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 Karine Jacquemart and Anuradha Mittal
PARIS/OAKLAND, California, May 11 2015 (IPS)

In our work at Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute around access and control over natural resources, we face constant accusations of being anti-development or “Northern NGOs who care more for the trees”, despite working with communities around the world, from Cameroon, to China, to the Czech Republic.

Karine Jacquemart

This name calling, aimed at discrediting struggles for land, water, and other natural resources in the Third World countries, hides an ugly truth.  The land rush unleashed around the world to own and exploit Earth’s natural bounty is not only fierce and unfair, but increasingly fatal.

Recent reports, including a Global Witness report titled ‘How many more?’ released in April 2015, document the increase in the assassinations of land and environmental activists globally – a shocking average of over two a week in 2014.

As individuals and groups in the frontline of struggles face intimidation, arrests, disappearances, and even death, it is an ethical imperative to support the struggles of the grassroots land defenders against corporations and governments. This is what unites organisations like Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute.

Over the last decade, an estimated 200 million hectares – an area five times bigger than California – has been leased or purchased throughout the world, through completely opaque deals in most cases.

Natural resources in Africa are some of the most sought after, hence the fact that Africa experiences more than 70 percent of the reported land deals.

Anuradha Mittal

Multinational companies with assistance from powerful partners – the World Bank Group and G8 “donor” countries – are moving in, chanting their “development” formula: facilitate foreign investment through large-scale land acquisitions and mega-projects to ensure economic growth which will trickle down to translate into development for all.

Our work reveals a very different and worrying reality on the ground. Local communities and indigenous peoples report lack of consultation; their lands, homes and forests bulldozed and cleared for foreign investors; their livelihoods shattered.

As one villager in the Democratic Republic of the Congo said, “I want to remain a farmer on my land, not a daily worker depending on a foreign company”, or in the words of a Bodi chief in Ethiopia, “I don’t want to leave my land. If they try and force us, there will be war. So I will be here in my village either alive on the land or dead below it.”

They, and countless more, are victims of the theft of natural resources, made invisible and voiceless by those who define what development looks like.“As individuals and groups in the frontline of struggles face intimidation, arrests, disappearances, and even death, it is an ethical imperative to support the struggles of the grassroots land defenders against corporations and governments”

As if destruction of lives and livelihoods were not enough, those who resist are harassed, even face violence, by governments and private companies.

A planned palm oil plantation by the U.S.-based Herakles Farms in Cameroon threatens to evict thousands of people off their land and destroy part of the world’s second largest rain forest.

The company’s former CEO, responding to criticism of the project, said in an open letter: “My goal is to present HF for what it is – a modestly-sized commercial  oil  palm  project  designed  to  provide employment and  social  development and improve  the  level  of  food  security, while incorporating industry best practices.”

What he failed to mention is how a Cameroonian activist, Nasako Besingi, who heads a local NGO, The Struggle to Economize the Future Environment (SEFE), learnt first-hand the consequences of opposing the project. Arrested in 2012 for planning a peaceful demonstration in Mundemba, Nasako and two of his colleagues languished in a jail for several days.

Soon after his release, while touring the area with a French television crew, he was ambushed and assaulted by men he recognised as employees of Herakles Farms. Instead of protection from this violence, Nasako and SEFE face legal battles, including one of the favorite corporate tactics – a defamation lawsuit, intended to intimidate him and the others who oppose.

Privatisation of land and theft of natural resources will be irreversible and will put people, forest, ecosystems and the climate at risk, if it goes unchecked. The time is now to choose a development path that prioritises people and the planet over profits for the rich. (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:

By Shyam Saran
NEW DELHI, Jul 23 2014 (IPS)

The sixth BRICS Summit which has just ended in Brazil marks the transition of a grouping based hitherto on shared concerns to one based on shared interests.

Since the inception of BRICS (bringing together Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in 2009, it has been seen as a mainly flag waving exercise by a group of influential emerging economies, with little in terms of convergent interest other than signalling their strong dissatisfaction over persistent Western dominance of the world economic, financial as well as security order, but unable to fashion credible alternative governance structures themselves.

However, with the Fortaleza Summit finally announcing the much awaited establishment of the New Development Bank (NDB) with a 50 billion dollar subscribed capital and a Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA) of 100 billion dollars, the monopoly status and role of the Bretton Woods institutions – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – stand broken.

Shyam Saran

True, it may take the NDB and the CRA considerable time and experience to evolve into credible international financial institutions but that clearly is the intent.

BRICS leaders have kept the door open for other stakeholders, but will retain at least a 55 percent equity share. They have also been careful to declare that these new institutions will supplement the activities of the World Bank and the IMF, and this has also been the initial response from the latter.

Nevertheless, the emergence of an alternative source of financing with norms different from those followed by the established institutions will alter the global financial landscape irreversibly.

It may be noted for the future that the one component of the global financial infrastructure where Western companies still remain supreme is the insurance and reinsurance sector. Global trade flows, in particular energy flows are almost invariably insured by a handful of Western companies which also determine risk factors and premiums.

In Brazil, the BRICS countries have given notice that they will examine the prospect of pooling their capacities in this sector. A more competitive situation in this sector can only be a positive development for developing countries.“The emergence of an alternative source of financing [BRICS Bank] with norms different from those followed by the established institutions will alter the global financial landscape irreversibly”

The BRICS initiatives were born out of mounting frustration among emerging countries that even a modest restructuring of the governing structures of the Bretton Woods institutions, to reflect their growing economic profile, was being resisted. The commitment made in 2010 at the G20 to enlarge their stake in the IMF remains unfulfilled while the restructuring of the World Bank is yet to be taken up.

The longer the delay in such restructuring, the more rapid the consolidation of the new BRICS institutions is likely to be. It is this factor which played a role in helping resolve some of the differences among the BRICS countries over the structure and governance of these proposed institutions.

The setting up of the BRICS institutions owed a great deal to the energy and push displayed by China. It is doubtful that the proposals would have been actualised had China not put its full weight behind them and showed a readiness to accommodate other member countries, in particular India. Russia became more enthusiastic after being drummed out of the G8 and subjected to Western sanctions.

Chinese activism on this score must be seen in the context of other parallel developments in which China has also been the prime mover and sometimes the initiator. These are:

1. The proposal for setting up an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to fund infrastructure and connectivity projects in Asia, in particular, those which would help revive the maritime and land “Silk Routes” linking China with both its eastern and western flanks. The parallel with the NDB is hard to miss.

2. The consolidation of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM) and the associated Asian Multilateral Research Organisation (AMRO) among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) + 3 (China, Japan and the Republic of Korea). The CMIM is now a 240 billion dollar financing facility to help member countries deal with balance of payments difficulties. This is similar to the 100 billion dollar CRA set up by BRICS.

AMRO has evolved into a mechanism for macro-economic surveillance of member countries and provides a benchmark for their economic health and performance. This would enable sound lending policies and may very well be linked in future to the AIIB. The CMIM and the AMRO thus provide building blocks which could serve as the template for the NDB, the CRA and the AIIB.

3. In addition to the CMIM and the AMRO, there are ongoing initiatives within ASEAN + 3 to develop a truly Asian Bond Market which could mobilise regional savings into regional investments through local currency bonds. To support this initiative, a regional Credit Guarantee and Investment Facility has been established. A Regional Settlement Intermediary is proposed to facilitate cross-border multi-currency transfers.

These developments are taking place just when there is a rapidly growing Chinese yuan-denominated bond market, the so-called dim-sum bonds, which have become an important source of corporate financing. This reduces the dependence on euro and U.S. dollar-denominated bonds. The NDB could tap into this market to build up its own finances.

It is important to keep in mind this broader picture in assessing the significance of the decisions taken at the Fortaleza Summit. In systematically pursuing a number of parallel initiatives, China is attempting to create an alternative financial infrastructure which would have it in the lead role. The dilemma for other emerging countries is that there appear to be no credible alternatives, especially since the Western countries are unwilling to cede any enhanced role to them.

The Fortaleza Summit marks the beginning of the end of the post-Second World War Western dominance of the global economic and financial order. The existing institutions will now have to share space with the new entrants and may be compelled to adjust their norms to compete with the latter.

The prime mover behind the establishment of a rival network of financial institutions is China, whose global profile and influence is likely to increase as the various building blocks it has put in place come together to shape a new global financial architecture. This is still in the future but the trend is unmistakable. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Excerpt:

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.

A familiar clutch of hawks have taken wing over the rapidly developing crisis in Ukraine, as neo-conservatives and other interventionists claim that President Barack Obama’s preference for diplomacy over military action  invited Russian aggression.

At stake in the current crisis, according to these right-wing critics, are not only Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, but also Washington’s “credibility” as a global superpower and the perpetuation by the U.S. and its western allies of the post-Cold War international order."[It] makes about as much sense as saying that a proper response to a terrorist act by an Afghanistan-based group is to launch a war against Iraq.” -- Paul Pillar

Some right-wing commentators, such as Michael Auslin of the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which played a major role in drumming up support for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, have even compared Russian President Vladimir Putin’s moves to occupy the Crimean peninsula to Adolf Hitler’s absorption of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland as a result of the notorious Munich agreement in 1938.

“The toxic brew of negative perceptions of Western/liberal military capability and political will is rapidly undermining the post-1945 order around the world,” he wrote on the Forbes magazine website Monday.

“One can only assume that China, Iran, and North Korea are watching Crimea just as closely as Putin watched Washington’s reactions to East and South China Sea territorial disputes, Pyongyang’s nuclear provocations, and Syria’s civil war,” according to Auslin, echoing a line of attack against Obama that has become a leitmotiv among his fellow interventionists.

“(T)here is more than (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin to think about,” according to Elliott Abrams, a leading neo-conservative who served as George W. Bush’s top Middle East aide, wrote Monday on the National Review website.

“Tyrants in places from Tehran to Beijing will also be wondering about the cost of violating international law and threatening the peace and stability of neighbors. What will China do in neighboring seas, or Iran do in its tiny neighbor Bahrain, if actions like Putin’s go without a response?” he asked.

As yet there have been few voices in favour of taking any military action, although  both the lead editorial in Monday’s Wall Street Journal and Freedom House President David Kramer called for Obama to deploy ships from the U.S. Sixth Fleet into the Black Sea, and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called for reviving Bush-era plans to erect new missile defence systems along Russia’s European periphery.

But the president, who spent 90 minutes on the phone with Putin Saturday in an unsuccessful effort to persuade the Russian leaders to send Russian troops in Crimea back to their barracks, is being pressed hard to take a series of tough actions against Moscow.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who is scheduled to travel to Kiev Tuesday in a show of support for its new government that may include one billion dollars in U.S. aid as part of a much larger Western economic package to be led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), listed a number of moves Sunday that Washington has already taken or is actively considering adopting.

In addition to coordinating international – particularly European – condemnation of Putin’s moves against Ukraine, Kerry also said Washington had cancelled upcoming bilateral trade talks and is considering boycotting the G8 summit that Putin is scheduled to host in Sochi in June, if not suspending or formally expelling Russia from that body.

If Russia doesn’t “step back” from its effective takeover of Crimea, he said Sunday, “there could even be, ultimately, asset freezes (and) visa bans” against specific individuals and economic enterprises associated with the current crisis. He called Russia’s move “an incredible act of aggression.”

“We are examining a whole series of steps — economic, diplomatic — that will isolate Russia and will have a negative impact on Russia’s economy and its status in the world.,” Obama himself warned Monday during a joint press appearance with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the same time, however, he stressed that he was still looking for a diplomatic way out of the crisis – possibly with the help of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that reportedly began sending monitors to the Ukraine Monday evening — which could reassure Moscow regarding the protection and welfare of Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine and Crimea in whose interests Moscow has justified its actions to date.

The administration and most analysts here agreed that Washington’s freedom of action in reacting to the current crisis must necessarily be coordinated with its European allies, some of which, including the continent’s economic powerhouse, Germany, are strongly disinclined to escalate matters. Germany gets about one-third of its gas supplies from Russia and has long considered a cooperative relationship with Moscow to be critical to maintaining stability in central Europe.

Such constraints clearly frustrate the hawks here, even as some of them, such as Sen. John McCain, acknowledged Monday that Washington had no ready military option and would, in any event, have to coordinate closely with Brussels as the crisis unfolds.

But, speaking before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), McCain also blamed Obama’s alleged timidity – particularly his failure to carry out his threat to take military action against Syria last September – for the situation. “(T)his is the ultimate result of a feckless foreign policy in which nobody believes in America’s strength anymore,” McCain said to thunderous applause from the hawkish audience whom Netanyahu will address Tuesday.

Indeed, Israel-centred neo-conservatives, for whom Obama’s “weakness” and “appeasement” in dealing with perceived adversaries have become a mantra over the past five years, have been quick to use the Ukraine crisis to argue for toughening Washington’s position in the Middle East, in particular.

“In the brutal world of global power politics, Ukraine is in particular a casualty of Mr. Obama’s failure to enforce his ‘red line’ on Syria,” according to the Journal’s editorial writers, who stressed that “(a)dversaries and allies in Asia and the Middle East will be watching President Obama’s response now. …Iran is counting on U.S. weakness in nuclear talks.”

“Like Putin, the ayatollahs likely see our failure to act in Syria … as a sign that they can drive a hard bargain indeed with us over their nuclear weapons program, giving up nearly nothing and getting sanctions relief,” wrote Abrams on his Council on Foreign Relations blog over the weekend.

“And now they see us reacting (so far) to Russian aggression in Ukraine, sending troops across the border into the Crimea, with tut-tutting,” he added in a call for Congress – likely to be echoed by Netanyahu here this week — to pass stalled legislation imposing new sanctions against Tehran.

“That makes about as much sense …as saying that a proper response to a terrorist act by an Afghanistan-based group is to launch a war against Iraq,” replied Paul Pillar, the intelligence community’s top analyst for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, on his nationalinterest.com blog Monday.

Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at Lobelog.com.

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)

Excerpt:

The 2001 demonstrations against the G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy. Groups of violent protesters, the so-called Black Block, had been looting the streets of Genoa. Ten demonstrators have been convicted for conspiracy to cause destruction. However, justice for the killing of 23-year-old Carlo Giuliani has been slow. Credit: Han Soete/CC By 2.0

By Silvia Giannelli
ROME, Jul 23 2013 (IPS)

“It was midnight and I was sleeping; I woke up to the noise of the police breaking down the entrance door of the school,” says Italian journalist Lorenzo Guadagnucci. “They came in running and screaming. The bashing was immediate, with no chance of mediation.”

That was on Jul. 21, 2001. Guadagnucci, journalist with Resto del Carlino, a local newspaper based in Bologna in the north, had decided to go to Genoa that morning to witness the demonstrations against the G8 Summit.

“I saw them beating up everyone they encountered on their way before they came to me. Two policemen vented all their anger on me with their truncheon. Then a third came and hit me on the back.”

The day before, groups of violent protesters, the so-called Black Block, had been looting the streets of Genoa. The police had charged into one demonstration that was authorised, and 23-year-old Carlo Giuliani was shot dead by a carabiniere.

Twelve years later, Italian justice has slowly run its dubious course."Cold analysis suggests that the same conditions are still in place, and it could happen again.” -- Riccardo Noury, communications director of Amnesty International Italy

Ten demonstrators have been convicted for conspiracy to cause destruction, a law rarely used since the fascist period of the 1930s and 1940s. The protesters were given sentences of six to 14 years in jail.

Of the 25 police officers sentenced for the school raid and seven policemen and doctors convicted for the violence in the local barracks at Bolzaneto, no one will go to prison.

Heads of the police where banned from public office for five years. “From a judicial point of view, it is an important result,” said Guadagnucci. “But the paradox is that this outcome is completely useless. In the face of these sentences, the passivity of the parliament and of the government and the president the clear message is ‘we don’t care.’”

“Our request for the institution of an independent inquiry has been simply ignored,” Riccardo Noury, communications director of Amnesty International Italy told IPS. “And therefore we still have no answer to the question why all of this happened in Genoa.”

“The worst moment came after the bashing,” Guadagnucci told IPS. “They kept us inside the school for two hours: no press, no MPs, no one was allowed to enter. I remember people crying, screaming, bleeding, a girl having an epileptic attack.

“And the police kept saying that nobody knew they were there and they could do with us whatever they wanted. When you hear such things you really think they will kill you, and that is a trauma you cannot overcome, you simply cannot.”

All 93 people who were inside the school, of which 78 needed medical care, were immediately arrested for aggressive resistance to arrest, conspiracy to cause destruction, and illegal carrying of weapons after two Molotov bombs were allegedly found inside the school.

All charges against them were finally dropped in 2004 when the judges concluded that the Molotovs were brought into the school by the police to justify the raid.

That night Guadagnucci was “lucky enough” to be kept in hospital due to the risk of internal bleeding. The ones who did not suffer serious injuries were brought to the Bolzaneto barracks, where the second part of the nightmare began.

With no means of contacting their families or a lawyer, the witnesses later said girls were threatened with rape, people were forced to stand with their heads against the wall for hours, some were forced to bark like dogs, others were denied use of a toilet, and almost everyone was beaten up.

But Italy, despite ratification of the United Nations convention against torture in 1988, does not have a law against torture. “If we had it before Genoa, we could have prevented something, because the presence of a crime in the penal code works as a deterrent,” said Noury.

“We already have billions of laws in Italy and other tools to compensate for this lack,” Matteo Bianchi from Coisp (a police trade union) told IPS. But Noury is not convinced that is good enough.

Giuliani’s father is still seeking answers: “We were forced to start a civil lawsuit as a last possibility to evaluate things as they really happened, and not based on the imagination of some expert witness,” he told IPS.

The trial for his son’s death was dismissed for legitimate self-defence for the police, based on the fact that the carabiniere shot in the air but the bullet hit a stone, deviating its trajectory. “It is the most absurd and shameful thing they could have made up,” said Giuliani.

There are other reasons to open a new trial, he told IPS. “There are two pictures that prove that after the shot, when Carlo was lying surrounded by the police, but still alive, one of them hit him on his forehead with a stone. Right after, a video shows the deputy commissioner running after a demonstrator screaming ‘you killed him with your stone’. That was a sordid attempt at throwing facts off track.”

“Common sense might tell us that this was a unique event,” said Noury. “But cold analysis suggests that the same conditions are still in place, and it could happen again.”

The United States is being singled out for criticism after the Group of Eight (G8) rich countries failed to adopt a plan pushed by British Prime Minister David Cameron to require the creation of public country-level registries with detailed information on corporate ownership and activity.

Although the United States did unveil important new pledges Tuesday to crack down on anonymous “shell” corporations, used by money launderers and tax evaders, critics point out that Washington has not outlined how it will implement these commitments. They also warn that the commitments will not put corporate ownership information into the public domain, a criticism also levelled at the G8 declaration overall.

The G8 met Monday and Tuesday at a summit in Northern Ireland, during which tax evasion and corporate transparency were given top billing. While Cameron had hoped other countries would back his call for the creation of public registries, none did so.

Even as the G8 countries decided on a more incremental approach to financial transparency than some had hoped, however, they did arrive at a host of important agreements, including for countries to begin sharing tax information."We would like to see even greater moves for corporate transparency."
-- Eric LeCompte

“The G8’s declaration is absolutely historic,” Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, a religious antipoverty group, said Tuesday. “We would like to see even greater moves for corporate transparency, but the foundation the G8 built will take us into a more accountable corporate world then we’ve seen before.”

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, the Washington-based multilateral lender, similarly issued congratulations, noting, “International tax avoidance and evasion have emerged as major risks to government revenue and as threats to the credibility of tax systems in the eyes of citizens – in both advanced and developing countries.”

Others are offering more tempered reactions, however, particularly over the failure of the G8 to explicitly call for the creation of public registries detailing the “beneficial” (or final) ownership of all companies, including shell corporations.

While the United States has now said it will be creating these registries on its own, these will apparently be available only to law enforcement and tax authorities. Critics urge these databases to be made open to the public from the beginning.

“It is important that the United States has committed to creating registries of beneficial information, because this does go beyond the G8 declaration,” Stefanie Ostfeld, a senior policy advisor with Global Witness, an advocacy group and member of the Financial Transparency Coalition, told IPS.

“But it’s not putting that information in the public domain, as the United Kingdom is saying it will do. Without such a commitment, these moves will not live up to their potential impact.”

Shell companies

“We’re very pleased to see the G8 as a whole recognise that anonymous shell companies around the world are a massive problem,” Heather Lowe, legal counsel and director of government affairs at Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington watchdog group, told IPS.

“But then it comes down to the individual national action plans to achieve meaningful progress. In this, the United States is particularly significant in part because of the very high number of companies created here in the first place.”

In recent years, the United States has increasingly spoken out on international tax evasion and money laundering, with a domestic political debate progressing on related reforms to the tax code. At the same time, the United States is widely thought to shelter a huge number of these shell corporations, used to launder corrupt earnings or hide income of foreign citizens.

“It’s very hard to tell how many of these shell companies are incorporated here, as the U.S. doesn’t require information on the ultimate beneficial controller of each company,” Lowe said.

“However, we do know that the potential for a large number of anonymous corporations existing under U.S. law is very high. We also know that those who want to create such a company know this is a good place to do it.”

U.S. shell companies are estimated to have facilitated some 18 billion dollars in illicit transactions in 2005 alone, according to the Treasury Department. Advocates say this legal laxity is directly affecting developing economies, allowing corrupt officials or cronies in resource-rich countries to siphon billions of dollars out of their countries.

According to a recent report by GFI, such abuse could be resulting in losses for developing countries as high as a trillion dollars a year – 10 times the amount those countries receive annually in foreign aid.

For this reason, activists had increased pressure substantially in recent months on President Obama, calling on him to back Cameron’s plan to create a public registry on corporate ownership.

Yet the final pledge fell short of this goal. In a fact sheet released Tuesday, the White House said simply that “The Treasury Department, along with other federal agencies, will continue to advocate for comprehensive legislation on beneficial ownership.”

Recommitment

Simply pushing for such legislation is in line with a commitment the Obama administration made nearly two years ago. According to Lowe, little progress has been made since then.

“While this is a step forward, it’s certainly not a change in U.S. government policy,” she said.

“This [G8 announcement] is really just a recommitment to the issue. That’s fine, but what we really wanted to see was a plan for how the government would advocate for new legislation, which we haven’t been able to obtain.”

In the past, U.S. legislation to require the collection of “beneficial ownership” information has been difficult to advance. One proposal has been introduced (and rejected) in the Senate at least three times over the past decade, at one point being co-sponsored by then-Senator Obama.

On Tuesday, Senator Carl Levin, a primary sponsor of a bill that would require such disclosure, lauded the new G8 commitments: “I said before the summit that the G8 nations were poised to strike a hammer blow against offshore corporate tax avoidance. The G8 commitments made today, if carried out, can bring that hammer down.”

Levin’s legislation, as well as a similar bill in the House of Representatives, is expected to be reintroduced in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, it is currently unclear whether regulatory or executive action on this issue could allow the administration to work around Congress, but advocates suggest they see some opportunities for doing so.

Critics of a potential free trade agreement between the United States and European Union worry that such an agreement could lead to increased exportation of liquified natural gas from the U.S. Credit: Bigstock

By Jared Metzker
WASHINGTON, Jun 19 2013 (IPS)

Controversy is building following the announcement that negotiations will soon begin on a free trade agreement between the United States and European Union, with critics warning that any such agreement could negatively affect a host of regulatory concerns.

On Monday, during the Group of Eight (G8) summit held in Northern Ireland, the United States, European Commission and European Council jointly announced that negotiations will begin on Jul. 8 in Washington for what British Prime Minister David Cameron called “the biggest bilateral trade deal in history”.

Proponents characterise the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP), also known as the Trans-Atlantic Free Agreement (TAFTA), as a way to improve the struggling economies of the United States and European Union.

“The whole point,” Cameron stated on Monday, “is to fire up our economies and drive growth and prosperity around the world – to do things that make a real difference to people’s lives. And there is no more powerful way to achieve that than by boosting trade.”

He asserted that the deal could “add as much as a 100 billion pounds to the EU economy, 80 billion pounds to the U.S. economy, and as much as 85 billion pounds to the rest of the world”.

Nevertheless, there is significant opposition to the proposed deal.

“The claims that this deal will somehow be an economic cure-all and generate significant growth are simply not supported by any reliable evidence,” Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen‘s Global Trade Watch, a public interest watchdog group based in Washington, said Tuesday.

“But we do know that the talks are based on the demands of U.S. and EU corporations that have been pushing for decades to eliminate the best consumer, environmental and financial standards on either side of the Atlantic.”"The claims that this deal will somehow be an economic cure-all and generate significant growth are simply not supported by any reliable evidence."
-- Lori Wallach

Tariffs between the U.S. and E.U. are already low, and critics note that that what the deal really seeks to accomplish is the removal of “non tariff barriers” (also referred to as “trade irritants”).

“Non-tariff barriers is a commonly-used euphemism which refers to the array of financial, environmental, health and other policies which the public has put in place to safeguard its own interests,” Ben Beachy, a research director for Public Citizen, told IPS.

Under T-TIP, standards such as those mentioned by Beachy would be “converged”, so that regulations from state to state would be more closely aligned. Supporters of the deal say this uniformity would facilitate trade, but Beachy contended that the greater effect would be to lower regulation levels to a point that “democratic electorates would never stand for.”

“The resulting effect of ‘convergence'”, he said, “will be to limit the ability of democratic policymakers to establish their own preferred levels of regulation.”

Chilling effect

Environment groups are likewise worried that such harmonisation will allow for an increase in certain energy technologies, particularly the sudden prevalence in the United States of natural gas hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”.

Countries of the European Union currently restrict fracking within their own borders due to environmental concerns. But some analysts suggest these countries would be less averse to consuming imported gas fracked in the United States.

“There are concerns that the U.S. would become a major exporter of liquefied natural gas to the E.U.,” Ilana Solomon, of the Sierra Club, an environmental protection group, told IPS.

The United States recently approved private licenses for companies seeking to liquefy gas, indicating that in the future it will export liquefied natural gas, something it does not currently do.

Under free trade agreements in the past, Solomon noted, important regulatory reviews normally undertaken when considering the advantages of exportation have often been replaced by automatic approvals.

There are also health concerns related to the agreement. Some worry that food safety standards in the United States, for example, could be compromised if European exporters –  currently subject to lower standards – could deliver their, say, milk to U.S. stores.

Regardless of where U.S. standards stood, the less-well-regulated (and possibly less expensive) European milk would be available to U.S. consumers.

Another controversial aspect of the agreement would allow European privately owned corporations to challenge U.S. domestic laws that may negatively affect their profits or even expected profits.

In what are known as “investor-state” tribunals, foreign corporations would be eligible to receive compensation from taxpayers if the corporations could demonstrate that they lost money because of laws that inhibit trade.

Being subject to these tribunals could lead to what Public Citizen’s Beachy refers to as a “chilling effect”, meaning policymakers would be less likely to pass regulations because of perceived vulnerability.

Chipping away regulation

Beachy also noted the deal could carry “very real economic costs” if it undermines financial regulations and increases the risk of economic crisis.

According to a European Commission study, regulations that may be subject to “convergence” include financial safeguards such as those included in policies enacted by the United States following the economic crisis that began in 2008.

Last year, the Association of German Banks indicated what it hoped would emerge from any transatlantic deal regarding the aligning of U.S. and European standards.

“We would not like to see U.S. regulators applying standards to our banks that are extraterritorial, duplicative or discriminating … we have a number of such concerns regarding the ongoing implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act,” said the Association, referring to the most significant U.S. regulatory legislation passed in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

According to Beachy, it is doubtful that the free trade agreement could succeed in removing all its targeted “irritants”.

The European Commission study confirmed that this would be “unlikely”, noting that to do so in some cases would require “constitutional changes” and that “political sensitivities” might stand in the way.

Still, opponents worry that by specifically targeting these barriers, the broad agreement could succeed in chipping away at a significant number of them.

“The corporations that favour the agreement know they won’t get everything they want,” Beachy said. “But they think they can get a lot.”

Camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) in northern Pakistan are breeding grounds for malnutrition. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
ROME, Jun 6 2013 (IPS)

Between 2010 and 2012, 868 million people worldwide were deemed hungry by a conservative definition. This figure represents only a small fraction of the world’s population whose health and lives are blighted by malnutrition.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, assistant director-general for economic and social development at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Credit: @FAO/Giulio Napolitano

Currently, malnutrition is believed to be the underlying cause of death for 2.6 million children annually. Meanwhile, two billion people lack adequate micronutrients – vitamins and minerals – that are essential for their mental and physical development.

A quarter of the children in the world, and a third in developing countries, are stunted because they do not get the right nutrients. Four in five of these malnourished children are in just 20 countries, including almost half of Indian children under five.

In Nigeria, over half of the poorest children are stunted, while in China, children in poor rural counties are six times more likely to be stunted than urban children. In Indonesia, a sharp rise in wasting – or acute malnutrition – in the wake of recent food crises has hit children from the poorest households hardest.

Receiving the right nutrients in the first years of life is not only a matter of life and death, but also a major determinant of future life chances – potentially raising future earnings by a fifth. Today, about 170 million children under five are stunted because they do not get the right nutrients, while their cognitive and physical development is impaired.

Some progress has been made in reducing hunger over the past two decades. With a strong final push, the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) objective of halving the prevalence of hunger by 2015 is within reach. Already, 51 countries have achieved the target, or are on track to do so.

With modest progress over the past two decades, the share of stunted children declined from 40 percent in 1990 to 27 percent in 2010. And if present trends continue, half a billion more children will be stunted in the next 15 years.

Meanwhile, around one and a half billion people are overweight, with half a billion deemed obese, and hence, more vulnerable to serious non-communicable diseases. Malnutrition could cost as much as five percent of global income – 3.5 trillion dollars, or 500 dollars per person – in terms of lost productivity and health care expenses.

What should we do to eradicate malnutrition? The 2013 report by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisaion (FAO), ‘The State of Food and Agriculture: Food systems for better nutrition’, shows the way forward. Good nutrition must start with food production. Improved food systems must make nutritious foods affordable.

Overcoming malnutrition – caloric undernourishment, micronutrient deficiencies, obesity – requires appropriate interventions in food systems, public health, education and social protection. Tackling malnutrition is a complex task requiring strong political commitment, leadership at the highest levels, and unprecedented cooperation and coordination among various ministries and partners.

Better organised food systems are key to more diversified and healthier diets. Policy must ensure that all people have informed access to a wide range of nutritious foods to make healthy choices. Consumers need help making better dietary choices for improved nutrition with regulation, education, information and other interventions.

Food systems must become more sensitive to the special needs of mothers and young children. Malnutrition during the critical first 1,000 days from conception can cause permanent physical and cognitive impairment in children and lasting damage to the mothers’ health.

Food security and nutrition are now at the apex of the international development agenda. In June 2012, the United Nations Secretary General made the call to set the ambitious but feasible goal of zero hunger. The Zero Hunger Challenge calls for a world without hunger, no more stunting, minimal food waste and losses, sustainable agriculture and doubling poor farmers’ incomes.

On Jun. 8, the governments of Brazil and the United Kingdom will co-host a high-level pre-G8 meeting entitled ‘Nutrition for Growth: Beating Hunger through Business and Science’ in London. UK Prime Minister David Cameron intends to follow up by sponsoring a high-level global panel on agriculture and food systems for nutrition.

On Nov. 19-21, 2014, the FAO, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and others in the U.N. system will co-organise the inter-governmental International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), 22 years after the first one in 1992, to establish the bases for sustained international cooperation and policy coordination to overcome malnutrition. The preparatory technical meeting on Nov. 13-15 this year will establish the evidence base for this purpose.

Malnutrition’s time has come. By cooperating effectively, we have a real chance of ending this blight on humanity within a generation.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

UNICEF estimates that 3.5 million children in Pakistan suffer from acute malnutrition. The EU is helping the government to cut down the malnourishment rate by 25 percent by the year 2015. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, May 29 2013 (IPS)

In addition to the serious health problems it causes, child malnutrition is costing the global economy tens of billions of dollars a year by depriving its victims of the ability to learn basic skills, according to a new report released Tuesday by Save the Children (STC).

Based on a multi-year study in four countries, the 23-page report found that chronically malnourished children – about one of every four children born today — are significantly less able to read, write a simple sentence, or perform basic arithmetic.

Those disabilities, as well as other cognitive problems related to malnutrition, translate into a 20-percent reduction in their average adult earnings, which in turn acts as an important brake on economic growth in the countries where they live, according to the report.

The report, “Food for Thought: Tackling Child Malnutrition to Unlock Potential and Boost Prosperity”, estimated the global impact of child malnutrition at 125 billion dollars a year by the time today’s children reach working age in 2030.

It is urging leaders at this year’s G8 Summit, which takes place in Northern Ireland in 10 days, to take strong action, including substantially increasing donor funding, to tackle the problem.

“Poor nutrition in the early years is driving a literacy and numeracy crisis in developing countries and is also a huge barrier to further progress in tackling child deaths,” said Carolyn Miles, STC’s president.

“Improving the nutritional status of children and women in the crucial 1,000-day window – from the start of a woman’s pregnancy until her child’s second birthday – could greatly increase children’s ability to learn and to earn,” she noted. “World leaders must commit to concrete actions to tackle malnutrition in those critical 1,000 days, and invest in the future of our children.”

According to 2012 figures compiled by the U.N., nearly half of children under five in southern Asia and 39 percent of the same age group in sub-Saharan Africa are stunted – that is, too short for their age due to poor nutrition. With more than 60 million stunted children, India is among the most hard-hit countries, as is Nigeria, with nearly 11 million stunted children.

Malnutrition, according to the report, threatens to undermine the impressive gains in reducing child mortality and increasing primary-school enrolment that have been made in the past two decades as the world has moved closer to fulfilling the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

Between 1990 and 2011, the numbers of children dying under the age of five fell from 12 million to 6.9 million. But malnutrition remains an underlying cause of 2.3 million children’s deaths each year, according to STC.

And, while the number of children in primary school rose by more than 40 million between 1999 and 2011 – an increase of some 32 percent – the cognitive disabilities caused by chronic malnutrition have left millions of children unable to learn some of the most rudimentary tasks of a basic education.

The study, the first to try to identify the impact of malnutrition on educational outcomes across a range of countries, included some 3,000 children in four countries – Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam – over nearly two decades. The subjects were interviewed and tested to determine their educational abilities, confidence, and aspirations at various points in their lives.

It found that children who are malnourished in the first 1,000 days of their lives – from the start of a woman’s pregnancy until their second birthday – suffer substantial learning disabilities compared to those with healthy diets.

Specifically, the children who suffered malnutrition scored an average of seven percent lower on math tests than non-stunted children; they were 19 percent less likely to be able to read a simple sentence by the age of eight, and 12 percent less likely to be able to write a simple sentence. Stunted children were also 13 percent less likely to be in the appropriate grade for their age at school.

In addition, malnourished children tend to be less confident about learning and about their ability to change their situation for the better, according to the studies on which the report was based.

The report found that children were malnourished go on to earn 20 percent less as adults than children who were well nourished, although it found evidence that the gap could be larger.

It also noted that some of the earnings differential could be explained by the relatively smaller size of many adults who were malnourished as children, particularly if their work requires physical strength, including agriculture and other manual labour.

“This report adds to the mounting evidence that malnutrition takes a toll not only on children’s bodies, but also on their ability to earn an education, make a living and rise out of poverty,” said Lucy Sullivan, director of 1,000 Days, a partnership co-founded by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin, among others, in September 2010 that promotes investments to improve nutrition for mothers and children from pregnancy to age two.

“Malnutrition’s price tag is steep: it costs the global economy 125 billion dollars per year. What the report drives home, however, is that malnutrition is preventable and solvable,” she added.

Despite the fact that the World Bank concluded in a major 2006 study that improving nutrition of mothers and small children was among the most cost-effective interventions in promoting development, the donor community has spent an average of only 0.37 percent of total aid on nutrition over the past three years, in part because the issue often falls through the cracks between the ministries of health and agriculture.

On Jun. 8, however, the British and Brazilian governments will co-host the first-ever nutrition pledging conference at the G8 summit, called “Nutrition for Growth”.

The report is calling on donors to more than double their commitments to spending on nutrition programmes to one billion dollars a year and for national governments to establish plans and targets for reducing malnutrition over the next decade.

Artisanal diamond miners at work in the alluvial diamond mines around the eastern town of Koidu, Sierra Leone. In resource-rich countries, the natural resource sector is usually the main source of illicit financial flows. Credit: Tommy Trenchard/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, May 28 2013 (IPS)

Over the past three decades, Africa has functioned as a “net creditor” to the rest of the world, the result of a cumulative outflow of nearly a trillion and a half dollars from the continent.

The new data, to be formally released Wednesday by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based watchdog group, stands in stark contrast to widely held images of Africa receiving massive amounts of foreign aid."While these figures are amazing, we have to recognise that they’re being directly facilitated by Western banks and tax havens." -- GFI's Clark Gascoigne

Foreign assistance levels are indeed high for Africa – following on a 2005 pledge among the Group of Eight (G8) rich countries, the continent receives more than 50 billion dollars a year, making it the world’s most aid-dependent region. Yet according to the new joint report, the interplay of corruption, tax evasion, criminal activities and other factors resulted in a net outflow of some 1.4 billion dollars between 1980 and 2009.

“In development circles we talk a lot about how much aid is going to Africa, and there’s this feeling among some in the West that after we’ve been giving this money for decades, it’s Africa’s fault if the continent’s countries still haven’t developed,” Clark Gascoigne, communications director at Global Financial Integrity (GFI), told IPS.

“In fact, our research shows that while the West has been giving money to Africa, far more is flowing out illicitly. Further, you can assume that illicit outflows from other regions would likely lead to high net resource transfers from other developing regions, as well.”

In Africa, this trend appears to have particularly strengthened over the past decade, during which time some 30.4 billion dollars every year are thought to have illegally leaked from the continent. Of that, around 83 percent is thought to have come from North African countries alone.

Over the full three decades, perhaps counter-intuitively, dark-money outflows appear to have originated particularly in resource-rich countries, those most prominently engaged in oil, gas and other natural resource extraction. Some of the most notable include Nigeria, Libya, South Africa and Angola.

Such findings are bolstered by a new index, released last week by the Revenue Watch Institute (RWI), another watchdog group, that for the first time systematically correlated governments’ economic dependency on natural resources and low human development indicators.

The RWI index looked at 58 countries responsible for the vast majority of the world’s petroleum, copper and diamond extraction, and reported that the profits of their extractive sectors added up to more than 2.6 trillion dollars in 2010, far outweighing Western aid flows. Yet more than 80 percent of those countries had also failed to put in place satisfactory standards for openness in these sectors – and half hadn’t even taken basic steps in this regard.

“In resource-rich countries, the natural resource sector is usually the main source of illicit financial flows,” the AfDB-GFI study states, noting a finding by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Angola’s oil sector in 2002 failed to report around four billion dollars.

“These countries generally lack the good governance structures that would enable citizens to monitor the amount and use of revenues from the natural resource sector. Often, rents and royalties derived from resource management are not used to support the social and economic development of resource-rich countries but instead are embezzled or expended in unproductive ways through corruption and cronyism.”

The impacts of this mass leakage on both African public coffers and foreign development-focused aid are clear.

“The resource drain from Africa over the last 30 years – almost equivalent to Africa’s current gross domestic product – is holding back Africa’s lift-off,” Mthuli Ncube, chief economist and vice-president of the African Development Bank, said Tuesday.

“[But] the African continent is resource-rich. With good resource husbandry, Africa could be in a position to finance much of its own development.”

Halting “absorption”

The new report, which is being released Wednesday at the African Development Bank annual meetings in Morocco, does not look into country-specific drivers of these outflows.

Yet while it is clear that differing levels of strengthening of country-level regulatory mechanisms will be required to ensure that natural resource development in Africa benefits public sector aims, it is impossible to ignore the role of Western countries in this ongoing situation.

“While these figures are amazing, we have to recognise that they’re being directly facilitated by Western banks and tax havens that allow for the creation of anonymous shell companies, by Western governments that don’t share tax information and continue to lack adequate money-laundering enforcement,” GFI’s Gascoigne says.

“While the onus for change is on both national and international players alike, the Western countries can control the international component of this dynamic – the international financial structure.”

The AfDB and GFI analysts are encouraging strengthened alignment of financial policies between African countries and those countries that are “absorbing” these illicit flows. The United States, for instance, continues to be the largest incorporator of shell companies in the world, while Gascoigne says there is also far more that Washington and other Western capitals can do on swapping tax information and refusing to tolerate bank and tax haven secrecy.

In this regard, many observers are eagerly awaiting the G8 summit slated to be held in the United Kingdom in mid-June. The first part of this year has seen unique international momentum build around issues of tax evasion and tax havens, energised particularly by depleted government coffers in the aftermath of the global economic crisis.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is hosting the upcoming summit, has taken on the issue of tax evasion as a key priority for his government’s G8 presidency this coming year. He has been widely praised for his recent leadership on the issue, particularly for pushing a new global standard under which governments would automatically share tax information.

European Union countries have now largely aligned themselves with the U.K. stance. But key to watch at the June summit will be whether the United States, Canada, Japan and Russia agree to sign on to a robust new initiative – or choose instead to stand in the way of greater reform.

“Curtailing these outflows should be paramount to policymakers in Africa and in the West because they drive and are, in turn, driven by a poor business climate and poor overall governance, both of which hamper economic growth,” GFI chief economist Dev Kar, formerly with the IMF, said Tuesday.

“The slower growth rate results in more aid dependency, with foreign taxpayer funds filling the shortfall in domestic revenue – to the extent that tax evasion is a part of illicit flows.”

The village of rape survivor Angeline Mwarusena in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to be threatened by militia. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

By Leymah Gbowee and Jody Williams
DOHA, Qatar, Apr 10 2013 (Al Jazeera)

In a London boardroom today – on Apr. 10 – a new era in the longstanding fight to stop gender violence in conflict will be ushered in. Eight Foreign Ministers from the wealthiest countries around the world, the G8, will discuss conflict-related sexual violence and – if all goes according to plan – will emerge with a clear set of commitments to help end the global scourge.

For the countless individuals and organisations around the world that have tirelessly and courageously devoted themselves to going after the perpetrators of sexual violence and helping survivors, including all of us at the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict, this is a sweet day.

It is also a bittersweet. Since the wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda in the 1990s -when the world learned that thousands of women were brutally raped – the international community finally decided that rape in conflict is a serious threat to peace and security.

The result was a few important U.N. Security Resolutions, and a rough international framework for addressing sexual violence. While all positive, progress is slow. And as debates go on in the hallowed halls of power, more conflicts have been – and are being – waged over women’s bodies, including in Myanmar, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Libya and Syria.

Yet, those toiling behind-the-scenes – from doctors running clinics to stitch the mutilated genitals of women raped in war to human rights defenders challenging national governments to prosecute those who commit mass rape – have had their work cut out for them convincing the world’s most powerful leaders that sexual violence in conflict is indeed a crisis. One they have the power to help bring to an end. Now, it seems, finally some of these leaders are listening.

Leading this charge is the United Kingdom’s own Foreign Secretary William Hague. He has made ending sexual violence in conflict a foreign policy priority for both his own country, with the newly established Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI), and as the UK takes up presidency of the G8 this year. With patience and determination, he has succeeded in placing it high on the global agenda of the world’s most powerful nations.

Grassroots women and organisations working to stop rape have knocked for decades on the iron door of the international “all boys club”, and today Secretary Hague is helping us all break open that door.

We hope that the door stays open – for all of our sake.

Rape in conflict is not an issue that only touches women and their families in faraway countries. Rape in conflict is part of a continuum of gender violence that manifests itself in every corner of this globe. The face of gender violence is your sister, your mother, your daughter – and sometimes even your father, your brother, or your son. It tears apart the fabric of society and is one of the reasons women and their families leave their homes as refugees or immigrants to build new lives on shattered foundations.

Gender violence also continues to be the face of the future, as climate change becomes a more present reality and helps fuel conflicts resulting from desertification and lack of water, and countless natural disasters.

As our Foreign Ministers place ending gender violence on their agenda, we wish to remind them that this is going to be a long-standing item and is not going to be solved in the near future. While the UK has admirably taken this issue and made it a priority for the G8, it must remain a commitment for our leaders with concrete actions to prevent rape, protect survivors and provide justice. This is not a crisis we will solve in one year.

When looking at regions where rape and other forms of gender violence have been ongoing for years, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, we need to provide comprehensive, long-term strategies to end the violence. This means not only providing greater support and reparations to survivors, but bringing impunity to an end by focusing on the prosecution of those committing these heinous crimes.

Equally important, we need to ensure that as conflicts come to an end, women are at the peace table to keep negotiations focused on gender equality and justice reform.

Women’s voices must be heard.

The G8 Foreign Ministers today have set an admirable precedent for other leaders around the world, who can be sure that women will keep knocking on the door. And for those meeting in London, we, more than 700 organisations of the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict, will hold you to what you pledge.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

Leymah Gbowee is a peace activist, trained social worker, and women’s rights advocate who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. Her leadership of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace is chronicled in her memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers, and the documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

Follow her on Twitter @LeymahRGbowee

Jody Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban antipersonnel landmines through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) who shared the prize with her that year. Her life of activism has been chronicled in a newly released memoir, My Name is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl’s Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize.

Follow her on Twitter @JodyWilliams97

Williams and Gbowee are co-chairs of the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Multilateralism is at a crossroads. This is a crucial matter for environmental and sustainability issues, as we have seen in the Rio+20 Summit, and for trade and other economic matters. The G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, focused precisely on improving our collective response to the current economic turbulence, which is at the heart of developments in the European Union (EU) as well.

More than three years have passed since the beginning of the 2008-09 crisis and the world economy remains very fragile. World Trade Organisation (WTO) projections indicate that trade growth will further decelerate this year to 3.7 per cent, down from 5 percent in 2011. Moreover, WTO economists believe that downside risks of an even sharper slowdown in trade growth remain high. Many of the achievements in poverty reduction over the past decade could be threatened with unravelling.

The impact of the crisis is being felt not just in developed countries but also in the developing world. China’s dynamic economy is expected to grow more slowly in 2012. India’s growth is decelerating. Many poor countries are seeing their exports to major markets such as the EU and the U.S. slow down.

Pascal Lamy. Credit: Courtesy of WTO.

While the crisis continues to loom, the world has not remained static. New economic players and new patterns of trade have emerged, dramatically changing the nature of trade and resulting in greater economic interdependence.

In the past decade, developing and emerging economies’ share of global gross domestic product (GDP) has risen from one-third to half. Developing countries’ share of global exports has jumped from 33 to 43 percent over the last decade.

Global trade patterns are also changing rapidly. Not too long ago, goods were referred to as “made in China” or “made in Germany”. Today, the expansion of global value chains means that most products are assembled with inputs from many countries. In other words, today’s goods are “made in the world”. At a growth rate of six percent a year, trade in intermediate goods now comprises close to 60 percent of total trade in goods and has become the most dynamic sector in international trade.

The map of global greenhouse gas emissions has also changed. Emissions of the developing world are rising fast, and China’s emissions are said to be either equal to, or to have actually overtaken, those of the U.S.

The same can be said of macroeconomic cooperation. As subsequent G20 summits have demonstrated, whether monetary policies, fiscal policies, currencies, the fight against tax havens or regulation of financial activities, a virtuous path requires global cooperation.

However, the rules governing multilateral cooperation have not kept pace with these changes. We are to a large extent living by the global rules created in the 90s.

The last couple of years have seen the emergence of a worrying attitude towards multilateralism. In stark contrast to the calls for greater and improved international regulatory coherence that dominated the headlines during the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008, international cooperation has slumped into an ever more precarious state.

Cynical observers would say that over the past decade international efforts to forge legally binding agreements have continued to set the threshold of expectations so low that even an agreement to continue to talk is considered a successful outcome.

Such cynicism ignores the fundamental lessons about international cooperation that we have learned over the past century. Most of all, it disregards the fact that for most countries more multilateralism and more international cooperation remain the only sustainable way forward.

Certainly, the changes of the past few years demand a re-configuration, rethinking and adjustment of traditional multilateral cooperation, including in the WTO. The proliferation of different informal coalitions and groups of countries and civil society ­the G8+, G8+5, G20, B20 and L20, to name but a few­ are symptomatic of the constantly evolving nature of international relations.

However, their effectiveness will depend on whether they are representative enough to address the increasingly complex challenges on our agenda. A stable global economy cannot be built without including all key stakeholders in the decision-making process.

More fundamentally, I believe that while the crisis continues to hit national systems hard, it will be very difficult to achieve high-standard multilateralism.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, international agreements necessitate a high quantum of political energy at home. They require strong political leadership because they are about bringing domestic constituencies on board.

This situation is a dangerous one and risks turning into a vicious circle: exiting the crisis sooner rather than later implies strong leadership to craft the necessary international cooperation agreements. But governments’ legitimacy is weakened by popular discontent generated by economic and social hardships. This erodes the ability to act together, which in turn further prolongs the crisis, leading to the syndrome of “too little, too late”.

For these reasons, I believe that multilateralism is at a crossroads. Either it advances in the spirit of shared values and enhanced cooperation, or is allowed to falter, at our own peril. Without global cooperation on finance, security, trade, the environment, and poverty reduction, the risks of division, strife and war will remain dangerously real. Waiting for better times will simply not suffice. A consensus on inaction would simply mean a consensus on more pain for all. We must, together, be bolder if we are to cope with the growing risks of today’s world. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

* Pascal Lamy is the director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

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