Friday, April 19, 2019
News and Views from the Global South
Economy & Trade
CORRECTED VERSION: World Bank Dispossessing Rural Poor
The World Bank’s Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project, launched in 2013, has sought agricultural reforms favouring the corporate sector. EBA was initially established to support the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, initiated by the G8 to promote private agricultural development in Africa.
“A Question of Life or Death”
The mining industry is one of the world's most dangerous industries. Globally, the death toll is at least 14,000 workers per year. But how many lives are actually lost is something that neither trade unions, national governments or the United Nations know.
Climbing the Coconut Value Chain in the Pacific
In the Pacific, coconut is king. Known as the ‘tree of life’, locals make use of every part of the tree to survive – the fruit for eating, husks for fuelling fires, fronds for making multiuse baskets, and the trunk for building houses.
Lessons From China: Fostering Agricultural Growth and Poverty Reduction
As China has moved from a poor isolated country to a major player in the world economic and political sphere, developing countries need to learn how to engage.
Pakistan’s Battle Against Climate Change
Pakistan, which has been listed as the 7th most vulnerable country affected by climate change, is now seriously tackling the vagaries of weather, both at the official as well as non-official level. Pursuant to an initiative launched by the Pakistan Parliament’s Upper House, the Senate, which specially entrusted a sub-Committee of the Standing Committee on Climate Change to focus on “Green and Clean” Islamabad, media, civil society and students have taken up the cudgels on combating climate change.
U.S. Needs to Shift to More Sustainable Agriculture—As Do All Countries
Water supply has long been a key issue in California. Today it is no less critical, especially given the years of drought that California is experiencing, lending additional impetus to assessing the impact of agriculture on water.
Global Governance and Information
The past seventy years since the end of the second world war have been marked by profound changes in our international system. Relations between states have become more horizontally structured interactions with a rising significance of the common good articulated and pursued by newly-created international programmes and organisations.
From Empowerment During War, Eritrean Women Must Fight Gender Discrimination in a New Peace
As the first anniversary of the swearing on Ethiopia’s Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed rolled around last week, Ethiopians – and observers worldwide – marvelled at the pace and scale of radical reform he has brought to the formerly repressed country in the past year.
Revealed — A Roadmap to Defeat Tobacco Tax & Keep Indonesians Addicted
The image of a smoking toddler from Indonesia horrified the world but did little to motivate local policy makers to enact measures to protect children and youth from the harms of tobacco use. Indonesia has one of the world’s highest smoking rates where two out of three men and about 40 percent of adolescent boys smoke.
Fridays for Future – Following Greta Thunberg!
What happens worldwide on Fridays, a regular working day and consequently, a school day? We are all witnessing that students do not attend their classes: during the week of March 15, 2019, according to fridaysforfuture, there were at least 1.6 million striking students in more than 125 countries on all continents.
World Bank Financialization Strategy Serves Big Finance
The World Bank has successfully built a coalition to effectively advance its ‘Maximizing Finance for Development’ (MFD) agenda. The October 2018 G20 Eminent Persons Group’s (EPG) report includes proposals to better coordinate various international financial institutions (IFIs) in promoting financialization.
The Amazon Seeks Alternatives that Could Revolutionise Energy Production
A large steel wheel, 14 meters in diameter and 1.3 meters wide, could be the energy solution of the near future, generating 3.5 megawatts - enough to supply a city of 30,000 people, according to a company in the capital city of the state of Amazonas in northwest Brazil.
All What Your Jeans Can (and Do) Hide!
Paris, Milan, New York, Tokyo… These are just some of the world’s most prestigious fashion catwalks. There, and elsewhere, perfectly – and often unrealistically – silhouetted young women and men graciously parade to impress elite guests and TV watchers with surprising, fabulous creativity of the most renowned fashion designers and dressmakers.
Fastest in Asia-Pacific
(The Daily Star) - Bangladesh is on track to log in the fastest economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region in fiscal 2019-20, said the Asian Development Bank in its latest report -- in a resounding endorsement of the government's economic policymaking. The economy is expected to grow at 8 percent next fiscal year, which is the same as this year, said the Manila-based lender in the latest edition of its flagship publication, Asian Development Outlook 2019.
Ambitions Are Affordable for Asia and the Pacific
Three years of implementation of the transformative 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific shows the region has some catching up to do. Despite much progress, the region is not on track to reach the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set out in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We are living in a time of booming prosperity, yet many are getting left behind. Basic needs, such as the freedom for all from hunger and poverty, ill-health and gender-based discrimination, and equal opportunity for all are elusive. Economic, social and planetary well-being has a price tag. Calculations by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) show that it is mostly affordable for the region.
The Crucial Role of the Military in the Venezuelan Crisis
In January 2019 Venezuela’s opposition-led National Assembly swore in congressman Juan Guaidó as the country’s interim president. Guaidó’s claim to power is a severe blow against the already weakened government of Nicolás Maduro, whose re-election as president in May 2018 was widely rejected by the international community and deemed illegitimate by over 50 foreign governments.
China and Developing Countries: Managing Chinese Investments
Fifty years ago China was a poor country with little influence in the international sphere and without even a seat at the United Nations. Since then rapid economic growth in China has made it an economic powerhouse that increasingly plays a leading role on the world stage as a trade partners as well as a source of investment.
Has Privatization Benefitted the Public?
In most cases of privatization, some outcomes benefit some, which serves to legitimize the change. Nevertheless, overall net welfare improvements are the exception, not the rule. Never is everyone better off. Rather, some are better off, while others are not, and typically, many are even worse off. The partial gains are typically high, or even negated by overall costs, which may be diffuse, and less directly felt by losers.
Sierra Leone: Bio Government’s First Year
If the government of Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio were to be graded on their first year’s performance in office, it is likely that their report card would read, “promising start, which they must surpass in the years ahead”.
What’s in a Name? Everything.
On March 19, 78 years old Nursultan Äbisjuly Nazarbayev unexpectedly announced his resignation as President of Kazakhstan, referring to the need for “a new generation of leaders”. The same day the speaker of the nation´s parliament was appointed as interim president, awaiting presidential elections scheduled for 2020.
Devolution CS Eugene Wamalwa Commends UN Kenya support to national development priorities
Devolution and ASALs Cabinet Secretary Hon. Eugene Wamalwa has said that the reforms being carried out by the United Nations are enabling the global agency to align its activities better and coordinate more effectively in delivering on national development priorities.Next Page »
Trade has historically been a geopolitical tool, creating significant economic imbalances in developing countries. However, many countries in East Asia and Latin America have been able to alleviate poverty due to increasing trade. Tackling poverty has proven to be much harder in low income countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, and their dismal trade performance is one important reason for that. They remain at the margins of world trade and indeed of the world economy. These articles are aimed at informing readers about the complexities of trade and its varying effects on development, with a special focus on the consequences of the global economic crisis, the potential of fair trade and the gender implications of trade policies.
The Week with IPS
NEXT STOP - SDGs
Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
