Children in the town of Gueckedou, the epicentre of the ebola outbreak in Guinea. Credit: ©afreecom/Idrissa Soumaré

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Oct 17 2014 (IPS)

President Barack Obama is under significant pressure to impose a range of restrictions on travellers coming to the United States from West African countries affected by the current Ebola outbreak.

Yet public health experts and development advocates warn that such restrictions would harm the already reeling economies of Ebola-hit countries in the region, and squeeze the international community’s ability to get health workers and goods into these countries.“If we get this wrong and just hunker down and hide, we will make this problem worse both in West Africa and in the United States.” -- Charles Kenny of the Center for Global Development

“An accelerated mobilisation of personnel and resources is necessary to control the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and care for patients, through the establishment of new Ebola management centres,” Tim Shenk, a press officer with Medecins Sans Frontieres, the humanitarian group that has been at the core of the international response to the epidemic, told IPS.

“For this reason, it is crucial that airlines continue flying to the affected region.”

Calls for halting flights and imposing visa restrictions have been floating around Washington since the virus’s spread caught the world’s attention over the summer. Yet these have strengthened substantially in recent days, following the confirmation of three cases of Ebola in the United States.

The first of those was unknowingly carried by a man from Liberia. He died last week after infecting two of the health workers attending to him, and the case has prompted an intense and at times vitriolic response.

“A temporary ban on travel to the United States from countries afflicted with the virus is something that the president should absolutely consider,” John Boehner, the leader of the U.S. House of Representatives and one of the most powerful figures in Washington, said Wednesday.

In fact there are no direct air connections between the United States and any of the three countries most affected by the current outbreak. Further, it would be extremely complex to impose such a ban in tertiary transit countries.

On the other hand, it would be possible to create additional hurdles for those applying for U.S. visas in West Africa. But this would do nothing to deal with, for instance, the many U.S. passport holders living in these countries, and would likewise be logistically complex.

Nonetheless, Boehner was echoing a clear tide of U.S. support for the imposition of travel restrictions. According to a poll released Tuesday, two-thirds of people in the United States would support “restricting entry” of incoming travellers from Ebola-afflicted countries.

The federal government’s response to Ebola has suddenly become a defining issue in the U.S. midterm elections, slated for next month.

Dangerous isolation

The current Ebola outbreak has now killed more than 4,000 people, almost all in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. On Thursday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the international community to make available a billion dollars to allow those combating the disease to meet a target of reducing the virus’s transmission rates by the beginning of December.

In the United States, meanwhile, the public support for travel restrictions has risen by six percentage points since just last week. And lawmakers, many of whom are currently in the last stages of political campaigns, are responding.

Though Congress is currently on recess, lawmakers held a rare hearing on Ebola Thursday. By Thursday evening, members of Congress who supported some sort of travel restrictions outnumbered those who didn’t by 56 to 13, according to a list compiled by a Washington newspaper.

While those who do not support a travel ban were all Democratic, the support for such restrictions stretches across both parties.

“I’ve been struck by just how intense this political pressure has become, and the pressure is bipartisan,” J. Stephen Morrison, the director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank, told IPS.

“While the arguments made against travel bans have been solid, they don’t win the day with the public. Further, if the base population carrying the virus continues to grow, the threat won’t ease and neither will this pressure.”

Even as lawmakers increasingly funnel – and perhaps fuel – concern over Ebola in this country, the Obama administration remains adamant that it is not considering any travel restrictions beyond health scans and interviews at international airports.

“Shutting down travel to that area of the world would prevent the expeditious flow of personnel and equipment into the region,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told journalists Wednesday. “And the only way for us to stop this outbreak and to eliminate any risk from Ebola to the American public is to stop this outbreak at the source.”

Earnest did not reject the possibility completely, however, noting that a travel ban is “not on the table at this point.”

Yet many of those closest to the Ebola response warn that travel restrictions would be not only unfeasible but outright dangerous, exacerbating the outbreak.

“You don’t want to do something that inadvertently accelerates the economic collapse of these countries or impedes the flow of health workers and critically needed commodities,” CSIS’s Morrison says. “Our ability to get ahead of this crisis necessitates the flow, back and forth, of thousands of health-care workers and commodities.”

Indeed, such concerns have already been borne out. African Union aid workers, for instance, were recently delayed for a week getting into Liberia due to travel restrictions imposed in a number of African countries.

“It has been quite challenging over the last several months, because there have been a reduction in commercial flights … a reduction in shipping that comes into the country,” Debra Malac, the U.S. ambassador to Liberia, told journalists Thursday. “[That’s made it] very difficult to get things like food as well as supplies in that are critically needed in order to help address this epidemic.”

Devastating economies

U.S. travel restrictions could also pose significant economic risks, both to Ebola-hit countries and Africa as a whole.

“There’s a lot of air traffic between Africa and the U.S. that’s very important for trade and investment, the tourism industry, for the diaspora,” CSIS’s Morrison says. “All of that is reliant on air links, so how do you make sure you’re not kicking the pins out of those economic processes?”

Already there are widespread fears over the financial impacts of Ebola on Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Earlier this week, the World Health Organisation warned that the virus now threatens “potential state failure” in these countries. Last week, the World Bank estimated that the epidemic could cost West African countries some 33 billion dollars in gross domestic product.

“If we get this wrong and just hunker down and hide, we will make this problem worse both in West Africa and in the United States,” Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, a think tank here, told IPS.

“Imposing any kind of travel ban would tank the economy of these three countries, and that will have knock-on effects on dealing with the disease – increasing the suffering and the number of people with the disease.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be reached at cbiron@ips.org

A disruption of Ukraine's gas supplies would affect many other parts of Europe as well. Credit: Thierry Ehrmann/cc by 2.0

By Micah Luxen
UNITED NATIONS, May 8 2014 (IPS)

It’s springtime in Ukraine, but conflict and economic threats are bringing an early chill. During these months when the country normally stores up energy reserves for winter, access to natural gas may be Russia’s best weapon to influence Ukraine’s new government.

“Ukraine is heavily dependent on natural gas,” said Edward Chow, a senior fellow of the Energy and National Security Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)."If you can’t get sufficient energy in, Ukraine collapses. Political scientists for years have been talking about failed states. You have one." -- Kent Moors

According to CSIS, 40 percent of the country’s energy consumption is natural gas, and 60 percent of that is supplied by Russia.

Under a system designed in the Soviet-era, Ukraine stores up natural gas reserves from Russia and then distributes them to Europe.

“So even though Ukraine’s natural gas needs are not very high in the summertime, if they’re not building stock in the summertime, then they will cause a winter supply crisis,” Chow told IPS. “We don’t have to wait until December to figure that out.”

In numerous disputes over debts and prices over the past decade, Russia has cut off the supply of natural gas through Ukraine – most recently for three days in January 2006 and 20 days in January 2009.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled energy company, confirmed to IPS, “As of today the Ukraine has not paid its debt for the Russian gas. The April bill is overdue, no payment has been received. The outstanding gas debt of the Ukraine rose to 3.508 billion dollars.”

The company has said that unless the Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz pays its energy debt, Russia will require prepayment before distribution.

“People were pretty much freezing in 2009 in parts of Europe which are heavily dependent on Russia for gas imports,” said Chow, who predicts this crisis could last much longer.

“In terms of politics, Russia sets prices arbitrarily, but judiciously,” said Jan Svejnar, director of the Centre on Global Economic Governance at Columbia University.

“With an unwanted government in Ukraine, prices were high. With a pro-Russian government, significant discounts apply,” Svejnar told IPS.

In December 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to buy Ukrainian bonds from former president Viktor Yanukovych, which provided the funds to pay for Russian gas. When an interim government took over from Yanukovych, Putin withdrew support, cancelled the bond purchases and raised the price of gas by 80 percent.

Naftogaz hasn’t made payments demanded by Gazprom since January.

The rest of Europe, which depends on Russia for a third of its gas supply, would be affected by a supply disruption to Ukraine. The impact falls disproportionately on countries in Southeast Europe, which do not have alternative supplies. A limited supply of natural gas arrives to Western Europe through pipelines that bypass Ukraine, such as the newly constructed Nord Stream through the Baltic Sea.

Even so, experts say that Western Europe could not send a reverse-flow energy supply east. Russia’s Gazprom prohibits the resale or re-transport of natural gas from Russia.

“Gazprom has a number of ongoing agreements with the major utilities in Western Europe,” said Kent Moors, executive chair of the Global Energy Symposium, “so there are some vested interests in Western Europe that really wouldn’t like to see sanctions that would impact that ongoing trade.”

According to CSIS, if the European utilities not tied up in Russian contracts were to move natural gas from Europe in reverse mode to Ukraine, it would at best satisfy less than a third of what Ukraine needs this coming winter.

“The question is not one of leverage, it’s one of political will, and who’s willing to use it and who’s not,” said Chow, who has more than 30 years of oil industry experience, including work in Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Kent believes the countries that depend almost entirely on Russian oil, such as the Baltic states and Poland, would be more likely to take a hard line against Russia “because of the historical experience.”

Those countries that are less vulnerable, as a result of increased energy diversity, such as France, Italy and Germany, are more inclined to be soft on Russia. “So in my mind, it’s more a matter of political will than economic leverage,” he told IPS.

The CSIS’s Chow said that while Europe depends on Russia for 30 percent of its gas supply, Russia depends on Europe for 80 percent of its gas export market. “So who’s more dependent on whom?” As a result, Chow says that Russia won’t want to cut off supplies, and its own profits, through Ukraine for the long term.

Kent, who has a Ph.D. in political science, says the goal must be to get Ukraine through the next winter. “Because if you can’t get sufficient energy in, Ukraine collapses. Political scientists for years have been talking about failed states. You have one. It’s not going to be able to function. And there’s probably some elements in Russia who are simply waiting for this to happen. And then they can say, look, it’s not our fault that Kiev collapsed under its own inability to function.”

The ambassadors of Ukraine and Russia declined to comment for this article.

Even as countries around the world have started to sign on to and ratify a landmark international treaty that would for the first time regulate the international trade in conventional weapons, experts here are warning that the treaty in itself will not be able to maintain peace and security in Africa.

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was almost unanimously passed by the U.N. General Assembly in April 2013 following a decade of often contentious negotiations. It covers small arms to battle tanks, combat aircrafts to warships.“Without import control regimes along with export controls, it will be hard to reap the benefits of the treaty." -- Thomas Countryman

Thus far, 118 states have signed on to the treaty, though only 31 have ratified the agreement. Ultimately, 50 ratifications will be needed before the ATT can come into effect.

Of the 31 states that have ratified the treaty, just two have been African – Nigeria and Mali. Yet even if, or when, more African governments decide to ratify the ATT, experts here, including some who helped negotiate the treaty, say its effect in maintaining peace in Africa will be somewhat limited.

“The ATT is an important step toward prosperity, peace and security in Africa, but by itself is not enough,” Thomas Countryman, the chief U.S. negotiator on the ATT, said this week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank here.

In a follow-up interview, Countryman told IPS that African countries played a “very valuable role” in advocating for the treaty, but acknowledged the impediments that developing countries in Africa may face in institutionalising and implementing the ATT before and post-ratification. He also noted that the United States and the European Union are prepared to assist in the ratification and regulation process as required.

Most African countries did sign the ATT, except for Egypt and Sudan, which abstained from the General Assembly vote. In addition, Somaliland, Sierra Leone, Western Sahara, Equatorial Guinea, and Sao Tome and Principe took no public position.

For now, Countryman says, it is critical that countries implement effective and transparent export and import arms control mechanisms.

“Without import control regimes along with export controls, it will be hard to reap the benefits of the treaty,” he stated.

An important part of this, Countryman says, is implementing effective border control and customs services, both in law and practice. Other steps include the establishment and implementation of an effective legal framework for the prosecution of both internal and external illegal arms trades.

This includes, Countryman notes, the need for stronger mechanisms over government weapons.

“It is essential … [that] African states institute effective controls over state-owned stockpiles of current and legacy weapons,” he said.

Many armories in Africa were built during the colonial period or the early days of independence.

“Additional arsenals were purchased legally by the governments in the cause of national security for the military and the police,” he continued. “However, such arms are not always adequately secured.”

Securing such caches is not an obligation under the ATT, which deals solely with the international transfer of arms. However, Countryman notes that such a concern is directly related to the goals of the treaty, particularly ensuring civilian safety.

Transparency is key

“The treaty is complimentary to other actions that should be taken to stop violence perpetrated with illegally traded conventional arms,” Raymond Gilpin, the dean of the National Defense University (NDU), here in Washington, told the CSIS panel discussion on Wednesday.

Gilpin particularly emphasised the role of partnerships between the public and private sector in tackling the illicit arms trade. In this, he said, a similar model could be seen in global attempts to force greater transparency in the extractives sector in developing countries.

“As with minerals, if we leave the decision-making to the state alone, we might face reluctance in developing more transparency, a lack of resources or corruption in implementing the ATT requirements. Furthermore, one has to consider the influence of violent non-state actors in arms trade and diversion,” Gilpin said.

“Price stability as well as predictability of supply and demand relies heavily on transparency… Transparency is one of the main pillars of the ATT, and a lack of this element costs companies a lot of money.”

Gilpin made specific reference to an annual publication called the Transparency Barometer, put out by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey. While the barometer serves as an important outlet for policy-relevant research on small arms and armed violence, Gilpin said, it focuses mostly on the exporting countries.

Control and transparency in the import-control regimes is also a very important aspect to tackle the illicit trade of arms, he cautioned.

African countries need to be more prepared for the ratification and implementation of obligations imposed by the ATT, Gilpin warned.

African states could be hindered in ratifying the treaty due to “a lack of capacity and expertise to draft the laws and prepare documentations for the parliamentary submissions, but also include state complicity,” he said.

Furthermore, certain countries view the import and management of arms as national security-related secrets. Thus, he suggests, confidentiality might be holding some countries back from ratifying the treaty.

Gilpin also emphasised the importance of strengthening public awareness about the need to prevent crimes associated with the gun violence, particularly during election campaigns on the continent.

“People get desensitised to the issue during the periods of relative peace and stability,” he said. “But to prevent conflicts from escalating and to maintain peace, civil societies need to more actively push elected officials to take more action to tackle the issue.”

Young Bangladeshi women raise their fists at a protest in Shahbagh. Credit: Kajal Hazra/IPS

By Bryant Harris
WASHINGTON, Apr 3 2014 (IPS)

Although half the world’s population is under 25 years old, young people in more than two dozen countries feel that their opportunities for educational, economic and societal advancement are limited, according to new research released here Thursday.

Researchers say the results should help to drive and prioritise both public and private investment in services.“The youth bulge can become a security, economic and humanitarian worry, and even maybe a disaster, or it can become a resource for development and change.” -- William Reese

In order to assess the many factors that contribute to healthy lifestyles for youth, the International Youth Foundation (IYF) and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the latter a think tank here, put together the Global Youth Wellbeing Index.

The index aggregates data from 30 countries, representing around 70 percent of the world’s youth population, and rates the wellbeing of youths in each country on a scale from zero to one.

“This is certainly … one of the biggest issues we’re dealing with in the world today,” Christopher Nassetta, the CEO of Hilton Worldwide, the index’s principle funder, said at the index’s launch.

“It hasn’t been an issue that really has been discussed around the world the way that, in my mind, it should be, in the sense of really getting governments, civil society and business … to really think about the issues.”

Nassetta says each of these sectors now needs to figure out not only how to attack the problems that can be associated with youth wellbeing, but also the “opportunity”.

Approximately 85 percent of youths under the age of 25 live in developing countries, in some countries comprising almost 40 percent of the total population.

Development advocates and economists suggest such numbers highlight the importance of providing such a large segment of the population with the resources necessary to drive economic growth while maintaining adequate health, security and stability.

“The youth bulge can become a security, economic and humanitarian worry, and even maybe a disaster, or it can become a resource for development and change,” said William Reese, IYF’s president.

Palestinian youth in the Old City of Jerusalem. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

The index collects data on youths between the ages of 15 and 24. Nearly all of this data, drawn from public, independent sources, is from 2008 or later.

The index then establishes 40 indicators to assess six major fields, or “domains”, of relevance to youthful wellbeing: safety and security, information and communication technology, citizen participation, economic opportunity, education, and health. It then determines each country’s overall ranking from the scores in each field.

In the 30 countries assessed, the average score for youths’ overall wellbeing is .576, with two-thirds of countries falling below the average. As for the averages for each specific domain, youths across the world fared best in health and worst in economic opportunity.

Australia has the highest rate of youth wellbeing with a score of .752, while Nigeria comes in last with .375.

Although the index only covers 30 countries at present, its creators hope that its publication will now encourage other countries to run their own wellbeing analyses, potentially encouraging data-driven investment in youth programming.

“A number of these data points are available in many of the countries not included in the index … but we did make some choices to be strategic and to have regional diversity, as well as income diversity, in this first index,” Nicole Goldin, the director of the CSIS department that spearheaded the index, told IPS.

“But to those countries that are not included, we hope that this index can be seen as a framework and a tool so that governments, young people, implementing organisations, corporations and any other stakeholders can take it, run their own wellbeing analysis, and see how they may compare and drive their own policies, programmes and investments to better serve the interests of youth.”

In July 2012, under the leadership of 23-year-old Patrick Arathe, a group of youth without parents started their own farming enterprise in Munda, Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

Data-driven investment

IYF and CSIS hope that governments, civil society and businesses will use the index’s findings to better evaluate and calibrate programmes designed to build youth capacity.

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” said Nassetta. “There’s been a massive lack of transparency and data with which to make good investments, whether that’s human capital or financial capital, so the wellbeing index is the start of that.”

For instance, IYF’s Reese noted that developing countries’ heavy investment in certain sectors, like education, have yet to yield desirable results.

“[The] domains can tell us where to invest intelligently,” Reese said. “That can be the host government, but even in some of the poorest countries in the world, their largest expenditure is in education, it’s just not being well spent.”

Reese emphasised that the index is not adversarial in nature, but rather designed for countries to compare and contrast their relative strengths and weakness, and to learn from each other.

“The index will help us compare and frame some needs and look at countries as to where they’re doing better and where they have some gaps,” he said. “Then we can compare across countries – not to name and shame at all, but to look further so we invest better.”

In addition to emphasising the need for more data-driven policies, programmes and investments, many at Thursday’s unveiling of the index highlighted a key component necessary to drive those changes: youths themselves.

“If you’re talking about a post-2015 development agenda, one thing missing from that, based on a youth perspective, is the idea of what the ‘youth problem’ is,” said Angga Dwi Martha, the 23-year-old Youth Advocate at the United Nations Population Fund.

“I think this index can give a very general identification of the problem. And then, as young people, we can [relay] this to our government, the private sector and civil society.”

Others argued that the best way to figure out “what works” to improve youth wellbeing is by actively including and engaging youths in the development process.

According to Emmanuel Jimenez, the World Bank’s director of public-sector evaluations, “We, as older people who design policy, often forget, or don’t do enough, to consult with the ultimate beneficiaries, which are young people.”

Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel hosts an honour cordon to welcome China's Minister of National Defence Gen. Chang Wanquan to the Pentagon Aug. 19, 2013. Credit: DoD Photo by Glenn Fawcett

By George Gao
NEW YORK, Aug 21 2013 (IPS)

U.S. Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel welcomed Chinese Defence Minister Chang Wanquan to the Pentagon Monday as part of Chang’s four-day tour of U.S. defence compounds.

“We just finished a very productive meeting, where I restated that the United States is committed to building a positive and constructive relationship with China,” Hagel told reporters.

Hagel and Chang spoke of their countries’ commitment to build a stronger military-to-military relationship. They highlighted new ways to cooperate, such as in humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations, counter-piracy and counterterrorism initiatives, joint military exercises, and military exchange programmes.

Asked about the U.S. “rebalance” or “pivot”, which involves increased U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific, Chang quoted his president, Xi Jinping: “The Pacific is wide enough to accommodate the two great countries, China and the United States. It’s always the Chinese position to welcome the U.S. to play a constructive role in the Asia-Pacific.”

Chang said that while the U.S. rebalancing strategy is a comprehensive one, he hopes it will not target China or stand against China’s affairs in the region.

Tensions flare in Asia-Pacific

Meanwhile, China is embroiled in territorial disputes with U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific, namely the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea, and Japan in the East China Sea.

Hagel said that while the U.S. takes no official position on sovereignty on these matters, the U.S. does have an interest for such disputes to be resolved “peacefully, without coercion”.

Hagel is slated to visit the Philippines at the end of August. As part of its rebalance, the U.S. is negotiating an agreement with Manila to allow U.S. troops greater access to Philippine military bases. Obtaining such access builds on former U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s “lily pad” strategy, which involves lightweight U.S. forces stationed in bases spangled across the globe.

“China sees the U.S. as exploiting the opportunity created by the anxieties in the region to enhance its military presence and access arrangements,” said Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia in the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

“The prospects of a U.S.-Philippines agreement on access arrangements has been discussed for some time, so the Chinese aren’t taken by surprise, though they are likely concerned about it,” Glaser told IPS.

China sees the U.S. rebalance as a strategy to counter China’s increasing global influence. In general, China’s rise in status has dotted media headlines in 2013: most recently, China passed the U.S. as the world’s largest trading nation. It is also set to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy by 2016, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Analysts have already noted evidence of a new conventional arms race between the two nations. The U.S. and China have the world’s highest defence budgets, running up to 682 and 166 billion U.S. dollars in 2012, respectively, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

China has invested in a range of anti-ship, land attack, and ballistic missiles, as well as counter-space weapons and military cyberspace “capabilities”, according to a 2013 U.S. Department of Defence (DOD) report.

Such actions are part of China’s anti-access and area denial, or “A2/AD”, missions. The U.S. is worried that China’s A2/AD weapons will restrict U.S. “freedom of action”, by limiting U.S. access to future “theatres of conflict”, as well as U.S. movements within that theatre.

To get around A2/AD, the U.S. unveiled a new war tactic known as AirSea Battle, which evolved from the AirLand Battle concept developed in the Cold War to counter any “Soviet-backed combined arms attack in Europe”. AirSea Battle’s aim “is to develop networked, integrated forces capable of attack-in-depth to disrupt, destroy and defeat adversary forces”, according to the DOD.

“Conventional arms competition between the U.S. and China is primarily over U.S. military access to the region,” said Glaser.

“China is developing (A2/AD) capabilities that seek to deny the U.S. such access in a crisis, and the U.S. is determined to sustain access and operational manoeuvrability,” she said.

One military niche that China has not rapidly developed is its nuclear arsenal, which contains a modest 250 nuclear warheads, compared to Russia’s 8,500 and the U.S.’ 7,700, according to SIPRI estimates.

While China is expected to streamline and modernise its nuclear force, specifically for second-strike or retaliatory purposes if another country instigates the first strike, analysts don’t see the arms race extending into the nuclear realm.

“Right now, I don’t see a high probability of China dramatically increasing the size of its nuclear forces,” said Elbridge Colby, co-chair of a working group that penned the report “Nuclear Weapons and U.S.-China Relations” published by CSIS.

“(China) does not appear to want to engage in a nuclear arms race with the U.S., both because that would likely spur countervailing responses by the U.S. and other countries in the region, and because it views too much expenditure on nuclear arms as wasteful,” Colby told IPS.

Asked how China is responding to AirSea Battle, John Chan, a China analyst at the World Socialist Web Site, told IPS that China is expanding its A2/AD capacities, as well as other military capabilities, including anti-surveillance, “in the hope that Beijing can seriously undermine the U.S. military in the event of war”.  Chan has long argued that the U.S. rebalance has ratcheted tensions in the Asia-Pacific.

Chan also interpreted an Aug. 2 piece by Chinese security expert Shen Dingli published in Chinese by Huan Qiu as something that calls into question China’s longstanding “no first use” nuclear policy. China is currently the only one of five U.N. Security Council permanent members with a “no first use” policy – which restricts China’s use of nuclear weapons only for deterrence and retaliation after suffering a nuclear strike.

However, asked via email if the U.S. rebalance to the Asia-Pacific should or will lead China to re-examine its “no first-use” policy, Shen, the vice dean of the Institute of International Affairs at Fudan University, told IPS: “Not clear, probably not.”

Asked for ways to prevent the U.S. and China from entering into a classic security dilemma and arms race, Shen said: “If the U.S. would cease to do its pivoting; if the U.S. would cease to build up its missile defence; if the U.S. would cease its space military programme, and if China would follow suit.”

Since the 2008 financial crisis, and most recently with the broad federal spending cuts beginning Mar. 1, experts have warned that an austerity-minded political system could bring about dramatic changes in the U.S. foreign aid model.

A significant part of this conversation has focused on shifting away from a government-led approach and instead strengthening the role of the private sector in development assistance. But critics are focusing attention on the potential pitfalls of such a redesign.

“The idea that there is a lack of public resources, so we need to be leveraging private money, ignores some of the options to increase public funds,” Janet Redman, director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy Studies, told IPS.The danger lies in pretending that gross domestic product and foreign direct investment is the same as making economies more sustainable.

She says there are numerous other public sector options available for a country in the United States’ position. These include, for instance, taxes on financial transactions and carbon, both approaches that have largely been left out of the political discussion here in Washington amidst a shift in focus onto the private sector.

In a report released this week, a think tank task force of development experts and business leaders here urged the U.S. government to increase its reliance on the private sector in foreign aid flows aimed at development.

Citing changes in technology and an increased willingness among developing countries to engage with U.S. companies, researchers with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) predict that the United States’ current model of development assistance could be obsolete within 25 years.

The CSIS report authors are calling for a shift from a government-based approach to a “blend of development, trade and investment”.

Such recommendations are based on global shifts in technology and business, especially the rapid outpacing of public sector development funds by the private sector. According to the report, the private sector currently spends over 87 percent of U.S. funds flowing to the developing world.

The share of public funding, meanwhile, has fallen from 71 percent in 1960 to just nine percent today.

Some also feel there is evidence that the private sector may be able to deepen the impact of foreign aid by equipping people in developing countries with new skill sets.

By equipping a person with a skill set instead of simply money, said Thomas J. Pritzker, executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, “You’ll also give him hope – and hope is a crucial aspect of social stability.” He called peace and prosperity “two sides of the same coin”.

Narrative problem

Still, the prospect of the private sector serving as a primary engine of growth for development indicators is, for some, a controversial premise. Janet Redman, for instance, notes that the report’s findings are predicated on a potentially dangerous “narrative problem”.

She also cautions against adopting a system in which development institutions are designed to function more like companies, at the expense of meeting the needs of people who stand to benefit the most from foreign assistance.

Ensuring access to, for instance, health care, water and education should not be profit-driven enterprises, she stressed, because doing so would set up a “dynamic where companies looking for an investment may need to see a particular rate of return for them to invest.”

Redman continued: “The danger lies in pretending that gross domestic product and foreign direct investment is the same as making economies more sustainable and enabling them to meet the needs of their citizens.”

Private sector funds often don’t trickle down to the poorest members of a host country, a finding supported by a 2011 report published by the Independent Evaluation Group, the internal watchdog for the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private-sector arm.

“The link from growth to poverty reduction is not automatic,” that report found, “particularly in situations where market failures and other inefficiencies limit participation of the poor.”

According to the auditor’s findings, less than a quarter of the IFC projects that generated satisfactory returns also generated identifiable benefits to the poor.

U.S. weariness

Of course, there are major challenges to any such dramatic overhaul of the United States’ development assistance model.

Many, for instance, refer to an increasing gap between how companies, federal agencies and NGOs function and communicate with each other. Business and NGO leaders at the event also attested to notable deficiencies in trust between the public and private sectors.

“There is not a system in place that would allow for cooperation on this scale between the different actors,” Sam Worthington, president of InterAction, a coalition of U.S.-based NGOs, told IPS. Developing such a system may be a task for the donor countries, he added.

Meanwhile, the challenge of U.S. public opinion looms large in any current discussion of foreign aid. As the Mar. 1 budget cuts are phased in, and as the United State withdraws from more than a decade of military involvement in the Middle East, many here are eying any kind of international engagement more warily than ever.

Experts on the issue are urging a shift in public opinion, warning against allowing war-weariness to translate into weariness with international engagement in general.