By Julio Godoy, Terraviva, April 4, 2012
European civil society organisations continue to demand that international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund apply the same standards of transparency and accountability to their internal affairs that they demand for governments across the world.
These demands are being made just ahead of the spring meetings the IFIs will hold later this month in Washington D.C., and refer in particular to the nomination of a new president for the World Bank.
"The election of the new president of the Bank is typical of the lack of transparency and democracy that reigns in the international financial institutions," Peter Chowla, an economist working for the Bretton Woods project (BWP), told IPS.
The BWP, a London-based international coalition of economists and anti-globalisation activists, focuses its work on the IFIs, to challenge their power, open policy space, and promote alternative approaches.
Traditionally, the U.S. government and the European Union share the leading positions at the IFIs. While the U.S. government occupies the coveted presidency of the World Bank with a candidate of its own, the EU places one European technocrat at the helm of the IMF - no fair election process precedes either of these appointments.
Last year, the French government obtained the backing of European governments to name former French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, despite vociferous opposition from developing countries.
This year, U.S. president Barack Obama has nominated Korean-born physician Jim Yong Kim to become the Bank’s next president.
Although there are two alternative candidates for the position, the present Nigerian minister of finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and her former Colombian counterpart José Antonio Ocampo, it is taken as given that Kim’s candidacy will obtain the support of European countries, and that he will be elected during the bank’s board hearings scheduled to take place in Washington from Apr. 9-11.
It is expected that the confirmation of Kim as new president will be announced on Apr. 11.
Chowla recalled that such "opaque processes" of nomination were conceived more than 60 years ago, when the IFIs were founded, and no longer fit into "the present global economic and political structures."
But disagreements between European civil society organisations and the IFIs go beyond nomination procedures, and include the institutions’ policy recommendations for governments about management of climate change financial facilities.
Jeroen Kwakkenbos, policy and advocacy officer at the European Network on Debt and Development, told IPS that the World Bank had "neither a mandate nor the qualifications" to participate in the management of the future Green Climate Fund, which is supposed to administrate future financial resources for adaptation and mitigation of climate change, or of REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries).
"We urge the IFIs to remain outside the management of these facilities," Kwakkenbos told IPS. "Such entities should be managed under democratic principles – that is, one country, one vote, following representation of stake holders in the boards of the organisations."
Chowla stressed that the main problem with the IFIs is that these institutions continue to apply the neoliberal doctrine that characterised them throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
"These characteristics are deregulation, privatisation, and bilateral free trade agreements between industrialised and emerging countries," Chowla pointed out. "Four years after the global financial crisis broke out, there are no tangible signs of new regulation of financial flows."
Chowla specifically mentioned the financial flows to emerging countries, which have triggered important dislocations of exchange rates, leading to what some economists have dubbed "the currency war".
"(A)symmetry in the recovery of developing countries and the recessions in Europe after the crisis have led to major and unstable short term capital flows to developing countries," Chowla stated.
These flows have proved to be significantly destabilising, causing sharp appreciation of currencies of emergent developing countries such as Brazil.
Chowla said that the IMF analysis of this destabilising monetary phenomenon on emerging countries is flawed, because it is either based on econometric exercises relying on highly uncertain variables, or on the Fund’s own policy recommendations, which the authorities have not yet even agreed with.
Furthermore, the Bank and the Fund have helped to impose austerity programmes upon European countries already suffering deep economic downturns, regardless of the dramatic social consequences of cuts in public spending and social welfare, Chowla said.
Chowla also mentioned the support the World Bank continues to offer for privatisation programmes across the world.
"In Romania," he said, "the Bank is the main force behind the planned highly controversial privatisation of the local health system, opposed by unions and civil society groups."
Other groups, such as the Europe Corporate Observatory, raise similar complaints against the Bank and the IMF, for supporting free trade agreements (FTAs) with developing countries, which obviously damage local public health initiatives and food provision.
The most salient case is the European FTA with India, slated to come into force this year, which would force the Indian pharmaceutical industry to cease producing inexpensive generic medications to treat contagious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, which most of the developing world is dependent on as a cheap alternative to patented drugs.
Source
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
The Marginalised Niger Delta and their (last) chance
By Philips Akpoviri
Has anyone ever imagined how much of an Eldorado the South-Western region of Nigeria would have become if the vast reserves of hydrocarbons situate in the Niger Delta were largely domiciled in that region? Probably that part would have been at par with today’s eye-catching South Korea with breath-taking infrastructures, while the other parts of Nigeria wallow in abject poverty!
How about if we had these special fluids entirely lying beneath the lands and waters in the South East? We surely would have created another bullish and industrialised Israel in that part of Nigeria while other Nigerians lay tearfully at their mercy!
But perhaps, the biggest ‘if’ would be contemplated if Nigeria’s petroleum reserves were buried in the Northern half of Nigeria. Surely the entity called Nigeria would have been reversed by 180 degrees to the pre- 1914 amalgamation status engineered by the colonial masters. Non-Northerners would have been hurriedly ferried back down South – dead or alive.
But, having our petroleum blessings in the South-South region is by far the most evident manifestation of God-the-Creator’s unparalleled sense of awareness. By enriching the lands and waters of the most people-centred, seemingly weakest, least wise and most disunited sets of people in the country, the omniscience God has avoided several civil wars, unquantifiable losses and capacious blood spills.
They too are no saints though; they have their loads of problems too; chief among which is the psycho- disease of sycophancy. But they are the generous ones; the patient ones, and by far the most tolerant Nigerians there ever can be. These are the oppressed Niger Delta people. The South - South people of Nigeria.
For many years they whimpered, they yowled and they fearfully challenged their compatriots from the North, the West and of course, the East. They complained bitterly of deliberate conscienceless marginalization occasioned by their disadvantaged demographic minority. Their case has never being helped by the seemingly innumerable fractionated ethnic groups scattered all across their tattered marshy fields and contaminated water pockets.
Their waters bear the geese that lay the golden eggs and their land serve as the well-fertilized farmland that feed Nigeria. The nation - unless anything absolutely extraordinary happens – cannot survive without the produce of these people.
Yet still and ironically and inexplicably so, these fertile lands are the least developed, these productive waters are the most impure, and these generous people by far the least catered for. The country has been unfair on these people. Their plight is about the most eye-catching ignoble advertisement of injustice on a people.
They sought for answers to many questions; they demanded actions in lieu of the usual rhetoric. They asked for rights in the sea of unjust denials. They politely demanded justice from a system that had nothing but injustice for them. On the altar of redress the brave Ken Saro-Wiwa, his kinsmen from Ogoni land and others had to painfully give up their own today that others might get a better tomorrow.
These few brave men dared to say no when a ‘no’ had to be said and for this they paid the ultimate price. No thanks to the dark-goggled maximum ruler General Sani Abacha – a man Nigeria had the rather irreparable misfortune of having to mislead us.
On the blood of these martyrs and a few others, one patient man, Dr Goodluck Jonathan proudly sits atop the nation’s most expensive seat as President and Commander in Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces. He has walked his way into the history books as the first man from the super-rich Niger Delta region to hold that office.
Today, the Niger Delta people need not send emissaries to Abuja to explain their plights to one man who scarcely appreciates their insupportable privations. They already have a Niger Delta - thorough bred; an illustrious knowledgeable son of the soil who at least going by his title, has attained the peak of academic distinction up there at the most powerful office in Nigeria.
But, Dr Jonathan’s presidency would not last eternally. Barring any drama, he would vacate office on May 29, 2015 – just about 1,152 days only to go! And at that time, every good work he failed to do for his beloved Niger Delta people might never be done in his lifetime and perhaps much longer afterwards.
The South-South zone is a distant minority in Nigeria’s political calculations; hence, it is rather crystal clear that the Niger Delta would not produce another president any time soon after 2015, unless perhaps Dr Jonathan decides to test the oneness of Nigeria by creating a risky Balkanization-threatening upset.
It is for this reason and more that the president has to as a matter of utmost urgency see to the pitiable plight of his dying people. He must make concerted efforts to genuinely protect them and positively change their lives forever.
Their predominant occupations are fishing and farming. These arts must be positively encouraged. Water and land pollution by petroleum-based pollutants and such other impediments to profitable fishing and farming must be apolitically discouraged and vehemently scuffed.
Bridges must be built, roads must be constructed and genuine employment opportunities created for the suffering people. Their brilliant kids must be encouraged by scholarships. Their schools must be renovated and qualified teachers mobilised to give these generous but poor kids qualitative education; their hospitals must be equipped and medical personnel attracted down to renew the health of the dying altruistic people.
Utilities as basic as potable pipe-borne water, electricity, toilets, and yes toilets must be provided for some of these people. It is perplexing to know that as deep into civilisation as 2012, some people in the hydrocarbon-rich Niger Delta still drink from the same petroleum-polluted water into which they still defecate and urinate. And many others still respond to the call of nature by means of pit toilets!
I have great friends from just about every part of Nigeria, some of whom are from the South-West so I have no reasons whatsoever to generate any controversy against them. But it is only true that one cannot compare the quality of the patchy schools in the primitive Niger Delta settlements to the ‘Ivy League’ schools in some civilised states in the lower left region of Nigeria. Thanks to that great visionary I have always adored.
While the latter are manned by loads of sophisticated foreign-trained teachers, the former are either left to manage some humble local College of Education graduates as teachers, or rely completely on the few serious-minded National Youth Service Corps members to learn anything useful.
Without going into history to establish the reasons for the imbalance, I feel it’s quite an easy sell to argue that the average rural Niger Delta graduate would be somewhat disadvantaged at general merit-driven knowledge-based exercises and exposure - centred challenges. The most glaring instances of these are the outcomes of just about every examination or recruitment exercise across Nigeria: the South-Westerners seem to always dominate in performance.
Going forward, methinks the principal reasons for this lag (of the average rural Niger Deltan scholar relative their counterparts elsewhere) is the dearth of quality in most schools in terms of infrastructures and personnel. There is no debating the fact that one cannot give what s/he doesn’t have. So even if the teachers and students give their best, chances are, their ‘best’ might not be good enough compared to the ‘best’ of others who are in competition with them.
This is where the President of the Nigerian nation and ‘incumbent father of the Niger Delta region’ comes in. This is where his people need his urgent attention. He must maximise his influence on his ministers and on the state governors some of whom to me are still sleeping freely snoring away in office while their people look, cry and die.
The President must push the Niger Delta Development Commission NDDC, the Ministry of the Niger Delta and every other Niger-Delta-focussed organ, agency, instrument or machinery to work swiftly and assiduously for the dying people they have been gainfully hired to serve.
It is worth repeating that these people need just about every basic amenity that has become pedestrian in some other big cities. They do urgently need good schools, good teachers, equipped libraries, modern laboratories, clean potable water, solid bridges, tarred roads, and recreational facilities. The air they inhale and the water they drink are as impure as the fish and crops they now eat. Expectedly, they would always be susceptible to illnesses. Therefore, they need modern hospitals and qualified personnel to man them.
Furthermore, beyond banal political rhetoric, feigned passion and beyond the frivolities of some futile post-Amnesty indulgences, it’s high time the Commander-in-Chief and every descendant of the Niger Delta in positions of authority genuinely empowered their browbeaten people. How else? The landing ports!
Revamp the sea ports and the airports. The Lagos airport did not grow to become the most important air-based personnel and freight conduit in Nigeria today by mere serendipity. People engineered it! Powerful people made it that way. Ditto the Lagos sea port.
Broadly speaking, it is a strategically beneficial idea having Lagos sea port and airport, but beyond Lagos, there exist other time-tested established sea ports in Port Harcourt and in Warri. These poorly functional Niger-Delta based ports could be empowered to adequately complement Lagos. Similarly, the dysfunctional Port Harcourt International airport could be upgraded beyond its present misfit name to a truly international status.
I have never been a president and I might never be in my lifetime but I do know that a president is a leader, and every good leader must be influential. And I also know that with this singular component of influence all too many could be achieved.
These just and modest demands may be tough to effect but are truly possible to achieve by Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, a well – learned PhD holder; ex-Deputy Governor; ex-State Governor; ex-Vice President; ex-Acting President; and incumbent President and Commander-in-Chief of Africa’s largest petroleum producing nation.
Ultimately, I posit with all due respect that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has in his hands the golden opportunity to become to the South-South that which the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo is today to the South-West. His office also stands him in a stead to become the most outstanding object of ridicule as the most notable failure figure in the Niger Delta should he exit the exalted seat of power without changing the lives of his dying people for the better – for good. That too is another option. I pray my president opts for the former.
Source
Has anyone ever imagined how much of an Eldorado the South-Western region of Nigeria would have become if the vast reserves of hydrocarbons situate in the Niger Delta were largely domiciled in that region? Probably that part would have been at par with today’s eye-catching South Korea with breath-taking infrastructures, while the other parts of Nigeria wallow in abject poverty!
How about if we had these special fluids entirely lying beneath the lands and waters in the South East? We surely would have created another bullish and industrialised Israel in that part of Nigeria while other Nigerians lay tearfully at their mercy!
But perhaps, the biggest ‘if’ would be contemplated if Nigeria’s petroleum reserves were buried in the Northern half of Nigeria. Surely the entity called Nigeria would have been reversed by 180 degrees to the pre- 1914 amalgamation status engineered by the colonial masters. Non-Northerners would have been hurriedly ferried back down South – dead or alive.
But, having our petroleum blessings in the South-South region is by far the most evident manifestation of God-the-Creator’s unparalleled sense of awareness. By enriching the lands and waters of the most people-centred, seemingly weakest, least wise and most disunited sets of people in the country, the omniscience God has avoided several civil wars, unquantifiable losses and capacious blood spills.
They too are no saints though; they have their loads of problems too; chief among which is the psycho- disease of sycophancy. But they are the generous ones; the patient ones, and by far the most tolerant Nigerians there ever can be. These are the oppressed Niger Delta people. The South - South people of Nigeria.
For many years they whimpered, they yowled and they fearfully challenged their compatriots from the North, the West and of course, the East. They complained bitterly of deliberate conscienceless marginalization occasioned by their disadvantaged demographic minority. Their case has never being helped by the seemingly innumerable fractionated ethnic groups scattered all across their tattered marshy fields and contaminated water pockets.
Their waters bear the geese that lay the golden eggs and their land serve as the well-fertilized farmland that feed Nigeria. The nation - unless anything absolutely extraordinary happens – cannot survive without the produce of these people.
Yet still and ironically and inexplicably so, these fertile lands are the least developed, these productive waters are the most impure, and these generous people by far the least catered for. The country has been unfair on these people. Their plight is about the most eye-catching ignoble advertisement of injustice on a people.
They sought for answers to many questions; they demanded actions in lieu of the usual rhetoric. They asked for rights in the sea of unjust denials. They politely demanded justice from a system that had nothing but injustice for them. On the altar of redress the brave Ken Saro-Wiwa, his kinsmen from Ogoni land and others had to painfully give up their own today that others might get a better tomorrow.
These few brave men dared to say no when a ‘no’ had to be said and for this they paid the ultimate price. No thanks to the dark-goggled maximum ruler General Sani Abacha – a man Nigeria had the rather irreparable misfortune of having to mislead us.
On the blood of these martyrs and a few others, one patient man, Dr Goodluck Jonathan proudly sits atop the nation’s most expensive seat as President and Commander in Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces. He has walked his way into the history books as the first man from the super-rich Niger Delta region to hold that office.
Today, the Niger Delta people need not send emissaries to Abuja to explain their plights to one man who scarcely appreciates their insupportable privations. They already have a Niger Delta - thorough bred; an illustrious knowledgeable son of the soil who at least going by his title, has attained the peak of academic distinction up there at the most powerful office in Nigeria.
But, Dr Jonathan’s presidency would not last eternally. Barring any drama, he would vacate office on May 29, 2015 – just about 1,152 days only to go! And at that time, every good work he failed to do for his beloved Niger Delta people might never be done in his lifetime and perhaps much longer afterwards.
The South-South zone is a distant minority in Nigeria’s political calculations; hence, it is rather crystal clear that the Niger Delta would not produce another president any time soon after 2015, unless perhaps Dr Jonathan decides to test the oneness of Nigeria by creating a risky Balkanization-threatening upset.
It is for this reason and more that the president has to as a matter of utmost urgency see to the pitiable plight of his dying people. He must make concerted efforts to genuinely protect them and positively change their lives forever.
Their predominant occupations are fishing and farming. These arts must be positively encouraged. Water and land pollution by petroleum-based pollutants and such other impediments to profitable fishing and farming must be apolitically discouraged and vehemently scuffed.
Bridges must be built, roads must be constructed and genuine employment opportunities created for the suffering people. Their brilliant kids must be encouraged by scholarships. Their schools must be renovated and qualified teachers mobilised to give these generous but poor kids qualitative education; their hospitals must be equipped and medical personnel attracted down to renew the health of the dying altruistic people.
Utilities as basic as potable pipe-borne water, electricity, toilets, and yes toilets must be provided for some of these people. It is perplexing to know that as deep into civilisation as 2012, some people in the hydrocarbon-rich Niger Delta still drink from the same petroleum-polluted water into which they still defecate and urinate. And many others still respond to the call of nature by means of pit toilets!
I have great friends from just about every part of Nigeria, some of whom are from the South-West so I have no reasons whatsoever to generate any controversy against them. But it is only true that one cannot compare the quality of the patchy schools in the primitive Niger Delta settlements to the ‘Ivy League’ schools in some civilised states in the lower left region of Nigeria. Thanks to that great visionary I have always adored.
While the latter are manned by loads of sophisticated foreign-trained teachers, the former are either left to manage some humble local College of Education graduates as teachers, or rely completely on the few serious-minded National Youth Service Corps members to learn anything useful.
Without going into history to establish the reasons for the imbalance, I feel it’s quite an easy sell to argue that the average rural Niger Delta graduate would be somewhat disadvantaged at general merit-driven knowledge-based exercises and exposure - centred challenges. The most glaring instances of these are the outcomes of just about every examination or recruitment exercise across Nigeria: the South-Westerners seem to always dominate in performance.
Going forward, methinks the principal reasons for this lag (of the average rural Niger Deltan scholar relative their counterparts elsewhere) is the dearth of quality in most schools in terms of infrastructures and personnel. There is no debating the fact that one cannot give what s/he doesn’t have. So even if the teachers and students give their best, chances are, their ‘best’ might not be good enough compared to the ‘best’ of others who are in competition with them.
This is where the President of the Nigerian nation and ‘incumbent father of the Niger Delta region’ comes in. This is where his people need his urgent attention. He must maximise his influence on his ministers and on the state governors some of whom to me are still sleeping freely snoring away in office while their people look, cry and die.
The President must push the Niger Delta Development Commission NDDC, the Ministry of the Niger Delta and every other Niger-Delta-focussed organ, agency, instrument or machinery to work swiftly and assiduously for the dying people they have been gainfully hired to serve.
It is worth repeating that these people need just about every basic amenity that has become pedestrian in some other big cities. They do urgently need good schools, good teachers, equipped libraries, modern laboratories, clean potable water, solid bridges, tarred roads, and recreational facilities. The air they inhale and the water they drink are as impure as the fish and crops they now eat. Expectedly, they would always be susceptible to illnesses. Therefore, they need modern hospitals and qualified personnel to man them.
Furthermore, beyond banal political rhetoric, feigned passion and beyond the frivolities of some futile post-Amnesty indulgences, it’s high time the Commander-in-Chief and every descendant of the Niger Delta in positions of authority genuinely empowered their browbeaten people. How else? The landing ports!
Revamp the sea ports and the airports. The Lagos airport did not grow to become the most important air-based personnel and freight conduit in Nigeria today by mere serendipity. People engineered it! Powerful people made it that way. Ditto the Lagos sea port.
Broadly speaking, it is a strategically beneficial idea having Lagos sea port and airport, but beyond Lagos, there exist other time-tested established sea ports in Port Harcourt and in Warri. These poorly functional Niger-Delta based ports could be empowered to adequately complement Lagos. Similarly, the dysfunctional Port Harcourt International airport could be upgraded beyond its present misfit name to a truly international status.
I have never been a president and I might never be in my lifetime but I do know that a president is a leader, and every good leader must be influential. And I also know that with this singular component of influence all too many could be achieved.
These just and modest demands may be tough to effect but are truly possible to achieve by Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, a well – learned PhD holder; ex-Deputy Governor; ex-State Governor; ex-Vice President; ex-Acting President; and incumbent President and Commander-in-Chief of Africa’s largest petroleum producing nation.
Ultimately, I posit with all due respect that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has in his hands the golden opportunity to become to the South-South that which the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo is today to the South-West. His office also stands him in a stead to become the most outstanding object of ridicule as the most notable failure figure in the Niger Delta should he exit the exalted seat of power without changing the lives of his dying people for the better – for good. That too is another option. I pray my president opts for the former.
Source
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Bhutan rails against world's 'suicidal path'
John Vidal, environment editor - The Guardian (April 2, 2012)
Himalayan nation calls on heads of state to come to capital for summit on way countries measure progress
The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, aghast at what it calls the world's "suicidal path", has called on heads of state and leading economists to come to the capital Thimphu for a global summit to reform the international financial system and the way countries measure progress.
"We need to rethink our entire growth-based economy so that we can thrive more effectively on our own resources in harmony with nature. We do not need to accept as inevitable a world of impending climate chaos and financial collapse," prime minister Jigmi Thinley will tell the UN in New York on Monday.
Bhutan – sandwiched between China and India with a population about the size of Birmingham – has avoided social and economic chaos, he says, because it is not hooked to the materialist bandwagon and because it measures progress by the level of happiness among its citizens and not by gross domestic production.
It proposes that purely economic measures of growth which count resource depletion and pollution as gains lead to ecological destruction and over-consumption.
"Economic growth is mistakenly seen as synonymous with wellbeing. The faster we cut down forests and haul in fish stocks to extinction, the more GDP grows. Even crime, war, sickness, and natural disasters make GDP grow, simply because these ills cause money to be spent", Thinley will say in Bhutan's submission to the UN ahead of the Rio +20 earth summit in June.
"The [global] economic system is in rapid meltdown. It is based on the premise of limitless growth on a finite planet. It has produced ever-widening inequalities with 20% of the world now consuming 86% of its goods, while the poorest 20% consume 1% or less and emit 2% of the worlds greenhouse gases.".
Bhutan's leaders argue that institutions like the World Bank and IMF, set up in 1944 to govern commercial and financial relations between the world's major states, are now perilously outdated and must be reformed to avoid catastrophe.
In their place, they say, must come new systems of fair trade, rewards for good behaviour, prompt responses by countries to resource depletion and new ways to measure social, economic and ecological progress.
"The world is in need of an international consensus for the creation of a new economic paradigm with well-being indicators, new national accounting systems that count natural and social capital, and incentives for sustainable production", Bhutan says.
The clarion call for a new system of financial governance is supported by the UN and 68 countries so far. Last year the UN adopted Bhutan's call for a "holistic approach" to development, aimed at promoting wellbeing and happiness.
Its adoption of a new type of economy has encouraged it to take a global lead. Four years ago it launched a gross national happiness index to guide all public policy. Its constitution now ensures that at least 60% of the country remains under forest cover in perpetuity and its aim is to be 100% organic in its agricultural production.
Life expectancy has doubled in two generations, 99% of primary age children are in school, and the country has vowed to always be a carbon sink. However, it remains one of the "poorest" nations on earth, with 25% of its people living on less than $1.25 a day, and 70% without electricity. Until 1974, no tourists were allowed into the Buddhist nation.
"[Our] measures of progress and GNH index clearly show that producing and consuming more stuff does not make people happier. On the contrary when they overwork and go into debt to buy ever more goods and pay the bills, they get more stressed. Working, producing and consuming less is not only good for nature but gives us more time to enjoy each others", says Thinley.
"Instead of progress [the world] has perilously accelerated ecosystem decline. Humanity is now using up natural resources at a 35% faster rate than nature can regenerate. This ecological destruction is not separate from global economic realities that are dividing rich from poor", Bhutan will say in its submission.
The New York meeting will lay the groundwork for countries to adopt new "sustainable development" goals at the Rio +20 meeting, the follow-up to the historic 1992 "Earth summit" which saw the introduction of global treaties to address climate change and biodiversity loss.
Source
Himalayan nation calls on heads of state to come to capital for summit on way countries measure progress
The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, aghast at what it calls the world's "suicidal path", has called on heads of state and leading economists to come to the capital Thimphu for a global summit to reform the international financial system and the way countries measure progress.
"We need to rethink our entire growth-based economy so that we can thrive more effectively on our own resources in harmony with nature. We do not need to accept as inevitable a world of impending climate chaos and financial collapse," prime minister Jigmi Thinley will tell the UN in New York on Monday.
Bhutan – sandwiched between China and India with a population about the size of Birmingham – has avoided social and economic chaos, he says, because it is not hooked to the materialist bandwagon and because it measures progress by the level of happiness among its citizens and not by gross domestic production.
It proposes that purely economic measures of growth which count resource depletion and pollution as gains lead to ecological destruction and over-consumption.
"Economic growth is mistakenly seen as synonymous with wellbeing. The faster we cut down forests and haul in fish stocks to extinction, the more GDP grows. Even crime, war, sickness, and natural disasters make GDP grow, simply because these ills cause money to be spent", Thinley will say in Bhutan's submission to the UN ahead of the Rio +20 earth summit in June.
"The [global] economic system is in rapid meltdown. It is based on the premise of limitless growth on a finite planet. It has produced ever-widening inequalities with 20% of the world now consuming 86% of its goods, while the poorest 20% consume 1% or less and emit 2% of the worlds greenhouse gases.".
Bhutan's leaders argue that institutions like the World Bank and IMF, set up in 1944 to govern commercial and financial relations between the world's major states, are now perilously outdated and must be reformed to avoid catastrophe.
In their place, they say, must come new systems of fair trade, rewards for good behaviour, prompt responses by countries to resource depletion and new ways to measure social, economic and ecological progress.
"The world is in need of an international consensus for the creation of a new economic paradigm with well-being indicators, new national accounting systems that count natural and social capital, and incentives for sustainable production", Bhutan says.
The clarion call for a new system of financial governance is supported by the UN and 68 countries so far. Last year the UN adopted Bhutan's call for a "holistic approach" to development, aimed at promoting wellbeing and happiness.
Its adoption of a new type of economy has encouraged it to take a global lead. Four years ago it launched a gross national happiness index to guide all public policy. Its constitution now ensures that at least 60% of the country remains under forest cover in perpetuity and its aim is to be 100% organic in its agricultural production.
Life expectancy has doubled in two generations, 99% of primary age children are in school, and the country has vowed to always be a carbon sink. However, it remains one of the "poorest" nations on earth, with 25% of its people living on less than $1.25 a day, and 70% without electricity. Until 1974, no tourists were allowed into the Buddhist nation.
"[Our] measures of progress and GNH index clearly show that producing and consuming more stuff does not make people happier. On the contrary when they overwork and go into debt to buy ever more goods and pay the bills, they get more stressed. Working, producing and consuming less is not only good for nature but gives us more time to enjoy each others", says Thinley.
"Instead of progress [the world] has perilously accelerated ecosystem decline. Humanity is now using up natural resources at a 35% faster rate than nature can regenerate. This ecological destruction is not separate from global economic realities that are dividing rich from poor", Bhutan will say in its submission.
The New York meeting will lay the groundwork for countries to adopt new "sustainable development" goals at the Rio +20 meeting, the follow-up to the historic 1992 "Earth summit" which saw the introduction of global treaties to address climate change and biodiversity loss.
Source
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Bank’s first contest
By Richard Mahapatra, April 15,2012
Developing countries challenge US monopoly by putting up candidates for World Bank’s presidency
Developing countries have taken their first step towards breaking the US monopoly over the appointment of the World Bank president. On March 23, the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors announced three names to be considered for the presidential position. Two of them are from and nominated by developing countries. This is for the first time in its 68 years of existence that the Bank will hold a contest for the presidential position. Current president Robert Zoellick will step down at the end of his term in June. By April the Bank has to appoint a new president.
The developing countries’ candidates are José Antonio Ocampo, a Colombian national and professor at Columbia University, US, and Nigeria’s finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The US fielded Jim Yong Kim, a US national and president of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, as its candidate on March 23, the last date for nominating candidates.
Surprisingly, the name of Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at Columbia University, US, did not figure in the final list. He was the first to be nominated by six developing countries. Earlier he had told Down To Earth: “It’s been confirmed to me that my name has been put officially into nomination by one or more of the governments that have publicly endorsed my candidacy.”
The key multilateral development banks and institutions—the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB)—have unwritten law to appoint their heads from developed countries. The US nominates president of the World Bank, while a European heads IMF. The ADB president is always a Japanese. This despite the fact that these institutions are co-owned by countries and mostly do business in developing and poor countries.
The Bank, for instance, is owned by 187 member governments. But developing and poor countries where it does business do not have the decisive power in the Bank’s decision-making.
Each member country holds shares depending on the size of its economy. Unlike in the UN, the Bank does not follow “one-country-one-vote” principle. It has “one-dollar-one-vote” structure that allows richer countries to corner more votes to influence its decision-making. The US is the largest shareholder with 16.41 per cent of votes, followed by Japan (7.87 per cent), Germany (4.49 per cent), the UK (4.31 per cent) and France (4.31 per cent). The remaining shares are divided among the other members. All developing country borrowers have a combined voting share of 39 per cent. The 47 sub-Saharan African nations command less than six per cent of the votes.
To appoint a non-US nominee this time around, hundreds of civil society groups and governments of emerging economies like India and Russia have initiated an intense campaign. Malaysia, Kenya, Namibia, Haiti, Bhutan and Timor-Leste supported Sachs soon after he sent his application in early March.
Foreign and economic affairs offices of India, Brazil and South Africa are negotiating on a common strategy while China is reported to have joined them. India’s External Affairs Minister S M Krishna says, “If in the past the US had representatives as head of the World Bank, it is now necessary for other countries to come out with suitable names of candidates who have the wisdom and merit to hold the post.”
During the G20 meeting in Mexico City in February representatives of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) put a common demand to reform the selection process and open it to all countries. “Candidates should be based on merit and not on nationality,” said Guido Mantega, Brazil’s finance minister.
he push for the reform has also come from civil society groups in developed countries. In a joint letter to the US, they have asked it not to pursue an only American nominee. Elizabeth Stuart of Oxfam, one of the organisations that signed the appeal, says, “The way the World Bank picks its president needs to change. The Bank only operates in developing countries, so any candidate not supported by a majority of these countries would plainly lack legitimacy.”
The Bank will conduct personal interviews with the three candidates to select the president.
Civil society groups, however, want the president to be selected by a majority of the member countries instead of “one-dollar-one-vote” policy. They add another condition: the president has to be supported by the majority of the developing and poor country members. Moreover, they demand the whole process to be transparent, which includes a public release of the position’s job description and required qualifications for the candidate. Jeroen Kwakkenbos of Eurodad, a network of non-profits in Europe, says the next president cannot be selected behind the scenes. “The second wave of global economic crisis is almost certainly going to start hitting poor countries very hard, very soon. The World Bank needs to be geared to respond with credible, legitimate leadership in place. The US should no longer seek to monopolise this position.”
Jesse Griffiths of Bretton Woods Projects, a coalition that monitors the multilateral financial institutions, says since 2008 the Bank’s governors have repeatedly promised a fair, merit-based and transparent selection process for the president. It is time for them to deliver on that promise.
The Bank’s own Development Committee, a key decision-making body, has been demanding the same for the past four years. In 2008 it said, “There is considerable agreement on the importance of a selection process for the president of the Bank that is merit-based and transparent, with nominations open to all board members and transparent board consideration of all candidates.” It reiterated the reform proposal on two occasions in 2010. It even clarified there was no need for any change in the Bank’s charter to adopt the reform. After all, there is no binding clause on selecting an American as president.
“World Bank should be a place to solve big problems, not a place that is just a source of contracts or an arm of the US diplomacy,” Sachs says.
Under pressure from emerging economies the Bank has already been changing its structure and voting share, though hesitantly. Its business character has undergone changes, triggering in-house churning. In countries like India, China and Brazil the Bank has long been overtaken by private capital flows as the main source of finance (see ‘World Bank gets jittery’, Down To Earth, July 1-15, 2011). India and China are fast emerging as the largest financiers in Africa, making the Bank almost irrelevant.
In April 2010 in a significant change, India, China and Brazil got 4.59 per cent more voting shares. The initiative was taken by the Bank’s Development Committee. As a result, India’s voting power in the Bank increased from 2.77 per cent to 2.91 per cent and that of China increased from 2.77 per cent to 4.42 per cent.
The campaign of developing countries to contest developed countries’ monopoly is not limited to the World Bank. Last year, IMF for the first time witnessed a challenge to European monopoly over selection of its managing director. Mexico nominated a candidate. India supported it.
But the historic attempt to bring about a reform in the World Bank’s presidential election may not turn out to be a lasting one. Given the decisive voting share, US nominee Jim Yong Kim has high probability to win.
“Unfortunately it seems as if the US is tied to an outdated notion of its national interest,” says Griffiths. Instead of pushing for merit-based processes for the heads of all international organisations, it seems determined to hold onto its outdated privileges, he adds. This is clear from the fact that the US did not support Sachs despite 27 Democrat members of the House of Representatives writing to President Barack Obama to nominate him.
Source
Developing countries challenge US monopoly by putting up candidates for World Bank’s presidency
Developing countries have taken their first step towards breaking the US monopoly over the appointment of the World Bank president. On March 23, the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors announced three names to be considered for the presidential position. Two of them are from and nominated by developing countries. This is for the first time in its 68 years of existence that the Bank will hold a contest for the presidential position. Current president Robert Zoellick will step down at the end of his term in June. By April the Bank has to appoint a new president.
The developing countries’ candidates are José Antonio Ocampo, a Colombian national and professor at Columbia University, US, and Nigeria’s finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The US fielded Jim Yong Kim, a US national and president of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, as its candidate on March 23, the last date for nominating candidates.
Surprisingly, the name of Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at Columbia University, US, did not figure in the final list. He was the first to be nominated by six developing countries. Earlier he had told Down To Earth: “It’s been confirmed to me that my name has been put officially into nomination by one or more of the governments that have publicly endorsed my candidacy.”
The key multilateral development banks and institutions—the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB)—have unwritten law to appoint their heads from developed countries. The US nominates president of the World Bank, while a European heads IMF. The ADB president is always a Japanese. This despite the fact that these institutions are co-owned by countries and mostly do business in developing and poor countries.
The Bank, for instance, is owned by 187 member governments. But developing and poor countries where it does business do not have the decisive power in the Bank’s decision-making.
Each member country holds shares depending on the size of its economy. Unlike in the UN, the Bank does not follow “one-country-one-vote” principle. It has “one-dollar-one-vote” structure that allows richer countries to corner more votes to influence its decision-making. The US is the largest shareholder with 16.41 per cent of votes, followed by Japan (7.87 per cent), Germany (4.49 per cent), the UK (4.31 per cent) and France (4.31 per cent). The remaining shares are divided among the other members. All developing country borrowers have a combined voting share of 39 per cent. The 47 sub-Saharan African nations command less than six per cent of the votes.
To appoint a non-US nominee this time around, hundreds of civil society groups and governments of emerging economies like India and Russia have initiated an intense campaign. Malaysia, Kenya, Namibia, Haiti, Bhutan and Timor-Leste supported Sachs soon after he sent his application in early March.
Foreign and economic affairs offices of India, Brazil and South Africa are negotiating on a common strategy while China is reported to have joined them. India’s External Affairs Minister S M Krishna says, “If in the past the US had representatives as head of the World Bank, it is now necessary for other countries to come out with suitable names of candidates who have the wisdom and merit to hold the post.”
During the G20 meeting in Mexico City in February representatives of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) put a common demand to reform the selection process and open it to all countries. “Candidates should be based on merit and not on nationality,” said Guido Mantega, Brazil’s finance minister.
he push for the reform has also come from civil society groups in developed countries. In a joint letter to the US, they have asked it not to pursue an only American nominee. Elizabeth Stuart of Oxfam, one of the organisations that signed the appeal, says, “The way the World Bank picks its president needs to change. The Bank only operates in developing countries, so any candidate not supported by a majority of these countries would plainly lack legitimacy.”
The Bank will conduct personal interviews with the three candidates to select the president.
Civil society groups, however, want the president to be selected by a majority of the member countries instead of “one-dollar-one-vote” policy. They add another condition: the president has to be supported by the majority of the developing and poor country members. Moreover, they demand the whole process to be transparent, which includes a public release of the position’s job description and required qualifications for the candidate. Jeroen Kwakkenbos of Eurodad, a network of non-profits in Europe, says the next president cannot be selected behind the scenes. “The second wave of global economic crisis is almost certainly going to start hitting poor countries very hard, very soon. The World Bank needs to be geared to respond with credible, legitimate leadership in place. The US should no longer seek to monopolise this position.”
Jesse Griffiths of Bretton Woods Projects, a coalition that monitors the multilateral financial institutions, says since 2008 the Bank’s governors have repeatedly promised a fair, merit-based and transparent selection process for the president. It is time for them to deliver on that promise.
The Bank’s own Development Committee, a key decision-making body, has been demanding the same for the past four years. In 2008 it said, “There is considerable agreement on the importance of a selection process for the president of the Bank that is merit-based and transparent, with nominations open to all board members and transparent board consideration of all candidates.” It reiterated the reform proposal on two occasions in 2010. It even clarified there was no need for any change in the Bank’s charter to adopt the reform. After all, there is no binding clause on selecting an American as president.
“World Bank should be a place to solve big problems, not a place that is just a source of contracts or an arm of the US diplomacy,” Sachs says.
Under pressure from emerging economies the Bank has already been changing its structure and voting share, though hesitantly. Its business character has undergone changes, triggering in-house churning. In countries like India, China and Brazil the Bank has long been overtaken by private capital flows as the main source of finance (see ‘World Bank gets jittery’, Down To Earth, July 1-15, 2011). India and China are fast emerging as the largest financiers in Africa, making the Bank almost irrelevant.
In April 2010 in a significant change, India, China and Brazil got 4.59 per cent more voting shares. The initiative was taken by the Bank’s Development Committee. As a result, India’s voting power in the Bank increased from 2.77 per cent to 2.91 per cent and that of China increased from 2.77 per cent to 4.42 per cent.
The campaign of developing countries to contest developed countries’ monopoly is not limited to the World Bank. Last year, IMF for the first time witnessed a challenge to European monopoly over selection of its managing director. Mexico nominated a candidate. India supported it.
But the historic attempt to bring about a reform in the World Bank’s presidential election may not turn out to be a lasting one. Given the decisive voting share, US nominee Jim Yong Kim has high probability to win.
“Unfortunately it seems as if the US is tied to an outdated notion of its national interest,” says Griffiths. Instead of pushing for merit-based processes for the heads of all international organisations, it seems determined to hold onto its outdated privileges, he adds. This is clear from the fact that the US did not support Sachs despite 27 Democrat members of the House of Representatives writing to President Barack Obama to nominate him.
Source
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
100 days to Rio+20, 100 facts
By IISD, March 2012
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has produced a fact sheet ahead of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20), highlighting the links between people, food and the environment. The fact sheet, titled "100 days to Rio+20, 100 facts: Making the link between people, food and the environment," documents sustainable development challenges related to hunger, water, forestry, gender, fisheries, land, food supplies/production/waste, and nature and the environment. It presents simple facts that together describe the current status of these systems.
Read the facts from here
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has produced a fact sheet ahead of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20), highlighting the links between people, food and the environment. The fact sheet, titled "100 days to Rio+20, 100 facts: Making the link between people, food and the environment," documents sustainable development challenges related to hunger, water, forestry, gender, fisheries, land, food supplies/production/waste, and nature and the environment. It presents simple facts that together describe the current status of these systems.
Read the facts from here
Monday, April 2, 2012
Earth hour event in Kampala
By Kimbowa Richard
Over the weekend I attended Earth Hour 2012 - Dare the World to Save the Planet. Intended to switch off one's lights on Saturday 31 March at 8:30pm to be part of the world's largest voluntary action for the environment. It took place at the Sheraton - Kampala
Unfortunately I could not switch off the lights, as Uganda is still struggling with an energy deficit, so that any moment one has power matters and should be put to maximum use. In fact, where I stay power went of from Sunday morning up to Monday (today morning).
But at least I participated in the clean energy exhibition where I got good contact with solar energy promoters and efficient fuel wood cook stove dealers. See some of the photos from the exhibition from here: https://plus.google.com/photos/112862954192847090018/albums/5726697355317890529
I look forward to next year event and hopefully I will be able to switch of for an hour without any worry
Over the weekend I attended Earth Hour 2012 - Dare the World to Save the Planet. Intended to switch off one's lights on Saturday 31 March at 8:30pm to be part of the world's largest voluntary action for the environment. It took place at the Sheraton - Kampala
Unfortunately I could not switch off the lights, as Uganda is still struggling with an energy deficit, so that any moment one has power matters and should be put to maximum use. In fact, where I stay power went of from Sunday morning up to Monday (today morning).
But at least I participated in the clean energy exhibition where I got good contact with solar energy promoters and efficient fuel wood cook stove dealers. See some of the photos from the exhibition from here: https://plus.google.com/photos/112862954192847090018/albums/5726697355317890529
I look forward to next year event and hopefully I will be able to switch of for an hour without any worry
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Civil society, gov’t delegates decry attempts to scrub off rights language from Rio+20
By IBON International, March 27, 2012
Civil society organizations (CSOs) and some government delegates, who are attending preparatory events this week for the United Nations’ upcoming Rio+20 conference in June, criticized attempts by a few powerful parties to weaken references to human rights obligations in the negotiating text.
The first reading of the “zero-draft” negotiation document for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Rio de Janeiro is set to take place this week, as part of formal and informal processes leading up to an outcome document in Rio itself, which most expect to define more clearly the pathways to sustainable development in the next decades.
At a side event organized by IBON International and Both ENDS on March 21, CSO representatives and some government ministers warned that removing or weakening human rights safeguards in the said zero draft would leave out marginalized sectors and vulnerable groups from the Green Economy or leave them worse off.
As Rene Orellana, Chief Negotiator of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the UN, recalled: “The direct cause of the water wars that started in 2005 in Cochabamba in Bolivia was the attempt by the government to privatize water resources. This is precisely what is happening now in the Rio+20 process: private access and control and property over natural resources is being prioritized in the discussions.”
Anil Naidoo, Coordinator of the Council of Canadians’ Blue Planet Project, warned: “The rights language is being scrubbed off from the international discussions about sustainable development. If they succeed to get the human right to water out of this text, than a precedent has been shaped for every future negotiation. Is the Green Economy going to be a Trojan horse for the commodification of nature?”
Helga Serrano, Adviser Ministerio Coordinador de Patrimonio de Ecuador, stressed that “we need to reaffirm the sustainability agenda which has a rights-based approach and we cannot come back on what we already agreed upon.”
The panelists at the side event titled “Rights for Sustainability and Sustainable Development Governance” also conveyed inspiring messages to the audience composed of civil society, members of government delegations, students and faith-based organizations.
Ms. Serrano discussed how Ecuador has since 2007 gone through a reform process based on a new constitution that adopts the principle of Buen Vivir or living in harmony with nature. “Ecuador will bring the concept of Buen Vivir to the Rio+20 process,” Serrano said, adding that Ecuador stresses the importance of the Rights of Nature that starts off from a recognition of the limits of nature. She also stressed the need for a new global economic order and a new financial architecture.
Dr. Orellana of Bolivia also explained that in his country, the right of the environment to water is introduced in the Bolivian constitution. The human right to water in Bolivia is interpreted so that customary laws govern the use of water, he said. This implies that peasants and communities collectively manage the natural resources of Bolivia, he added.
Joseph Foti, Senior Associate at the World Resources Institute, spoke about Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration pertaining to access to information, public participation and access to justice on environmental matters. He noted that, “There has been a lot of progress since 1992 with a near-universal adoption of legislation on public participation rules for Environmental Impact Assessments.” He noted, however, that actual implementation still poses challenges, particularly in terms of the equitable application of these principles. For instance, how can Principle 10 work for poor people saddled by illiteracy and who cannot readily afford participation in terms of time and resources, he noted.
Mari Pitkänen, First Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Finland to the United Nations, stressed that the dialogue between civil society and governments needs to be improved in order to achieve substantial gains.
Quintos of IBON International said the side event was a fruitful exchange between civil society and governments, helping forge greater unity in defense of rights for people and the planet.
Source
Civil society organizations (CSOs) and some government delegates, who are attending preparatory events this week for the United Nations’ upcoming Rio+20 conference in June, criticized attempts by a few powerful parties to weaken references to human rights obligations in the negotiating text.
The first reading of the “zero-draft” negotiation document for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Rio de Janeiro is set to take place this week, as part of formal and informal processes leading up to an outcome document in Rio itself, which most expect to define more clearly the pathways to sustainable development in the next decades.
At a side event organized by IBON International and Both ENDS on March 21, CSO representatives and some government ministers warned that removing or weakening human rights safeguards in the said zero draft would leave out marginalized sectors and vulnerable groups from the Green Economy or leave them worse off.
As Rene Orellana, Chief Negotiator of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the UN, recalled: “The direct cause of the water wars that started in 2005 in Cochabamba in Bolivia was the attempt by the government to privatize water resources. This is precisely what is happening now in the Rio+20 process: private access and control and property over natural resources is being prioritized in the discussions.”
Anil Naidoo, Coordinator of the Council of Canadians’ Blue Planet Project, warned: “The rights language is being scrubbed off from the international discussions about sustainable development. If they succeed to get the human right to water out of this text, than a precedent has been shaped for every future negotiation. Is the Green Economy going to be a Trojan horse for the commodification of nature?”
Helga Serrano, Adviser Ministerio Coordinador de Patrimonio de Ecuador, stressed that “we need to reaffirm the sustainability agenda which has a rights-based approach and we cannot come back on what we already agreed upon.”
The panelists at the side event titled “Rights for Sustainability and Sustainable Development Governance” also conveyed inspiring messages to the audience composed of civil society, members of government delegations, students and faith-based organizations.
Ms. Serrano discussed how Ecuador has since 2007 gone through a reform process based on a new constitution that adopts the principle of Buen Vivir or living in harmony with nature. “Ecuador will bring the concept of Buen Vivir to the Rio+20 process,” Serrano said, adding that Ecuador stresses the importance of the Rights of Nature that starts off from a recognition of the limits of nature. She also stressed the need for a new global economic order and a new financial architecture.
Dr. Orellana of Bolivia also explained that in his country, the right of the environment to water is introduced in the Bolivian constitution. The human right to water in Bolivia is interpreted so that customary laws govern the use of water, he said. This implies that peasants and communities collectively manage the natural resources of Bolivia, he added.
Joseph Foti, Senior Associate at the World Resources Institute, spoke about Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration pertaining to access to information, public participation and access to justice on environmental matters. He noted that, “There has been a lot of progress since 1992 with a near-universal adoption of legislation on public participation rules for Environmental Impact Assessments.” He noted, however, that actual implementation still poses challenges, particularly in terms of the equitable application of these principles. For instance, how can Principle 10 work for poor people saddled by illiteracy and who cannot readily afford participation in terms of time and resources, he noted.
Mari Pitkänen, First Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Finland to the United Nations, stressed that the dialogue between civil society and governments needs to be improved in order to achieve substantial gains.
Quintos of IBON International said the side event was a fruitful exchange between civil society and governments, helping forge greater unity in defense of rights for people and the planet.
Source
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