous ethnic elements”. Forced internal migration had begun already before the war and eventually affected at least 6 million people. Among them 1.8 million kulaks, mainly from Ukraine, who were deported from 1930 to 1931, one million peasants and ethnic minorities were driven from Caucasus between 1932 to 1939, and from 1940 to 1952, a further 3.5 million ethnic minorities were resettled.

    Nearly 8,000 Crimean Tatars died during these deportations, while tens of thousands perished subsequently due to the harsh exile conditions. The Crimean Tatar deportations resulted in the abandonment of 80,000 households and 360,000 acres of land. From 1967 to 1978, some 15,000 Tatars succeeded in returning legally to Crimea, less than 2 percent of the pre-war Tatar population. This remission was followed by a ban on further Tatar settlements.

    In 1944, almost all Chechens were deported to the Kazakh and Kirgiz Soviet republics. Accordingly, the Russian presence in Caucasus and Ukraine increased and so was Russian control of these areas’ natural resources, including wheat, coal, oil and gas.

    After World War I, Britain had first tried to halt the Bolshevik penetration of Iran and did in 1921 support a coup d’état placing the UK-friendly general Reza Shah as leader of the nation. When Britain and USSR eventually became allies against Nazi Germany they did together attack Iran and replaced Reza Shah with his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Reza Shah had become “far too Nazi-friendly.”

    Following a 1950 election, Mohammad Mosaddegh became president of Iran. He was committed to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, AIOC (successor of the IPC mentioned above). In a joint effort the Secret Intelligence Services of the UK and the US, MI6 and CIA, organized and paid for a “popular” uprising against Mosaddegh, though it backfired and their co-conspirator, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled the country. However, he did after a brief exile return and this time a coup d’état was successful. The deposed Mosaddegh was arrested and condemned to life in internal exile.

    Mosaddegh’s internally popular effort to remove oil revenues from foreign claws inspired other Middle East leaders to oppose Britain and France. In 1956, the Egyptian president Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company, primarily owned by British and French shareholders. An ensuing invasion by Israel, followed by UK and France, aimed at regaining control of the Canal, ended in a humiliating withdrawal by the three invaders, signifying the end of UK’s role as one of the world’s major powers. The same year, USSR was emboldened to invade Hungary, quenching a popular uprising.

    In 1960, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in Baghdad. This was a turning point toward national sovereignty over natural resources. The US Iranian protégé, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, eventually came to play a leading role in OPEC where he promoted increased prices, proclaiming that the West’s “wealth based on cheap oil is finished.” The US was losing its ability to influence Iranian foreign and economic policy and discretely began to support the religous extremist Khomeini, who initially claimed that American presence was necessary as a counterbalance to Soviet influence. However, after coming to power in 1979 Khomeini revealed himself as a fierce opponent to the US. The US and some European governments thus ended up supporting the brutal Saddam Hussein’s war on Iran. The Iraqui leader, heavily financed by Arab Gulf states, suddenly became a ”defender of the Arab world against a revolutionary Iran.” The war ended in a stalemate,with approximately 500,000 killed.

    Ukraine is one last example of how a country has ended up in a siutaion where a superpower use its military force to impose its will upon it, while implying that other nations have similar intentions. Times are constantly changing and hopefully Russia will realise, like the UK once did, that it cannot maintain its might and strength through armed invasions, but instead have to rely on diplomacy and peaceful negotiations.

    Russia seems to be stuck in a time capsule where foreign greed and meddling in other nations’ internal affairs resulted in ruthless wars and immense human suffering. As the German philosopher Hegel stated in 1832:

      What experience and history teach is this — that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Market Lords, Much More than a War, Behind World’s Food Crisis

    Market Lords, Much More than a War, Behind World’s Food Crisis

    [ad_1]

    In each of the three global food crises studied, financial speculation has caused steep increases in prices, making food inaccessible to hundreds of millions of people. Credit: Bigstock
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Nov 11 (IPS) – While grain exports continue to regularly flow to world’s markets since the July 2022 Turkey-brokered agreement between Russia and Ukraine to resume cereals and fertilisers shipments from both countries, food prices are still skyrocketing everywhere. How come?

    The handiest answer by establishment politicians and media is that it’s all about the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February.

    Another argument they use is that it is Russia who interrupted its gas and oil exports, omitting the fact that it is West US-led sanctions that have drastically cut this flow to mostly European markets, causing a steady rise in energy costs, food transportation, etcetera.

    Nonetheless, such answers clearly ignore other structural causes: the dominant markets’ shocking speculations.

    “It is true that the Russian invasion against Ukraine disrupted global markets, and that prices are skyrocketing. But that also tells us that markets are part of the problem,” last April warned Michael Fakhri, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, 2022.

    Political failure

    In his report to the United Nations Security Council, the Special Rapporteur stated that hunger and famine, like conflicts, are always the result of “political failures.”

    Specifically, explains Michael Fakhri, “Markets are amplifying shocks and not absorbing them… food prices are soaring not because of a problem with supply and demand as such; it is because of price speculation in commodity futures markets.”

    Blocking the solutions

    The current food crisis is caused by “international failures,” he said, while providing two points in conclusion:

    – For over two years, people and civil society organisations around the world have been raising the alarm about the food crisis. For over two years, they have been calling for an international coordinated response to the food crisis.

    – And yet Member States have refused to mobilise the Rome-based agencies and other UN organisations to respond to the food crisis in a coordinated way.

    According to Michael Fakhri, some Member States and civil society organisations tried to get the CFS to pass a resolution last October in order for it to be the place to enable global policy coordination around the food crisis.

    “And yet some powerful countries – some members of the P5 – actively blocked that initiative. This undermined the world’s ability to respond to the food crisis.”

    Food “nationalism”

    Meanwhile, in a 7 November 2022 dossier by Focus on the Global South, Shalmali Guttal warned that a perfect storm is brewing in the global food system, pushing food prices to record high levels, and expanding hunger.

    “As international institutions struggle to respond, some governments have resorted to knee-jerk ‘food nationalism’ by placing export bans to preserve their own food supplies and stabilise prices….”

    In its dossier, researchers from Focus on the Global South write about various aspects of the current crisis, its causes, and how it is impacting countries in Asia.

    Corporations fuelling the crisis

    These include regional analysis, case studies from Sri Lanka, Philippines and India, “the role of corporations in fuelling the crisis and the flawed responses of international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Bretton Woods Institutions and United Nations agencies.”

    The recently released State of Food Insecurity and Nutrition in the World 2022 (SOFI 2022) report presents a sobering picture of the failure of global efforts to end hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity. According to SOFI 21, “even before the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, world hunger levels were abysmally high.”

    Markets concentration and speculation

    In their recent analysis: A food crisis not of their making, CP Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh, said:

    Governments, and multilateral and international agencies are by and large apportioning the lion’s share of the blame for the current world food crisis to global supply shortages arising from the war on Ukraine, ignoring the persisting impacts in low- and middle-income countries of “the market forces of concentration and speculation, of globally determined macroeconomic processes, and the collapse of livelihood opportunities affecting these countries in the post-Covid world.”

    World food system dominated by markets

    Central to recurring food price volatility, food crises and the entrenchment of hunger and food insecurity are “market structures, regulations, and trade and finance arrangements that bolster a global corporate-dominated industrial food system, and enable market concentration and financial speculation in commodity markets.”

    Excessive speculation

    Furthermore, an analysis by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) indicates that the kind of “excessive speculation” seen in 2007-2008 that triggered food price spikes may be back.

    “Multilevel market concentration and financial speculation on commodity markets have played pivotal roles in past and the present food crises and present grave threats to the realisation of the Right to Food.”

    In addition, a historical examination of food crises over the past 50 years by professor Jennifer Clapp shows that the global industrial food system has been rendered more prone to price volatility and more susceptible to crises because of three interrelated manifestations of corporate concentration:

    – First, the global industrial food system relies on a small number of staple grains produced using highly industrialised farming methods, making the system susceptible to events that affect just a handful of crops and to rising costs of industrial farm inputs.

    – Second, a small number of countries specialise in the production of staple grains for export, on which many other countries depend, including many of the poorest and most food-insecure countries.

    – And third, the global grain trade is dominated by a small number of firms in highly financialized commodity markets that are prone to volatility (IPES-Food 2022; FAO 2022; OECD and FAO 2020).”

    Mega corporations

    On this, Jennifer Clapp, professor and Canada Research Chair, School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, explains that “a small number of corporations exercise a high degree of influence over the global industrial food system, powered by mergers and acquisitions of one another to form giant mega-corporations, which enable further concentration horizontally and vertically, as well as influence over policy-making and governance nationally and globally.”

    According to Clapp, “four grain trading corporations– Archer-Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus, called the ‘ABCD’– control 70-90 % of the grain trade.”

    As “cross-sectoral value chain managers” these grain trading giants are able to compile large amounts of market data, but are under no obligation to disclose this information and can hold stocks until prices have peaked, explains the expert.

    “And in each of the three global food crises studied, financial speculation has caused steep increases in prices, making food inaccessible to hundreds of millions of people.”

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Making the UN Charter a Reality: Towards a New Approach to Development Cooperation?

    Making the UN Charter a Reality: Towards a New Approach to Development Cooperation?

    [ad_1]

    Credit: UN Photo/Amanda Voisard
    • Opinion by A.H. Monjurul Kabir (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Nov 10 (IPS) – We are living in a world where both our bilateral and multilateral achievements, consensuses on human rights and social justice, and our resolve to public good are being tested like never before.

    Now, more than ever, we need to bring to life the values and principles of the UN Charter in every corner of the world. Due to the powers vested in its Charter and its unique international character, the UN can act on the issues confronting humanity, including:

    • Maintain international peace and security
    • Protect human rights
    • Deliver humanitarian aid
    • Promote sustainable development
    • Uphold international law

    Given my own personal trajectory in human rights advocacy and development cooperation, let me focus on aspects of sustainable development and consider whether we need to change and adopt any new approach to it to end extreme poverty, reduce inequalities, and rescue the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from exclusionary practices.

    Development or Sustainable Development must be inclusive: In fact, inclusion at the heart of Development Cooperation. Inclusive development is the concept that every person, regardless of their identity, is instrumental in transforming their societies.

    Development processes that are inclusive yield better outcomes for the communities that embark upon them. The UN was created to promote the rights and inclusion of marginalized and underrepresented populations in the development process and leads the UN’s response to addressing the needs and demands of those in in adversity and youth.

    Therefore, the UN implements activities that combat stigma and discrimination, promote empowerment and inclusion of marginalized or underrepresented groups, and improve the lives of populations in high-risk situations.

    It is important that we also adopt this in institutional and management settings: For example, UN Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI) recently conducted its first survey on Racism and Racial Discrimination in five languages.

    The survey was intended to capture data reflecting the Asian perspective in the UN system. It is planning to issue a report on the survey’s findings to support and address many critical issues of racism and racial discrimination. There are other networks who are addressing different elements of intersectionality including but not limited to, gender, disability, ethnicity, identity etc.

    So, the world and its challenges have become much more intersectional, which calls for a robust and intersectional approach to development cooperation.

    Intersectional Approach: An intersectionality lens allows us to see how social policy may affect people differently, depending on their specific set of ‘locations,’ and what unintended consequences particular policies may have on their individual lives.

    By listening to the most marginalized and/or disadvantaged groups of a community, development organizations can help combat oppression at all levels of society and rebuild communities from the ground up.

    Take the example of Persons with Disabilities. They are not a homogenous group, and this should be reflected in our policy advocacy and communications by considering intersectionality—the intersection of disability together with other factors, such as gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, refugee, migrant or asylum seeker status.

    For example, a person with disability also has a gender identity, may come from an Indigenous group and be young, old, a migrant or live in poverty.

    At the UN System, it is time to adopt an intersectional approach in our development cooperation, policy advocacy, programming, operational support, planning and budgeting. An intersectional approach considers the historical, social, and political context and recognizes the unique experience of the individual based on the intersection of all relevant grounds.

    This approach allows the experience of discrimination, based on the confluence of grounds involved, to be acknowledged and remedied. Using an intersectionality lens to approach our development practice means moving beyond the use of singular categories to understand people and groups and embracing the notion of inseparable and interconnected sets of social ‘locations’ that change through time, vary across places, and act together to shape an individual’s life experience and actions.

    This would go a long way to contribute to the SDGs’ Leave No One Behind principle (LNOB). The new approach calls for invigorating existing practices, making them more innovative, effective, and efficient.

    Innovation: We need to think of innovative approaches and instruments to attract and channel new resources to finance our developmental aspirations, as outlined in the 2030 SDGs now more than ever.

    Reliable and well-administered development financial institutions with a well-defined mandate and sound governance framework will continue to be an important vehicle to accelerate inclusive economic and social development.

    They can create new channels to crowd-in the private sector. Moreover, they can play a catalytical role by generating new knowledge, convening stakeholders, and providing technical assistance to build capacity in the private and public sectors. Mutual collaboration between and across public and private sector is critical to harness the full potential of innovation and innovative approaches.

    Let us not forget new media’s growing impact on both inclusive participation leveraging innovative practices.

    New Media: New media, including mobile and social media, could help demystify international institutions and encourage participation. The new media is also critical to widen the breadth of accessibility for persons with disabilities or those who live in rural and/or remote, hard to reach areas.

    Alongside this, there could be more regular interactions by the leadership of intergovernmental organisations with multi-stakeholders including civil society, organisations of persons with disabilities, and the media, and the creation of accessible databases of statistical and other information and knowledge on their work.

    Notwithstanding the Ukraine war, work at the UN continues. The world body can and should continue to play a constructive role in both development cooperation, crisis management, peace building, and post-conflict stabilization. It should continue to focus on crises from Afghanistan to Mali and Ukraine itself.

    However, it must explore new and innovative and intersectional ways to support inclusive development, climate justice and resilience, peacekeeping, and other global and regional key priorities.

    Otherwise, the SDGs will not be even near to their desired destination in 2030 or beyond.

    Dr. A.H. Monjurul Kabir, currently Global Policy and UN System Coordination Adviser and Team Leader for Gender Equality, Disability Inclusion, and Intersectionality at UN Women HQ in New York, is a political scientist and senior policy and legal analyst on global issues and Asia-Pacific trends.

    For policy and academic purposes, he can be contacted at [email protected] and followed on twitter at mkabir2011

    This article is from a blog based on a speech delivered by the author, in his personal capacity, at an event commemorating the UN’s 77th anniversary organized by UN-ANDI– a New York-based global network of like-minded Asian staff members of the UN system who strive to promote a more diverse and inclusive culture and mindset within the UN.

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • COP 15: Its Time to Decide on a Future

    COP 15: Its Time to Decide on a Future

    [ad_1]

    • Opinion by Elizabeth Mrema (montreal, canada)
    • Inter Press Service

    MONTREAL, Canada, Nov 04 (IPS) – It is no secret that humankind’s past actions have accelerated the deterioration of ecosystems, negatively impacting our economies, societies, health, and cultures. It is estimated that humans have altered over 97% of ecosystems worldwide, to date. One million species are currently threatened with extinction (IPBES).

    The writing on the wall is clear. Our planet is in crisis.

    Elizabeth Mrema

    The sobering reality is that if we continue on our current trajectory, biodiversity and the services it provides will continue to decline, jeopardizing the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and our lives as we know them. The decline in biodiversity is expected to further accelerate unless effective action is taken to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss. These causes are often justified by societal values, norms and behaviors. Some examples include unsustainable production and consumption patterns, human population dynamics and trends, and technological innovation patterns.

    With biodiversity declining faster than any other time in human history, our quality of life, our well-being, and our economies are under threat. Over 44 trillion US dollars of assets globally, or over half of the world’s GDP, is at risk from biodiversity loss (WEF). Our economies are embedded in natural systems and depend considerably on the flow of ecosystem goods and services, such as food, other raw materials, pollination, water filtration, and climate regulation. But we still have a chance. We still have a narrow window in which to transform our relationship with biodiversity and create a healthy, profitable, sustainable future. We can still bend the curve of biodiversity loss and leave future generations with prosperity and hope. We can still move to support ecosystem resilience, human well-being, and global prosperity.

    This has deemed this the decisive decade. This is because after this decade, once we move past 2030, the damage done to our planet will be beyond repair. That doesn’t give us much time but it does still give us a chance. This December in Montreal, Canada we will get that chance. It is likely our only chance. I can’t emphasize that enough. This December, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will bring world leaders together to address the biodiversity crisis at the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 15). Truth be told, the outcome of COP 15 will determine the trajectory of humankind on planet Earth.

    The ultimate goal of COP 15 is to emerge with a plan, a roadmap to a sustainable future. We call it the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF). The framework is currently being negotiated by Parties under the Convention on Biological Diversity and represents a historic opportunity to accelerate action on biodiversity at all levels. It aims to build on the outcomes of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets and achieve the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature. The draft framework, if adopted and implemented, will put biodiversity on a path to recovery before the end of this decade.

    Why is it critical that the GBF is adopted and implemented? Because 90% of seabirds have plastic in their stomachs (WWF UK). Because we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute (WWF LPR). Because an estimated 4 billion people rely primarily on natural medicines for their health care and some 70 per cent of drugs used for cancer are natural or are synthetic products inspired by nature (IPBES). Because Ecosystem-based approaches (biodiversity) can provide up to 30% of the climate mitigation needed by 2030. Because monitored wildlife populations, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish, have seen a devastating 69% drop on average since 1970 (WWF LPR). I could go on and on.

    Some key targets within the draft framework include:

    • Ensuring that at least 30 per cent globally of land areas and of sea areas are protected.
    • Preventing or reducing the rate of introduction and establishment of invasive alien species by 50%.
    • Reducing nutrients lost to the environment by at least half, pesticides by at least two thirds, and eliminate discharge of plastic waste.
    • Using ecosystem-based approaches to contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change and ensuring that all climate efforts avoid negative impacts on biodiversity.
    • Redirecting, repurposing, reforming or eliminating incentives harmful for biodiversity in a just and equitable way, reducing them by at least $500 billion per year.
    • Increasing financial resources from all sources to at least US$ 200 billion per year, including new, additional and effective financial resources, increasing by at least US$ 10 billion per year international financial flows to developing countries.

    The post-2020 global biodiversity framework is not just important, it is critical. It will take a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach and it will take hard work and commitment; but we can do it. We need to act now to bend the curve to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. COP 15 will be a the most crucial and decisive step towards a better and more sustainable future for generations to come. This is our chance. It’s time to decide on a future.

    Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, a national of the United Republic of Tanzania, is the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Early Coal Retirement: How about a Global Auction

    Early Coal Retirement: How about a Global Auction

    [ad_1]

    There are over 8,500 coal power plants in the world, with over 2,100 GWs of capacity.  These plants generate about 10 gigatons of CO2 emissions  per year, nearly 30% of the global total. Credit: Bigstock
    • Opinion by Philippe Benoit, Chandra Shekhar Sinha (washington dc)
    • Inter Press Service

    WASHINGTON DC, Nov 02 (IPS) – Report after report highlights that we can only achieve the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions required by the climate goals of the Paris Agreement if much of the existing coal power generation capacity is retired early.  To this end, one concept that deserves greater consideration is conducting an auction for early retirement of coal power plants worldwide: a global coal retirement auction. This article sets out the broad outlines of how this global auction might operate.

    The International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated that there are over 8,500 coal power plants in the world, with over 2,100 GWs of capacity.  Although these plants are concentrated in a limited number of countries (notably China, followed by India and the U.S.), there are coal plants running in over 100 countries with over 2,000 owners.

    These plants generate about 10 gigatons of CO2 emissions  per year, nearly 30% of the global total.  This  level of emissions from coal is incompatible with either the “well below 2oC” or the more ambitious ”1.5oC” temperature targets set out in the Paris Agreement.

    Accordingly, climate/development organizations, like the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank, the IEA and RMI, are exploring programs to effect the early retirement of these coal plants.

    But closing these plants presents two important challenges.  First, retiring these plants removes electricity production that many countries rely upon for their economic development … production that would need to be replaced with preferably low-carbon sources.  Second, owners are generally unwilling to shutter revenue-generating plants and want financial compensation for the returns they would forego from the premature retirement of their asset.  This article addresses this second constraint.

    There are various regulatory mechanisms that can be used to push early retirement, such as mandating closure of plants or imposing a carbon tax or other cost that makes operating the plant uneconomic.

    A completely different tack is to entice closures by paying the owners to do so.  This is the premise of, for example, the ADB’s innovative Energy Transition Mechanism.

    But what’s a fair price? Perhaps, however, that’s not the right question. Rather, at what price are the owners willing to shutter their plants? Given that there are more than 8,500 coal power plants operating with different technical and revenue characteristics, and over 2,000 plant owners in diverse financial situations following distinctive corporate strategies (including numerous state-owned enterprises), the answer will vary.

    A technique that has been used in this type of context of multiple actors is an “auction”. While in the traditional context, a seller looks to get the highest price from multiple possible buyers through an auction, in this case, we have a buyer that is interested in paying the lowest price to different plant owners (i.e., the sellers) for the retirement of their coal plants.

    This is referred to as a “reverse auction”.  This tool has been used to acquire new power production, including renewables, at low prices, and specifically in the climate context to attract cost-effective investments that reduce methane emissions.

    The reverse auction mechanism could be used to solicit proposals from coal power plant owners as to the price at which they would be willing to close their plant.  Conceptually, this could be done on the basis of MWs of installed power generation capacity. Under the auction, an interested coal plant owner would offer to sell — more specifically, to shutter — their MWs of plant capacity by a fixed time at a proposed price.

    Importantly, the climate benefit sought by the auction is not from the decommissioning of MWs of capacity itself, but rather from the GHG emissions that would be avoided by retiring that capacity. Accordingly, for any coal retirement tender, it will be necessary to estimate the level of emissions that would be avoided.

    This determination will be based on several factors, including the particular plant’s efficiency, remaining operational life and other technical characteristics, the type of coal used, and the amount of electricity production projected to be foregone through early retirement given the power system’s expected demand for electricity from that plant.

    Tenders should include sufficient information to evaluate these items and, by extension, the level of avoided emissions and related climate benefit to be produced from the proposed retirement. This, in turn, will drive how much the auction buyer should be willing to pay for the tender.

    Moreover, because it would be largely counter-productive from a climate perspective to pay to retire existing coal plants to see that money used directly (or indirectly) to build new fossil fuel generation, the tender by the plant owner would need to be accompanied by an undertaking not to reinvest in new fossil fuel generation.

    As has been repeatedly explained, CO2 emissions have a global impact that is essentially unaffected by the geographic location of the emitting plant. Given this global nature of emissions, the auction would likewise be conducted at a worldwide level as a global auction.  From India to Indonesia, from South Africa to South Korea, from Poland to Australia, any plant anywhere would be eligible to participate in the global auction.

    Given this scope, an international organization like the United Nations or a multilateral development bank would be well positioned to provide the platform for this auction.  One could imagine a system where the auction bidding process sets out eligibility criteria for projects, the methodology for estimating GHG emission reductions, and other key bid-submission parameters.

    Significantly, while the bidding process would be managed on an integrated basis, the funding and selection of winners need not be. Rather, a system that allows for the matching of interested coal retirement buyers with individual plant owners could be used.

    For example, buyers and their funding could be mobilized on a plant-by-plant basis based on information submitted by the plant owner through the auction process.  Indeed, many potential funders have areas of focus that could lead them to be attracted to retiring coal assets only in certain countries (e.g., funders interested in a targeted set of developing countries).  The proposed auction structure could accommodate these preferences. Moreover, the global auction could also operate in association with country-specific approaches.

    One potential source of funding for coal retirements tendered under the auction is the potentially large amounts of capital to be mobilized through expanded carbon credit mechanisms under development. Tapping into these mechanisms might require establishing defined project eligibility criteria, frameworks for calculating GHG emissions reductions, and associated monitoring and verification systems to enable payments for emission reductions at the time of decommissioning based on a price for emission reduction (“carbon”) credits.

    It is also important to recall the first constraint noted earlier, namely that countries, and particularly developing countries, will need more electricity to power further economic and social development.  Accordingly, any global auction to retire coal plants needs to be coupled with a program to fund new renewables electricity generation.

    Climate change is a global challenge affected by GHG emissions from anywhere.  We need to reduce emissions from coal power generation and that requires some program to encourage and entice owners to shutter their plants.  A global auction, conducted by the United Nations or a similar international organization, would help to identify opportunities where willing plant owners and interested funders can make a deal.

    Philippe Benoit has over 20 years working on international energy, finance and development issues, including management positions at the World Bank and the International Energy Agency. He is currently research director at Global Infrastructure Analytics and Sustainability 2050.

    Chandra Shekhar Sinha is an Adviser in the Climate Change Group at the World Bank and works on climate and carbon finance. He previously worked at JPMorgan, TERI-India, UNDP, and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Oil Exporters Make Markets, Not War

    Oil Exporters Make Markets, Not War

    [ad_1]

    View of the bulk fuel plant in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Because the kingdom needs oil prices to remain high to balance its budget, it pushed OPEC and its allies to decide on a production cut as of Nov. 1. CREDIT: Aramco
    • by Humberto Marquez (caracas)
    • Inter Press Service

    CARACAS, Nov 01 (IPS) – The decision to cut oil production by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies as of Nov. 1 comes in response to the need to face a shrinking market, although it also forms part of the current clash between Russia and the West.

    The OPEC+ alliance (the 13 members of the organization and 10 allied exporters) decided to remove two million barrels per day from the market, in a world that consumes 100 million barrels per day. The decision was driven by the two largest producers, Saudi Arabia – OPEC’s de facto leader – and Russia.

    The cutback “is due to economic reasons, because Saudi Arabia depends on relatively high oil prices to keep its budget balanced, so it is important for Riyadh that the price of the barrel does not fall below 80 dollars,” Daniela Stevens, director of energy at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, told IPS.

    The benchmark prices at the end of October were 94.14 dollars per barrel for Brent North Sea crude in the London market and 88.38 dollars for West Texas Intermediate in New York.

    “At the time of the cutback decision (Oct. 5) oil prices had fallen 40 percent since March, and the OPEC+ countries feared that the projected slowdown in the global economy – and with it demand for oil – would drastically reduce their revenues,” Stevens said.

    With the cut, “OPEC+ hopes to keep Brent prices above 90 dollars per barrel,” which remains to be seen “since due to the lack of investment the real cuts will be between 0.6 and 1.1 million barrels per day and not the more striking two million,” added Stevens from her institution’s headquarters in Washington.

    A month ago, the alliance set a joint production ceiling of 43.85 million barrels per day, not including Venezuela, Iran and Libya (OPEC partners exempted due to their respective crises), which would allow them to deliver 48.23 million barrels per day to the market.

    But market operators estimate that they are currently producing between 3.5 and five million barrels per day below the maximum level considered.

    The alliance is made up of the 13 OPEC partners: Algeria, Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, plus Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan and South Sudan.

    The giants of the alliance are Saudi Arabia and Russia, which produce 11 million barrels per day each, followed at a distance by Iraq (4.65 million), United Arab Emirates (3.18), Kuwait (2.80) and Iran (2.56 million).

    In July, U.S. President Joe Biden met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom he discussed human rights and abundant oil supplies for the global market. A few months later Riyadh led the decision for an oil cut that has been seen as a betrayal by Washington. CREDIT: Bandar Algaloud/SRP
    In July, U.S. President Joe Biden met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom he discussed human rights and abundant oil supplies for the global market. A few months later Riyadh led the decision for an oil cut that has been seen as a betrayal by Washington. CREDIT: Bandar Algaloud/SRP

    United States takes the hit

    U.S. President Joe Biden was “disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” a White House statement said.

    The price of gasoline in the United States has soared from 2.40 dollars a gallon in early 2021 to the current average of 3.83 dollars – after peaking at five dollars in June – a heavy burden for Biden and his Democratic Party in the face of the Nov. 8 mid-term elections for Congress.

    Biden visited Saudi Arabia in July, while the press reminded the public that during his 2020 election campaign he talked about making the Arab country “a pariah” because of its leaders’ responsibility for the October 2018 murder in Istanbul of prominent opposition journalist in exile Jamal Khashoggi.

    The U.S. president said he made clear to the powerful Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman his conviction that he was responsible for the crime. But the thrust of his visit was to urge the kingdom to keep the taps wide open to contain crude oil and gasoline prices.

    Hence the U.S. disappointment with the production cut promoted by Riyadh – double the million barrels per day predicted by market analysts – which, by propping up prices, favors Russia’s revenues, which has had to place in Asia, at a discount, the oil that Europe is no longer buying from it.

    Biden then announced the release of 15 million barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve – which totaled more than 600 million barrels in 2021 and just 405 million this October – completing the release of 180 million barrels authorized by Biden in March, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that was initially supposed to occur over six months.

    Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Vladimir Putin chat cordially during a visit by the Russian leader to Riyadh in October 2019. The two major oil exporters lead the 23-state alliance that upholds production cuts to prop up prices. CREDIT: SPA
    Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Vladimir Putin chat cordially during a visit by the Russian leader to Riyadh in October 2019. The two major oil exporters lead the 23-state alliance that upholds production cuts to prop up prices. CREDIT: SPA

    Shift in Washington-Riyadh relations

    Karen Young, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University in New York, wrote that “oil politics are entering a new phase as the U.S.-Saudi relationship descends.”

    “Both countries are now directly involved in each other’s domestic politics, which has not been the case in most of the 80-year bilateral relationship,” she wrote.

    “….(M)arkets had anticipated a cut of about half that much. Whether the decision to announce a larger cut was hasty or politically motivated by Saudi political leadership (rather than technical advice) is not clear,” she added.

    Saudi leaders could apparently see Biden as pandering to Iran, its archenemy in the Gulf area, with positions adverse to Riyadh’s in the conflict in neighboring Yemen, and would resent the accusation against the crown prince for the murder of Khashoggi.

    Young argued that “the accusation that Saudi Arabia has weaponized oil to aid Russian President Vladimir Putin is extreme,” and said “The Saudi leadership may assume that keeping Putin in the OPEC+ tent is more valuable than trying to influence oil markets without him.”

    Gasoline prices in the United States, while down from their June level of five dollars per gallon, are still at a high level for many consumers ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS
    Gasoline prices in the United States, while down from their June level of five dollars per gallon, are still at a high level for many consumers ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

    More market, less war

    OPEC’s secretary general since August, Haitham Al Ghais of Kuwait, said on Oct. 7 that “Russia’s membership in OPEC+ is vital for the success of the agreement…Russia is a big, main and highly influential player in the world energy map.”

    Writing for the specialized financial magazine Barron’s, Young stated that “What is certainly true is that energy markets are now highly politicized.”

    “The United States is now an advocate of market manipulation, asking for favors from the world’s essential swing producer, advocating price caps on Russian crude exports and embargoes in Europe,” Young wrote.

    For its part, the Saudi Foreign Ministry rejected as “not based on facts” the criticism of the OPEC+ decision, and said that Washington’s request to delay the cut by one month (until after the November elections, as the Biden administration supposedly requested) “would have had negative economic consequences.”

    In its most recent monthly market analysis, OPEC noted that “The world economy has entered into a time of heightened uncertainty and rising challenges, amid ongoing high inflation levels, monetary tightening by major central banks, high sovereign debt levels in many regions as well as ongoing supply issues.”

    It also mentioned geopolitical risks and the resurgence of China’s COVID-19 containment measures.

    The two million barrel cut was decided “In light of the uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks, and the need to enhance the long-term guidance for the oil market,” said the OPEC+ alliance’s statement following its Oct. 5 meeting.

    Oil analyst Elie Habalian, who was Venezuela’s governor to OPEC, also opined that “notwithstanding Mohammed bin Salman’s sympathy for Putin, the cut was due to his concern about the balance of the world oil market, and not to support Russia.”

    Latin America, pros and cons

    Stevens said the oil outlook that opens up this November will mean, for importers in the region, that their fuels will be more expensive but probably not by a significant amount, and net importers in Central America and the Caribbean will be the hardest hit.

    Exporters will benefit from higher prices. Brazil and Mexico have already increased their exports of fuel oil, and Argentina and Colombia have hiked their exports of crude oil. And higher prices would particularly benefit Brazil and Guyana, which are boosting their production capacity.

    Argentina could have benefited if it had begun to invest in production years ago, but its financial instability left it with little capacity to take advantage of this moment. And Venezuela not only faces sanctions, but upgrading its worn-out oil infrastructure would require investments and time that it does not have.

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Developing Countries Need Monetary Financing

    Developing Countries Need Monetary Financing

    [ad_1]

    • Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Anis Chowdhury (sydney and dakar)
    • Inter Press Service

    SYDNEY and DAKAR, Nov 01 (IPS) – Developing countries have long been told to avoid borrowing from central banks (CBs) to finance government spending. Many have even legislated against CB financing of fiscal expenditure.

    Central bank fiscal financing
    Such laws are supposedly needed to curb inflation – below 5%, if not 2% – to accelerate growth. These arrangements have also constrained a potential CB developmental role and government ability to respond better to crises.

    Anis ChowdhuryImproved monetary-fiscal policy coordination is also needed to achieve desired structural transformation, especially in decarbonizing economies. But too many developing countries have tied their own hands with restrictive legislation.

    A few have pragmatically suspended or otherwise circumvented such self-imposed prohibitions. This allowed them to borrow from CBs to finance pandemic relief and recovery packages.

    Such recent changes have re-opened debates over the urgent need for counter-cyclical and developmental fiscal-monetary policy coordination.

    Monetary financing rubbished
    But financial interests claim this enables national CBs to finance government deficits, i.e., monetary financing (MF). MF is often blamed for enabling public debt, balance of payments deficits, and runaway inflation.

    As William Easterly noted, “Fiscal deficits received much of the blame for the assorted economic ills that beset developing countries in the 1980s: over indebtedness and the debt crisis, high inflation, and poor investment performance and growth”.

    Hence, calls for MF are typically met with scepticism, if not outright opposition. MF undermines central bank independence (CBI) – hence, the strict segregation of monetary from fiscal authorities – supposedly needed to prevent runaway inflation.

    Jomo Kwame SundaramRecent International Monetary Fund (IMF) research insists MF “involves considerable risks”. But it acknowledges MF to cope with the pandemic did not jeopardize price stability. A Bank of International Settlements paper also found MF enabled developing countries to respond countercyclically to the pandemic.

    Cases of MF leading to runaway inflation have been very exceptional, e.g., Bolivia in the 1980s or Zimbabwe in 2007-08. These were often associated with the breakdown of political and economic systems, as when the Soviet Union collapsed.

    Bolivia suffered major external shocks. These included Volcker’s interest rate spikes in the early 1980s, much reduced access to international capital markets, and commodity price collapses. Political and economic conflicts in Bolivian society hardly helped.

    Similarly, Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation was partly due to conflicts over land rights, worsened by government mismanagement of the economy and British-led Western efforts to undermine the Mugabe government.

    Indian lessons
    Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Y.V. Reddy noted fiscal-monetary coordination had “provided funds for development of industry, agriculture, housing, etc. through development financial institutions” besides enabling borrowing by state owned enterprises (SOEs) in the early decades.

    For him, less satisfactory outcomes – e.g., continued “macro imbalances” and “automatic monetization of deficits” – were not due to “fiscal activism per se but the soft-budget constraint” of SOEs, and “persistent inadequate returns” on public investments.

    Monetary policy is constrained by large and persistent fiscal deficits. For Reddy, “undoubtedly the nature of interaction between depends on country-specific situation”.

    Reddy urged addressing monetary-fiscal policy coordination issues within a broad common macroeconomic framework. Several lessons can be drawn from Indian experience.

    First, “there is no ideal level of fiscal deficit, and critical factors are: How is it financed and what is it used for?” There is no alternative to SOE efficiency and public investment project financial viability.

    Second, “the management of public debt, in countries like India, plays a critical role in development of domestic financial markets and thus on conduct of monetary policy, especially for effective transmission”.

    Third, “harmonious implementation of policies may require that one policy is not unduly burdening the other for too long”.

    Lessons from China?Zhou Xiaochuan, then People’s Bank of China (PBoC) Governor, emphasized CBs’ multiple responsibilities – including financial sector development and stability – in transition and developing economies.

    China’s CB head noted, “monetary policy will undoubtedly be affected by balance of international payments and capital flows”. Hence, “macro-prudential and financial regulation are sensitive mandates” for CBs.

    PBoC objectives – long mandated by the Chinese government – include maintaining price stability, boosting economic growth, promoting employment, and addressing balance of payments problems.

    Multiple objectives have required more coordination and joint efforts with other government agencies and regulators. Therefore, “the PBoC … works closely with other government agencies”.

    Zhou acknowledged, “striking the right balance between multiple objectives and the effectiveness of monetary policy is tricky”. By maintaining close ties with the government, the PBoC has facilitated needed reforms.

    He also emphasized the need for policy flexibility as appropriate. “If the central bank only emphasized keeping inflation low and did not tolerate price changes during price reforms, it could have blocked the overall reform and transition”.

    During the pandemic, the PBoC developed “structural monetary” policy tools, targeted to help Covid-hit sectors. Structural tools helped keep inter-bank liquidity ample, and supportive of credit growth.

    More importantly, its targeted monetary policy tools were increasingly aligned with the government’s long-term strategic goals. These include supporting desired investments, e.g., in renewable energy, while preventing asset price bubbles and ‘overheating’.

    In other words, the PBoC coordinates monetary policy with fiscal and industrial policies to achieve desired stable growth, thus boosting market confidence. As a result, inflation in China has remained subdued.

    Consumer price inflation has averaged only 2.3% over the past 20 years, according to The Economist. Unlike global trends, China’s consumer price inflation fell to 2.5% in August, and rose to only 2.8% in September, despite its ‘zero-Covid’ policy and measures such as lockdowns.

    Needed reforms
    Effective fiscal-monetary policy coordination needs appropriate arrangements. An IMF working paper showed, “neither legal independence of central bank nor a balanced budget clause or a rule-based monetary policy framework … are enough to ensure effective monetary and fiscal policy coordination”.

    Appropriate institutional and operational arrangements will depend on country-specific circumstances, e.g., level of development and depth of the financial sector, as noted by both Reddy and Zhou.

    When the financial sector is shallow and countries need dynamic structural transformation, setting up independent fiscal and monetary authorities is likely to hinder, not improve stability and sustainable development.

    Understanding each other’s objectives and operational procedures is crucial for setting up effective coordination mechanisms – at both policy formulation and implementation levels. Such an approach should better achieve the coordination and complementarity needed to mutually reinforce fiscal and monetary policies.

    Coherent macroeconomic policies must support needed structural transformation. Without effective coordination between macroeconomic policies and sectoral strategies, MF may worsen payments imbalances and inflation. Macro-prudential regulations should also avoid adverse MF impacts on exchange rates and capital flows.

    Poorly accountable governments often take advantage of real, exaggerated and imagined crises to pursue macroeconomic policies for regime survival, and to benefit cronies and financial supporters.

    Undoubtedly, much better governance, transparency and accountability are needed to minimize both immediate and longer-term harm due to ‘leakages’ and abuses associated with increased government borrowing and spending.

    Citizens and their political representatives must develop more effective means for ‘disciplining’ policy making and implementation. This is needed to ensure public support to create fiscal space for responsible counter-cyclical and development spending.

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • A New Digitalisation Effort in Bangladesh Could Change Community Health Globally

    A New Digitalisation Effort in Bangladesh Could Change Community Health Globally

    [ad_1]

    Data Entry by Specially Trained Community Health Worker in Bangladesh. Credit: Abdullah Al Kafi
    • Opinion by Morseda Chowdhury (dhaka, bangladesh)
    • Inter Press Service

    DHAKA, Bangladesh, Oct 31 (IPS) – The digital transformation of thousands of community health workers in Bangladesh has dramatically enhanced their work, while enabling the creation and tracking of a healthcare database covering 64 million people. The resulting model holds remarkable promise for the health of the world, especially in the context of evolving pandemics.

    Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, BRAC digitalised the work of our 4,100 shasthya kormi, specially trained community health workers, in Bangladesh. Shasthya kormi are women experienced in health education, antenatal and postnatal checkups, non-communicable disease prevention, reproductive health and nutrition. The digital transformation of their work created benefits on a remarkable number of levels, underscored the vast potential for further scaling, and yielded insights directly relevant to increasing the quality of healthcare globally.

    Each shasthya kormi was given an Android tablet and trained in its use. That enabled immediate time saving in myriad ways: faster and more accurate record-keeping; reports conveyed online rather than in person; training conducted online and at convenient times rather than only at designated times in person; and related administrative travel and costs avoided. The time saved can exceed a full day every two weeks. The digital devices also enabled us to save approximately USD3.8 million per year in monitoring costs.

    But that is just the beginning of the benefits. The digital tablets enhance the prestige of shasthya kormi, as they now have access to vital information at their fingertips. They can screen for diseases and conditions, confirm diagnoses, have complete confidence in describing required treatment and management, and arrange video chats with doctors and specialists. Their decision-making is quicker and more accurate, improving their quality of care and giving them more time to spend with patients.

    Electronic reporting enabled the creation of a database that we expect will grow to cover 76 million people. That database can now be tracked and analysed for trends – in the incidence of disease or other conditions, in the delivery of services, and in outcomes. Those trends can be analysed and addressed in real time – locally and nationally, as BRAC’s shasthya kormi cover 61 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts.

    For COVID-19, for instance, reports of symptoms and test results can be tracked, as can vaccinations and outcomes. Recognizing the incidence of positive test results in Bangladesh’s border regions is especially valuable to understanding how trends evolve across regions.

    For tuberculosis, 1.4 million samples have been collected and tracked. Similarly, non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes, for both of which the incidences are rising in Bangladesh, can be tracked and addressed. If anyone has high blood pressure, a shasthya kormi can precisely record it. A blood glucose test administered by a shasthya kormi can detect abnormal blood sugar levels indicating possible diabetes. The database can track the percentage of pregnant women who are at high risk.

    The overall database – with its 150 data points so far – also enables cross-tabulation of facility-specific and community-specific data. It makes it possible to merge BRAC’s trend analyses with data from government and other institutions. It responds to internal migration, with each individual’s medical records linked to their government-issued national identification card – so each person’s health record moves with them.

    When these benefits are combined with the cost-effective nature of this digital approach, the potential for scaling increases dramatically. Each digital tablet costs about $100, so 4,100 shasthya kormi can be equipped for less than half a million dollars. In addition, they save money through the efficiencies described above. Patients also save – out-of-pocket expenditure makes up 63% of medical expenses in Bangladesh, and tests conducted by shasthya kormi often cost one tenth what they would in a private clinic. This in turn also takes pressure off health facilities.

    The initiative has enormous potential to scale further – within Bangladesh and around the world. Shasthya kormi can be recruited locally and trained in a matter of weeks. They can be equipped digitally without great expense. The quality of their work can be monitored digitally, and everyone benefits from the enhanced access to health care that results.

    Key to scaling are several insights that emerged as we orchestrated this digital transformation.

    First, it was critical to track data input closely from the start, to identify anyone struggling with the transformation. One of the first clues was a lot of data being entered after 5:00 pm. It was not because people did not know how to enter it, but because they were nervous about using the devices in public, and did not want to make errors in front of the people who trust them.

    Once we saw this in the data and figured out the reason behind it, we could easily work with each person to overcome it. Early on, we created a team of 40 technical officers who provided additional training and support for anyone struggling. The help was provided in some cases over the phone, but otherwise in person. Initially most people needed it, but now only about 10% of people need assistance.

    Second, the digital tablets enabled constant, on-demand professional development. Needs, equipment and trends change regularly in the health sector, and these changes can occur rapidly. Shasthya kormi could assess their skills at any time convenient to them using tests available on the tablet, and the module would identify weaknesses and suggest further training to address it. Managers could also track their supervisee’s progress. This enhanced the expertise of the network broadly.

    Third, we observed a tendency to skip entering critical but more difficult to obtain inputs, like National Identity numbers and birth registration numbers. Fortunately, we can often fill gaps by cross-tabulating with our mobile-based cash transfer system. We also noticed that counselling information was not recorded as seriously as service data. Iterative training has gradually solved these challenges.

    Fourth, the digital transformation addressed a decades-old challenge – prestige. Shasthya kormi are often taken for granted, and they are sometimes welcomed, sometimes not. In order to establish the rapport they need to do their work, however, which is often of a sensitive nature, particularly in conservative communities, it is crucial that they are accepted into every household. Digitalisation has elevated the level of respect they receive in the community, particularly among men.

    The success of this digital transformation, if scaled, could change community health globally. The result would be superior primary health care service delivery, operational efficiency and establishment of an infrastructure for real time health trend analysis, in a time when we have never struggled more with quality and accessibility of health care around the world.

    Morseda Chowdhury is Director of the Health, Nutrition, and Population Programme at BRAC in Bangladesh.

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • War, Greed and Mass Manipulation

    War, Greed and Mass Manipulation

    [ad_1]

    • Opinion by Jan Lundius (stockholm)
    • Inter Press Service

    STOCKHOLM, Oct 26 (IPS) – In his treatise On War, the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) stated that war is “merely a continuation of policy with other means”. With his experience from the Napoleonic Wars von Clausewitz knew that totalitarian regimes could end up conducting huge and ruthless military campaigns. Furthermore, he assumed that to win a war it is necessary to mobilize and indoctrinate the inhabitants of an entire nation. Such an endeavour is called total war, a term that actually can be applied to Putin’s war in Ukraine.

    Putin came to power during the turbulent times following the collapse of the Soviet Empire. His image as a forceful personality convinced many that Putin could make Russia “safe for democracy and business”. In June 2000, Bill Clinton proclaimed that Putin was “fully capable of building a prosperous, strong Russia, while preserving freedom and pluralism and the rule of law.”

    Soon business flourished, satisfying foreign investors eager to enjoy Russia’s vast deposits of natural riches. At the same time, fear of terrorism was boosted by explosions in heavily populated residential areas. Putin’s answer to these assumed terrorist threats was in accordance with von Clausewitz´s advice to use “force unsparingly, without reference to the quantity of bloodshed.” The pursuing escalation of the war in Chechnya, pinpointed as the origin of terrorism in Russia, made Putin a nationalist hero, while his characteristics as teetotaler, capable administrator, quick learner and talented actor made him assume the role of a Hollywood-inspired saviour/hero. He single-highhandedly flew planes and rode bare-chested through the wilderness surrounding Siberian rivers. Media lionised him as a rough and strong judo/black-belt champion capable of leading an entire, long suffering nation onto a straight path to prosperity.

    Some worrisome signs were nevertheless written on the wall. In 2004, Putin declared the collapse of the Soviet Union as” the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century.” Meanwhile, his acolytes were amassing the spoils from the collapsed Soviet Empire. Putin supported and protected those oligarchs who backed him, while bankrolling his inner circle.

    In Munich 2007, Putin bared his teeth and claws in a speech given at an international Security Conference. He declared that the US was a predatory nation prone to apply an ”almost unconstrained hyper-use of force – military force – in international relations plunging the world into an abyss of conflicts.” This revelation was in 2008 followed by Russia´s military assault on neighbouring Georgia.

    General elections were rigged, while some political opponents ended up dead, like Boris Nemtsov, who in 2015 was killed on a bridge close to the Kremlin. Alex Navalny, Putin’s most prominent and fearless opponent, was arrested and imprisoned for thirteen years. Out of jail, he was in 2020 poisoned on a flight to Siberia. Close to dying, he was brought to Germany for expert treatment. After recovering, Navalny went back to Russia, where he was immediately put on trial and imprisoned.

    Non-compliant oligarchs were and are routinely harassed. First to be rounded up were those who controlled independent media, like Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky. Both fled the country. In 2013, Berezovsky died ”in suspicious circumstances”. Another oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who had funded independent media, was already in October 2003 arrested on board his private jet and imprisoned for ten years.

    Putin can now unopposed claim that the belligerent attack on Ukraine was necessary for protecting the Motherland. Subdued Russian media affirm that ruthless Ukrainian leaders have transformed their nation into a pawn in the cynical game of a Superpower intending to subjugate, or even annihilate, the Russian Federation.

    It appears as if Putin is not only dedicated to make “Russia great again”. Another goal of his seems to be to enrich himself and his cronies. As a means to cover up his greed, Putin poses as upholder of “strict” morals, based on “pro-life” and traditional “family” values, as well as heroic patriotism and religious fundamentalism. Twenty years after coming to power Putin could declare: “The liberal idea has become obsolete. Liberals cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have been attempting to do over recent decades.”

    In spite of the Ukrainian war and his disrespect for human rights, Putin remains an icon for right-wing nationalists. A symbol of defiance to Western Liberal Establishment’s alleged encouragement of mass immigration and affinity to ”multiculturalism”, conceived as attempts to undermine morals and national identities.

    As a counterweight to such assumed measures, backward looking politicians around the world pay homage to nostalgic notions, like a lost Great Chinese Tradition, a Russian Empire, Hindu pride before the arrival of Islam, a Global Britain, the Ottoman Empire, etc. This trend is occasionally joined with a global system where ruling elites consider themselves to be unrestrained by international norms, traditional modes of state governance, and democratic decision processes. Some world leaders try to pull the wool over the eyes of their followers by packaging their intents within populist opinions, like despise for political correctness, globalism, investigative journalism, LBTQ rights, feminism and environmental NGOs. A dangerous trend that, if unchecked, might as in the case of Putin´s Russia lead to socioeconomic conflicts degenerating into total war.

    In the US, a strengthened adherence to illiberalism was fostered by Donald Trump. Under his watch US politics began to shift from rule-based order to one where might and wealth make right, a message boosted by media like Fox – and Breitbart News. Trump behaved like a wannabe despot, trying to apply authoritarian tactics at home, while paying homage to thugs and dictators abroad. Before him, US presidents had pledged their adherence to human rights, democracy, and freedom of speech. Nevertheless, their governments occasionally supported despots and dictators, not linking concerns for human rights to security, economy and financial affairs. A Realpolitik, which to “friendly” despots indicated that the US did not care so much about repression and corruption within the fiefdoms of their friends. Such behaviour was based on strategic reasons, while Donald Trump appeared to embrace authoritarians because he actually admired them – Dutete, Xi Jinping, Orbán, Erdo?an, Kim Jung-un, and not the least, Putin.

    The former US president´s homage to ideas similar to those of Putin and his pose as a nationalistic superman might be connected with his obvious narcissism and appeal to nationalistic extremists. However, his senseless bragging is also combined with greed. A wealth of investigating reporting has demonstrated links between organized crime and corrupt rulers/oligarchs with the Trump Organization’s overseas business connections.

    Money is also part of Russian foreign relations. Populist, chauvinistic parties like Italian Lega Nord (currently known as the Lega) and the French Front National (currently Rassemblement National) have received intellectual and economic support from Russia. This support to European political parties may be considered as a Russian effort to secure support for Putin’s policies abroad, as well as locally.

    Germany’s former chancellor, Angela Merkel, a fluent Russian speaker far from being a friend of Putin, dismissed him as a leader using nineteenth-century means to solve twenty-first century problems. For sure, Putin’s attack on Ukraine mirrors age-old use of devastating warfare as a radical solution to complicated sociopolitical problems. It seems to be a stalwart application of the two-hundred-years-old advice provided by von Clausewitz:

      Philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skillful method of disarming and overcoming an enemy without causing great bloodshed, and that this is the proper tendency of the Art of War. However plausible this may appear, still it is an error which must be extirpated; for in such dangerous things as war, the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are just the worst. As the use of physical power to the utmost extent by no means excludes the co-operation of the intelligence, it follows that he who uses force unsparingly, without reference to the quantity of bloodshed, must obtain a superiority if his adversary does not act likewise. By such means the former dictates the law to the latter, and both proceed to extremities, to which the only limitations are those imposed by the amount of counteracting force on each side.

    Putin´s Ukrainian war neglects human suffering and has now disintegrated into a bloody power struggle, where Russia “to the utmost extent” makes use of its military strength, while being supported by “the co-operation” of a propaganda striving to engage the entire Russian population in the war effort.

    The Ukrainian war not only concerns the protection of Mother Russia from a “predatory West”, its ultimate goal is to control a hitherto sovereign nation’s politics and natural resources. Putin’s declared support to an allegedly discriminated Russian minority in Luhansk and Donetsk seems to be a subterfuge for grabbing an essential part of Ukraine’s economic resources.

    During early 2000s, privatization of state industries yielded a so called Donbas Clan control of the economic and political power in the Donbas region. These oligarchs were supported by Kremlin and a rampant corruption soon took hold of an area dominated by heavy industry, such as coal mining (60 billion tonnes of coal are waiting to be extracted) and metallurgy.

    Before Russia in 2014 backed separatist forces in a ferocious civil war, this particular area produced about 30 percent of Ukraine’s exports and a huge amount of gas reserves in the Dnieper-Donets basin was beginning to be extracted. In those days, the most prominent oligarchs in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions were Putin proteges – Rinat Akhmetov and Viktor Yanukovych, the latter had become Ukraine’s President, though his attachment to Russia and conspicuous corruption led to his fall through the Maidan Uprising in 2013, starting point for Ukraine’s transformation into a prosperous nation.

    The Maidan Revolution caused a wave of insecurity sweeping through the former Soviet Empire, shaking up corrupt “counterfeit” democracies/dictatorships like Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Small wonder that the authoritarian leaders of these nations are stout supporters of Putin’s war in Ukraine.

    While reading von Clausewitz’s On War it is quite easy to relate it to Putin’s politics that undeniably have resulted in war as a “continuation of policy with other means.” It is not the first time in history that authoritarian regimes have plunged entire nations into a blood-drained pit of war. All of us have to be be aware that support of authoritarian regimes might lead us all down into Hell.

    Main Sources: Klaas, Brian (2018) The Despot´s Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy. London. Hurst & Company. von Clausewitz, Carl (1982) On War. London: Penguin Classics.

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link