Deodat Maharaj, Managing Director of the United Nations Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries

By Deodat Maharaj
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 18 2024 (IPS)

Last month, world leaders gathered at the time of the UN General Assembly in New York and agreed on a pioneering Pact for the Future. This global accord has implications across a broad range of issues that affect every country. It offers much hope for the poorest and most vulnerable countries on the planet, known as Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

The world’s 45 LDCs are home to a billion people who face systemic underdevelopment marked by poverty, inadequate health systems, poor infrastructure and limited access to education and technology.

While some progress has been made during the last decade, less than a fifth of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are on track to be met. For example, only around 60% of children in least developed countries complete primary school despite improving literacy rates across the globe. Healthcare disparities are also stark, with maternal mortality rates averaging 430 deaths per 100,000 live births in low-income countries compared to 13 per 100,000 in wealthier nations.

The Pact for the Future, along with its two annexes, the Global Digital Compact and the Declaration on Future Generations, offers an inclusive roadmap aimed at accelerating progress towards the SDGs. By also leveraging advancements in science, technology and innovation, the framework seeks to dislodge decades of stagnation and inequality.

Bridging the massive digital divide, which is most pronounced in poor and indebted countries, will be critical for accelerated progress. Only 36 percent of people in LDCs are connected online, and buying a smartphone costs 95 percent of an average monthly income. In general, low-income countries also have a lower level of educational attainment and fewer trained professionals in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The Pact for the Future outlines several key commitments: On digital cooperation, the Global Digital Compact presents targeted actions for a safer, more inclusive, more equitable digital world by closing the digital divide and expanding inclusion in the digital economy.

On sustainable development and financing for development, the Pact reaffirms the 2030 Agenda and places the eradication of poverty at the centre of efforts to achieve it. Amongst the proposed actions, it pledges to close the SDG financing gap and strengthen efforts to address climate change, which is disproportionately impacting LDCs.

On financial reform, the Pact seeks an overhaul of global financial systems, including by granting developing countries a greater voice in decision-making. It seeks to mobilize additional financing for the SDGs and generally making finance more readily available. The Pact also addresses the unsustainable debt burdens of many LDCs.

This novel Pact for the Future has the potential to give a push to the development agenda across the developing world, but especially so in LDCs. However, for success, there are some prerequisites. Firstly, there is the matter of financing.  It is good to see the welcome emphasis on boosting financing for developing countries and making it more accessible.  With finance, the possibilities are unlimited. Without finance, progress will once more be stymied. Therefore, the international community must match words with action.

Secondly, the role of business as an essential partner is key. A government-centric approach on its own cannot and will not work. More specifically, there must be attention to the micro, small and medium-scale enterprises sector, which accounts for the majority of businesses and generates the bulk of employment in most developing countries. Systematic support for digitalisation, innovation and the application of technology to this sector will create jobs and opportunities whilst boosting inclusive growth.

Thirdly, multilateralism is vital. The Pact for the Future has enormous potential, with the power to materially shift the dial for least-developed countries. However, it will require international cooperation, sustained political will and strong accountability mechanisms. If realised, this bold initiative could become the catalyst for new technological investments that can help shape an equally bold future for the world’s poorest.

At its core, the UN’s Pact for the Future is a blueprint for renewed cooperation in a fragmented world and offers much hope. There may not be another such opportunity. Let us seize the moment.

Note: Deodat Maharaj is the Managing Director of the United Nations Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries and can be contacted at: Deodat.Maharaj@un.org

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UN Climate chief Patricia Espinosa making a point during a media roundtable. Credit: Friday Phiri

By Friday Phiri
BONN, May 15 2018 (IPS)

As negotiators concluded ten days of climate talks in Bonn last week, climate finance was underlined as a key element without which the Paris Agreement’s operational guidelines would be meaningless.

The talks, held from April 30 to May 10, were aimed at finalising the PA’s implementation guidelines to be adopted at the annual climate conference to be held in Katowice, Poland in December.

The guidelines are essential for determining whether total world emissions are declining fast enough to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, which include boosting adaptation and limiting the global temperature increase to well below 2°C, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.

Climate finance dialoge

However, the catch is that all this requires financing to achieve. For instance, the conditional Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) from developing countries in implementing the Paris Agreement are pegged at the cost of 4.3 trillion dollars to be achieved.

“Finance is a very critical component for us,” said Ephraim Mwepya Shitima, Zambian Delegation leader and UNFCCC focal point person. “Agriculture, general adaptation and the APA agenda for implementation modalities form the core issues we are following keenly but we believe all these are meaningless without finance.”

It has always been the cry of developing countries to receive support through predictable and sustainable finance for it is the lifeblood of implementation of mitigation and/or adaptation activities. And Least Developed Countries (LDC) Chair Gebru Jember Endalew agrees with Zambia’s Shitima on the importance of finance.

“Finance is key to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. In the face of climate change, poor and vulnerable countries are forced to address loss and damage and adapt to a changing climate, all while striving to lift their people out of poverty without repeating the mistakes of an economy built on fossil fuels. This is not possible without predictable and sustainable support,” he said.

The civil society movement was particularly unhappy with the lukewarm finance dialogue outcome. “The radio silence on money has sown fears among poor countries that their wealthier counterparts are not serious about honouring their promises,” said Mohamed Adow, International Climate Lead, Christian Aid.

He said funding is not just a bargaining chip, but an essential tool for delivering the national plans that make up the Paris Agreement. And adding his voice to the debate, Mithika Mwenda of the Pan African Justice Allaince (PACJA) expressed dismay at the lack of concrete commitments from developed country parties.

“We are dismayed with the shifting of goal posts by our partners who intend to delay the realization of actual financing of full costs of adaptation in Africa,” said Mwenda.

Civil society campaigners protest big polluters at the negotiating table in Bonn. Credit: Friday Phiri

But for Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the final analysis of the talks revealed a more hopeful outlook.

“I am satisfied that some progress was made here in Bonn,” said Espinosa at the close of the ten-day talks. “But many voices are underlining the urgency of advancing more rapidly on finalizing the operational guidelines. The package being negotiated is highly technical and complex. We need to put it in place so that the world can monitor progress on climate action.”

According to Espinosa, the presiding officers of the three working bodies coordinated discussions on a wide range of items under the Paris Agreement Work Programme, and delegations tasked them to publish a “reflection note” to help governments prepare for the next round of talks.

She said the preparatory talks would continue at a supplementary meeting in Bangkok from September 3-8, at which the reflection note and the views and inputs by governments captured in various texts in Bonn would be considered.

The Bangkok meeting would then forward texts and draft decisions for adoption to the annual session of the Conference of the Parties (COP24) in Poland.

“We have made progress here in Bonn, but we need now to accelerate the negotiations. Continuing intersessional streamlining of the text-based output from Bonn will greatly assist all governments, who will meet in Bangkok to work towards clear options for the final set of implementation guidelines,” she explained.

The Talanoa Dialogue

In parallel to the formal negotiations, the Bonn meeting hosted the long-awaited Fiji-led Talanoa Dialogue.

Following the tradition in the Pacific region, the goal of a ‘talanoa’ is to share stories to find solutions for the common good. In this spirit, the dialogue witnessed some 250 participants share their stories, providing fresh ideas and renewed determination to raise ambition.

“Now is the time for action,” said Frank Bainimarama, Prime Minister of Fiji and President of COP23. “Now is the time to commit to making the decisions the world must make. We must complete the implementation guidelines of the Paris Agreement on time. And we must ensure that the Talanoa Dialogue leads to more ambition in our climate action plans.”

The dialogue wrote history when countries and non-Party stakeholders including cities, businesses, investors and regions engaged in interactive story-telling for the first time.

“The Talanoa Dialogue has provided a broad and real picture of where we are and has set a new standard of conversation,” said the President-designate of COP24, Michał Kurtyka of Poland. “Now it is time to move from this preparatory phase of the dialogue to prepare for its political phase, which will take place at COP24,” he added.

All input received to date and up to October 29, 2018 will feed into the Talanoa Dialogue’s second, more political phase at COP24.

The Koronovia work Programme on Agriculture  

Farmers are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts such as prolonged droughts and shifting rainfall patterns, and agriculture is an important source of emissions.

Despite this importance however, agriculture had been missing and was only discussed as an appendage at the UN climate negotiating table, until November 2017 when it was included as a work programme.

Recognising the urgency of addressing this sector, the Bonn conference made a significant advance on the “Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture” by adopting a roadmap for the next two-and-a-half years.

“From our perspective as Zambia, our interest is in line with the expectations of the African group which is seeking to protect our smallholders who are the majority producers from the negative impacts of climate change,” said Morton Mwanza, Zambia’s Ministry of Agriculture focal point person on Climate Smart Agriculture.

And according to the outcome at the Bonn talks, the roadmap responds to the world’s farming community of more than 1 billion people and to the 800 million people who live in food-insecure circumstances, mainly in developing countries. It addresses a range of issues including the socio-economic and food-security dimensions of climate change, assessments of adaptation in agriculture, co-benefits and resilience, and livestock management.

Nevertheless, key to this roadmap is undoubtedly means of implementation—finance and technology. Developed countries pledged, since 2009, to deliver to developing countries 100 billion dollars per year by 2020 for climate action.

However, the withdrawal of 2 billion dollars’ worth of support by the Trump administration because of its decision to leave the Paris Agreement, leaves the climate finance debate unsettled, and a major sticking point in the talks.

Big polluters influence

And some campaigners now accuse some fossil fuel lobbyists allegedly sitting on the negotiating table to be behind delayed climate action.

According to a study, titled “Revolving doors and the fossil fuel industry,” carried out in 13 European countries, failure to deal with conflict of interest by the EU is due to cosy relationships built up with the fossil fuel sector over the years. It calls for the adoption of a strong conflict of interest policy that would avoid the disproportionate influence of the fossil fuel industry on the international climate change negotiations.

“There is a revolving door between politics and the fossil fuel lobby all across Europe,” said Max Andersson, Member of the European Parliament, at the Bonn Climate Talks. “It’s not just a handful of cases—it is systematic. The fossil fuel industry has an enormous economic interest in delaying climate action and the revolving door between politics and the fossil fuel lobby is a serious cause for alarm.”

According to Andersson, to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and keep global warming to as close as 1.5 degrees as possible, there is need to clamp down on conflicts of interest to stop coal, gas and oil from leaving “their dirty fingerprints over our climate policy.”

Interestingly, there was good news for the ‘big polluters out’ campaigners at the close of the talks. “No amount of obstruction from the US and its big polluter allies will ultimately prevent this movement from advancing,” Jesse Bragg of Corporate Accountability told IPS. “Global South leaders prevailed in securing a clear path forward for the conflict of interest movement, ensuring the issue will be front and center next year.”

And so, it seems, climate finance holds all the cards. Until it is sorted, the implementation of the Paris Agreement in two years’ time hangs in the balance.

Laser show and fireworks at the Bangabandhu National Stadium in downtown Dhaka on March 22 as part of the celebration marking Bangladesh’s graduation to a developing country. Credit: A.Z.M. Anas/IPS

By A.Z.M. Anas
DHAKA, Mar 27 2018 (IPS)

Bangladesh’s great strides in human development were widely celebrated this month, although they come at the potential cost of Western trade benefits that have helped underpin the nation’s export success for decades.

On March 15, Bangladesh became eligible to graduate from Least Developed Country status after a United Nations policy panel said the South Asian nation met all three criteria for income, human development and vulnerability to shocks. This will likely pave the way for the country’s graduation to a developing nation by 2024, pending reviews.Almost 100 percent enrolment in primary schooling and improved nutrition are the areas where Bangladesh has fared better than its most of its South Asian peers, including India and Pakistan. 

Next course is ‘not easy’   

After graduation, the loss will be most pronounced in the European Union market, where around 98 percent of Bangladesh’s exports enjoy duty-free entry. In the event of preference erosion, this means an additional 8.7 percent tariff in the EU market alone.

Overall, additional tariffs will be 6.7 percent, which will lead to export losses of 2.7 billion dollars, equal to around 8 percent of the country’s annual exports, according to an estimate by the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a Dhaka-based think-tank.

AMA Muhith, Bangladesh’s finance minister, is well aware of the challenging path ahead.

“Once you’re graduated, the next course is not easy,” acknowledged the 85-year-old finance minister in an interview with IPS.

Bangladesh stands to lose the duty-free privileges it enjoyed as a poor country, though the status change will not take effect for six years, he said.

Still, he felt proud and satisfied with Bangladesh’s promotion from a “world beggar to a self-assured country.”

Muhith, who was responsible for mobilising aid for the young nation in the 1970s as a civil servant, said that the graduation is a proper response to those who once mocked Bangladesh as an international “basket case.”

Tackling challenges

Commerce ministry officials said signing preferential trade agreements with destination countries and negotiating with the EU for GSP plus facility are among the steps the government has been working to counteract the trade shocks.

To prepare for the change, Bangladesh has been borrowing from bilateral partners like Japan and multilaterals such as the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank at higher interest rates.

To implement 10 megaprojects like a seaport in southeastern Matarbari, the government is looking at a combination of concessional and non-concessional loans, Muhith said.

Indeed, foreign aid is an area where Bangladesh has started feeling the heat.

But tackling the challenge is not going to be an easy ride.

The country’s taxation to GDP (gross domestic product) ratio is among the lowest in the world, which is unlikely to improve the situation unless the new VAT legislation is enforced next year.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith handed a replica of the UN’s recognition letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed at a reception accorded to her in the capital. Credit: PID (Press Information Department) Photo

A story of progress

That said, Bangladesh’s socio-economic progress, human development and its economic resilience contributed to improvements in all three indices of the Committee for Development Policy.

Merchandise shipments coupled with money sent home by an estimated 10 million overseas Bangladeshis has left the economy in fine fettle, with economic growth averaging 6.26 percent over the past decade.

And gross income per head reached 1,274 dollars, up from the 1,230-dollar threshold for graduation. By 2015, the country became a lower middle-income country.

And prudent macro-economic management has kept the rate of inflation low—pegged at between 5-6 per cent—even if the rate was once as high as 45 per cent.

Food production has nearly tripled to roughly 40 million tonnes since 1972, a year after the country’s independence.

The country has also achieved self-sufficiency in fish and meat production and Muhith said Bangladesh could emerge as a meat exporting nation in two years.

Burgeoning middle class

The middle class, which makes up one-fifth of the country’s population of 160 million, is mostly driving consumption that accounts for 70 percent of the economy.

The beneficiaries of the middle class boom are local and multinational businesses alike.

One winner is American fast food chain Burger King, which broke into the Bangladesh market in late 2016 and now has seven outlets.

“We hope graduation will be expedited. Then we’ll have more business as people’s income will go up,” said Tarique Ekramul Haque, managing director at BanglaCAT, which operates Burger King’s outlets in Bangladesh as a franchisee.

Sustained growth has helped 50 million people leave poverty. The rate of poverty fell from more than 44 percent in the 1990s to 24 percent now, according to the World Bank.

Almost 100 percent enrolment in primary schooling and improved nutrition are the areas where Bangladesh has fared better than its most of its South Asian peers, including India and Pakistan.

Bangladesh managed to exceed the threshold on human assets index in 2016, propelled by efforts from the government and non-government groups The index includes child and maternal deaths, undernourishment, adult schooling and adult literacy.

The country performed well in reducing its economic vulnerability as well, helped in part by greater export stability and diversification.

Opportunities beckon

Graduation is not all about challenges; it is a matter of opportunities too.

The finance minister is hopeful about getting a “substantial” flow of foreign investment in the post-graduation period.

“It means a lot,” Ahsan H. Mansur, executive director at the Policy Research Institute, a Dhaka-based think-tank, told IPS. “It’s a recognition.”

This graduation will not only widen the market access but ensure access to international financial resources, said Mansur, stressing the optimal use of money in a country where corruption remains endemic.

He hoped that the growth momentum the country achieved will be sustained.

Next agenda

To harness the full potential of graduation, he said the medium-term agenda of the government should be to cut the cost of doing business.

Mansur, a former senior executive of the International Monetary Fund, gave the examples of expensive ports and transportation services, saying costs should be brought down to improve the country’s global business ranking.

He laid emphasis on much broader and faster reforms, saying that infrastructure has to be developed with “right costs” and legal and land reforms need to be accelerated.

In the long-term, he argued that workers’ productivity has to be augmented through massive training and changing the education system.

To Muhith’s mind, the graduation took place thanks in part to the pragmatic policy of reconstruction and development in the post-independence period and able leadership such as prime minister, Sheikh Hasina whom he called one of “the established leaders in the world.”

Indeed, it was a moment of joy for Bangladesh. Between March 20 and 25, the country celebrated the graduation with colourful rallies, service week for citizens by the government agencies, cultural programmes, laser shows and fireworks.

On March 22, Muhith handed out a replica of the UN’s recognition letter to the prime minister at a reception accorded to her in the capital.

Coinciding with the celebration, an international seminar on ‘Bangladesh Graduation from LDC Status: Opportunities and Way Forward’ with top UN officials was organised in Dhaka on March 23.

An aerial view of the Village of Kolhuvaariyaafushi, Mulaaku Atoll, the Maldives, after the Indian Ocean Tsunami. UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Ahmed Sareer
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 25 2016 (IPS)

Last month, over two thousand high-level participants from across the world met in Antalya, Turkey for the Midterm Review of the Istanbul Programme of Action, an action plan used to guide sustainable economic development efforts for Least Developed Countries for the 2011 to 2020 period. The main goal was to understand the lessons learnt by the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs) over the past five years and apply the knowledge moving forward.

For my country, the Maldives, the past five years have been a chance to experience first-hand the realities of life after graduation from LDC status. In January 2011, the Maldives was officially removed from the list of LDCs, the culmination of decades of hard work and determined efforts of developing the country. The Fourth UN Conference on LDCs, held in May 2011, was the last for the Maldives as an LDC, but last month in Antalya, we went back because we believed it was important to share the lessons we had learnt since 2011.

While our graduation was naturally a moment of pride and cause for celebration for a country only 50 years old, it was accompanied by a sense of uncertainty about the challenges we would face following the withdrawal of the protections and special preferences afforded to LDCs.

Ultimately, we were able to forge ahead in spite of these difficulties and adapted to the new realities. We ensured that our economy, driven by a world-class tourism sector, and a robust fisheries industry, would continue to be competitive and dynamic. We focused on fostering a business-friendly climate, while making prudent investments for future growth.

However, we remain conscious of the degree to which the gains we have made are vulnerable to exogenous shocks. On 20 December 2004, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) decided to graduate the Maldives effective 1 January 2008. But just four days before the UNGA decision, a catastrophic tsunami swept across the Indian Ocean, claiming the lives of over 275,000 people in fourteen countries.

Several islands were rendered uninhabitable; nearly one in ten people were left homeless.

Farms were destroyed, the fresh water lens corrupted, with large-scale loss to infrastructure. The economic cost of the destruction was equivalent to close to 70 percent of GDP, a blow from which it took us over a decade to recover.

The Maldives is not alone in facing such vulnerabilities. For many countries, particularly Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as our own, an end to LDC status does not necessarily herald the disappearance of structural barriers to growth—such as limited access to markets, geographical isolation, environmental pressures, or difficulty achieving economies of scale.

By 1997, the Maldives had already exceeded two of the three thresholds that determine LDC status—GNI per capita, and the Human Capital Index, measured in terms of undernourishment, child mortality rates, secondary school enrolment rates, and adult literacy.

But we did not exceed the threshold for the third criterion, the Economic Vulnerability Index (EVI), which measures the structural vulnerability of countries to exogenous economic and environmental shocks – we did not meet this threshold to date. It is not necessary to meet all three thresholds to in order to graduate—meaning we were considered ready for graduation.

As the tragedy of 2004 taught us, persistent vulnerabilities have the potential to undermine, if not reverse, gains made towards development. Despite meeting the formal requirements, we were not yet ready. The lessons of our own experiences have meant that the Maldives has been consistent in calling for a smoother and more holistic approach to the graduation process.

Firstly, the criteria for graduation must account for the structural vulnerabilities of developing countries. The fact that economic vulnerability can be disregarded in determining whether a country is ready to graduate from LDC status represents a critical oversight.

Second, the Economic Vulnerability Index itself must also be redesigned to better account for vulnerability. At present, the index fails to account for key considerations such as geographic and environmental vulnerability, import dependency, and demographic pressures.

With greater attention being paid to the effects of climate change on developing countries, most notably in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), evaluating vulnerabilities more comprehensively is a task that has acquired even greater importance.

Lastly, the extension of support and assistance to countries must be determined on the basis of their individual capabilities and challenges, rather than their mere place on a list. We would be remiss to overlook the role that development assistance, including that provided by the UN, has played in helping the Maldives progress—as it has for many others—particularly in regards to our work in disaster preparedness and climate change mitigation.

The withdrawal of such assistance—including preferential trade access and concessionary financing—following our graduation from the ranks of the LDCs has meant increased fiscal challenges. This disregards the unique challenges faced by countries like the Maldives due to their specific structural constraints—constraints ignored under the present graduation regime.

While efforts have been made to smooth the graduation process for LDCs—in 2004, and most recently in 2012—the process remains deeply flawed and in need of comprehensive reform. To this end, the Maldives has called for the World Trade Organization (WTO) to extend the application of TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) for all LDCs, in addition to the exploration of a “small and vulnerable economy” category at the United Nations, which would recognize the particular needs of such countries.

Similarly, we must move towards devising measures of development that do more than just record national income, and instead provide a more meaningful assessment of national capability and capacity, for which GDP can often be a poor proxy.

No country wishes to be called “least developed”, much less remain in that classification indefinitely, but the factors driving underdevelopment must be meaningfully dealt with if we wish to attain genuinely sustainable development. It is for this reason that we believe that the desire by countries to eradicate poverty and achieve economic development must be met with commitment on part of the United Nations and other organizations to chart a realistic and holistic path towards that end.

Excerpt:

In its national contribution, Costa Rica said the sector most vulnerable to climate change is road infrastructure. This highway, which connects San José with the Caribbean coast, and which crosses the central mountain chain, is closed several times a year due to landslides. Credit: Diego Arguedas Ortiz/IPS

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
SAN JOSE, Oct 30 2015 (IPS)

For decades, the countries of Central America have borne the heavy impact of extreme climate phenomena like hurricanes and severe drought. Now, six of them are demanding that the entire planet recognise their climate vulnerability.

An initiative that has emerged from civil society in Central America wants the new binding universal climate treaty to acknowledge that the region is especially vulnerable to climate change – a distinction currently given to small island developing states (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs).

In the climate Oct. 19-23 talks in Bonn, Germany, the proposal found its way into the draft of the future Paris agreement. If it is approved, Central America could be given priority when it comes to the distribution of climate financing for adaptation measures – which would be crucial for the region.

“Civil society – and I would dare to say the governments – have been demanding this because it could give the region access to windows of financing, technology and capacity strengthening,” said Tania Guillén, climate change officer at Nicaragua’s Humboldt Centre.“Civil society – and I would dare to say the governments – have been demanding this because it could give the region access to windows of financing, technology and capacity strengthening.” -- Tania Guillén

These contributions, the expert told IPS, “should go towards the benefit of vulnerable communities” in this region. But for now, only SIDS and LDCs have a priority.

Semantic disputes have taken on great importance, a month before the start of the Nov. 30-Dec. 11 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris, where the new climate treaty is to be approved.

That is because the language used will form part of the foundations on which the legal bases of the agreement will be set.

Central America’s 48 million people live on the isthmus that separates the Pacific Ocean from the Caribbean Sea, along whose length stretches a mountain chain and an arid dry corridor.

Nearly half of the region’s inhabitants – 23 million, or 48 percent – live below the poverty line, according to official statistics.

The issue of climate vulnerability – the set of conditions that make a society or ecosystem more likely to be affected by extreme climate events – has been on Central America’s agenda for years, since Hurricane Mitch’s devastating passage through the region in 1998 forced a rethinking of risk management.

As part of this process, the Vulnerable Central America, United for Life Forum was born in 2009 – a civil society collective that has pushed for the region to be declared particularly subject to the consequences of climate change.

Over the last year, climate impacts have caused human and material losses throughout Central America, from the catastrophic mudslide in Cambray on the outskirts of Guatemala City to the sea level rise threatening Panama’s Guna Yala archipelago in the Caribbean Sea.

The most widely extended of these impacts has been the drought associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a climate phenomenon which complicated agricultural conditions in Central America’s so-called dry corridor.

The corridor is an arid stretch of dry forest where subsistence farming is the norm and where rainfall was 40 to 60 percent below normal in the 2014-2015 dry season.

Central America accounts for just 0.6 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. This means it sees reducing its vulnerability to climate change as more urgent than mitigation measures.

If successful, the call for the region to be recognised as especially vulnerable would make it a priority for climate change adaptation financing and technology.

But it will not be easy to reach this goal in the negotiations, as it is hindered by other countries of the developing South and even by some in this region itself.

The tension first arose within the Central American Economic Integration System (SICA), which held three meetings during the October climate change talks in Bonn, but failed to reach a consensus on the initiative, due to internal opposition from Belize.

“It must be pointed out that (SICA members) Belize and the Dominican Republic are SIDS, which means that to avoid problems with that negotiating bloc they did not back the proposal,” Guillén said.

In his view, “the painful thing is what Belize is doing, because the Dominican Republic is in a different situation,” since it is not actually part of the Central American isthmus, but is a Caribbean island nation.

Although Belize is on the mainland, it joined the SIDS in the climate talks.

The head of the Guatemalan government’s delegation to the climate talks, Edwin Castellanos, confirmed to IPS that no consensus was reached within SICA.

For that reason, “the proposal was made by El Salvador, as current president of SICA, but it was not made in the name of SICA because member countries did not back the motion.” It was also signed by Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

Castellanos also noted that there are other countries seeking to be included on the list of the most vulnerable countries, an issue that was addressed within the powerful Group of 77 and China negotiating bloc, which represents the countries of the developing South.

“When Central America presented this initiative, Nepal followed it with a similar proposal for mountainous countries. The problem is that this starts off a list that could be interminable, and which already includes the LDCs, islands, and most recently, Africa,” the negotiator said.

He acknowledged that the initiative came from Central American civil society, and mentioned in particular the Mexico and Central America Civil Society Forum held Oct. 7-9 in Mexico City, ahead of COP21.

Alejandra Granados, a Costa Rican activist who took part in the civil society forum, told IPS that the proposal was set forth by Alejandra Sobenes of the Guatemalan Institute for Environmental Law and Sustainable Development (IDEADS), and that “each organisation sent it to the negotiators for their respective countries” prior to the meeting in Bonn.

The Central American countries that have already submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the UNFCCC agreed on including adaptation components to which governments have committed themselves.

El Salvador and Nicaragua have not yet presented their INDCs, the commitments that each nation assumes to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming.

Granados said that, if Central America is recognised as especially vulnerable, the countries of the region will have to work hard together with local communities to improve their adaptation plans prior to 2020, when the new treaty will go into effect.

“This recognition is not an end in itself; it is a major responsibility that the region is assuming, because it is as if at an international level all eyes turned towards the region and said: ‘Ok, what are you waiting for, to do something? You wanted this recognition, now assume your responsibility to take action’,” said the Costa Rican activist, who heads the organisation CO2.cr.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

By Nora Happel
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 21 2015 (IPS)

Next month, the South-South Awards will be taking place for the fifth time, honouring the achievements and contributions of heads of state and government, as well as representatives from the private sector and civil society in promoting sustainable development in the Global South.

Alexandru Cujba. Credit: South-South Steering Committee for Sustainable Development (SS-SCSD)

2015 is a special year in many respects, with the U.N. celebrating its 70th anniversary and U.N. member states concluding their work on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and preparing for the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The South-South Awards, on Sep. 26, are going to be held in support of these major events that will shape the new development agenda for the next 15 years.

The South-South Awards are perhaps the most prominent example of the many development programmes designed and implemented by the International Organization for South-South Cooperation (IOSSC) to support U.N. development efforts, exchange knowledge and best practices in the area of South-South Cooperation and Triangular Cooperation and build partnerships between governments from developing countries and private sector companies.

Launched in 2010 during the 16th session of the United Nations High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation against the backdrop of chronic under-coverage of the Global South, IOSSC has started with the news programme “South-South News” and since moved into project development to expand its practice areas into the fields of business development and social development.

Last year, the organisation launched the South-South Steering Committee for Sustainable Development (SS-SCSD), an umbrella structure supporting its different activities and also, in particular, the South-South Awards.

In an interview with IPS, SS-SCSD Secretary-General and IOSSC Director-General H.E. Alexander Cujba, former Permanent Representative of Moldova to the United Nations and former Vice-President of the U.N. General Assembly, shared some insights on the 2015 South-South Awards."We tried to highlight both major achievements and also some particular, not necessarily big achievements... but that are considerable for those small and least developed countries that are struggling with their development."

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: This year, the MDGs will be replaced by the SDGs. This process has been reflected in the theme for the 2015 South-South Awards, which is “From MDGs to SDGs: Supporting poverty reduction, education, and humanitarian efforts.”

Will the 2015 South-South Awards be different from previous ones due to the important events happening this year such as the adoption of the SDGs, first of all, but also for instance the 70th anniversary of the U.N.?

A: This is the fifth year that we organise the South-South Awards and I would say that this year will be both a continuation of our previous ceremonies as well as a different event because, as you rightly mention, we conclude the MDGs and we are moving to a new agenda, the post-2015 development agenda.

So while previously we were recognising achievements of the member states in specific areas that were linked to specific MDGs, this year we want to emphasise the achievements of member states in implementing all eight MDGs.

Of course, results differ and not only results of the different countries and regions, but also results in different MDGs. I think that undoubtedly, MDG no. 1, combating poverty and hunger, was a major MDG. So therefore, this year, we partner with the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and our traditional supporter, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in order to emphasise the achievements of U.N. member states and developing countries specifically with regard to MDG no. 1.

Apart from that, we also use this opportunity – because it is the 70th anniversary of the U.N. – to highlight the role that the U.N. had over the last 70 years not only in the area of preserving peace and security but also in promoting development. At a time when many scholars, politicians, experts discuss the creation and the need for the United Nations in 1945, we see that now the U.N. has to bring a new impulse to the development of member states, not only preserving security and peace, but also supporting the sustainable development of its member states.

Q: What are the main objectives of the South-South Awards? Can you tell me about some of the results of previous South-South Awards?

A: Working with different missions here at the U.N., we learn that small countries, particularly least developed countries, have their own positive results and achievements that frequently are not known except by the diplomatic world, except by the U.N.

Therefore, in previous years, we wanted to highlight specifically these small but extremely important results for those developing countries. That’s why every year we were working with our co-organisers in order to identify the best practices and achievements of those developing states in different specific areas.

This year, however, we want to emphasise the overall implementation of the MDGs. It is a good opportunity for us to highlight the congregation of efforts in order to achieve those noble goals that were adopted in 2000.

Q: How are the winners of the South-South Awards selected and which criteria have been most relevant this year in choosing the winners?

A: We have learned from other awards that were presented by different U.N. agencies. They have some specific criteria that are linked to the work, mission and goals of the U.N. agencies and structures that co-organise the respective events.

In our case we want to emphasise the results of the implementation of the MDGs but also the positive examples of South-South and Triangular Cooperation. As countries from different continents differ by size, resources and achievements, it is hard to compare the results achieved by these different countries.

On the other hand, we put emphasis on both the difference and unity of these countries. As I said, sometimes we don’t know what was achieved in for example Lesotho or Costa Rica or Tajikistan, Sri Lanka and many other countries around the world. So therefore we use the database and the statistics of major U.N. organisations.

This year we used in particular the MDG report that was prepared by the U.N. Secretariat and especially the Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). We used the Food Insecurity Report of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and other related agencies and of course we referred to the report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organisation.

We tried to highlight both major achievements and also some particular, not necessarily big achievements by number of population raised from hunger or by number of children going to school, but that are considerable for those small and least developed countries that are struggling with their development.

Q: Which guests do you expect this year?

A: The South-South Awards ceremony is traditionally organised prior to the General Debate of the U.N. General Assembly. We invite heads of delegations that attend the General Debate and also the heads of the diplomatic missions, permanent missions to the U.N. and consulates in New York.

Amongst our participants are also high-level officials from the U.N. and from inter-governmental organisations that are part of the U.N. system. We also have CEOs of major corporations that are collaborating and working in the developing world. We have celebrities and civil society leaders. Our mission is to bring together all stakeholders that are part of development.

Right now, we have received confirmation from numerous heads of state and government that are coming to New York to attend the Summit on the Adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda and the General Debate. This year, we will therefore have a very diverse high-level participation with a total of around 800 guests expected.

Q: What are your hopes and expectations for the 2015 South-South Awards?

A: We hope that we will be able to emphasise the achievements, big and small, but important for the developing countries in implementing the MDGs and moving towards a new post-2015 development agenda. We want these lessons to be shared as widely as possible and be transferred to other countries.

We have all these good examples. We now have to learn from those positive experiences of developing and least developed states. I sincerely hope that our participants will have a good experience, enjoy the awards and that we will be able to continue our cooperation and our mission which is to bring together different stakeholders with the goal of supporting developing states and development initiatives.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (left) addresses a press conference before departing from Addis Ababa, after attending the Third International Conference on Financing for Development. At his side is Wu Hongbo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS/ADDIS ABABA, Jul 15 2015 (IPS)

Despite high expectations, the third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) ended on a predictable note: the United Nations proclaimed it a roaring success while most civil society organisations (CSOs) expressed scepticism over the final outcome.

Hours after the conclusion of the conference in the Ethiopian capital, the United Nations trumpeted the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) as a “ground-breaking agreement that provides a foundation for implementing the global sustainable development agenda that world leaders are expected to adopt this September.”“The outcome will not deliver the reforms we need in areas like tax, that most in civil society had hoped for and, that are needed to increase the resources available for development." -- Dr. Danny Sriskandarajah

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sounded optimistic when he said the agreement was a critical step forward in building a sustainable future for all since it provides a global framework for financing sustainable development.

He added, “The results here in Addis Ababa give us the foundation of a revitalized global partnership for sustainable development that will leave no one behind.”

But Dr. Danny Sriskandarajah, Secretary-General of the Johannesburg-based CIVICUS, was blunt: “This week we saw a further sign that we are at the beginning of the end of the post-World War II (WWII) development world order.”

Rich countries seem unable or unwilling to increase official aid flows, which stand at a fraction of what they themselves promised years ago, he said.

“We are disappointed that the FfD process has not yielded new resources to fund the investments needed to end poverty or taken meaningful steps to address problems in the international financial system,” he said at the conclusion of the conference Wednesday.

He added: “The outcome will not deliver the reforms we need in areas like tax, that most in civil society had hoped for and, that are needed to increase the resources available for development.”

Asked about the failed proposal for the creation of a global tax body, ActionAid’s international tax power campaign manager, Martin Hojsik, told IPS: “The decision is an appalling failure and a great blow to the fight against poverty and injustice.”

He said it means that developing countries, which are losing billions of dollars a year to tax dodging, are not being given an equal say in fixing unjust global tax rules.

“This lost money could have gone to the provision of education, healthcare and other poverty-reducing public services. While the multinationals prosper, the poor and marginalised will suffer,” he said. “The fight for a fair global tax system should not and cannot falter.”

In a statement released here, Oxfam International said unresolved rigged tax rules and privatised development are the major drawbacks of the FfD outcome.

However, after such tense negotiations there can be no doubt that developing countries’ determination to call for true global tax reform and tax cooperation has been noted, and cannot go unheeded for long.

Oxfam International Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said: “Today, one in seven people live in poverty and Addis was a once in a decade chance to find the resources needed to end this scandal. But the Addis Action Agenda has allowed aid commitments to dry up, and has merely handed over development to the private sector without adequate safeguards.”

She said developing countries held firm in Addis on the need to set up an intergovernmental tax body that would give them an equal say in how the global rules on taxation are designed.

“Instead they are returning home with a weak compromise meaning rigged rules and tax avoidance will continue to rob the world’s poorest people.”

Byanyima said fair taxation is vital in the fight against poverty and inequality.

“Citizens must be able to depend on their own governments to deliver the services they need. But it is just not logical to ask developing countries to raise more of their own resources without also reforming the global tax system that prevents them doing this,” she added.

Eric LeCompte, executive director of the Jubilee USA Network, told IPS “while compromised language on a tax committee was reached, we have the first global agreement that notes the harm of illicit financial flows and calls to stop them by 2030.”

Right now the developing world is losing a trillion dollars a year to corruption and tax evasion, he said, pointing out, “those are resources we need to end poverty.”

In a joint statement released late Wednesday, Global Financial Integrity (GFI), the Africa Progress Panel (APP) and Jubilee USA applauded the global commitment to reduce the massive flow of illicit funds from developing country economies.

For the first time international consensus was reached on the importance of an issue that has been at the forefront of efforts by hundreds of research and development organisations for the last 10 years.

Specifically, the FfD3 Outcome Document requires member states to “redouble efforts to substantially reduce illicit financial flows (IFFs) by 2030, with a view to eventually eliminate them, including by combatting tax evasion and corruption through strengthened national regulation and increased international cooperation.”

Additionally, the final text calls on “appropriate international institutions and regional organizations to publish estimates of IFF volume and composition”

The statement said the ability to measure illicit flows was at the heart of significant disagreement during the FfD3 preparatory negotiations in New York earlier this year with the 132-member Group of 77 developing countries calling for country-level estimates of illicit flow volumes.

In its statement, the United Nations said the Addis Ababa Action Agenda contains more than 100 concrete measures.

It also addresses all sources of finance, and covers cooperation on a range of issues including technology, science, innovation, trade and capacity building.

The Action Agenda builds on the outcomes of two previous Financing for Development conferences, in Monterrey, Mexico, and in Doha, Qatar.

Wu Hongbo, the Secretary-General of the Conference, said, “This historic agreement marks a turning point in international cooperation that will result in the necessary investments for the new and transformative sustainable development agenda that will improve the lives of people everywhere.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Jomo Kwame Sundaram. Credit: FAO

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
ROME, Jul 14 2015 (IPS)

The growth in global interdependence poses greater challenges to policy makers on a wide range of issues and for countries at all levels of development.

Yet, the mechanisms and arrangements put in place over the past three decades have not been adequate to the challenges of coherence and coordination of global economic policy making. The recent financial crises have exposed some such gaps and weaknesses.The U.N. was among the very few warning Mexico in 1994 and the East Asian countries in 1997 that excessive liberalisation threatened crisis.

Reforming the international economic governance architecture, through the United Nations system, can address these problems.

Although sometimes seemingly slow, the U.N. has a clear advantage in driving discussion on reform because of its more inclusive and open governance.

Lop-sided influence in the current international financial system is a principal reason why many countries lack confidence in the existing arrangements. Rebuilding confidence in such arrangements will require that all parties feel they have a stake in the reform agenda.

But the U.N. is also suited to drive the discussion because of its long tradition of reliable work on international economic issues.

The United Nations secretariat has developed and maintained an integrated approach to trade, finance and sustainable development, with due attention to equity and social justice issues.

The ongoing ‘secular stagnation’ has again highlighted the interdependence of global economic relations, exposing a series of myths and half-truths about the global economy.

These include the idea that the developing world has become “decoupled” from the developed world; that unregulated financial markets and the new financial instruments have ushered in a new era of “great moderation” and “stability”; and that macroeconomic imbalances — due to decisions made in the household, corporate and financial sectors — are less dangerous than those involving the public sector.

The U.N. secretariat has long doubted such arguments, and warned that any unravelling of global macroeconomic imbalances would be unruly.

Also, persistent asymmetries and biases in global economic relations have particularly hit developing countries, both emerging and least developed.

Not surprisingly, the U.N. Secretariat has also drawn attention to the close links between the financial crisis and the food and energy crises.

A more integrated approach to handling these threats is needed, particularly to alleviate the downside risks for the poorest and most vulnerable communities.

The U.N. Secretariat has a strong track record of identifying systemic threats from unregulated finance, warning against a misplaced faith in self-regulating markets and offering viable solutions to gaps and weaknesses in the international financial system.

Special drawing rights (SDRs), the 0.7 per cent aid target and debt relief, for example, were all conceived within the U.N. system during the 1960s and 1970s.

From the 1980s, the U.N. secretariat – both in New York and Geneva — have consistently warned against the excessive conditionalities attached to multilateral lending, promoted the idea of rules for sovereign debt restructuring, and cautioned that the international financial institutions were moving away from their traditional mandates of guaranteeing financial stability and providing long-term development finance.

During the 1990s, U.N. agencies warned against the dangers to economic stability, particularly in developing countries, from volatile private capital flows and the speculative behaviour associated with unregulated financial markets.

The U.N. was among the very few warning Mexico in 1994 and the East Asian countries in 1997 that excessive liberalisation threatened crisis.

The U.N. system was also almost alone among international institutions to identify growing inequality as a threat to economic, political and social stability, and insisted early on measures for a fairer globalisation.

Many of these concerns culminated in the 2002 Financing for Development Conference in Monterrey, Mexico.

More recently, the U.N. has insisted on the importance of policy space for effective development strategies and particularly on the need for macroeconomic policies to support long-term growth, technological upgrading and diversification.

Some countries have sometimes resisted such work by the U.N. secretariat.

However, the combination of a strong track record and a core secretariat steeped in its tradition of an integrated approach to policy-oriented research places the U.N. secretariat in the best position to advance current discussions to reform the international financial architecture.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Gyan Chandra Acharya, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS). Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Gyan Chandra Acharya
UNITED NATIONS/ADDIS ABABA, Jul 10 2015 (IPS)

Three years ago the United Nations initiated a conversation on a successor to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and how the global community can lay foundations for an ambitious endeavour to eradicate extreme poverty, protect the planet, reduce vulnerability to shocks and ultimately raise the dignity of all humanity.

This conversation is set to result in the adoption of wide ranging targets by heads of state and government when they meet next September at the U.N. General Assembly.We can only measure our success based on how we support the most vulnerable members of the global community by translating all-encompassing aspirations into concrete and life changing realities on the ground.

This is indeed a noble endeavour, as the new agenda will not only continue with the unfinished business of MDGs, but sets the tone for an integrated and comprehensive approach, whose time has come.

Despite the aspirations of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, it must be recognised that the goals and targets will be fully and effectively realised only if we make them inclusive of all.

We can only measure our success based on how we support the most vulnerable members of the global community by translating all-encompassing aspirations into concrete and life changing realities on the ground.

Adopting the right vision is key, but implementation is what makes all the difference. In Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, the capacity and resources to deal effectively with the intertwined challenges of poverty eradication, inclusive and rapid economic growth and environmental sustainability and structural vulnerability are limited.

They need to show a strong and coherent leadership, and it is equally important that the global community steps up to the plate.

The Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) to be held in a few days in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, represents a real opportunity to address these challenges.

Holding the FfD Conference before reaching agreement on a development agenda for the next 15 years raises the stakes higher. An ambitious and forward looking FfD outcome will set the tone for the adoption of a holistic, transformative and integrated global development framework, with sustainable development at its centre.

Furthermore, owing to this chronology but also because of the centrality of the means of implementation, commitments contained in the outcome document of the FfD Conference will largely determine the degree to which the world, in particular, the most vulnerable countries, will fulfil the aspirations to end extreme poverty, achieve sustainable economic and social development, protect the planet and build resilience to shocks. The fundamental principle of equity demands that their issues remain at the core of our discourse.

A business-as-usual approach will clearly not be enough. Undertaking the investments needed to steer the most vulnerable countries towards sustainable development will require that traditional sources of finance be scaled up and targeted more clearly.

And access to new forms of development finance should be expanded to provide them with a wider pool of resources. LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS must therefore be extended an additional, preferential, concessional and most favourable support in areas such as market access, finance, technologies, know-how and other resources.

Efficient and effective use of these resources will be equally critical. Currently most of the aid distributed in the world does not go to the poorest countries. As the global community meets in Addis, least developed countries are calling for commitments that would channel the equivalent of at least 50 percent of net overseas development assistance to LDCs by 2030.

The world has not only a moral responsibility to ensure that the most vulnerable are sufficiently supported, but also to track where aid spending is going in a transparent and accountable manner.

LDCS will commit themselves to exhibit stronger national leadership and ownership for inclusive and transformative sustainable development. Their institutions and strategies need to be supported for effective delivery of services.

An increase in resources going into productive sectors and infrastructure will be a game changer for them in the medium term. It also creates a stronger base for domestic resource mobilisation. LDCs are asking that commitments already made by development partners are delivered, along with effective market access for their goods and services and an enhanced share of aid for trade.

Integrating sustainability in their development strategies will help build better resilience. Setting up crisis mitigation and a resilience-building fund for LDCs are key to putting vulnerable countries on a positive course for sustainable development through the next fifteen years. This is urgent as climate change, environmental degradation and external shocks are affecting them disproportionately.

Mutual accountability should clearly inform the next development agenda.

These actions will also ensure universal recognition and a stronger voice and participation for LDCs in global decision-making and norm-setting processes.

They will also restore hope to almost 1 billion people living in the Least Developed Countries and send a message that emancipation from a life of deprivation and moving towards a resilient and dignified future is a true possibility.

It will bring economic and social progress to the far corners of the world that have not yet reaped the equitable benefits of globalisation in a truly transformative manner. These countries have the potential to make powerful contributions to a stable and peaceful global order based on shared prosperity.

Of course, these actions have some costs. But these costs should be considered as investments for a better and stable future, and are largely within the existing means of humanity. Global resolve and clear pathways are required. To everything, there is a season, and a time to every purpose.

This is a time for actions, and we have a purpose worthy of our collective commitment. We have a lot at stake. We must not miss this opportunity staring at us in Addis.

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:

Port Vila's informal settlements, characterised by vulnerable housing, were destroyed by Cyclone Pam, which hit Vanuatu on Mar. 13, 2015. Credit: International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Apr 13 2015 (IPS)

Severe Tropical Cyclone Pam, which swept through the South Pacific Island state of Vanuatu in mid-March, has deepened hardships faced by people living in the informal settlements of the capital, Port Vila. Winds of up to 340 kph and torrential rain shattered precarious homes, cut off fragile public services and flooded communities with unsealed roads, poor drainage and sanitation.

“Eighty percent of my community has been affected by the cyclone,” Joel, a Port Vila resident, told IPS, describing that his house was damaged by gale force winds. “We have enough food, but the quality of the water has been very bad.”

“Most of the displaced in urban and peri-urban areas have been highly devastated and are vulnerable to future shocks. The scale of devastation to homes and infrastructure is huge." -- Peter Korisa, operations manager at Vanuatu’s National Disaster Management Office
Other city residents saw their homes completely destroyed. In the last week, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) found 50 people still sheltering in a shed-like structure in the informal settlements a month after the cyclone. They are in need of food, water and sanitation as they wait for assistance to rebuild their homes.

Vanuatu is an archipelago of more than 80 islands and an estimated 265,000 people located northeast of Australia. Sixty-three percent of the population, or close to 166,000 people, were affected by Cyclone Pam, which counted a death toll of 11 and is thought to be the worst natural disaster in the country’s history.

The main urban centre of Port Vila, situated on the southwest coast of Efate Island, is very exposed to severe weather and sea surges. An estimated 30-40 percent of its 44,000 residents live in informal settlements, such as Freswota and Seaside. Here, sub-standard housing, inadequate basic services and overcrowding all contribute to a poverty rate of 18 percent in Port Vila, in contrast to 10 percent in rural areas.

In the wake of Cyclone Pam, Peter Korisa, operations manager at Vanuatu’s National Disaster Management Office, said, “Most of the displaced in urban and peri-urban areas have been highly devastated and are vulnerable to future shocks. The scale of devastation to homes and infrastructure is huge. Bridges and roads have also been damaged and that will definitely be a high cost in the recovery effort.”

Frido Herinckx, head of the International Red Cross support team in Vanuatu, told IPS that he had witnessed serious damage in the urban settlements. “During the first week after the cyclone there were 43 evacuation centres in Port Vila supporting 4,000-5,000 people,” he said.

United Nations Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said this past Friday that only 36 percent of the U.N.’s ‘flash appeal’ for 30 million dollars has so far been pledged. He called attention to the fact that 111,000 people have no access to safe drinking water, and warned that the destruction of 90 percent of the country’s crops spelled danger for those who rely on agriculture for a livelihood.

While most people live in rural areas, urbanisation, driven by people seeking jobs and services, is happening at a rapid rate of four percent in Vanuatu, exceeding the state’s capacity to scale up urban planning. One quarter of the national population is now urban and that is predicted to increase to 53 percent by 2050.

Situated on the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’ and in a tropical climate zone south of the equator, with a cyclone season from November to April, the developing island state is vulnerable to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, cyclones and tsunamis.

It has been hit by at least 20 damaging cyclones in the past 25 years and only one year has passed since Cyclone Lusi impacted 20,000 people across northern and central provinces, destroying villages and crops, in 2014. According to the United Nations, Vanuatu has the most exposed population to natural disasters in the world, at 63.6 percent.

The vulnerability of the urban population is heightened by the makeshift state of 27 percent of houses in the capital. Constructing a strong, resilient house is too expensive and financial credit is unaffordable for many residents who live on low wages.

In the Freswota settlement area, home to 7,000-8,000 people, Chief Kalanga Sawia explained, “The government’s objective is to provide housing for the people, but they can only provide the land. The government doesn’t have the financial resources to build houses as well.”

Therefore, people have turned to building improvised dwellings as best they can with salvaged or cheaply bought materials, such as timber, corrugated iron, tin and fabric.

While power, water and communication services were all crippled by the disaster, Herinckx said, “[B]asic services are now back to the state they were before the cyclone, which is not optimal.”

Residents of the Freswota 2 sub-settlement, for instance, usually have access to a water supply, but only half have electricity. Across the country, only 28 percent of people have access to electricity and 64 percent to sanitation.

Recognising the threat disasters pose to lives, development efforts and the economy, the Vanuatu Government has worked to strengthen the nation’s disaster preparedness.

Nine years ago, it became the first Pacific Island country to integrate disaster risk management into national planning and, in 2013, a new state-of-the-art disaster warning centre capable of monitoring volcanic, seismic, and tsunami activity, operating 24/7, opened in Port Vila.

As Cyclone Pam approached, new technology was used to issue warnings and advice to people via text messages, reaching more than 80 percent of the population.

However, as one of the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Vanuatu has minimal capacity to cope with the relentless destructive toll of catastrophes year upon year. Korisa, of the National Disaster Management Office, claims that post-disaster recovery in Port Vila’s settlements will be very slow and hindered by land tenure issues, finance and resource constraints.

Currently the Red Cross is helping people in the settlements to build back better after the cyclone “by advising people on simple methods of building homes so they are more stress resistant,” Herinckx said.

But looking to the future, Korisa emphasised that more investment is needed in urban disaster risk reduction measures.

“For instance, the building code needs to be applied and enforced in all dwellings, including private, commercial and public buildings, and land use planning policy needs to be improved and implemented.”

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

A dhoni in the Maldives. Credit: Nevit Dilmen/cc by 3.0

By Ahmed Sareer
NEW YORK, Jan 10 2015 (IPS)

Since 1971, Maldives is one of only three countries that have graduated from the ranks of the world’s “least developed countries” (LDCs) – the other two being Botswana and Cape Verde.

The Maldives graduated on Jan. 1, 2011. The review of LDCs conducted in 1997 concluded that the Maldives was ready for immediate graduation.

Ambassador Sareer. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

The Maldives government argued that the U.N. criteria for graduation should include a “smooth transition period” in order to bring into place adequate adjustments necessary for full transition into middle-income country status.

The U.N. Resolution adopted on Dec. 20, 2004 endorsed and adopted these arguments. Under that resolution, the Maldives was set to graduate from the list of LDCs on Jan. 1, 2008.

Just six days after adoption of the resolution, the Indian Ocean tsunami struck the Maldives.

The Maldives economy, which had grown at an average of eight percent per annum for two consecutive years, was devastated by the tsunami: 62 percent of the GDP was destroyed; over seven percent of the population was internally displaced; social and economic infrastructure damaged or destroyed in over one quarter of the inhabited islands; 12 inhabited islands were turned into complete rubble.

Following the disaster, and on the request of the Maldives, the General Assembly decided to defer the graduation until 2011, with a smooth transition period until 2014.Donors often assess a country’s need by its developmental status at the U.N., which traps countries such as the Maldives in a vicious cycle being now termed as the “Middle Income Paradox”.

Graduation from LDC does not help a country to overcome the development challenges it faces. Graduation does not make a country less vulnerable to the consequences of its geography.

It is no secret that small island states being assessed for graduation, do not meet the threshold for economic vulnerability.

Small island states often achieve their high development status because of high and consistent investment in human resources, and the social sector as well as government administration.

This leaves limited financial resources for the country to prepare for natural disasters or to carry out mitigation and adaptation measures.

Countries often have to rely on multilateral and bilateral donors for assistance for environmental projects: donors that often assess a country’s need by its developmental status at the U.N., which traps countries such as the Maldives in a vicious cycle being now termed as the “Middle Income Paradox”.

However, all this is conveniently ignored or overlooked.

Graduation from LDC status need not be feared, nor does it need to be an obstacle in a country’s development path. We only fear what we don’t know.

The Maldives’ experience showed that due to the infancy of the graduation programme, the relatively low number of countries that have graduated, and the lack of coordinated commitment from bilateral partners, the graduation process has been far from smooth.

The General Assembly Resolution, which the Maldives helped to coordinate, adopted in December 2012 provided a smooth transition for countries graduated from the LDC list.

The resolution has put into place greater oversight ability for the U.N. and articulated the need for a strengthened consultative mechanism for the coordination of bilateral aid.

The Maldives has tried to make the path for subsequent graduates smoother. Yet, it is a fact that the graduation process still relies on flawed criteria.

While no country wants to be termed the “Least” on any group, it cannot be denied that inherent vulnerabilities and geo-physical realities of some of the countries that often extend beyond their national jurisdiction, need help that are specific and targeted, in order to improve the resilience of those countries.

It is for that reason that the Maldives lobbied extensively with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to extend the application of TRIPS for all LDCs.

Following graduation, the Maldives also applied to join the EU’s Generalised System of Preferences but new regulations prevented Maldives from the scheme. This posed a significant loss to our fishing industry, which is the export sector in the economy.

The Maldives has been continually exploring the viability of a “small and vulnerable economy” category at the U.N., similar to that which exists in the World Trade Organisation.

Such a category will acknowledge the particular needs of countries arising from the smallness of their economies and inherent geographical realities.

Small island states have continually argued that special consideration needs to be given to SIDS that are slated for graduation. Yet, these voices of concern have fallen largely on deaf years.

But the needs of our people, the development we desire cannot wait to be recognised.

That is why the Maldives decided to take our development path into our own hands. This can be done by consistently employing good policies.

Development is the result of a combination of bold decisions and an ability to seize the opportunities. SIDS have shown to the world that we are not short of smart ideas. Rather than relying on others, we have to develop our own economies our way!

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Fish being brought in and processed at a market in Cambodia’s northwestern Battambang province. As an LDC, Cambodia exports products duty-free to the EU. Credit: Michelle Tolson/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 7 2015 (IPS)

The world’s 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) – a special category of developing nations created by the General Assembly in 1971 but refused recognition by the World Bank – have long been described as “poorest of the poor” in need of special international assistance for their economic survival.

But only three – Botswana, Cape Verde and the Maldives – have so far “graduated” from being classified as an LDC to a developing nation, based primarily on their improved social and economic performance."This mechanical setting of a target for graduation is impractical and has the potential of undesirable tension for development cooperation at national and global levels." -- Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury

At a U.N.-sponsored ministerial meeting of Asian and Pacific nations in Nepal last month, four more LDCs, namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Laos, were singled out as countries on the “threshold of graduation” based on their recent economic and social indicators.

And as economies improve, some predict that at least six more countries – Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Samoa, Angola and Equatorial Guinea (two African nations dependent on oil incomes) – are likely to be forced out of the ranks of LDCs, possibly by 2020 or beyond.

But this outlook may be premature due to several factors, including the impact of the global economic recession, the long-term effects of the decline in oil prices, reduced purchasing power due to falling national currencies, and in the case of Africa, the spread of Ebola.

Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, the first U.N. Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for LDCs, Landlocked Developing Countries, and Small Island Developing States (2002-2007), told IPS the 2011 LDCs Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, set an objective of graduating 50 percent of LDCs out of the group by the year 2020.

“But this mechanical setting of a target for graduation is impractical and has the potential of undesirable tension for development cooperation at national and global levels,” he pointed out.

The foremost objective of graduation should be to bring LDCs out of poverty and their structural handicaps, he noted.

“But given the current distressing situation in most of the LDCs in both areas, it would be unwise for either the LDCs or their development partners to go towards realising this target,” Chowdhury added.

The people of these countries, particularly civil society, should be involved in the process to ensure that common people of LDCs do not become the greatest victims, he said.

“This is a reality in LDCs which we should not lose sight of,” he declared.

According to the United Nations, LDCs represent the poorest and weakest members of the international community, comprising more than 880 million people and accounting for less than 2.0 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Fighting poverty in the LDCs is a key component towards reaching the U.N.’s landmark 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

LDCs currently benefit from a range of special support measures from bilateral donors and multilateral organisations, and special treatment under regional and multilateral trade agreements.

The benefits that will be lost or reduced due to LDC graduation include trade preferences, official development assistance (ODA) including development financing and technical cooperation, and other forms of assistance, such as travel support for participation at U.N. conferences and other meetings of multilateral bodies.

As a result, special attention needs to be given to these special measures for graduating LDCs.

Arjun Karki, president of Rural Reconstruction of Nepal and international coordinator of LDC Watch, a network of LDC non-governmental organisations (NGOs), told IPS the aim of the 2011 Istanbul Programme of Action was to enable at least 24 LDCs (half of the existing 48) to graduate by 2020, so the current proposals for graduation have not reached this level.

The majority of LDCs (34 out of 48) are in Africa and to date only two African nations, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, are expected to graduate by 2020.

In both these cases, graduation is solely based on their income criterion (of Gross National Income per capita having exceeded at least twice the upper threshold of 1,190 dollars) while they fare low in the human assets and economic vulnerability criteria.

He said LDCs can only graduate when both LDC governments and development partners take action and it is vital they both have the political will to achieve this.

Gyan Chandra Acharya, the current Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for LDCs, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, told delegates at the ministerial meeting in Nepal “the path towards graduation should not be an end in itself but should be viewed as a launching pad towards meaningful and transformative changes in the economic structures and the life conditions of people in graduated and graduating LDCs.”

He said sustainable graduation agenda needs to be tied up with that of productive capacity development, structural transformation resilience building and sustainable improvement in human and social capital.

Some of the practices being considered include enhancing investment in the productive sector, upgrading technologies and increasing protection from external shocks, such as climate related events, economic crises and natural disasters, according to a statement released by his office.

Chowdhury told IPS basically, graduation is a positive effort which requires the sincere and wholehearted engagement of both LDCs and their development partners.

“However, fixing an arbitrary target and using a technical approach for graduation could undermine realization of a good objective,” he stressed.

He also warned the ongoing economic crisis in the industrialised countries influenced the setting of the Istanbul target. “As the first High Representative of the new U.N. office established in 2002 to champion the cause of the worlds most vulnerable countries, I had worked diligently to make a space for the smooth transition in the graduation process,” Chowdhury explained.

That arrangement, he said, had made the LDCs less uncomfortable to engage in the process.

“I recall fully the agonising interactions for the graduation of Cape Verde and the Maldives during my tenure,” he said.

The consultative mechanism set up during the smooth transition needs to be closely monitored by the High Representative personally to ensure that the concerns of the graduating LDC have the true support of the U.N. system, he cautioned.

“This was part of my regular firsthand contacts with all of the Cape Verde graduation process,” he added.

Chowdhury also said overcoming of the constraints in two of the three determinants for LDC status to be eligible for graduation requires the full understanding by all sides of the real situation of LDCs.

“It is a pity that the biggest development assistance provider, the World Bank, has refused to accept LDCs in its work as a special category of countries as identified by the United Nations,” he said. “And my repeated visits to and efforts with the Bank headquarters did not get any response for the inclusion of LDCs.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

African countries fought hard for the Kyoto Protocol not to die on African soil at the 2011 Climate Change Conference in South Africa, but they say it is now languishing in limbo because developed countries are taking what they called “baby steps” towards ratification of the Doha Amendment that gave it a new lease of life.

The African Group and other least developed country negotiators at the ongoing (Dec. 1-12) U.N. Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru, say they are concerned about the slow progress towards giving a legal force to the international emission reduction treaty.

Nagmeldin El Hassa, Chair of the Africa Group in Lima – “In our view, the developed countries are reneging, abandoning and weakening the Kyoto Protocol”. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

“We would like to point out that slow ratification of Commitment Period Two of Kyoto by developed countries does not build confidence. In our view, the developed countries are reneging, abandoning and weakening the Kyoto Protocol,” Nagmeldin El Hassan, Chair of the African Group said at the opening of the conference.

He said failure by developed countries to ratify the Doha Amendment was forcing the least developed countries to assume legal commitments while relaxing the legal commitments of the historical greenhouse emitters. “If this is the game that some think we are ready to entertain, we must make it clear that we will not be party to this game,” El Hassan added.

In December 2012, the Doha Amendment to the Protocol was agreed, extending it into a new commitment period running from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2020. The European Union (EU), its 28 Member States and other developed countries have ratified the protocol.

The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, to which the Kyoto Protocol is linked, requires ratification by 144 countries before it can enter into force.“The responses of rich developed countries show no sense of urgency – they have presented less climate finance than last year, have not raised their pollution targets and have not even legally ratified the Kyoto Protocol as they promised two years ago” – Mithika Mwenda, Secretary-General of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA)

By the end of November 2014, only 20 countries had ratified the Doha Amendment establishing the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Guyana was the latest to ratify as it prepared to join the negotiations in Lima.

El Hassan told IPS that the ratification process needs to be accelerated and clear accounting rules adopted in Lima so that the amendment enters into force by the next Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015.

African environment groups and NGOs are also calling on governments to hasten progress on ratification of the much fought for second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol.

Mithika Mwenda, Secretary-General of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) to which more than 30 Africa-based NGOs belong, told IPS that it was demoralised by the “baby step” speed of the developed countries towards ratification.

“Africans have sent their governments to Lima with urgent and creative demands to face the climate crisis,” said Mwenda. “Yet the responses of rich developed countries show no sense of urgency – they have presented less climate finance than last year, have not raised their pollution targets and have not even legally ratified the Kyoto Protocol as they promised two years ago.”

According to Mwenda, the developed countries are determined to delay their participation in the Kyoto Protocol’s second commitment period.  “They are letting their national interests trump over the global common good and are opting out of multilateral rules.”

Earlier in the week, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said that both developed and developing country Parties to the Kyoto Protocol needed to save the protocol from languishing in limbo by ratifying it.

“I have said this before and let me say it again. For this international legal framework to enter into force, governments need to complete their ratification process as soon as possible. We need a positive political signal of the ambition of nations to step up crucial climate action,” said Figueres.

The African Group is pushing for ratification of the Doha Amendment because it extends a legal commitment to Annex 1 countries – members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) plus a group of countries whose economies are in transition – to contribute towards a global effort to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Ram Prasad Lamsal from Nepal, who chairs the LDC Group, told IPS that “ratification is essential for the Kyoto Protocol to continue to serving as a cornerstone of the multilaterally agreed rules-based system under the [Climate Change] Convention and a full reflection of its principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities.”

However, while the African countries are pushing their developed country counterparts to ratify the Doha Amendment, just four of them had ratified it by the end of November – South Africa, Sudan, Morocco and Kenya.

A delegate from European Union speaking on condition of anonymity wondered why the African countries – as well as the LDC Group, the G77 and China – were not ratifying the second commitment period as they mount pressure on developed countries.

Paul Isabirye, Uganda’s UNFCCC Focal Point, told IPS that African countries would easily ratify once the developed countries had taken the lead.

“But even if all the African countries ratified, it still cannot enter into force before our colleagues do it. They have the bulk of the emissions to cut. The issue is not that Africa has lagged behind, the big emitters don’t seem to be coming forward,” said Isabirye.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

By Wu Hongbo
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 2014 (IPS)

Persistent gaps between the promises made, and actually delivered, by developed countries to developing countries, hold back efforts to improve people’s lives and end poverty.

The poorest countries need more access to aid, trade, debt relief, medicines and technologies, if we are going to make greater progress on reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In 2000, the world’s developed countries committed to help developing countries meet the MDGS by 2015 through what became known as the Global Partnership for Development. The targets for the partnership were combined into the eighth Goal (MDG 8).

The promises under goal 8 included providing developing countries with greater access to aid, trade, debt relief, medicines and technologies. This was meant to help the world’s poorest countries make progress on the first seven MDGs.

The idea was that if the targets of Goal 8 were achieved, then developing countries would have strengthened their earnings from trade and eased their sovereign debt difficulties so that—coupled with enhanced aid and appropriate access to essential medicines and new technologies—countries would be in a better position to improve the lives of their citizens.

Over 30 U.N. organisations co-led by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have been tracking the fulfillment of these promises in the annual MDG Gap Task Force Report.

Today, the global partnership for development is strong and last year recorded the largest level of official development assistance. But much unfinished business remains as we approach the deadline for the MDGs.

Assistance to the poorest countries remains far below what is needed and what was promised

After two consecutive years of falling volumes, official development assistance (ODA) hit a record high of 135 billion dollars in 2013. Seventeen of 28 donor countries increased their development assistance, and five have met the target of disbursing 0.7 percent of their national income to developing countries. Despite this progress, we are still far behind our target.

A 180-billion-dollar gap remains between the aid delivered and the amounts promised by developed countries. In addition, aid continues to be heavily concentrated with the top 20 recipients receiving more than half of all aid.

Despite a 12.3 percent increase in aid to the 49 least developed countries (LDCs) in 2013, bilateral aid to sub-Saharan Africa fell four percent between 2012 and 2013 to 26.2 billion dollars.

Close the trade gaps

Developed countries must do more to address the negative impacts of non-tariff measures on the ability of developing countries to participate in the global economy. While developed countries continue to lower tariffs and allow the proportion of duty free imports from developing countries to rise, new trade restrictions have been introduced.

We need a final push towards improving market access for developing countries, and continuing efforts to eliminate all agricultural export subsidies, trade-distorting domestic support and protectionist policies that inhibit access to the global economy.

Debt relief promises kept, but new risks arise

Debt relief programmes for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) are coming to a conclusion. Under the HIPC initiative, 35 of 39 eligible countries have reached the completion point as of March 2014 and as a result, debt service burdens have been reduced substantially.

It is encouraging that government spending on poverty reduction in these countries has increased considerably. Nonetheless, some of these countries are again at risk of debt distress and the group known as “small States” is particularly at risk because they often do not qualify for debt relief.

Greater access to essential medicines and technologies needed now

Global action and awareness has enhanced access to affordable essential medicines. However, the stock of medicines in many developing countries remains insufficient and unaffordable.

Developing countries also have more access to some new technologies, especially information and communication technologies. Yet, large gaps remain in access to many new technologies, such as broadband Internet because of the high cost.

The work ahead for the international community has been laid out. Now is the time for the world to seize this opportunity to stand by our promises and deliver on our commitments to eradicate poverty, raise people’s living standards and sustain the environment.

As the deadline for achieving the MDGs approaches and Member States of the United Nations prepare to launch a new sustainable development agenda, we must do our utmost to close the remaining gaps. With little more than one year remaining, now is the time to take action.

Let us all work together—governments, international institutions, all citizens of the globe—to commit to concrete accelerated actions in achieving all MDGs, as well as to a renewed global development cooperation, to underpin our development efforts, so that we can usher in a more sustainable future.

Excerpt:

By Roberto Azevêdo
GENEVA, Jul 29 2014 (IPS)

In the 1960s, there were high hopes for the development of the newly-independent sub-Saharan African countries but these hopes were quickly dashed following a series of shocks which began in the mid-70s, with the first oil price spikes, followed by a severe decline in growth and increase in poverty in the 80s and early 90s. However, by the mid-1990s, economic growth had resumed in certain African countries. Economic reform, better macroeconomic management, donor resources and a sharp rise in commodity prices were having a positive effect.

WTO Director General Roberto Azevêdo. Credit: WTO/CC BY SA-2.0

In the 2000s, many African countries witnessed high economic growth performance and during that period some of the world’s fastest growing economies were in sub-Saharan Africa. Angola, Nigeria, Chad, Mozambique and Rwanda all recorded annual growth of over 7 percent.

In 2012 Africa’s exports and imports totalled 630 billion dollars and 610 billion dollars respectively, ­ a fourfold increase since the turn of the millennium. And the long term prospects for growth are good. The Economist Intelligence Unit has forecast average growth for the regional economy of around 5 percent yearly from 2013-16.

Despite all this, the continent still plays a marginal role in the global market, accounting for barely 3 percent of world trade. One significant reason – although, of course there are others – is that African economies are still narrowly based on the production and export of unprocessed agricultural products, minerals and crude oil.“There is little doubt that the regional [African] market offers good scope for African firms to diversify their production and achieve greater value addition”

Now, due to relatively low productivity and technology, these economies have low competitiveness in global markets – apart from crude extractive products. The low productivity of traditional agriculture and the informal activities continue to absorb more than 80 percent of the labour force. And growth remains highly vulnerable to external shocks.

This story of half a century of struggle, set-backs and progress shows two things:

One, the road to meaningful and inclusive development still seems long.

Two, we are in a better position than ever to make real, sustainable progress.

Many countries are striving to do more in turning their strength in commodities into strengths in other areas,­ using commodities as a means of spurring growth across various sectors. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa’s 2013 Economic Report echoes this ­ calling for the continent’s commodities to be used to support industrialisation, jobs, growth and economic transformation.

In line with this, I think there are a number of essential steps to take:

– diversification of economic structure, namely of production and exports;

– enhancement of export competitiveness;

– technological upgrading;

– improvement of the productivity of all resources, including labour; and

– reduction of infrastructure gaps.

Only by delivering in these and other areas can policymakers ensure that growth enhances human well-being and contributes to inclusive development. But how can we take these steps?

Of course I should say that although African countries share some common features, no unique set of policies, including those on trade and industrial policy, could ever fit for all in a uniform way. Even among the least-developed countries (LDCs), some are already exporters of manufactured products, although often they rely on a single product  while others are more dependent on commodities. Nevertheless, I think it is clear that some preconditions of success are universal.

African regional integration is of course very high on the policy agenda. There is little doubt that the regional market offers good scope for African firms to diversify their production and achieve greater value addition. Already now, manufactures constitute as much as 40 percent of intra-African exports, compared with 13 percent of Africa’s exports to the rest of the world.

The Bali Package, which World Trade Organisation members agreed in December last year, will help to resolve some problems. Inclusive, sustainable development was at the heart of the whole Bali project ­ and our African members played a crucial role in making it a success. It brought some progress on agriculture. It delivered a package to support LDCs. It provided for a Monitoring Mechanism on special and differential treatment.

And, in addition, Bali delivered the Trade Facilitation Agreement and this is a direct answer to some of the problems of fragmentation. Costly and cumbersome border procedures, inadequate infrastructure and administrative burdens often raise trade-related transaction costs within Africa to unsustainable levels, creating a further barrier to intra-African trade.

This Agreement will help to address some of these bottlenecks. It will support regional integration, and therefore complement the African Union’s efforts to create a continental free trade area. And it will begin to remove some of the barriers which prevent full integration into global value chains. As such it will create an added impetus for industrialisation and inclusive sustainable development.

And it is worth noting here that the Trade Facilitation Agreement broke new ground for developing and least-developed countries in the way it will be implemented.

Another vital issue here is the importance of agricultural development in industrialisation, and the role of industrial collaboration through regional cooperation. The contribution of the agriculture sector is of utmost importance for the establishment of a sound industrial base. It can provide a surplus to invest in industrial capacity building, and supply agricultural raw materials as inputs to the production process, especially for today’s highly specialised food processing industry.

Moreover, it can also significantly contribute to industrialisation by providing an ample supply of food products. This is because food constitutes a large share of what wage earners in African countries spend their money on. Its availability at low prices contributes to increase the purchasing power of wages, and therefore raise the competitiveness of a country in international markets. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Excerpt:

Cambodia is one of the world’s 48 Least Developed Countries. Credit: Michelle Tolson/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 8 2014 (IPS)

The 48 least developed countries (LDCs), described as the poorest of the world’s poor, want to be an integral part of the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda currently under discussion.

An Open-ended Working Group (OWG), which will continue its 13th round of negotiations next week, is expected to come up with a set of new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which reach their deadline by the end of next year."The neo-liberal policies that have failed LDCs will continue to drive the agenda." -- Demba Dembele

Ambassador Gyan Acharya, U.N. Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for LDCs, Land-locked Developing Countries (LLDC) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), describes the post-2015 economic landscape as “a once-in-a generation opportunity for transformational change” for the world’s poorest nations.

However, negotiations remain tricky for LDCs in the 30-member OWG, according to diplomats involved in the negotiations.

Since LDCs constitute only six (Bhutan, Bangladesh, Benin, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania) among the 30, they find themselves totally outnumbered by the “big voices”.

Still, LDCs are apparently better prepared than in previous U.N. fora, primarily because of “back-stopping” support from the UN-Office of the High Representative (OHRLLS).

But some LDC non-governmental organisations (NGOs) question whether a post-2015 agenda will help LDCs at all.

Demba Dembele, coordinator of the Senegal-based Forum for African Alternatives, told IPS, “What is written on paper will not be what will be implemented.”

The agenda will be hijacked by the United States, the European Union (EU), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), he predicted.

“This means the neo-liberal policies that have failed LDCs will continue to drive the agenda, so as all special programmes for LDCs, since 1981, have failed,” he said. “Why should this one work?”

“I don’t share the ambassador’s optimism,” said Dembele, one of the main organisers of the 2011 World Social Forum held in Dakar, Senegal.

“What is needed is a paradigm shift away from market fundamentalism,” he declared.

Speaking at last month’s roundtable in London, which focused on LDCs and the post-2015 agenda, Ambassador Acharya painted a grim picture for LDCs.

He pointed out most of the LDCs have been buffeted by the effects of the world economic downturn and find themselves on the frontline of climate change.

Rising sea levels, coastal erosion, land degradation, desertification and shortened growing seasons have hit them hard, said Acharya, a former Permanent Representative of Nepal to the United Nations.

This is a particularly cruel blow since agriculture provides the livelihood for 70 percent of the population of LDCs.

For Ambassador Acharya, climate change is “the elephant in the room that no one is prepared to face”.

The London meeting was hosted by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a leading independent UK development think-tank.

Azeb Girmai, a civil society activist in Ethiopia, one of the LDCs in Africa, describes how climate change is affecting her country’s economy:  “We’ve had more droughts and more frequent floods, and increasingly erratic rainfall, and studies have shown that crop yields decreased by 13 percent between 1991 and 2008 because of climate change.”

She said “this is in a country where 85 percent of the population are farmers or rely on rain-fed agricultural production.”

Clare Melamed, director of the ODI’s Growth, Poverty and Inequality section, told the London meeting: “With discussions on the Open Working Group at a crucial stage, we want to make sure that a new set of goals resulting from the negotiations, works for the poorest countries.”

Dr. Arjun Karki, president of Rural Reconstruction Nepal, and international coordinator of LDC Watch, a network of LDC NGOs,
said “there should be no more excuses, or failed development paradigms based on predatory economic liberalisation in trade, finance and investment which have only led to multiple crises and a widening inequality gap.”

He said LDC Watch demands a “stand-alone goal” for LDCs so that the most vulnerable and marginalised countries are kept at centre stage.

Given the shortcomings of the MDGs, LDC governments and civil society want to ensure that SDGs have something to offer them.

There have been suggestions for specific targets within the SDGs, and a process to test how goals and targets would work for them.

This would also help direct resources towards LDCS, to level the playing field and make rapid progress possible.

“One crucial aspect of the negotiations on new goals is to agree a ‘means of implementation’, or a deal on what countries will do to help each other to achieve them,” said Melemed.

“This is particularly important for LDCs, who suffer some of the worst problems and have the least capacity to deal with them alone,” she added.

Two elements that LDCs want to see included in the SDGs are a stress on building capacity and strengthening global partnerships.

Given their young and dynamic population, the LDCs have a huge potential skills base, so they need support to take advantage of this asset and develop e-technology and set up science and technology agreements.

And to overcome the shortcomings of the MDGs, LDCs insist that the SDGs need to emphasise differential and preferential treatment, rather than seeking a set of overall goals for all to pursue.

Perhaps one of the strongest arguments for helping the LDCs work their way out of poverty is enlightened self-interest on the part of richer countries.

As Dr. Karki pointed out, “In LDCs, underdevelopment, hunger, economic weakness and insecurity create political instability, war and internal conflict, and the effects of this instability spill over into developed countries in the form of increased refugees and regional instability.”

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon puts it this way: (Supporting LDC development) “is not only a moral imperative, but also a means to promote a stable and peaceful global order.”

Many children in Nepal, part of the LDCs since 1971, continue to die from curable diseases. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By Samuel Oakford
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 25 2013 (IPS)

The world’s poorest countries are rethinking economic policies that – even during periods of breakneck growth – have failed to provide quality employment capable of matching a demographic boom.

The disparity between growth and jobs is no starker than in the 49 Least Developed Countries (LDCs), which, according to a recent U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report, will need to create 16 million positions every year if they are to keep up with new entrants into their rapidly expanding workforces.Commodity prices, which the IMF expects to steadily drop in coming years, have dictated hiring – and firing.

For decades, despite criticism from the U.N. and elsewhere, LDC governments were urged by multilateral lenders to cut public spending, curb inflation and end trade tariffs that protected domestic industries.

But today’s ubiquitous “jobless growth” has countries looking in the opposite direction.

“These countries have gone through radical policy reforms,” said Mussie Delelegn, officer-in-charge at UNCTAD’s New York Office. “In the 1980s many of them implemented structural adjustment programmes. The assumption that growth would automatically translate into employment and poverty reduction has not been seen.”

Though the percentage of people living in extreme poverty (less than 1.25 dollars per day) has declined in LDCs, their numbers have increased due to population growth.

While the economies of LDCs expanded yearly by over 7.5 percent in the decade before the 2008 financial crisis, employment growth per annum stood at just 2.9 percent between 2000-2012, barely ahead of the population growth rate of 2.3 percent.

Unemployment numbers, which have remained steady at roughly 5.5 percent, can’t be used in the ways they are in developed countries. The vast majority of employment is tenuous and offers little in the way of security – in 2010 over 80 percent of jobs in LDCs were considered “vulnerable.”

In 2011, the Istanbul Programme of Action concluded that to eradicate poverty and achieve inclusive growth, LDCs would have to grow by at least seven percent annually between 2011-2020. But the U.N. estimates most LDCs will miss that target by one to two percent in the next several years.

If high growth couldn’t buoy the job market during boom years, a period of slower increases will require specifically catered policies to spur employment.

Monetary policy “should be less fixated on attaining an inflation rate in the low single digits than on targeting full employment of productive resources,” wrote Dr. Muhkisa Kituyi, secretary-general of UNCTAD, in an introduction to the report.

“Given the relatively weak private sector in many LDCs, it is more likely and realistic that in the short to medium term, the investment push required to kick-start the growth process will originate in the public sector.”

To pay for increased outlays, governments should raise taxes on high-income companies and individuals, introduce value added taxes (VAT) on luxury consumption and “refrain from tariff cuts until alternative sources of revenue are put in place.”

Under these guidelines, the game of attracting investment would no longer be a race to the bottom.

The Big and Small

Employment in LDCs tends to be concentrated at two extremes: either in informal small and micro enterprises or in huge capital-intensive export industries.

At one end are businesses consisting of no more than a family or even one young person. At the other, commodity prices, which the International Monetary Fund expects to steadily drop in coming years, have dictated hiring – and firing.

Missing are the medium-sized enterprises that provide stable jobs in much of the developed world.

Experts agree that building that sector will rely in large part on domesticating value-added industries for primary exports – processing iron instead of simply shipping off ore, for example.

A 2011 law in India – a developing country but not an LDC – aimed to accomplish this by setting a 30-percent export tax on iron ore. By incentivising domestic refining, the price of steel in the country fell, benefiting other local industries.

In Chile, despite its reputation as a free-market paradise, the government has maintained a strong hand in copper production, ensuring jobs in processing and preserving sovereign ownership.

But in LDCs, value added in the manufacturing sector remained flat at 10 percent between 2001 and 2011.

“Countries were unaware of the value of their exports and value added,” Delelegn told IPS. “Information asymmetries indicate the playing field is not equal – the companies have the information.”

But as LDCs gain knowledge and confidence at the bargaining table they are pushing for better terms.

Botswana is one of only three countries to have graduated – in 1994 – from LDC status. Early on, it decided to pass laws that created floors for local employment and domestic enterprise in the diamond industry.

“Botswana increased the employment intensity of the diamond sector, which assisted them to capture more of the value gained locally – they were cutting, polishing, processing,” said Yao Graham, coordinator of the Third World Network, which helps facilitate Africa Mining Vision, a Pan-African mining framework that several countries have already adopted.

“For the past 20-30 years, African governments have… prioritised getting a share of the revenue of mining, through the exclusion of everything else,” Graham told IPS. “The World Bank famously summarised it in its Strategy for African Mining for 1992 when it said that African governments should not be interested in employment or control of the minerals.”

“I think the mining boom of the past decade underlined very clearly, actually, that this was a very flawed strategy.”

Disappointing local employment has given other African countries the green light to renegotiate revenue-sharing with companies and implement tax schemes that retain jobs and capital.

Ghana is looking to incorporate policies similar to Botswana’s into its domestic gold industry, which last year topped five billion dollars.

And in Namibia, the government has set up a national mining company, hoping to replicate Chile’s CODELCO and not the bloated state-run enterprises of post-independence Africa.

Varying models

The problem is more complicated in textile-exporting countries like Bangladesh, where policy recommendations centre on more nebulous “technical advancement.”

If Chile is a model for mineral exporters, garment producers look to Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, all of which began by manufacturing textiles before graduating to more complicated consumer goods and electronics.

But countries worry they may have already missed the boat and it remains to be seen if low wages in LDCs can make up for a lack of expertise.

Ensuring sustainable, value-additive employment would help LDCs become less reliant on foreign aid, which can fluctuate with the global economy.

Studies have shown Official Direct Assistant (ODA) is “five times more volatile than GDP and three times as volatile as exports” and tends to potentiate upturns and recessions.

“Any instability will disrupt aid flows and flows of remittances from migrant workers,” said Delegn.

Countries are beginning to understand that the one-size-fits-all recommendations of the past simply don’t hold water anymore.

“During the Asian financial crisis, the only country that mitigated the negative impact of the crisis was Malaysia, which had put in place policies and strategies that effectively controlled free flow of capital,” said Delegn.

The mea culpas are slow in coming.

In 2011, the IMF quietly admitted in a paper that capital controls had their place.

But for LDCs, a more powerful realisation may be that they don’t need an IMF admission at all.

Children in Luanda. Angola is expected to graduate from the ranks of the LDCs by 2015. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2013 (IPS)

The number of “least developed countries” (LDCs), which rose from the original 24 back in 1971 to the current 49, is beginning to shrink – haltingly.

So far, three countries – Botswana, Cape Verde and the Maldives – have “graduated” from LDCs to the status of developing countries."The key issue of a widening inequality gap and redistribution of resources remains a development challenge." -- Dr. Arjun Karki of LDC Watch

And as economies improve, at least six more countries – Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Angola, Samoa and Equatorial Guinea – are on the verge of leaving the ranks of LDCs by 2015.

But some of them have been reluctant to graduate – and sought postponements – since LDC status provides several benefits, including preferential tariffs on exports and increased development aid.

Still, the growing list of potential “graduates” comes in the midst of a new U.N. report that says inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) to LDCs grew by 20 percent last year, registering a record 26 billion dollars.

The strong gains were led by Cambodia, as well as five African countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, Mauritania, Mozambique and Uganda, all of them LDCs.

The recently-released World Investment Report 2013, authored by the Geneva-based U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), says growth was led by strong gains in Cambodia (where inflows were up 73 percent), DRC (96 percent), Liberia (167 percent), Mauritania (105 percent), Mozambique (96 percent), and Uganda (93 percent).

Still, 20 LDCs reported declines in FDI, and the trend was particularly pronounced in Angola, Burundi, Mali and the Solomon Islands.

Described as the poorest of the world’s poor, LDCs are mostly characterised by extreme poverty and economic structural weaknesses.

According to the United Nations, these have been often compounded by geophysical handicaps, limited capacity for growth and development and vulnerability to external shocks.

The most recent addition to the list of 49 LDCs is the new nation state of South Sudan, which joined the United Nations as its 193rd member in July 2011.

Asked if the FDI increase in LDCs is the beginning of a new trend or just a flash in the pan, Dr. Arjun Karki, international coordinator for LDC Watch, a global civil society alliance solely focused on developmental issues and concerns of the LDCs, told IPS, “The scenario is not crystal clear.”

Given the fall in FDI inflows to developed countries, the LDCs are now on the FDI radar, he added.

“If you observe the trend, it’s the resource-rich LDCs, such as the DRC, Liberia, Mauritania, Mozambique, and Uganda, that are receiving FDI inflows,” he pointed out.

But investments are reported to be highest in the extractive sector, he noted.

“From the development perspective, this trend is not very encouraging as this reinforces the commodity-led growth in LDCs which is not sustainable,” Dr Karki said.

The U.N. Committee for Development Policy (CDP) usually determines “eligibility” for LDC status – based on several factors, including population, national income and other economic indicators – but the ultimate decision rests with the countries themselves.
Zimbabwe, for example, has refused to join the LDC group despite being judged eligible by CDP.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the increase in FDI comes at “an important moment” when the international community is making a final push to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the target date of 2015.

One of the primary objectives of MDGs is to reduce and eliminate extreme poverty and hunger, two of the major problems facing most LDCs.

At the same time, he said, the United Nations is working to forge a vision for the post-2015 development agenda.

Credible and objective information on FDI can contribute to success in these twin endeavours, Ban added.

Dr. Karki told IPS the new Istanbul Programme of Action for LDCs for the Decade 2011-2020 is a slight shift from the commodity-oriented growth towards building productive capacity of LDCs in order to achieve structural economic transformation of LDCs.

Therefore, FDI inflows to LDCs would be welcome if they are targeted at the manufacturing sector, infrastructure and basic services sector such as health, water and sanitation, electricity and communications.

The key problem with FDI inflows targeting the extractive sector is that the benefits fail to trickle down, with only the multinational and transnational corporations and the recipient country’s elites minting money at the expense of the poor, marginalised and vulnerable communities, he pointed out.

“The key issue of widening inequality gap and redistribution of resources remains a development challenge,” he said. “This fact was blatant during my recent visit to Liberia and Sierra Leone – two extremely resource-rich LDCs but unfortunately, with the poorest populations.

“Given such a sad irony, our civil society partners were of the opinion that all the riches should remain in the soil/ground as they fail to ensure the right to sustainable development of the peoples anyway.”

The negative growth – particularly in Angola, Burundi and Mali – could be attributed to the political instability in these LDCs, which is not a good breeding ground for FDI.

“Having said this, it is also interesting to note that FDI inflows are high in both authoritarian regimes as well as in vulnerable governments as is the case in Africa and Asia,” Dr. Karki noted.

He said the other reason for FDI decline could be the evolving role of development-oriented governments in LDCs that are attempting to safeguard national interests and rights of peoples over profit and plunder.

“If this is truly the case, then LDC governments are in the right direction towards genuinely uplifting their populations out of the structural causes of poverty, deprivation and injustices,” he said.

The issue of sovereignty is critical in terms of respecting and complying with country systems. Otherwise, it has been proven that FDI is more of a bane than a boon for sustainable development, Dr Karki concluded.

South Asia's water resources are likely to fluctuate if temperatures continue to rise. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO, Jun 19 2013 (IPS)

The Monetary Board of Sri Lanka’s Central Bank, tasked with keeping the island’s economy on an even keel, does not only keep tabs on exchange rates, gold prices and inflation – it also has an eye on a less obvious indicator of economic stability: water levels in the country’s main reservoirs.

Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal last week told a group of journalists in the capital, Colombo, that the Board pays as close attention to water as it does to oil prices.

"An extreme wet monsoon that currently has a chance of occurring only once in 100 years is projected to occur every 10 years by the end of the century." -- World Bank
The reason is simple – Sri Lanka’s power generation is hugely dependent on rainfall. Last year, when a severe drought hit between the months of January and November, water levels in the country’s nine reservoirs used for power generation fell badly.

By August, hydroelectricity made up only 17 percent of the grid, whereas in a normal year the country expects to secure about 40 percent of its annual electricity needs through hydro, or even 50 percent in good years.

The drought forced the country to spend a colossal two billion dollars on imports of furnace oil for thermal generation, according to Finance Secretary Punchi Banda Jayasundera.

Cabraal told IPS that the government is “concerned” about these changing weather patterns and “will take steps well ahead of time, before they become an issue.”

Some say these promises offer too little, too late.

Erratic weather patterns are wreaking havoc across the country. In the last fortnight alone over 50 fishermen were killed at sea due to heavy winds, yet the Central Bank does not have an official or a desk that routinely keeps tabs on the weather and its impact on poverty levels, industrial output or even cargo handling at the island’s ports, which was badly disrupted during the recent storms.

But new research from leading international bodies suggests that countries like Sri Lanka will not be able to take a lax approach to climate change any longer, as extreme weather events are set to become the deciding factor in economic growth.

The World Bank today released its report entitled ‘Turn Down The Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided’, detailing how global warming could affect sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia.

The report paid particular attention to “the likely impacts of present day two-degree and four-degree-Celsius warming on agricultural production, water resources, and coastal vulnerability for affected populations” in South Asia.

In Bangladesh, land areas at risk of floods could increase by close to 30 percent if temperatures rise by two degrees. Two major industrial and financial hubs in South Asia, Mumbai and Kolkata, are meanwhile both threatened by sea-level rise.

In India, where over 60 percent of crops are rain-dependent, erratic monsoons and rising temperatures are likely to impact harvests and crop yields.

“With a temperature increase of two to 2.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, by the 2050s reduced water availability for agricultural production may result in more than 63 million people no longer being able to meet their caloric demand by production in the river basins (of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra),” according to the report.

The Bank also warned that if pledges made at the climate summits in Copenhagen and Cancun are not met, there is a greater-than-40-percent chance of “warming exceeding four degrees Celsius by 2100, and a 10-percent possibility of this occurring already by the 2070s, assuming emissions follow the…business-as-usual…pathway.”

In South Asia, whose population of 1.6 billion is expected to rise to 2.2 billion by 2050, the biggest issue is water scarcity or excess in the extreme.

The report predicted that even if action is taken and warming is reduced, the effects of a hotter climate would still be pronounced in the region, adding, “Many of the climate change impacts in the region, which appear quite severe with relatively modest warming of 1.5-2°C, pose a significant challenge to development.”

Major industrial and financial hubs like Colombo, Mumbai and India’s capital, New Delhi, are vulnerable to flash floods. Floods in May 2010 were estimated to have caused over 50 million dollars worth of economic damages in Colombo, while just last week New Delhi’s main airport was flooded due to the fast moving monsoon.

Darshani De Silva, environment specialist at the World Bank’s South Asia Sustainable Development Sector, told IPS that rapidly changing climate patterns could undo development gains in the region.

In countries like Bangladesh, which is struggling to move off a list of the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs), extreme weather events can set back a year’s worth of development in the course of a single day. On Nov. 15, 2007, Cyclone Sidr tore through Bangladesh, destroying 800,000 tonnes of rice, accounting for two percent of total annual production in 2007. The storm left in its wake a bill of 1.7 billion dollars, amounting to 2.6 of that year’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The South Asian monsoon, once as predictable as clockwork, now comes in fits and starts, either evading desperate farmers for months at a time or emptying in buckets on unsuspecting and vulnerable populations. Pakistan felt the weight of these changes in 2010 when torrential rain turned into rushing floods that claimed nearly 2,000 lives and affected 20 million people.

On Jun. 17, officials at the Indian Meteorological Department said that the monsoon arrived in New Delhi almost two weeks before predicted dates. The last instance of the monsoon moving so quickly over India and reaching the capital so fast was recorded in 1961.

Last year, Cyclone Nilam swept the Southern Indian coast, consuming half a million hectares of agricultural land and leaving over 1,300 small tanks and 7,000 km of roadways in dire need of repairs.

“An extreme wet monsoon that currently has a chance of occurring only once in 100 years is projected to occur every 10 years by the end of the century,” according to the World Bank report.

De Silva said that countries should also be worried about lack of water and the impact on agriculture. “It is expected that the southernmost tip of India and Sri Lanka will be affected, with 20 to 30-percent of summer months experiencing unprecedented heat with disastrous consequences on agriculture, livelihood and health,” she said.

The World Bank expert told IPS that attention paid to the issue is marginal compared to the damages caused, adding, “A change in thinking is urgently needed.”

She believes that all development and poverty reduction programmes, as well as urban planning, should have an in-built mechanism that factors in the impact of a changing climate, rather than waiting for disaster to strike before taking action.

Poor urban planning is now forcing the Sri Lankan government to spend 233 million dollars on a flood protection scheme in the capital. This economic burden will only increase until governments start taking seriously the reality of a much hotter world.

By Isolda Agazzi
GENEVA, Nov 28 2012 (IPS)

Remittances to the world’s poorest countries reached a record 27 billions dollars in 2011, according to a report released Monday by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.

Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Credit: Communications and Information Unit/UNCTAD

Analysing trends in the 48 least developed countries (LDCs), the report noted that remittances – monies sent back home by nationals working abroad – are now second only to official development assistance (ODA), which stood at 42 billion dollars in 2010.

Remittances were almost double the value of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to these countries, which amounted to 15 billion dollars last year, making them a much more important source for LDCs than for other country groups.

Indeed, remittances amount to 4.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the LDC bloc as a whole and 15 percent of exports. These shares are three times higher than in other developing countries.

While these numbers are impressive, experts like UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi believe governments are missing a vital opportunity to mainstream these financial flows into industrialised policies that favour long-term development.

Panitchpakdi sat down with IPS correspondent Isolda Agazzi to discuss how these private transfers, more beneficial to LDCs than trade and investment, can harness the potential of migrant workers to drive sustainable growth in their national economies.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Why have remittances to LDCs seen this sudden jump in recent years?

The primary purpose of these private transfers is to help (migrants’) families back home and very few countries are trying to (turn that money) into profits for the whole economy. Some migrant workers have managed to set up small businesses, but the potential is far from being fully harnessed.

Q: How can UNCTAD help turn a wasted opportunity into a profitable one?

A: UNCTAD has a unique position to deal with the LDCs and persuade governments to adopt specific policies to mainstream remittances into national development strategies. These private flows should be linked to new industrial policies. Development institutions should provide supplementary financing to returning migrant workers to encourage them to use their knowledge and accumulated savings in building productive capacities.

Governments should be able to protect small businesses by sequencing trade liberalisation. Infant industry protection may appear a bit naïve nowadays, but governments still need to support small and medium enterprises in certain areas, though not forever.  Adopting permanent trade distorting policies is not the way. We still believe in free trade.

Q: Given that 80 percent of LDC migrants move to other developing countries, shouldn’t industrialised countries revise their migration policies and open up their border to unskilled labour?

A: While full trade liberalisation would only add one percent to the world’s GDP, full labour liberalisation could (result) in a 100 percent increase since a person’s productivity can double when going abroad. Recently, people have been looking at migration through a different lens. The more mobile labour becomes, the more productivity increases. And there is no crowding out because most of the time migrant workers go into areas of employment where nationals don’t want to work.

Q: Is the emphasis on remittances an acknowledgement of the failure of trade and investment in the LDCs?

A: It is true that FDI and remittances have flowed in reverse correlation. For the weaker countries, FDI goes only into extractive industries that do not (create) jobs. And due to the ‘race to the bottom’ (competition between host countries to attract investment by lowering wages, taxes and standards), these countries have lost revenue.

UNCTAD is also worried by the involvement of transnational corporations. The problem with FDI is that it is tied to conditionalities and driven by gain, whereas remittances are not conditioned by anybody. Therefore, given that one in five people with university-level education from the LDCs lives abroad, mainly in developed countries, improving and mobilising FDI would be one way for LDCs to avoid the brain drain.

Indeed, brain drain is the downside of remittances: two million educated people from the LDCs live abroad. The loss of knowledge and know-how for the home countries in key sectors like health and education – there are more Ethiopian university professors in the United States than in Ethiopia – could outweigh the benefits of remittances. Other adverse effects are the potential distortion of local prices and the increase of the exchange rate.

(END)

Excerpt:

Having met 97 percent of domestic demand for generic drugs, Bangladesh is poised to become a major exporter. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By Naimul Haq
DHAKA, Nov 18 2012 (IPS)

Bangladesh has begun to shed its image as one of the world’s poorest nations and make a reputation for itself as a major exporter of cheap generic drugs to over 85 countries.

Listed by the United Nations as one of the least developed countries (LDCs), Bangladesh has exported drugs worth roughly 50 million dollars since 2011.

While this is admittedly just a fraction of the 170-billion-dollar global generic drug market, recent trends indicate that this South Asian country, home to over 150 million people, is poised to capture a larger slice of the market if it plays its cards right.

Competition for production of quality generics began in 1982, when the Drug Control Ordinance encouraged expansion in domestic production.

Following the exit of major multinational producers, local companies rushed to establish internationally recognised good manufacturing practices (GMP) and local investors were encouraged to join the flourishing market.

Local manufacturing giants like Square, Incepta Pharmaceuticals, Beximco and a host of others emerged within a very short period of time.

Abdul Muktadir, secretary general of the Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (BAPI), and managing director of Incepta Pharmaceuticals, the second largest drug manufacturer in the country, told IPS, “The drug industry grew at a steady pace and now Bangladeshi drugs are exported to many Asian, African and South American nations. The reason for this global expansion is quality, which has also (enabled) us to enter the European market. Soon we may get approval to export into the United States.”

“Our (share) of exports is still far too small, but growth patterns suggest we will soon overtake other major export sectors” such as garments, jute and tea, according to BAPI Vice President  Momenul Haq.

Cheaper prices also make drugs produced here an attractive product, he told IPS.

Out of a total of about 200 active local drug manufacturers, the top twenty companies have been exporting the lion’s share of drugs – about 85 percent – since the middle of the 1990s.

The boom in exports did not, however, accelerate until 2005 when the country’s original 1982 drug policy was revised.

The new programme, recognising that the industry already answered 97 percent of local demand, gave top priority to exports, which resulted in a decade of sharp growth.

In 2001 only a handful of generic drugs, with sales amounting to 3.7 million dollars, were exported to just 17 neighbouring countries; today more than 300 generics are exported to 87 countries, with sales topping 50.4 million dollars in 2011.

According to the Exports Promotion Bureau, some of the major beneficiaries in 2011 were manufacturers like Novartis Bangladesh, which exported drugs worth 10.8 million dollars; Beximco, whose sales receipts amounted to 9.6 million dollars and Square, which sold 7.8 million dollars worth of medicines abroad.

Haq, who is also the owner of General Pharmaceuticals, said, “Slow registration processes in destination countries, especially in moderately regulated markets (such as South Korea, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Singapore) make exporting difficult. But amid all these strict regulations Bangladesh has emerged as a successful drug exporter and it is still expanding.”

Out of about 1,800 generics or molecules manufactured in the country some 300 varieties are now exported, mostly antibiotics, analgesics, contraceptives, stimulants, vitamins, dietary supplements and non-conventional herbal and Ayurvedic medicines. Destination countries for these drugs include Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kenya, Malaysia, Bhutan, Azerbaijan, Honduras and Mexico, among many others.

Strict tax codes ensure that a significant portion of these profits circle back into the local economy, which could boost Bangladesh’s efforts to graduate from LDC to middle-income economy status.

Already foreign loan dependency has fallen from 85 percent in the early 1980s to about two percent in 2012.

Per capital income has increased from less than 400 dollars in 2001 to 650 dollars in 2010.

A thriving export market could boost growth even further, experts say.

The domestic drug consumption market was worth 958.8 million dollars in 2010 and is expected to rise by at least ten percent every year, due largely to the expansion of quality healthcare services and increasing purchasing capacity.

Patents loom as threat to production

But the road ahead is not without its share of obstacles.

Zafrullah Chowdhury, widely acknowledged as the leading expert on pharmaceutical policy in Bangladesh and a key player in formulating the 1982 Drug Ordinance, told IPS, “It is time we started making raw or active ingredients, because after World Trade Organisation (WTO) patent exemptions expire in 2016” Bangladesh may not be able to produce generic medicines as easily as it does now.

According to the WTO’s agreement on the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS), Bangladesh, along with other LDCs, is excused from patent regulations until 2016. However, when they kick in four years from now, patent requirements could deal a fatal blow to the industry.

“In January 2016, Bangladesh’s pharmaceutical market will face difficulties, particularly with under-patent drugs (new drugs invented after 1996),” Sayedur Rahman, professor of pharmacology at the country’s renowned Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) in Dhaka, told IPS.

“At this moment, we have about 150 drugs of this category, the prices of which might increase as a consequence of royalties (demanded by) patent holders.”

“Initially, those patent holders may not claim royalty, but after some time they will definitely enter our market to sell their products, employ distributors or claim royalty from the local manufacturers.

“Failure to negotiate with patent holders may lead to removal of the drug from the market as well as delayed entry of new drugs,” he added.

“(TRIPS regulations) will not affect ‘out of patent’ or older drugs (drugs innovated 20 years ago), which can be sold at the same price even after 2016. Ninety percent of our patients can be treated optimally with these old drugs, though this will require some rationalisation of the present prescribing trend,” Rahman added.

However, the expiration of patent exemptions in 2016 could also be a moment for Bangladesh enter a gap in the international market that was hitherto filled by cheap drugs produced in India.

According to BAPI’s Muktadhir, “The global generic market is finding new growth pathways as more and more products face patent expiry. (A vast majority of countries) are now dependent on the supply of Indian generic drugs and they are seriously looking for an alternative source with a similar industry standard.

“BAPI is trying to develop the (local) industry to meet this gap in the international market,” he said.

Nasser Shahrear Zahedee, owner of Radiant Pharmaceuticals, described Bangladesh’s current export scenario as a “warm-up phase”.

“Unless we can embrace competition (that produces) quality drugs,” he said, “we will not be able to enter highly regulated markets, which should be our ultimate target.”

(END)