The G7 leaders in 2018.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 23 2019 (IPS)

As leaders of the seven major industrialised nations (G7) meet in the coastal seatown of Biarritz in the south west of France, one of the world’s leading women’s organisations is calling for the protection and advancement of women worldwide.

Katja Iversen, President/CEO of Women Deliver, and a two-time member of both G7 Gender Equality Advisory Councils (GEAC), is delivering a strong, gender-inspired message to the leaders: “Firstly, ditch the gender discriminatory laws you have on your books. Secondly, push progressive ones.”

“Thirdly, invest specifically in implementation of progressive laws, and also invest in women’s and civil society organisations (CSOs) that work every day to drive progress. And lastly, monitor, measure and be ready to be held to your promises.”

The four recommendations  are in the Biarritz Partnership on Gender Equality.

The G7 countries, comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the United States, plus the European Union (EU), are holding their 45th annual meeting in France, August 24-26.

Women currently comprise nearly 50 percent of the global population of 7.7 billion people while the G7 accounts for more than 58 percent of the world’s  net wealth..

Iversen,  whose organisation is described as a leading global advocate for the health, rights and wellbeing of girls and women, has also brought together diverse voices and interests to drive progress for gender equality, with a particular focus on maternal, sexual, and reproductive health and rights.

In an interview with IPS, Iversen said that within the four focus areas, Women Deliver has identified 79 examples of laws and policies that advance gender equality, drawn from different regions of the world.

While this list is not comprehensive, she said, the examples show that progress is possible and is, in fact, happening.

“We call on the G7 and other world leaders to take these as inspiration, and act before they meet again in 2020, both at the G7 but also at the global Generation Equality Summit to be held in Mexico and France respectively.”

In Canada, abortion is allowed by law without specifications on gestational limits, it is available to women of any age, and it is covered by insurance in hospitals.

Colombia has compulsory sex education with curriculum tailored to the students’ age. Paraguay provides contraception free of charge and without an age restriction.

In India, a 2005 law reforms the discriminatory inheritance practices and establishes equality in land inheritance between unmarried girls and unmarried boys.

And in Rwanda, beginning 2010, at least 30% of parliamentary candidates had to be women – and today more than 60% actually are.

Meanwhile, the Gender Equality Advisory Councils (GEAC) have called on G7 leaders to:

• End gender-based violence;
• Ensure equitable and quality education and health;
• Promote economic empowerment;
• Ensure full equality between women and men in public policies.

Katja Iversen, the President/CEO of Women Deliver.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

IPS:  Can you tell us what the Gender Equality Advisory Council is, and what role it plays at the G7?

IVERSEN: The G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council was created by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to promote gender equality as an issue that deserves the attention of the G7, along with economic development, trade, technology and everything else that heads of state work on. This was last year when Canada held the presidency of the G7.

I guess we did a pretty good job since French President Emmanuel Macron right away said that he was going to continue the idea under France’s presidency. He formed his own at the beginning of the year, and I and a couple of others were asked to continue.

Both independent Councils have brought together activists and advocates, Nobel prizewinners, UN, civil society and business leaders, and a diverse group of people with different perspectives and expertise to share—ranging from education, gender-based violence, women’s economic empowerment, women’s health, indigenous rights, youth engagement, technology, climate change, LGBTQI issues, and male engagement.

Trudeau, Macron and others know that leaders must invest in politically and economically in gender equality to create a healthier, wealthier, more productive and more peaceful world. Our role has been to show the G7 leaders what they need to do to drive progress.

What has been exciting and gratifying about these Councils is that it has really changed the conversation on gender equality. I mean, I talk about gender equality all the time, the members of the Council’s talk about it…but not everybody does. But more and more now do, and we see the discussions being much more prominent – and substantial – in governments, businesses, and in society at large.

IPS: You have served on the 2018 inaugural GEAC and now this one. Can you tell us about the experience of working with two different groups?

IVERSEN: I’m so proud of the work of both Councils and the fact that the various issues related to gender equality have been elevated to the global stage in such a big way.

Prime Minister Trudeau really went out on a limb. It seems a little crazy to say that advising G7 leaders on how to bring about gender equality was a radical idea in 2018. And yet it somewhat was.

We got a lot of leeway, so we didn’t just say – these are things that are good for women and these are things that are bad for women. We were able to show how to make gender inequality history, and make the case that gender is cross-cutting and countries must put a gender lens to their priority areas —the economy, the climate, technology, security, health, education, whatever. The prime minister insisted that we be truly independent, and that we were welcome to criticise Canada, where they were not doing well enough.

President Macron formed a bigger council to expand the work, but also to go deeper, and we have come up with specific recommendations to drive gender equality from a legal perspective. What this council is recommending is for governments to ditch discriminatory laws, push for progressive laws in their place, and put these priorities into the national budget.

IPS: How did you establish priorities for the GEAC and what was the process like?

IVERSEN: It has been fascinating. The work takes time and consensus can be hard won but the process is also invigorating, because we all learn from each other, and because the results are a lot more powerful.

That’s exactly what the G7 needed: ideas, energy, and consolidated advice from a wide range of experts with different lived experiences. And done in a kind and collaborative manner. Gender equality is not a war, it is an investment where everybody wins.

In the 2018 Council, we outlined many, if not all, of the cross-cutting issues that need a gender lens in a report to the G7. This year we focus on what kind of legislation we could recommend. We honed in on reforms in four areas: Ending gender-based violence; ensuring that health and education are high quality, inclusive, and equitable; promoting women’s economic empowerment; and ensuring full gender equality in policies and public life.  Investment in these areas would move the needle on gender equality.

IPS:  What has been the impact of GEAC in 2018 and what do you hope to achieve this year?

IVERSEN : Prime Minister Trudeau’s creation of an independent Gender Equality Advisory Council put the issues of gender equality on par with the other economic and social issues at the 2018 G7. And President Macron saw the impact that elevating gender equality had, and embraced the idea of establishing his own council.

Ideally, the G7 will remain a platform to promote gender equality and all the economic, political, and social benefits that result from it. But we want all governments to join this work. Not just because it’s the right thing to do but because doing so is better for countries politically, economically, and socially.

IPS: Are commitments enough? How do you hold governments accountable for their commitments made at G7 to ensure tangible, sustainable outcomes?

IVERSEN: Words matter. But some words matter a little more in this context and those are the ones that are written into legislation. Promises are important but they are not enough and we know that. 

We need action. But experience tells us we also need accountability. Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms show what is working and whether promises are kept. It gives governments opportunity to learn and adjust – and it gives civil society advocates arguments and information to hold governments accountable to their promises. 

That is exactly why Women Deliver, UN Women, and OECD together with the Council have created a relatively simple – and affordable – accountability framework to accompany the Biarritz Package. Therefore, we’ve strongly encouraged France take the accountability framework and invest in it. 

IPS:  You mentioned civil society organisations. Can you tell us a bit more on what role civil society organisations can play?

IVERSEN: It is a good question and I will answer it – but then let’s also save some time and take a look to the future.

Civil society plays a crucial role when we talk about gender equality and about instituting legal and profound change. There are women-led organisations that focus on local issues and there are global NGOs that tackle a broad set of problems all over the world. And there’s everything in-between.

Let’s look to Ireland where women-focused organisations led the year-long campaign that finally legalised abortion. Let’s look to Uganda where civil society, not least youth advocates were instrumental in preventing the government from banning sexuality education. Let’s look to the MeToo, Time’s Up and Ni Una Mas movement in South America that is changing perceptions of women and apathy about gender-based violence. That is real fundamental change.

Big change comes when the different sectors band together – when government, private sector, the judiciary, civil society, and even the private sector finds common ground and push together. That is the point we are getting to regarding gender equality and that is why this G7 Summit is important and why the next year will be instrumental.

In addition, programs intended to serve young people are often designed without meaningful youth engagement, and so impact falls short. The ideas and experience of young people must be included in the design and implementation of all policies and programs designed to serve them.

2020 marks the beginning of the UN’s Decade of Progress on the SDGs. It is also the 25^th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action on gender equality. It’s hard to remember now but that was revolutionary and we are looking for another big push on this road to gender equality – whether in relation to women in leadership and the economy, health, or education. There are big plans for activities in 2020 and Women Deliver is part of that.

The call for a more gender equal world is echoing throughout the world. And the notion that a gender equal world is a healthier, wealthier, more peaceful and a BETTER world is gaining traction. The genie is out of the bottle, and we are not going backwards.

By Gunter Nooke
BERLIN, Jul 10 2015 (IPS)

When the three-day conference on Financing for Development begins on Jul. 13 in Addis Ababa, the competitors in this year’s Tour de France will have reached the mountains. They will have already experienced a few spills and will still have many kilometres to go.

A similar situation is facing us with the many important conferences taking place in this important, watershed year for development.

Günter Nooke. Credit: Bundesregierung/Bergmann

The journey began with a successful and financially productive pledging conference organised by Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, in Berlin in January, and it is set to end in December with the conclusion in Paris of a climate agreement that is binding under international law.

In between, we had a G7 Summit at Schloss Elmau in Bavaria in June that will surely remain in our memories for a long time. For one thing, this was probably the first summit where so many guests were invited to attend for such a long time and where development issues were so prominent on the agenda.

Heads of government from Nigeria, Senegal, Ethiopia, Liberia, Tunisia and Iraq were joined by the heads of international organisations such as the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Labour Organisation (ILO), Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

As announced by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Brussels back in 2014, it was a true development outreach focusing on Africa for all that security issues also played a major role.

For the first time ever the heads of state and government of the G7 countries agreed to strive for a carbon-free world by the end of the century. Merkel, Germany’s environment minister at Kyoto in 1997 and the climate chancellor of Heiligendamm in 2007, has once again succeeded in convincing others to join forces in forging ahead with regard to an important issue.“If the countries of Europe and Africa could agree that those who use up more of the permitted volume for storing CO2 in the atmosphere than others should pay more into the climate fund, then we would have taken a huge step forward. And those whose CO2 emissions are lower … should enjoy a comparatively greater benefit from this climate money"

So far what we mostly have are words. Germany is the only industrialised country to have significantly increased its Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2015.Germany stands by the 0.7 percent target, but is unwilling to commit to a rigid timetable with fixed increments for increasing ODA.

Of course, ODA remains important but there are other sources for financing development. Above all it is about how efficiently the money is spent and whether the burden is fairly shared. That should also be the most important leitmotif for the Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa.

It will scarcely be possible to get binding financial commitments from everyone in Addis. It would also be a great shame if developing countries were to call for more money from the industrialised countries and donors and the “accused”, having been put on the spot, were to respond by pointing the finger at the poor performances of the developing countries when it comes to governance, legal certainty, human rights and an independent judiciary.

Instead of confrontation it would be better if efforts were made in Addis, as they were in Elmau, to continue laying the ground for working together on a basis of mutual trust, with concrete topics and fields of cooperation being named.

Before the December climate conference in Paris, there will be the General Assembly week in New York with all the heads of state and government, a meeting that is especially important this year.

This will be the occasion for agreeing on new goals for sustainable development, on a new pact on the world’s future with concrete goals (Sustainable Development Goals – SDGs), with targets for both developing and industrialised countries.

The intention is that all countries should each make their own contribution. The SDGs are to be universally applicable, but with shared yet differentiated responsibilities for achieving them jointly.

The success of the Elmau summit was the outcome of a rare harmony between language and substance. The Group of Seven is not just a group formed by the world’s strongest industrialised countries. Following the exclusion of Russia, it has once more become evident how much we need a partnership of countries that really want to build a community of values.

The situation at the United Nations, where 193 nations are represented by their national governments, is different.

Surely, in this critical situation and in the interests of Germans and Europeans, it behoves us to work towards a special trust-based partnership between Africa and Europe. The only way for the countries of Europe and of Africa to develop in peace is by working together as good neighbours.

If we take this partnership a bit further in Addis and in New York, then we will also be successful in Paris and will reach a binding climate agreement. And then we will no longer be able to get away with being vague about the numbers, we will have to share out the CO₂ savings among us and, from 2020 onwards, find the 100 billion dollars for the Green Climate Fund.

If the countries of Europe and Africa could agree that those who use up more of the permitted volume for storing CO₂ in the atmosphere than others should pay more into the climate fund, then we would have taken a huge step forward. And those whose CO₂ emissions are lower than the average level or the maximum level per head according to the dictates of sustainability should enjoy a comparatively greater benefit from this climate money.

This arrangement would be good for everyone in Europe and in Africa. Germany, the strong export nation with emissions levels of about nine tonnes a head, would have to pay a lot of money and countries like Burkina Faso or Malawi would receive a lot. And a country like Nigeria would also finally have an incentive to put an end to gas flaring once and for all.

There are many mountains and cliffs to overcome before reaching Paris, not just for the participants in the Tour de France. However, it is important that we know the route. Otherwise we may find that there are only two parties sitting at the table together in Paris and talking about what they – the United States and China – consider acceptable.

Europe and Africa would be out of the running. This other way is not the route that will lead us to our goal.

Edited by Phil Harris    

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Citizens plan to stop the giant coal excavators in the Rhineland coal mines, the world’s biggest land vehicles. Photo credit: ausgeCOhlt

By Dorothee Haussermann and Martin Weis
BERLIN, Jul 2 2015 (IPS)

“If you’re against coal mining, why don’t you just walk into a coal mine and stop the excavators?”

It’s a late June evening in the German town of Mayence and about 40 people are gathered to discuss a coal phase-out and degrowth.

“It’s possible,” continues the speaker. “You just walk up to the excavator and it will stop – at least temporarily. So, if you take the threat of climate change seriously, what keeps you from stopping the destruction right on the spot?”“Large sections of the climate justice movement no longer believe that U.N. negotiations or lobby-ridden governments will come up with the urgent solutions needed to solve our socio-ecological crisis”

To keep coal in the ground and not burn it in order to avert catastrophic climate change, we now know that we cannot rely on the German government. Yesterday, Jul. 1, the partners of the ruling coalition scrapped a proposed climate levy, an instrument that had been proposed by energy minister Sigmar Gabriel to still reach the national climate goals for 2020, an overall emissions reduction of 40 percent.

As it stands, the energy sector is behind on its targets, largely due to the continued use of lignite or brown coal. Four of Europe’s five largest emitters are German lignite power plants and coal accounts for one-third of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The climate levy proposed a cap on CO2 emissions for individual power plants, which would have primarily affected the oldest and dirtiest lignite power stations. The measure was backed by climate scientists and economic experts. It also enjoyed huge public support, with the overwhelming majority of Germans in favour of a coal phase-out.

However, powerful interests mobilised against the measure. These included members of the governing parties, the big power suppliers RWE and Vattenfall which would have been most affected, and IGBCE, the mining industry trade union.

Playing the ‘jobs-will-be-lost’ card, they introduced an alternative proposal, which has been criticised for seeking smaller emission cuts at a higher cost to consumers and taxpayers. Yet, the government agreed yesterday to drop the climate levy in favour of the industry proposal.

Two points are particularly infuriating and in fact quite worrying. There seems to be an absolute disconnect between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s earlier rhetoric of the ‘decarbonisation of the worldwide economy’ at the Jun. 7-8 G7 Summit in Elmau, and the actions of her government at home only a few days later. Secondly, the influence of the coal industry in the democratic process is staggering. Their hastily compiled alternative actually carried the day and the big polluters are let off the hook.

The German example is a case in point of why large sections of the climate justice movement no longer believe that U.N. negotiations or lobby-ridden governments will come up with the urgent solutions needed to solve our socio-ecological crisis.

This is why we are taking the creation of an equitable and ecological society into our own hands instead of relying on promises of green growth or paying lip service to the G7.

This summer, the German and European anti-coal movement will take the fight to a new level. A coalition of grassroots groups and NGOs have called for a mass act of civil disobedience that is intended to bring operations in the Rhineland coalfields – the biggest source of Europe’s CO2 emissions – to a halt.

From Aug. 14 to 16, hundreds of people from across Europe plan to enter an open-pit lignite mine with many more standing outside the mine in solidarity. Under the banner Ende Gelände, which translates into ‘this far and no further’, they will aim to block the mining infrastructure.

During the G7 summit, four people already showed that it can be done when they scaled one of the monstrously huge excavators and stopped work in the mine for two days.

The action this summer is part of a growing and diverse movement against lignite mining, ranging from local citizens’ initiatives against poisonous air pollution, to fights for divestment and the occupation of an old-growth forest that stands to be cleared for the extension of the mines.

Those participating in the discussion in Mayence were convinced that this upcoming action in August is a moral imperative.

“Of course, it’s illegal but civil disobedience is our emergency brake,” said one. “If people thirty years from now were to ask us what we did to prevent the mass extinction of species, heat waves, crop failures, the melting of glaciers and wildfires, can we say: I could have stopped coal mining, but I didn’t because there was a sign saying ‘No Trespassing’?”

Edited by Phil Harris    

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

U.N. officials, government leaders and civil society actors gathered Tuesday at the German House for a panel discussion on climate change as a “threat-multiplier”.

The debate centered on a report titled “A New Climate for Peace: Taking Action on Climate and Fragility Risks.” Commissioned in early 2014 by the G7 member states, the report was written by leading political research institutes headed by Adelphi, International Alert, the Wilson Center and the EU Institute for Security Studies.

The report underscores the significant impact climate change will have on foreign and security policies. It identifies seven compound climate-fragility risks and calls on leaders and decision-makers to “act now to limit future risks to the planet we share and the peace we seek”.

The seven risk situations outlined in the report are local resource competition, livelihood insecurity and migration, extreme weather events and disasters, volatile food prices, transboundary water management, sea-level rise and coastal degradation as well as the unintended effects of climate policies.

The report calls on G7 member countries to take the lead in building resilience to climate change beginning at the national level and moving on to cooperation and integrated approaches on a multilateral and global level.

The G7 comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

According to the report, making climate-fragility risks a national foreign policy priority is the first necessary step for G7 countries. This will require them to develop capacities within government departments and create cross-sectoral working groups.

Secondly, G7 cooperation will be needed as a platform for concerted inter-governmental action based on the G7 countries’ global status and shared commitment to action on climate change.

This should be complemented, thirdly, by multilateral cooperation within institutions such as the World Bank and the U.N. and, fourthly, by partnerships with local governments, non-state actors and partner states to ensure that global measures and decisions will result in local actions on the ground.

Jochen Flasbarth, State Secretary at the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, made it clear that not every conflict or extreme weather event is linked to climate change. However, he said, the increasing number of both is definitely a symptom of that global problem.

Throughout the discussion, speakers repeatedly underscored the necessity of dealing with climate change not only from an environmental point of view, but also taking into account its implications on other policy areas such as development, economics and security, and thus recognising its cross-governmental nature.

Lukas Rüttinger, Senior Project Manager at Adelphi and one of the main authors of the report, welcomes the fact that some countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and France are pushing this agenda and moving climate change out of the environmental sphere.

“Compared to what we have seen about ten years ago, there are clear signs that the impact of climate change as security threat is given much more recognition by governments and foreign policy decision-makers today,” he told IPS.

“The fact that the topic is now on the agenda of the U.N. High Level Event on Climate Change and taken up by the U.N. Security Council can be seen as steps in the right direction. However, that doesn’t mean that enough is done yet.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Artisanal diamond miners at work in the alluvial diamond mines around the eastern town of Koidu, Sierra Leone. Credit: Tommy Trenchard/IPS

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Rudi von Arnim
ROME, Jun 23 2015 (IPS)

After the turn of the century, growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) picked up again after a quarter century of near stagnation for most, mainly due to increased world demand for minerals and other natural resources.

The region became second only to East Asia in recovering from the global slowdown following the 2008-2009 financial crisis.Thanks to the failure of development over the preceding quarter century, SSA was the only region not to make any progress in reducing the population share in poverty, with the number of poor people actually rising significantly.

During the decade 2003-2013, growth was faster, averaging 2.6 percent per capita annually. The SSA growth acceleration of the past decade fueled hopes that growth on the continent had finally begun to accelerate and catch up.

Annual SSA per capita real GDP growth had averaged a respectable two percent in the 1960s, but had slowed down from the late 1970s. Over the next two decades, real per capita income for sub-Saharan countries shrank by about three quarters of a percentage point annually on average.

While SSA growth resumed in the last decade, reliance on natural resource extraction has compromised its developmental impact. Such economic activity, especially in mining, has few linkages to the rest of the national economy, thus limiting its growth and employment creation impacts as well.

As its economic performance has closely followed the vagaries of the global commodity price cycle, SSA growth in the last decade was largely driven by the minerals boom on the continent.

But the high commodity prices of the past decade have been reversed by the spreading global economic slowdown and the Saudi decision to drastically reduce oil prices.

However, natural resource extraction does not have the same potential to accelerate development as manufacturing. No country has successfully developed without substantially increasing manufacturing or high-end services. Sub-Saharan Africa has not done well on this score in recent decades.

While the manufacturing share of GDP for all developing countries has risen over 23 percent, it has fallen in SSA to 8 percent from 12 percent in the 1980s. Meanwhile, the primary commodities’ share of total SSA exports reached almost 90 percent in the past decade.

Premature and inappropriate trade liberalisation has damaged SSA’s limited export capacities. The region’s share of world merchandise exports fell from 5 percent in the 1950s to 1.8 percent during 2000-2010. Meanwhile, its share of world manufactured exports stands at a paltry one-fifth of one percentage point.

Trade liberalisation has also undermined the fiscal capacities of many governments in poor countries, with dire consequences for development and social progress.

Since many transactions in developing countries are informal, and hence untaxed, poor developing country governments have traditionally relied on trade tariffs to raise revenue.

Thus, trade liberalisation has reduced their ability to raise revenue, without providing alternate sources. As a consequence, the share of government spending in GDP has fallen from an average of around 16 percent during 1980-1999 to 13 percent during recent years.

Thus, neither trade nor financial liberalisation has helped accelerate economic growth in SSA. Growth requires investments, but investment as a share of SSA GDP has fallen in recent decades, to only 17 percent before the crisis.

External financial liberalisation from the 1980s was supposed to draw in foreign resources, but portfolio investments in SSA are negligible, and more crucially, ill-suited to facilitate sustainable growth.

Instead, there have been net outflows of capital from the world’s poorest region to international financial centres, including tax havens.

Appropriately targeted ‘greenfield’ foreign direct investment (FDI) has more potential to make a positive impact. However, Africa’s share of FDI to all developing economies has fallen from 21 percent in the 1970s to only 11 percent in recent years, or from 5 percent to 3 percent of global FDI.

To make matters worse, FDI in SSA overwhelmingly involves natural resource extraction, with few developmental spillovers from such investments.

According to World Bank estimates, the share of the SSA population living in extreme poverty rose from 50 percent in 1980 to 58 percent in 1998 before falling back to 50 percent in 2005.

Thanks to the failure of development over the preceding quarter century, SSA was the only region not to make any progress in reducing the population share in poverty, with the number of poor people actually rising significantly.

A decade ago, in 2005, the G8 summit at Gleneagles committed to increasing Official Development Assistance (ODA) by 50 billion dollars by 2010. The Gleneagles summit also promised to increase ODA to Africa by 25 billion dollars to 64 billion. Actual delivery fell short by 18 billion dollars, or by 72 percent!

In 2012 dollars, annual ODA to SSA hovered around 50 billion during 2006-2013, up from about 42 billion in 2005, but well short of what was promised. G8 aid to Africa falls well short of promised levels, even below the contributions from the small Nordic countries.

Not surprisingly, the recent G7 summit made no reference to the Gleneagles promises. Instead, it focused on addressing climate change, and it seems likely that climate finance conditionalities will undermine the principle of common, but differentiated responsibilities.

The struggle leading to the Conference of Parties in Paris will be to ensure that climate finance will be additional to the longstanding ODA promises, and will promote climate justice and development.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

By Tamira Gunzberg
BRUSSELS, Jun 18 2015 (IPS)

My colleagues just got back from Munich, where we held a summit bringing together over 250 young volunteers from across Europe. These youngsters campaigned in the run-up to and at the doorstep of the G7 Summit in Schloss Elmau, as one of the key moments in a year brimming with opportunities to tackle extreme poverty.

It’s inspiring to work with these young activists – their enthusiasm and creativity are humbling. But the other thing about young people is that they don’t let anyone pull the wool over their eyes. Euphemisms don’t stick; skirting the point doesn’t get you very far. They keep us on our toes and that is not a bad thing at all.

Courtesy of Tamira Gunzburg

But some phenomena I am simply at a loss to explain. One such paradox is the fact that only a third of aid goes to the very poorest countries, and that aid to those countries has been declining. Yet in the so-called ‘Least Developed Countries’, 43 percent of the population still lives in extreme poverty, compared to 13 percent in other countries.

This begs so many questions it is dizzying. How are we going to eradicate extreme poverty if we don’t prioritise the countries that need aid the most? What is aid for if not helping the poorest?

Why are we cutting aid to the poorest countries when it is the middle income countries that are becoming more able to mobilise their own sources of financing for development? And why aren’t leaders doing anything to reverse this perverse trend?

Instead, EU development ministers in May recommitted to the existing promise of providing 0.7 percent of national income in aid, and up to 0.2 percent of national income in aid to the least developed countries – this time “within the timeframe” of the post-2015 agenda to be adopted in September.

But even if they achieved both targets by say, 2025, that would still mean a share of only 28.6 percent of total aid going to the poorest countries. In other words: business as usual. This is where any young person would detect the glaring no-brainer, and unapologetically probe “… but isn’t that too little, too late?”Ending extreme poverty by 2030 and leaving no one behind will become harder as we near the zero zone.

Whereas the Millennium Development Goals – global anti-poverty goals agreed in the year 2000 – allowed us to pick the ‘low-hanging fruit’ in terms of bringing down average levels of extreme poverty and child mortality, this year’s new set of ‘Global Goals’ is all about finishing the job.

Ending extreme poverty by 2030 and leaving no one behind will become harder as we near the zero zone. We need to frontload our efforts and put the poorest and most vulnerable at the centre of our approach from the get-go.

That is why donors must commit to spending at least half of their aid on the poorest countries, and to doing this by 2020, so that those countries have time to tackle the Global Goals in time for the 2030 deadline.

This is but one of the debates that are heating up in the final weeks before the Summit in Addis Ababa in July, where world leaders will come together to decide on how to finance development. Negotiations touch upon topics that go well beyond aid, and rightly so, in an attempt to unlock new sources of financing such as domestic resource mobilisation and private sector investment.

Sadly though, many of the discussions are still being held hostage by the impasse on aid commitments. Indeed, donor countries’ laborious reaffirmation of decade-old broken promises does not inspire confidence that they are committed to doing things differently this time.

What, then, can change the game at this point? For one, let’s kick things up a level and bring in the big bosses. We fully expect heads of state to be in attendance in Addis – but even before then, the leaders of all 28 EU Member States are getting together for their own summit at the end of June.

Here they have the authority to agree on a more ambitious commitment than the development ministers managed to broker last month. Announcing an EU-wide intent to direct at least half of collective aid to the least developed countries would send a strong political message that could spark a much-needed race to the top in the final sprint towards Addis.

Another sure way to guarantee the success of this Summit is to inject more political will into the discussions that go beyond aid. For example, several countries are coming together to harness the “Data Revolution” to ensure that we collect the statistics needed to track progress and achieve the new Global Goals.

Right now, the world’s governments do not have more than 70 percent of the data they need to measure progress. Clearly, we need to aim for more with the new Global Goals.

Further, it will be crucial to agree on minimum per capita spending levels on essential services to deliver, by 2020, a basic package for all. In order to fund these efforts, governments should increase domestic revenues towards ambitious revenue-to-GDP targets and halve the gap to those targets by 2020 by implementing fair tax policies, curbing corruption and stemming illicit flows.

The list is long and time is running out, but as our youth activists would unwaveringly note, there is still ample opportunity for leaders in both North and South to rise to the occasion and throw their weight behind ending extreme poverty. Pesky questions aside, leaders really should take note of these young voices, because it is quite literally their future world that leaders are shaping this year.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Is the G7 commitment to an energy transition that aims to gradually phase out fossil fuel emissions this century to avoid the worst of climate change just hot air? Credit: CC BY-SA 2.5

By Lucy Cadena
LONDON, Jun 11 2015 (IPS)

One of the promises made by the leaders of the world’s seven richest nations when they met at Schloss Elmau in Germany earlier this week was an energy transition over the next decades, aiming to gradually phase out fossil fuel emissions this century to avoid the worst of climate change.

Let us be clear: a target of zero fossil fuels by 2100 puts us on track for warming on an unmanageable scale. The only commitment made by the G7 this week was a commitment to climate chaos.

Putting our faith in as-yet-underdeveloped technology fixes such as ‘carbon capture and storage’ and ‘geo-engineering’ to save us in the next 85 years, while the solutions to the climate crisis – renewable technology and community energy systems – exist here and now, is senseless.“The only way to avoid the worst of climate change is to act now, with urgency and ambition. Not by 2100, nor 2050. We need real commitment to real solutions – and the best place the G7 can start is by taking its money – public money – out of dirty energy”

The only way to avoid the worst of climate change is to act now, with urgency and ambition. Not by 2100, nor 2050. We need real commitment to real solutions – and the best place the G7 can start is by taking its money – public money – out of dirty energy.

While the G7 gathered on Jun. 7 and 8, this was the message from people from around the world, who are calling for a ban on all new dirty energy projects and an end to the financing of dirty energy.

The G7’s role in upholding the current dirty energy system is not limited to the subsidies they pour into fossil fuels daily.

G7 countries also directly finance – and profit from – dirty energy projects, particularly in the global South, and in regions where poverty and limited energy access devastate families.

These include projects affecting communities deeply reliant on clean air, water, and land that is polluted and stolen from them, projects among populations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and projects where people face harassment and human rights violations for speaking out.

France

Last week, France, host of the 30 November-11 December 2015 Paris climate summit – the U.N. gathering to set the agenda for global climate commitments in the next decades – announced that two of the summit’s key sponsors will be EDF and ENGIE (formerly GDF-Suez).

The French state holds 84 percent and 33.3 percent of shares in these companies respectively. Both are involved in the construction of several very controversial, polluting projects across the world.

EDF is currently planning the destructive Mphanda Nkuwa mega-dam on the Zambezi River in Mozambique, in the face of fierce opposition from local communities and environmental organisations.

A letter from civil society reminds French President François Hollande that these and other projects place EDF and ENGIE among the top 50 companies that contribute the most to global climate change.

With 46 coal-fired power plants between them, EDF and ENGIE are responsible for emitting 151 million tonnes of CO₂ a year – which amounts to about half the total of France’s overall emissions.

Italy

The Italian state owns a considerable number of shares – almost one-third – in oil and gas company ENI. According to a recent report by Amnesty International, last year alone ENI reported 349 oil spills in the Niger Delta from its own operations.

The figure is remarkable – almost unbelievable. Each spill triggers a human and ecological crisis. The scale of the devastation and ENI’s failure to safeguard communities and ecosystems begs the question: is this sheer incompetence, recklessness, or simply utter indifference to the welfare of local communities?

Japan

Japan, the next offender on the G7 list, is the number one public financier of coal plants globally among the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

Japan has 24 coal-powered projects either under construction or planned, many of them in Indonesia, Vietnam and India, where the more vulnerable local populations live under the cloud of plants’ toxic emissions.

Emissions of deadly sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from coal plants are currently highest in Indonesia, where the planned Batang coal power plant is set to become the largest ever Japanese-financed plant in Southeast Asia.

United States

A report by Oil Change International indicates that the United States government alone provides 5.1 billion dollars in national subsidies to fossil fuel exploration each year – that’s 5.1 billion dollars into seeking out new sources of civilisation-destroying energy sources.

Canada

Likewise, Canada’s expanding oil sector (caused by the growth in dirty tar sands production, known as ‘the biggest industrial project on Earth’) continues to reap the benefits of massive national subsidies.

United Kingdom

The U.K. government spent 300 times more supporting dirty energy overseas than it contributed towards renewable energy projects during its last term.

The 2012-2013 annual report of UK Export Finance, the country’s export credit agency, announced spending on projects such as a 147 million pounds (228 million dollars) guarantee to support oil and gas exploration by Petrobras in Brazil and 15 million pounds (23 million dollars) in guarantees to a loan for a gas power project in the Philippines.

Domestically, the government is prioritising drilling for new oil and gas, which will require huge subsidies. Hailing carbon-emitting gas as a ‘bridge fuel’ towards a cleaner energy system, the government is delaying investment in renewables to push fracking onto a population that vehemently opposes the dash for gas.

Germany

Meanwhile, Germany – the host of the G7 meeting – has been much lauded for its ‘Energiewende’ (‘Energy Revolution’), with a rapidly increasing use of renewable energy compensating for its nuclear phase-out in recent years.

However, German euros still make their way into the dirty energy machine – through sizeable tax exemptions afforded to fossil fuel producers’ exploration activities – allowing such companies to go further and dig deeper to uncover more carbon that needs to stay in the ground.

G7 Must Catch Up

The G7 countries have done the most to cause climate change. According to the Climate Equity Reference Calculator, they are responsible for 70 percent of historical carbon emissions, while hosting only 10 percent of the global population.

A commitment to a phase-out of fossil fuels in eight decades’ time is not a commitment. It is an easy promise for a politician, who probably will not even be in power in the next decade, to make. It is an easy promise for a rich nation, whose citizens are not the most vulnerable, to make.

G7 societies have grown rich by exploiting the human and natural world. They owe an enormous ‘climate debt’ to developing nations – yet they can barely scrape together the money they promised to the developing world via the Green Climate Fund.

Whether it’s an oil spill in Nigeria, a mega-dam in Mozambique or a coal plant in Java, the sources of our publicly-owned dirty energy are always sites of ecological and social devastation.

Access to energy is a right, but it should not come at the cost of other people’s rights – to clean air and drinking water, to land and food sovereignty, and to sustainable societies.

The international movement for climate justice is building, and will keep up pressure on governments to take money out of dirty energy and reinvest it in democratic renewable solutions that benefit everyone.

The global shift towards a just energy transformation has long been under way. Now, it’s snowballing. People from around the world are showing the way and implementing community-owned renewable energy solutions.

There is a hunger for change, despite continued inaction from governments. G7 leaders, take note: you are trailing far behind and have a lot of catching up to do!

Edited by Phil Harris

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Jun 9 2015 (IPS)

Only 50 years of Cold War (and the fact that German Chancellor Angela Merkel grew up in East Germany) can possibly explain the strange political power of the United States over Europe.

After a bilateral meeting between Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama (so much for transparency and participation), the Jun. 7-8 G7 summit opened in Germany and we found out that there had been a trade-off.

Roberto Savio

Merkel agreed that Europe should continue the sanctions against Russia – and so the other members of the G7 duly agreed – and Obama toned down the U.S. position on Greece.

That position had been forcefully expressed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew a few days earlier to European leaders: solve the Greek problem, or this will have a global impact that we cannot afford. This had suddenly accelerated negotiations, with the hope then that everything would be solved before the G7 summit.

But Greece did not accept the plan of the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, which was suspiciously close to International Monetary Fund (IMF) positions.

At the G7 summit, Obama softened the U.S. position on Greece, and even said that “Athens must implement the necessary reforms.”

Obstinacy on sanctions against Russia ignores the fact that, in a very delicate economic moment, Europe has lost a considerable part of its exports because of Russia’s retaliatory block on European imports. It is also difficult to see what advantage there is for Europe in pushing Russia into the arms of China. We will soon be seeing joint naval exercise between the two countries, which will only escalate tensions.

But let us look at Greece given that its tug of war with Europe has now been going on for five years.

Let us recall briefly. Greece had been spending much more than it could by distributing public jobs under any government, by giving easy pensions to everyone, and so on. Then, in 2009, the centre-left Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) won the elections and we found out that the figures Athens had been giving Brussels were false.

The real deficit stood at almost 12.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), confirmation of what the European Union and its bodies had long suspected but which it had done nothing about.“Europe is now led by Germany and the Germans are convinced that what they did at home is valid everywhere. Together with the countries of northern Europe, they look on the people of southern Europe as unethical, people who want to enjoy life beyond their means”

To avoid going into the agonising details of the continuous negotiations between Greece and the European Union, I jump to the January elections this year which the left-wing Syriza party won and its leader Alexis Tsipras was named Prime Minister on a clear programme: stop the austerity programme imposed by the “Troika” – IMF, EU and the European Central Bank (ECB) – on behalf of the European countries, led by Germany, Netherlands, Austria and Finland.

Greece is on its knees. Officially, unemployment has gone from 11.9 percent in 2010 to 25.5 percent today, but it is widely considered to be around 30 percent. Among young people, it is close to 60 percent. GDP has gone into a 25 percent decline, Greek citizens have lost about 30 percent of their revenues and public spending has been slashed to the point that hospitals have great difficulty in functioning.

Yet, the request (order) of the “Troika” is simple – cut everything the deficit has been eliminated.

So, for example, cut pensions, which have been already been cut twice. In any case, this would reap a paltry 100 million euros but would cripple people who are living on less than 685 euro a month. Or, raise VAT on tourism, from the present 6.5 percent to 13.6 percent, which would be a deadly blow to Greece’s only important source of income.

This is the plan presented by Juncker, whose arrival as head of the European Commission was accompanied by a grandiose Marshall Plan for Europe, a plan which has since disappeared totally from the scene.

In an article a few days ago titled ‘Europe’s Last Act?”, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in economics, argues that the idea of austerity as a uniform recipe for Europe is missing reality.

“The troika badly misjudged the macroeconomic effects of the program that they imposed. According to their published forecasts, they believed that, by cutting wages and accepting other austerity measures, Greek exports would increase and the economy would quickly return to growth. They also believed that the first debt restructuring would lead to debt sustainability.

“The troika’s forecasts have been wrong, and repeatedly so. And not by a little, but by an enormous amount. Greece’s voters were right to demand a change in course, and their government is right to refuse to sign on to a deeply flawed program.”

It is on austerity that the paths of the United States and the European Union divide.

The United States has embarked on investing for growth, despite pressure from the Republican party for austerity, and the U.S. economy is picking up again.

But Europe is now led by Germany and the Germans are convinced that what they did at home is valid everywhere. Together with the countries of northern Europe, they look on the people of southern Europe as unethical, people who want to enjoy life beyond their means. As The Economist put it in an article on the Greek crisis: “In German eyes this crisis is all about profligacy”.

It did not help that another very minor crisis – that of Cyprus between 2012 and 2013 – confirmed Germany’s view about the profligacy of the south of Europe. In the case of Cyprus, the “Troika” settled the crisis at a cost of 10 billion euros.

There is widespread agreement that the crisis of Greece, which represents just two percent of the total European budget, could have been settled at the beginning with a 50-60 billion euro loan. But only since Tsipras became prime minister, and with popular support started to refuse to accept the creditors’ plan, has Greece has become a very important issue.

There is now talk of a “Grexit”, or Greece’s exit from the European Union. This would have a cascade effect, and it would mean the end of Europe as a common dream, of a Europe based on solidarity and communality.

In the G7, Obama has insisted on investments and demand as a way out of the crisis. Merkel has again repeated that Europe does not need stimulus financed by debt, but stimulus coming from the reform of inefficient economies. At this point, perhaps “everything is always about something else”, as the late award-winning Sri Lankan journalist Tarzie Vittachi once told me.

An enlightening comment on the Greek situation has come from Hugo Dixon writing in The New York Times of Jun. 7. The Greek prime minister “will have to choose between saving his country and sticking to a bankrupt far-left ideology. If he is smart, he can secure a few more concessions from creditors and a goodish deal for Greece. If not, he will drag the country into the abyss.”

And then, it is interesting to note that one of the main reasons for being so hard with Syriza is that the citizens of Spain, Portugal and Ireland, who were the first to swallow the bitter pill of austerity, would revolt if they saw a different path for Greece, and it just happens that those countries have conservative governments.

The entire European political system reeled with shock at the victory of Syriza, and again a few days ago at the victories of the left-wing anti-establishment Podemos party in municipal elections in Spain.

For some reason, the very authoritarian and conservative government of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, the victory of the very conservative Andrzej Duda as president in Poland, as well as the rise of Matteo Salvini’s anti-European and anti-immigration Lega Nord party in Italy create no panic, not even if Salvini looks to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s right-wing Front National, as figures of reference.

So, the real issue now in the case of Greece is to punish an anti-establishment figure like Tsipras and show that the radical left cannot run a country.

Who really believes that there will masses of citizens in Madrid, Lisbon or Dublin taking to the streets to protest if Europe does a somersault of solidarity and idealism, and lowers its requests or dilutes them over more time? (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Dja Abdullah, just one victim of the gathering pace of climate change fuelled by coal-fired power stations, has walked 300 km with his cattle in search of fresh pasture in the Sahel region of Mauritania. Credit: Pablo Tosco/Oxfam

By Sean Buchanan
LONDON, Jun 6 2015 (IPS)

As heads of state and government of the G7 states prepare for their Jun. 7-8 summit in Germany, Oxfam has released a new report titled Let Them Eat Coal which they may find hard to digest.

According to the report, coal plants in the G7 countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and United States – are on track to cost the world 450 billion dollars a year by the end of the century and reduce crops by millions of tonnes as they fuel the gathering pace of climate change.“Coal-fired power stations … increasingly look like weapons of destruction aimed at those who suffer the impacts of changing rainfall patterns as well as of extreme weather events” – Professor Olivier de Schutter, former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

Launching the report, which has been endorsed by business leaders, academics and climate experts, Oxfam warns that coal is the biggest driver of climate change, which is already hitting the world’s poorest people hardest and making the fight to end hunger tougher.

Noting that the G7 countries remain major consumers of coal, Oxfam is calling on the G7 leaders meeting in Germany to shift from coal to renewable energy sources which offer a safer and cost effective alternative and the prospect of millions of new jobs around the world.

This, it says, would also be a giant step towards those countries not only meeting current emissions targets but moving closer to what is urgently needed.

The international agency reports that Africa, for example, faces costs of 84 billion a year by the end of the century due to the damage caused by G7 coal emissions. This is 60 times the amount Africa currently receives from the G7 in aid to support agriculture and food production.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that Africa’s food production systems are highly vulnerable to climate change, with declines likely in cereal crops across the continent of up to 35 percent by mid-century. Oxfam warns that seven million tonnes of staple crops could be lost annually by the 2080s because of G7 coal emissions.

Celine Charveriat, Oxfam International’s Director of Advocacy and Campaigns, said: “The G7 leaders must stop using emissions growth in developing countries as an excuse for inaction and begin leading the world away from fossil fuels by starting with their own addiction to coal.

“The G7’s coal habit is racking up costs for Africa and other developing regions. It’s time G7 leaders woke up to the hunger their own energy systems are causing to the world’s poorest people on the frontline of climate change.

Referring to the U.N. Climate Change Conference scheduled for December in Paris, Charveriat said: “Ahead of a new climate deal due to be struck at the end of this year, G7 leaders can give the global fight against climate change the momentum it needs by shifting away from coal. This will make significant additional cuts in their emissions, create jobs and be a major step towards a safer, sustainable and prosperous future for us all.”

Globally, coal is responsible for almost three-quarters (72 percent) of power sector emissions, and while more than half of today’s coal consumption is in developing countries, the scale of G7 coal burning is considerable – if G7 coal plants were a country, noted Oxfam, it would be the fifth biggest emitter in the world.

G7 coal plants emit double the fossil fuel emissions of Africa and ten times as much as the 48 least developed countries.

At the 2009 Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen, all countries agreed to prevent warming of more than 2°C to avoid runaway climate change. Since then, said Oxfam, five of the G7 countries – France, Germany, Italy, Japan and United Kingdom – have been burning more coal, and the world is now heading for an increase in global warming by 4°C.

Climate experts, business leaders and development specialists who are backing the Let Them Eat Coal report include Professor Olivier de Schutter (former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food), Nick Molho (Chief Executive of the Aldersgate Group of business, political and civil society leaders), Sharon Burrow (General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation) and Dessima Williams (former Ambassador of Grenada to the United Nations and former Chair of the Alliance of Small Island Developing States).

According to de Schutter, “climate disruptions are already affecting many poor communities in the global South, and coal-fired power stations are contributing, every day, to make this worse. They increasingly look like weapons of destruction aimed at those who suffer the impacts of changing rainfall patterns as well as of extreme weather events.”

Oxfam says that the G7 countries must lead the way because they are most responsible for climate change, and because they have the most resources to decarbonise their economies and fund both emissions cuts and adaptation so that developing countries can protect themselves from climate change and develop in a low-carbon way.

Oxfam is also calling on the G7 to stand by existing commitments to jointly mobilise 100 billion dollars a year by 2020, and to make visible progress in both raising public finance over the next five years and increasing the proportion of funding for adaptation to climate change.

Edited by Phil Harris    

G7-based companies and investors cheated Africa out of an estimated six billion dollars in a year through just one form of tax dodging, according to a new Oxfam report ‘Money talks: Africa at the G7’, released Jun. 2.

This is equivalent to three times the amount needed to plug the healthcare funding gap in the Ebola-affected countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and at-risk Guinea Bissau.

According to an Oxfam briefing paper release in April this year, an estimated 1.7 billion dollars is required to close the healthcare funding gap to improve dangerously inadequate health systems in these countries. This figure is based on raising spending to the recommendation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) that 86 dollars per capita is required to achieve the minimum package of essential services.“Multinational companies, many with headquarters in the United Kingdom and other G7 countries, are cheating African countries out of billions of dollars in vital tax revenues that could help vulnerable people get decent healthcare and send their children to school” – Nick Brye, Oxfam’s Head of U.K. Campaigns

The new Oxfam report comes as G7 leaders prepare to meet their African counterparts at the annual summit in Bavaria, Germany from Jun. 8 to 9. African leaders from Ethiopia (Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn), Liberia (President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf), Nigeria (President Muhammadu Buhari) and Senegal (President Macky Sall) are scheduled to join an outreach session on Jun. 8.

Oxfam is calling for the leaders of the G7 countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and United States – to include action for ambitious tax reform in discussions about how the group can support economic growth and sustainable development on the continent.

In the United Kingdom, Oxfam is part of a coalition that has been calling on the recently elected new British government to show leadership by introducing a Tax Dodging Bill, which would make it harder for U.K. companies to avoid paying tax in the countries in which they operate – practices which currently cost some of the world’s poorest countries billions each year.

The coalition, which includes ActionAid and Christian Aid in addition to Oxfam, is currently running a Tax Dodging Bill campaign.

According to Oxfam, a well-crafted Tax Dodging Bill would also make it harder for big companies to avoid paying tax in the United Kingdom, and could bring in at least 3.6 billion pounds (5.4 billion dollars) a year to the U.K. Treasury, the equivalent of 600 pounds (910 dollars) for every household living below the poverty line.

“Multinational companies, many with headquarters in the United Kingdom and other G7 countries, are cheating African countries out of billions of dollars in vital tax revenues that could help vulnerable people get decent healthcare and send their children to school,” said Nick Brye, Oxfam’s Head of U.K. Campaigns.

“To fund the fight against poverty and to tackle worsening extreme inequality, we need action to ensure big companies pay their fair share, here and in the world’s poorest nations.”

Oxfam also notes that existing international efforts to tackle corporate tax dodging, such as the BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) process, led by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation (OECD) for the G20 group of the world’s major economies, will leave gaping tax loopholes.

It warns that these loopholes can continue to be exploited by multinational companies across the developing world and that many African nations have been shut out of discussions on BEPS reform and will not benefit from them as a result.

Oxfam is also calling for British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osbourne to attend July’s Financing for Development Conference in Ethiopia which will play host to heads of states and finance ministers from around the world.

The talks, which will focus on how the international community will fund development over the next two decades, are an opportunity for governments to work together to start shaping a more democratic and fairer global tax system.

In 2010, the last year for which data are available, Oxfam says that companies and investors based in G7 countries avoided paying tax on 20 billion dollars of income through a practice called trade mispricing – where a company artificially sets the prices for goods or services sold among its subsidiaries to avoid taxation.

With corporate tax rates in Africa averaging 28 percent, this equates to nearly six billion dollars in lost revenues. In addition, developing countries as a whole lose around 100 billion dollars a year through tax avoidance schemes involving tax havens, according to the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

“Reforming global corporate tax rules so that African governments can claim the money owed to them is vital to tackle extreme poverty and inequality and boost economic growth, said Brye. “That’s why Oxfam has been calling for a U.K. Tax Dodging Bill that would ensure U.K. companies do their bit to help poor families at home and in developing countries.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

Major donor countries will unveil next week a new initiative aimed at strengthening the ability of developing countries’ governments to negotiate complex contracts, particularly around the extractives sector.

The undertaking comes in response to increasing frustration expressed by officials in developing countries over their inability to match the negotiating power of multinational corporations, resulting in what they see as unequal deals. The project, known as Strengthening Assistance for Complex Contract Negotiations (CONNEX), was announced last week at the Brussels summit of the Group of Seven (G7) rich countries.

CONNEX will “provide developing country partners with extended and concrete expertise for negotiating complex commercial contracts, focusing initially on the extractives sector,” the summit communiqué, released Jun. 5, states. The initiative will coordinate a recent increase in donor action on the issue, including “as a first step a central resource hub that brings together information and guidance”.

“For many developing countries, major investments, such as in natural resources or infrastructure, are the most important means of generating funds to drive economic growth and sustainable development." -- Lisa Sachs, director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI)
A fact sheet released by the White House notes that the initiative is a response to “direct requests” last year from the African Union and developing countries, particularly with regard to difficulties in negotiating with “multinational companies in the extractives sector”. The White House says CONNEX’s eventual goal will be to develop “rapid response teams to provide contract negotiation assistance to developing countries as soon as it is needed”.

Most formal details around CONNEX are still to be worked out, however, a process that will begin Jun. 17 in New York. The project is being jointly carried out by the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), at Columbia University, which has done previous work on negotiation assistance and which will host the initiative’s digital infrastructure.

“For many developing countries, major investments, such as in natural resources or infrastructure, are the most important means of generating funds to drive economic growth and sustainable development,” Lisa Sachs, CCSI’s director, told IPS.

“Yet despite the importance of these deals, many governments do not have in place strong regulatory frameworks or the resources necessary to negotiate good deals, meaning that they are losing the critical opportunity to maximise the benefits from these investments.”

Transparency quid pro quo

Investment deals around resource extraction can last for decades, and thus poorly negotiated agreements can have long-term ramifications for a country’s ability to fund its public sector. Any such gaps inevitably impact particularly on the poorest and most marginalised communities.

Bad deals “not only prevent a country from enjoying the full long term benefits of its resources,” according to a draft ‘negotiating roadmap’ prepared in February by CCSI, but they also “help to entrench poverty, corruption and even conflicts, particularly when governance systems are inadequate.”

Indeed, governance issues play a central role in concerns over the allocation of natural resources revenues. According to research released last year by the Revenue Watch Institute (now known as the Natural Resource Governance Institute), trillions of dollars a year are being produced through the extractive industries but just a tiny percentage of this money is impacting on the lives of poor communities in developing countries.

More than 80 percent of the countries the group looked at had failed to put in place satisfactory standards for openness in these sectors – and half hadn’t even taken basic steps in this regard. Revenue Watch analysts said the findings constitute a “striking governance deficit”.

Nonetheless, countries with both strong and weak governance records are now increasingly looking for assistance in negotiating extractives contacts with multinational companies, development experts say.

“The governments making these requests run the gamut from well-governed to less so, because the motivation is the same: to generate as much money out of these natural resource deals,” Ian Gary, a senior policy advisor on the extractives industry for Oxfam America, a humanitarian and advocacy group, told IPS.

“Governments recognise that when they go into these negotiations they’re up against large companies that bring in dozens of lawyers who have huge advantages in doing these deals. So either way this is an attempt to level the playing field in these negotiations – though some governments may want to extract more value to funnel into national development, while others may have more self-centred motivations.”

Both multilateral and bilateral donors, including the World Bank and German government, have stepped up technical assistance in this area in recent years, and CONNEX will now play a critical role in coordinating these efforts. But Gary emphasises that related concerns around transparency and governance issues now need to become integrated into assistance packages as a matter of course.

“There needs to be a quid pro quo between donors providing this technical assistance and governments receiving it, to make sure that subsequent contracts are made public and that citizens are able to monitor that information,” he says. “Unfortunately, I’m not sure how much of an appetite we’ll see from donors next week to deal with these sensitive issues.”

U.S. officials were unable to comment for this story by deadline.

Long-term investment

Beyond the ambit of the new G7 initiative on contract negotiation, an incipient moderating factor in this dynamic may be coming from another source entirely: multinational corporations themselves.

The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment has emphasised that the bad economics of a poorly negotiated deal can cut both ways. These can lead to, for instance, increased public protest, reduced security for corporate concessions, or revised legal conditions such as to the tax code.

On the other hand, if developing country governments can provide stronger negotiating teams, this thinking goes, the results could be stronger contracts and greater legitimacy for extractives deals.

“Some companies are now coming to the realisation that it’s not in their long-term best interest to extract extremely bad deals from governments,” Oxfam’s Gary says.

“Eventually the terms of those deals will come out and that can lead to instability. An oil company may operate in a particular country for 30 years, after all, so it’s ultimately in their interest to make sure there are no surprises down the road.”

While CONNEX is slated to focus initially on the extractives industry, multiple additional areas involving major government contracting could benefit from related support – around land, large-scale infrastructure or the sale of state assets such as telecommunications.

Representatives from the G7 countries will meet to discuss CONNEX over two days next week, with initial reports on the initiative due at next year’s G7 summit.

(END)

Activists working to alleviate poverty worldwide gave a guarded welcome to the renewed commitment to development that G7 leaders made during their meeting in Brussels this week.

The group of industrialised countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States), normally known as G8 but currently without Russia, stated that the “pursuit of sustainable and inclusive development and greater prosperity in all countries remains a foundational commitment that unites our people and our countries.”

They said they would continue to implement the commitments made at previous summits and would provide a report next year on the progress toward the attainment of these pledges. Prominent among the aims is to complete the “unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals” that comes to term next year.

According to the government leaders, the post-2015 agenda “should be centred on people and focused both on the eradication of extreme poverty, promoting development and on balancing the environmental, economic and social dimensions of sustainable development, including climate change.”

Friederike Roder. Photo courtesy of ONE

Friederike Röder, director of the French branch of anti-poverty campaign ONE, told IPS that several non-governmental organisations had specifically called for development to be a major focus of the meeting, and that their appeals seem to have been met.

“Despite a rushed agenda and pressing international events, the G7 leaders reaffirmed their ability to take into account global issues and provide concrete answers,” she said at the end of the meeting Thursday, as the Ukraine-Russia crisis topped most reports.

“Their repeated commitments or newly taken pledges in favour of transparency, health and the fight against illicit financial flows, mark progress, sometimes hesitant but still laudable, compared with the previous G8 summits,” she added.“Unless people living in extreme poverty who will be affected by future development goals are able to participate in their creation and implementation, any progress made risks leaving the most socially excluded and vulnerable members of society behind" – ATD Fourth World

She said that the leaders’ assurances provide a basis for discussion at the next big international meetings that will take place in the coming months, such as that of the G20 in Australia later this year and the G7 in Germany in 2015.

Meanwhile, international anti-poverty movement ATD Fourth World said it welcomed the G7 2014 statement’s recognition of the need to eradicate, rather than just reduce, extreme poverty. “However, we would like to call their attention to the fact that unless people living in extreme poverty who will be affected by future development goals are able to participate in their creation and implementation, any progress made risks leaving the most socially excluded and vulnerable members of society behind,” the organisation said.

“This is why we feel that poverty can only be truly eradicated by a rights-based  approach to development, which insists that the fundamental rights of every single individual are fulfilled. Such an approach would ensure that no one was left behind by the post-2015 agenda, and goes far beyond the  promotion of human rights as envisaged by the G7 Statement,” the group added.

ONE, the group co-founded by musician Bono of U2, had also appealed for a focus on transparency in the extractive industries because many developing countries are affected by unclear or illicit agreements in this sector.

In its statement, the G7 said that its members would “continue to promote inclusive and resilient growth in Africa, working with governments and citizens in Africa to enhance governance and transparency … and strengthen the responsible and sustainable management of natural resources and the revenues they generate.”

The pledge, from the G7 leaders and from the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission, explicitly mentioned the extractive sector.

“We remain committed to work towards common global standards that raise extractives transparency, which ensure disclosure of companies’ payments to all governments,” the leaders stated.

“We welcome the progress made among G7 members to implement quickly such standards.  These global standards should continue to move towards project-level reporting,” they added.

Prof. Mthuli Ncube, chief economist and vice-president of the African Development Bank, and other experts have long stressed that governments need to play a greater role in transparency.

“There must be fairer and more transparent relationships between investors and the African people, Ncube told IPS earlier. “Africa has huge natural resources, and the investors in these natural resources are mainly from outside. We have to examine how these investments can benefit the African people through job creation, protecting the environment, developing African entrepreneurs and using the revenues from resources to diversify African economies.”

Economists, as well as non-governmental organisations, have pointed out that benefits from foreign investment often go to the elite in African countries and to foreign investor companies.

World Bank studies also indicate that since 1980, an estimated 1.4 trillion dollars have left Africa illegally as a consequence of official corruption and other factors. The G7 now seems more prepared to work to increase transparency, which economists say is important for sustainable growth in Africa and other regions.

The government leaders pledged to “continue to work to tackle tax evasion and illicit flows of finance, including by supporting developing countries to strengthen their tax base and help create stable and sustainable states.”

“We renew our commitment to deny safe haven to the proceeds of corruption, and to the recovery and return of stolen assets,” they stated.

NGOs had additionally called for the G7 to focus on the least-developed countries (LDCs) which have seen decreasing levels of official development assistance in the past years, despite rising levels of overall aid in 2014.

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said surveys showed that there was a “worrying trend of declines in programmed aid to LDCs and low-income countries, in particular in Africa.”

Among the G7 countries, France’s aid decreased almost 10 percent in 2013, due to lower levels of “loans disbursements and debt-relief compared to 2012,” the OECD said. Without these disbursements, the decrease is still over 3 percent, NGOs say.

But there was no mention of official development assistance (ODA) in the G7 statement. Some NGOs said that they would have been happier to see the G7 reiterate their commitment to ODA, but the government leaders did however give attention to health, another issue on which civil society had called for action.

“The Heads of State and Government of the G7 have responded to the challenges of global health, demonstrating a strong commitment to universal access to health, to the reduction of maternal mortality and to the fight against AIDS,” ONE said.

The G7 leaders said they recognised the impact of the GAVI Alliance (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) and welcomed its efforts to expand access to vaccines to an additional 300 million children during 2016-2020.

The Alliance will seek replenishment funding at a conference in Germany next year, and the G7 said it reaffirmed its “commitment”, and called on other public and private donors to contribute.

Russian President Vladimir Putin awaits leaders arriving for the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg on Sep. 5, 2013. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 1 2014 (IPS)

When Western powers, led by the United States, decided to throw Russia out of the Group of 8 (G8) industrial nations, it was aimed at punishing and “isolating” President Vladimir Putin for his intervention in Ukraine and “annexation” of Crimea.

“What’s next? Expel Russia from the United Nations and the G20?” an Asian diplomat jokingly asked one of his colleagues at the U.N. delegate’s lounge last week, hinting at what could only be construed as a Western political fantasy.The procedure the G7 followed to transform itself to G8 in 1998 (with the inclusion of Russia) was as opaque as the process that led to Moscow’s virtual expulsion.

The G8 move was pretty tame because it was a decision taken by seven Western industrial nations: the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Italy and Japan, along with the European Union.

But Russia is also a member of the G20, a coalition of both developed and developing countries, as well as the economic powerhouse called BRICS (comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

Australia has reportedly warned that Russia may be excluded from the next G20 summit meeting in Brisbane in November. But that is more easily said than done.

On the sidelines of last week’s Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, the foreign ministers of BRICS warned Australia against any such action.

In a statement released during the summit, the foreign ministers of BRICS said “the custodianship of the G20 belongs to all member states equally and no one member state can unilaterally determine its nature and character.”

The G20 members include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and the European Union (EU).

At a General Assembly vote last Friday, on a resolution implicitly critical of Russia on the upheaval in Ukraine, Russia’s four BRICS partners abstained, joining 54 others.

The final vote was 100 for the resolution, 11 against, but with 58 abstentions in an Assembly with 193 votes.

Chakravarthi Raghavan, editor-emeritus of the Geneva-based South-North Development Monitor, told IPS, “The G7/G8 and the G20 are at best self-appointed informal gatherings, without any legitimacy, mere costly annual exercises, where occasionally side-event meetings are of some help.”

He pointed out that the G7/G8 originally came into being in the wake of the oil crisis to tackle economic issues and promote a dialogue of the G5/G7 with the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to promote agreements and avoid confrontations.

Soon, it became clear the G7 process was not effective, and the initial aim of informal but frank and spontaneous exchange of views among the leaders failed.

“Their own bureaucracies and ministries in governments did not want this process to move forward,” said Raghavan, a veteran journalist and a former editor-in-chief of Press Trust of India (PTI) who has covered the United Nations, both in Geneva and New York, for several decades.

But instead of abandoning the annual meetings, he said, the G7 continued to meet, with the original economic focus lost, and with costly preparations and meetings of “sherpas”, where the gatherings themselves became too formalised, and where the outcome had been already decided or agreed to at the lowest common measure of accord.

He also pointed out that the G7/G8 increasingly began pronouncing themselves on all kinds of subjects – with none of the leaders able to ensure the decisions were carried out in their own countries.

Vijay Prashad, author of “The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South”, told IPS the procedure the G7 followed to transform itself to G8 in 1998 (with the inclusion of Russia) was as opaque as the process that led to Moscow’s virtual expulsion.

The Group of Seven (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and USA) came together in 1974 to consolidate their response to the major thrust from the Third World Project: an assault of the oil weapon of 1973 that consolidated in the U.N. General Assembly resolution 3201 in May 1974 for a New International Economic Order (NIEO).

The G7 was formed, as former U.S. President Gerald Ford put it, “to ensure that the current world economic situation is not seen as a crisis in the democratic or capitalist system,” Prashad said.

“It had to be seen as a momentary shock, not a systematic challenge,” he added.

The collapse of the Third World Project, the rise of a new International Monetary Fund (IMF)-driven neo-liberal dispensation and the demise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) moved the G7 to welcome battered Russia into its arms, said Prashad, who is the Edward Said Chair at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

Membership in the G7 came with the promise that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) would not move one step closer to Russia than the German border, he added.

Raghavan told IPS the annual G20 meeting pronounces itself on a range of political, economic and other arenas — but with less and less effect — whether (as they have done several times) for concluding Doha trade negotiations or other areas.

Some of their views on global financial stability – addressed to the Bank of International Settlements – have factually been very diluted in actual decisions and norms because of the lobbying of the big financial groups, both in New York and London, said Raghavan, author of the just released “Third World in the Third Millennium”.

Prashad said when the credit crisis startled the West in 2007, the G8 hastened to China and India, asking for funds.

If the money came – as it did – the G8 would wind up its operations and the G20 (with Brazil, China, India and South Africa as members) would take over as the effective executive managers of planetary affairs – which it did not, he added.

The G20 had been formed during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 to ward off any nationalistic reactions to that crash.

“As the Western stock markets rallied by 2011, the promise was forgotten,” he said.

The G8 continued – much to the chagrin of the BRICS bloc, which had assumed it would now share power.

They agree the West’s move east is dangerous, and it is unlikely they will allow for the expulsion of Russia from the G20 – itself of limited consequence, he noted.

By Shyam Saran
NEW DELHI, Sep 17 2013 (Columnist Service)

The eighth G20 Summit convened in St. Petersburg on Sept. 5-6, 2013 was dominated by the Syrian crisis, deflecting attention from the mandate of the gathering to serve as the premier forum for international economic coordination.

When leaders of the most influential countries meet it is inevitable that the pressing political issues of the day take centre stage.

Shyam Saran

The G7 too began as a forum for economic consultation and coordination among the world’s advanced market economies in 1975, to cope with the fallout of the 1973 oil crisis.

Just three years later, in 1978, the G7 issued its first Political Declaration and became, thereafter, the political, security and economic steering committee of the most powerful nations.

The G20 has taken its first steps in the same direction and it is likely that its role as a political and security forum will evolve steadily though informally at first. This trend will be reinforced if the United Nations Security Council remains a relic of a bygone international order.

That the G20 provided a platform on which the U.S. and Russia initiated steps leading to an eventual understanding on Syria’s chemical weapons is an indication of the potential political utility of the forum. These steps were taken against a strong prevailing sentiment at the summit against a military strike against Syria, favoured by the U.S. and some, but not all, of its allies.

The emerging economies were able to reflect some of their key concerns in the Summit declaration. The unconventional monetary policies pursued by reserve currency countries such as the U.S. and lately Japan, involving significant injections of liquidity into the system and keeping interest rates at zero or near zero, have confronted emerging economies like Brazil and India with volatile capital flows and exchange rate instability.

The declaration acknowledged for the first time that monetary policies pursued by advanced economies should be “calibrated and clearly communicated”. This falls short of a coordinated approach of the G20 but will help calm markets by promising greater predictability.

Developing countries would also take satisfaction over the G20 consensus, reflected in the declaration that the profits of transnational corporations should be taxed in the country where they are generated. African countries, in particular, have been victims of the tax avoidance practices of such companies.

An Indian proposal to create an infrastructure financing facility at the World Bank to extend funding for infrastructure projects in developing countries will be the subject of a study. However, in a situation of financial stringency in most developed economies, it is doubtful whether any significant financing window for this purpose will see the light of day soon.

The leaders of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) met on the sidelines of the G8 summit. Their deliberations focused on two landmark initiatives which were announced at their fifth regular summit in Durban on Mar. 27.

On the New Development Bank (NDB) it has been agreed that its initial capital will be 50 billion dollars, a somewhat modest amount given the expectations aroused when the proposal was first made. India had wanted a figure closer to 100 billion dollars.

It is still not clear how the equity will be distributed among the five partners. China has been willing to contribute a larger share but it is reported that Russia wanted each to have an equal share. South Africa is unable to contribute a significant amount given the smaller size of its economy.

On the Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA), the leaders announced a figure of 100 billion dollars, with China contributing 41 billion, Brazil, India and Russia 18 billion each, and South Africa five billion.

The CRA will serve as a multi-country currency swap mechanism which will help the BRICS deal with balance of payments problems. It is similar to the Chiang Mai initiative among ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea, but which is currently 240 billion dollars and partially linked to a parallel though partial International Monetary Fund aid programme.

Whether the CRA will follow a similar pattern is not yet clear. Nevertheless China’s role as a leading partner among the BRICS is now amply apparent. It is possible that the equity distribution in the NDB may follow a similar pattern.

It may be noted that none of the BRICS members forms part of the U.S.-sponsored Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – regional trade arrangements which will fragment the global trading system and marginalise the emerging economies. It is surprising, therefore, that this challenge did not figure in the deliberations of the BRICS nor at the G-20 either.

China’s pre-eminence in the BRICS is a trend likely to be reinforced with the current economic slowdown and economic difficulties being faced by most emerging economies, in particular Brazil, India and South Africa.

Russia is a special case, not an emerging economy in the same category as the other BRICS members. It has escaped economic distress thanks to rising energy prices in the wake of spreading turmoil in the Middle East.

China’s economy is likely to decelerate in the coming months. Its growing debt, now over 200 percent of GDP, is causing concern. If the Chinese economy undergoes a major crisis as some analysts predict, its role as the prime mover in BRICS would certainly diminish.

For the present, however, China, with its seven percent growth and its three trillion dollars of foreign exchange reserves, is likely to be acknowledged as the most emerged of the emerging countries.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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