Business-as-usual won’t do at Rio+20 summit: New agenda needed

A group of leading international humanitarian, development, social justice, environmental, and workers’ organizations warned last weekend that next month’s UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) looks set to add almost nothing to global efforts to deliver sustainable development. The group also warns that too many governments are using or allowing the talks undermine established human rights and agreed principles such as equity, precaution, and ‘polluter pays.’ The warning from Development Alternatives, Greenpeace, the Forum of Brazilian NGOs and Social Movements for Environment and Development (FBOMS), International Trades Union Confederation (ITUC), Oxfam, the Slow Food Movement and Vitae Civilis comes at the end of two weeks of negotiations between governments on the conference outcomes, with less than 50 days before the summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 20 - 22 June.

“After four months of talks on the so-called ‘zero draft’ outcome document, the Rio+20 talks are stuck at zero. Little or nothing has emerged that will deliver on what governments agreed was needed 20 years ago at the Earth Summit,” said Antonio Hill of Oxfam. “The 1992 Earth Summit was a milestone that united development and environment efforts. The challenge set then – to provide prosperity for all without exceeding ecological limits – is even more urgent today. Now’s the time to end deforestation, achieve high seas protection, and deliver the energy revolution – that is a future worth choosing,” said Daniel Mittler of Greenpeace.

The group argues that the current financial crises, growing inequalities, broken food system, global climate change and shrinking natural resources require a new approach to economic development but the current negotiating text offers just more of the same. Together with workers, citizens, producers and consumers around the world, these organizations are working to delivering well-being, economic equality, and a prosperity that restores the natural environment upon which we all depend. “We hear the voices of citizens everywhere calling for a better future. Millions of people are demanding their rights and expecting fair and green solutions to poverty and suffering now. The message is clear: it’s time to change course and put the future of people and the planet first,” said Alison Tate of ITUC.

As a benchmark against which to assess what governments achieve in Rio+20, the organisations have set out a 10-point agenda for the global transformation urgently needed to deliver sustainable development. They jointly call on governments to:

1. Agree an ambitious set of global goals for sustainable development, designed to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality, and realise justice and human rights while respecting the finite limits of Earth’s natural resources.

2. Provide new and additional resources for sustainable development, including innovative sources of public finance such as financial transaction taxes to tackle poverty and climate change, and commit to far-reaching budget reforms, including re-directing money from harmful subsidies towards sustainable fishing, renewable energy access, and smallholder agriculture.

3. Enact reforms of the system of global governance to ensure strong institutions with real power to enforce international rules and commitments on environment and development, and launch talks on a global treaty to realise rights of public access to information, greater participation, and access to justice, in order to strengthen accountability and citizen monitoring of environmental and development performance at the national, regional, and global levels.

4. Commit to invest a share of national income in green and decent jobs and sustainable livelihoods, ensuring social equity, gender equality, trade union rights, democracy, and a just transition from today’s economies.

5. Establish a universal Social Protection Floor to realize human rights and support decent living standards worldwide, including allocating resources to establish an adequate level of social protection in the least developed countries.

6. Agree a plan to move quickly towards sustainable patterns of production and consumption, including greater investment in small- and medium-scale enterprises, producer cooperatives, and informal sectors, as well as public procurement policies and incentives for fair and green products and services.

7. Agree a global framework of rules to strengthen corporate reporting on social and environmental impacts worldwide, consistent with the Rio Principles, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and encompassing the full range of impacts associated with corporate activities.

8. Kick-off a major shift towards adequate, nutritious, and healthy food for all, including policies and investments to support small farms, women producers, and secure access to (and protection of) the water, land, soils, biodiversity, and other resources upon which our food security depends.

9. Take decisive action to recover healthy, productive and sustainable oceans – launch a new agreement to protect high seas marine life under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and take steps to reverse over-exploitation, enable sustainable, marine-based livelihoods, and guarantee abundant marine life for the future.

10. Provide fair and lasting energy solutions that put poor people first and help cut greenhouse gas pollution, including new financial and technical support to developing countries that focuses on providing the full range of energy services needed to help pull people out of poverty.

NGOs call on EU to keep its development commitments ahead of Rio+20

With just a few weeks to go until the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Eurostep in collaboration with ANND, Social Watch, Third World Network and ALOP have called on the EU not to shy away from its commitments to a global sustainable development agenda. In a letter sent to EU officials and member state representatives, the coalition points to a move away from a rights-based approach to development during the conferences’ preparatory process, and avoidance of any discussion about the current unsustainable consumption and production patterns in developed countries.

The letter points out that in the context of the massive Eurozone debt crisis — which has been dominating the EU’s agenda — it is more important than ever that the EU adheres to its core principles — including human rights and equity. In the zero draft outcome document for Rio+20 on the other hand, some UN members, including the EU, have weakened or even undermined these core principles. “In such critical times, the focus of some actors is simply not acceptable — whether that focus is on preserving short term and narrow interests or on trying to dismantle the core pillars of the UN development agenda to the detriment of wider and future populations”, they warn.

EU officials are urged to reaffirm key principles agreed on in previous conferences regarding sustainable development. Most important is the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) among developed and developing countries. This principle is being contested in the negotiations, with developed countries trying to diminish their share in responsibilities, to the detriment of developing countries. “Even though this principle is at the core of the development and sustainable development agendas, it is crucial to stress that while new countries have emerged as economic powers, developed countries are historically responsible for the current state of the planet and are still the greatest per capita emitters of CO2 emissions”, the letter states. “Recognizing the CBDR principle is about acknowledging responsibility, ensuring the realisation of the right to development, striving for more equity, committing to differentiated targets for sustainable development and about providing an enabling environment for developing countries in international relations and assistance according to countries’ needs”, it continues.

Eurostep and its partners call on the EU and its member states to spell out — in the outcome document — certain rights, including the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation, and to reiterate the EU’s core principle to uphold and promote all human rights. “Human rights are legal guarantees that contribute to people’s empowerment and improved equity and ensure equal protection of people before the law; they are fundamental requirements for a sustainable world. Given the EU’s laudable engagement on human rights, to improve democracy, inclusiveness and participatory approaches and increase the role of civil society organizations in decision making processes, we urge the EU to listen to these pleas”, the letter concludes.

These concerns have been echoed by a wide range of international actors including civil society organisations and UN representatives. In an Open Letter, 22 Human Rights Councils‘ independent experts called on all states negotiating the Rio+20 Outcome Document “to incorporate universally agreed international human rights norms and standards in the Outcome Document of the Rio+20 Summit with strong accountability mechanism to ensure its implementation“.

In anotheropen letter, international civil society and non-governmental organisations address the Secretary General for Rio+20 and UN member states to bring the “negotiations back on track“, so that Rio+20 can deliver “the realization of rights, democracy and sustainability” while adhering the principles of transparency and accountability and thus strengthen the foundations of peace and prosperity.

Greenwashing of dams at World Water Forum

Activists created a living river and inflated a large dam in central Marseille today against the corporate greenwashing of dams at this week's 6th World Water Forum in Marseille, France. The colourful manifestation of over 50 protestors from China, Turkey, Brazil, Vietnam, France, and others called attention to how dams are destroying the world's freshwater biodiversity and causing irreversible losses to the world's cultures. Ronack Monabay of Friends of the Earth – France, stated that “large dams are not green. 60% of the world's rivers are dammed, and freshwater ecosystems are losing species and habitats faster than any other type of ecosystem. Millions of people have been displaced because of dams worldwide. These are the reasons why we are protesting today. Life depends on healthy rivers.”

Yet, the world's banks are rushing to finance big dams. Since 2003, the European Investment Bank (EIB) alone has spent close to €1bn in financing dams in the global South under the guise of clean energy access, though the dams primarily benefit manufacturers and large industries looking for cheap electricity to produce export goods. The protestors warned that the World Water Forum has turned into a trade show for corporate initiatives to greenwash the dam industry. At the Forum, the International Hydropower Association (IHA) presented the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol, a voluntary self-policing scorecard for dam builders. This Protocol is “a greenwash of the world's dam industry,” said Zachary Hurwitz, Policy Coordinator of International Rivers. “The Protocol allows dam builders to claim they are sustainable while they continue to violate international and national environmental and human rights law. In order to not repeat the errors of the past, dam builders must be held accountable to the highest social and environmental standards.”

One of the World Water Forum's twelve priorities for action, “Harmonize Water and Energy,” calls for 20 countries to adopt the Protocol by 2015. The IHA is lobbying governments, the European Union, and international agreements, such as the EU Emissions Trading System and Water Framework Directive, to use the Protocol in place of existing high standards. Instead of adopting the IHA Protocol, the protestors are calling on corporations, governments and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and European Investment Bank to comply with the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams, and international standards such as the Conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). They also call on governments and international financial institutions to stop to finance large dams and to diversify their energy portfolio towards more sustainable energy alternatives.

Gender equity: Germany behind Nordic countries and Spain

In terms of gender equity Germany places itself well above the European average, but below the Nordic countries and Spain. This is made apparent by the Gender Equity Index (GEI) 2012, published by Social Watch on the eve of Women’s International Day, 8 March. The GEI prepared annually by Social Watch measures the gap between women and men in education, the economy and political empowerment. The index is an average of the inequalities in the three dimensions. In literacy, it examines the gender gap in enrolment at all levels; economic participation computes the gaps in income and employment; empowerment measures the gaps in highly qualified jobs, parliament and senior executive positions.

Social Watch measures the gap between women and men, not their wellbeing. Thus, a country in which young men and women have equal access to the university receives a value of 100 on this particular indicator. In the same fashion, a country in which boys and girls are equally barred from completing primary education would also be awarded a value of 100. This does not mean that the quality of education in both cases is the same. It just establishes that, in both cases girls are not less educated than boys.

Germany’s 80 points rank it among those countries with LOW GEI. The country’s index is seven points higher than Europe’s average – which is 73 – and places it also above neighbouring Luxembourg (68), Czech Republic, Austria (both with 73), Poland (76), France (77), Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland (the three with 79), but below its other neighbour Denmark (84). It should be noted that only the eight countries leading the score (Norway, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Spain and Mongolia) have reached the minimum of 81 points that places them as countries with a MEDIUM GEI.

The five levels according to which the index measures the gender gap are: CRITICAL, VERY LOW, LOW, MEDIUM AND ACCEPTABLE. It should be noted that no country has reached 90 points or more, meaning that no country has yet reached the ACCEPTABLE level.

The only dimension in which Germany reaches an acceptable value is education (100 points), while in economic participation and empowerment the country’s performance is much less praiseworthy: 78 and 62 respectively (LOW in both cases). Norway, Finland and Iceland are at the top of Europe and also the world, with 89, 88 and 87 points respectively. The three European countries that present largest gender gaps are Malta (63), Albania (55) and Turkey (45).

Out of the 154 countries computed by the IEG 2012 those five in the worst global situation are the Republic of Congo (29), Niger (26), Tchad (25), Yemen (24) and Afghanistan (15).

Social Watch members are spread across all regions. The network fights for the eradication of poverty and its causes, the elimination of all forms of discrimination and racism and to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth and the realization of human rights.

For a detailed description of methodology sources see www.socialwatch.org

Women’s Day: Gender pay gap remains unchanged for 10 years

Whereas mainstream debate points to women’s underrepresentation in corporate boardrooms a new report from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) reveals that worldwide, women are paid 18% on average less than their male counterparts at work. The report, Frozen in time: Gender pay gap unchanged for 10 years, released on the eve of International Women's Day, looks at women's wages in 43 countries, twice the number of previous studies. "For the last decade we have seen women's wages hitting a road block. The pay gap remains frozen in time almost everywhere. Asia is the continent with the greatest wage differential between men and women with no progress made to close the gap for over a decade," said Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary.

For the first time, researchers have ranked industries internationally by analysing the differences in wages in 15 sectors from construction to domestic workers. The report also includes detailed statistics from official sources in 18 countries. More unionised sectors such as the public sector tend to have lower pay gaps. Those with low unionisation rates and low wage levels, such as retail, hotels and restaurants as well as agriculture tend to have higher gaps. Part of the problem is that many workers are not paid a decent minimum wage.

The report also found:
* Male dominated sectors such as construction have the smallest gender pay gaps due to the relatively low numbers of women, and the fact that the women tend to be better educated.
* Domestic workers show the lowest level of earning and the largest gender pay gaps.
* The highest 'unexplained gender pay gaps' attributed to discriminatory practices are found in Chile, South Africa and Argentina.
* A 'child penalty' contributes to keeping women's wages low, particularly affecting women aged 30 - 39.

The report is the third study into the gender wage gap by the ITUC, following up on studies in 2008 and 2009. It was written by Dutch academics K.G Tijdens and M Van Klaveren and is based on country level wage data from the ILO, Eurostat as well as on individual-level wage data from the multi-country WageIndicator Foundation web survey. While previous ITUC reports show that official figures tend to underestimate the gender pay gap, data collection has improved in recent years, especially through the OECD and the EU.

The report can be read >>> here.

(Bio-)fueling injustice? EU driving global biofuel production

The European Union’s biofuel policy continues to threaten food security and increase land grabs in Africa, shows a new report by the EuropAfrica platform and FIAN, (Bio)fueling injustice: Europe’s responsibility to counter climate change without provoking land grabbing and compounding food insecurity in Africa. The report is released as the EU is set to review its biofuel policy in 2012 in line with environmental impacts. “Imported industrial biofuels for European renewable energy exacerbate land grabs in Africa and fuel violations of the right to food”, says Nora McKeon coordinator of EuropAfrica. “The EU has to realise that its energy and agricultural policies have global impacts, often affecting the most vulnerable in poor countries. Decision makers cannot ignore the evidence; it’s time for a total re-think of biofuel policy.”

The report shows that 66% of the land grabs in Africa are intended for biofuel production, some 18.8 million hectares. Among the biggest investors are companies from Europe, as case studies from Senegal and Mali show, with European investments likely to increase further. “We want to grow food for people in Africa, not for fuelling cars in Europe. The switch to biofuel crops in Senegal has been a failure. Productivity has fallen sharply since we started trying the Jatropha biofuel crop, and many farmers are feeling cheated. We call on the European Union to drop its renewable energy target for biofuels until measures are in place which ensure that the right to food is not violated”, says Marius Dia, of CNCR (Conseil National de Concertation et de Coopération des ruraux du Sénégal).

Despite contrary claims, the EU is highly dependent on imports. Already in 2008, the EU imported almost 40 percent of its biofuels or biofuel feedstock. The study further finds that the EU and its Member States violate their human rights obligations by not having conducted an adequate assessment of the impact of the biofuel policy on human rights and by not regulating European companies and financial actors. According to Blandine Bouniol, Policy Coordinator at CONCORD, the European NGO Confederation of Relief and Development NGOs, the EU’s good intention to fight climate change by promoting renewable energy is turning into a disaster. Europe is outsourcing its production, getting a ready supply of biofuels at the expense of the environment and people in the developing world.

UN responsibilities far outstrip funding

The United Nations' core budget in 2011 was $2.2bn, down from a peak of $2.5bn in 2009 and miniscule compared to the $66bn budget of the UN's host city, New York. The funds available to the key international organization have not kept pace with the expansion of the UN's duties since its founding in 1945, according to a new report published by the Worldwatch Institute for its “Vital Signs Online” publication. The report reveals a disconcerting shift in the sources of UN funding. The level of voluntary contributions from the organization's wealthier member nations, including the United States, Germany, and Japan, is growing, helping to fund the core budget and various UN agencies and programs. Yet mandatory payments from all member nations are lagging: they account for just 14-18% of UN funds, down from 20-25% during the 1970s through 1990s. In effect, wealthier nations use their financial leverage to sidestep the regular UN decision making process, the report notes.

"The shift away from mandatory payments and toward voluntary contributions reflects the rich member nations' preference for agenda-setting through bilateral pressure, rather than democratic voting," write report authors Michael Renner and James Paul. "In this way, UN finance is increasingly a reflection of a world divided between countries of vastly different resources, priorities, and global aspirations." The report finds that private sources, including foundations and businesses, are increasingly funding UN operations. Many governments and experts are critical of this trend because they claim that private funding introduces external influences over the organization's regular governance process.

The UN's core or "regular" budget, which covers ongoing costs like staff salaries, meeting expenses, travel, security, conflict mediation, and human rights activities, among other tasks, is funded entirely by mandatory national payments. In 1971, this budget was $157m, and it has grown almost 14-fold since then in nominal terms. But in real terms (i.e., when adjusted for inflation), the budget has grown only threefold – not nearly enough to keep up with multiplying program mandates and the complexities that accompany a much-expanded membership, according to the report. Beyond the "regular" UN budget are the much larger peacekeeping budget and specialized agency budgets. In the 2011-12 budget year the UN peacekeeping budget was $7.8bn. Funding for specialized UN programs and agencies like the World Health Organization, the Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the UN Development Programme totalled about $20bn in 2011. In total, the UN system's in 2011 amounted to about $30bn.

Further highlights from the report:

* UN member states' individual military spending in 2010 totalled $1.6trillion, more than 200 times the UN's current annual peacekeeping spending of $7.8bn.
* The poorer UN states, voting in the G77 bloc, favour more UN activity in the social and economic field, while the rich countries generally prefer an emphasis on peacekeeping.
* In part because of budgetary shortcomings, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has failed to establish a strong international presence since its 1972 founding: in 2010, UNEP received just over $205 million, less than 1 percent of total UN funding.
* At the end of May 2011, the United States owed the UN regular and peacekeeping budgets a total of $1.3bn in arrears, or 42% of the total for all member states.

The alternative view from Washington: Greece

The agreement between the European authorities and Greece won’t resolve Greece’s economic crisis and is likely to make it worse, said Mark Weisbrot (see photo), economist and Co-Director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).“The European authorities seem more intent on punishing Greece than helping the economy recover,” said Weisbrot. “For two years now they have been pushing the Greek economy into recession, and there’s still no light at the end of the tunnel.” Weisbrot noted that the IMF has had to lower its projections for Greek GDP shrinkage by an enormous 7% of GDP in less than two years. Most of this downward revision has been in just the last five months.

A leaked document reported this week by Reuters and the Financial Times contains a “sustainability analysis” prepared for the European Finance Ministers. It portrays a grim scenario with explosive debt and Greece needing “about €245bn in bail-out aid, far more than the €170bn under the ‘baseline’ projections eurozone ministers were using.” “Given the underestimation of Greek losses so far, and the recessionary impact of budget tightening, mass layoffs, a 20% reduction of the minimum wage, and other austerity measures – I think the pessimistic scenario outlined in the leaked document is a very plausible scenario,” said Weisbrot.

Weisbrot also pointed out that the European authorities’ strategy of “internal devaluation” is not working even on its own terms. The ostensible purpose of Greece’s prolonged recession is to lower labour costs in order to lower the country’s real exchange rate and increase Greece’s international competitiveness. But Weisbrot noted that “after four years of recession, with unemployment rising from 6.6% to a record 20%, Greece’s Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER), according to the IMF, is higher than it was in 2006.”
The IMF is projecting that Greece will still have 17% unemployment in 2016.

“The bottom line is that you can’t shrink your way out of a recession – you have to grow your way out. What they are doing to Greece really makes no economic sense. At this point, it looks like the economy would do better if Greece were to exit from the euro, as opposed to enduring indefinite recession and stagnation, extremely high and persistent unemployment, and increasing poverty. The European authorities are certainly pushing Greece toward the exit and default option.” – A more detailed paper on the Greek economy and crisis by CEPR is available >>> here.

Trade unions back Guy Ryder as candidate for ILO Director-General

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has announced its backing for ILO Deputy Director-General Guy Ryder to succeed Juan Somavia as Director-General of the tripartite UN body in the election for the post in May. “The world is facing its greatest employment crisis since the 1930s, and the ILO’s role in the international arena is absolutely crucial. Guy Ryder has all the qualities and experience needed to lead the ILO in ensuring decent jobs and social justice are at the heart of the global response,” said ITUC Secretary-General Sharan Burrow. “His experience of the ILO, commitment to its values, knowledge of the role and content of labour standards, the supervisory system, labour market institutions, social dialogue and employment policies make him the candidate of merit.”

Prior to his current position, Ryder’s ILO experience included serving as Head of the organisation’s Workers’ Activities Bureau, and as chief of the Director-General’s office. In 2002 he was elected Secretary-General of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), and led the process of unification of the international trade movement culminating in the creation of the ITUC in 2006. He served as ITUC Secretary-General until returning to the ILO in 2010.

ITUC affiliates around the world are lobbying to support his candidacy in the election, which will take place at the ILO Governing Body meeting in late May. Twenty-eight government delegates and 14 delegates, each from employer organisations and trade unions, will vote in the election. The ITUC represents 175 million workers in 153 countries and territories and has 308 national affiliates.

Eurostep response to the zero-draft of Rio+20

With preparations for the June United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) moving in higher gear, the importance of the meeting and the opportunities to put in place the actions and mechanisms needed to address the urgent challenges are being increasingly emphasized. The publication of the zero draft of the outcome document has been widely criticized for neither being sufficiently ambitious, nor stressing the urgent need to address the mounting challenges. In advance of the first meeting of UN member states in New York to consider the proposed outcome document Eurostep prepared its own initial response.

Six main messages make up the Eurostep response to the Zero Draft. Among these, Eurostep finds that the document lacks the necessary ambition and urgency for addressing the challenges that the world faces. “The outcome of the conference must take full account of the gravity of the situation and of the recent social, political and economic developments, and demonstrate the political will to put in place far reaching changes for implementation without delay”, the paper reads.

Moreover, Eurostep urges governments to reaffirm the underlying principles of sustainable development agreed 20 years ago in Rio, such as the Precautionary Principle by which technological innovation should develop under ‘transparent and participative mechanisms’ to ensure it does not hinder sustainable development.

Another crucial aspect identified by Eurostep pertains to the new economic model that should be implemented and which should take full account of the principles of sustainable development. In this respect, the Zero Draft “needs to comprise clearer definition of what the green economy is and how it will lead to poverty eradication’’, reads the Eurostep response.

In promoting sustainable development, governments should also recognize that all sectors in society have a role to play and the private sector should not remain the main focus. The latter can make important contributions to sustainability, but it is not inevitable as some will act in ways that hinder such a goal. “The private sector must be encouraged to contribute to achieving sustainable development within suitable regulatory frameworks that are consistent with and derived from the principles for sustainable development and human rights, various conventions, and other agreements adopted by the international community”, reads the Eurostep response.

The last message in the Eurostep response reflects the need for future global institutions and mechanisms that will ensure effective implementation of the agreed principles. “Sustainable development is too important an issue to be subject to voluntary commitments, this will again allow governments to implement what they want in a flexible way and poses serious questions about the effectiveness of any accountability framework and assessment mechanisms”, argues Eurostep.

Inequality overshadows WTO Ministerial

The international trade union movement has warned of growing social unrest and increased social hardship if trade liberalization continues against the backdrop of harsh unemployment and austerity measures. Ten years since the Doha Round of trade talks opened in 2001, the global economy has witnessed a food crisis, a climate crisis, a financial crisis and a severe jobs crisis. “The existence of the WTO has done nothing to prevent trade imbalances growing to unsustainable levels accompanied by dangerously widening income inequality,” said Sharan Burrow, General-Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

The deal on the table at the 8th meeting of Trade Ministers in Geneva 15 -17 December 2011 will not help trade to drive economic recovery, employment creation and genuine economic development, and ultimately puts the multilateral trading system at risk. The trade union delegation attending the talks will be monitoring a number of issues up for negotiation by Ministers and will aim to maintain policy space and to keep new issues such as the Singapore issues (investment, competition policy and government procurement) out of the WTO negotiations. According to ITUC, the talks should provide a package for Least Developed Countries to have duty free and quota free market access for all products, the elimination of cotton subsidies and a waiver for commitments in services.

The ITUC is calling for an evaluation of the Doha round outcomes to assess its impact on providing decent work, improved living standards and diversifying the economies of developing countries. “Without measuring the impact on developing countries and workers, it makes little sense to move forward with trade liberalization. The developmental mandate of the Doha agenda must be reaffirmed if the round is to be concluded.” said Sharan Burrow.

* Find the Global Union Statement of Priorities for the 8th WTO Ministerial Conference >>> here.

Eurodad: ECAs push poor country debt and shrinks aid budgets

Campaigners are demanding tighter controls on the activities of so-called export credit agencies (ECAs) after a new report lifts the lid on how the shadowy government bodies force vulnerable developing nations ever-deeper into debt, while allowing European governments to count their own financial gain as development aid. “Almost 80% of developing country debt to European governments comes from loans that supported European commercial interest and not development,” says Núria Molina, director of the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) which drew up the new report, Exporting goods or exporting debts? Export Credit Agencies and the roots of developing country debt. “They are undermining aid efforts, and keeping countries mired in poverty,” adds Molina.

ECAs are public bodies that provide credit guarantees to companies and financial institutions to ease exports from the country in which they are based. This allows exporting companies to invest in riskier projects than what would normally be the case, often in developing countries. Export credits to developing countries almost tripled in 2008 as compared to pre-crisis levels, showing the need to tighten up on controls. UN figures show that European government ECAs supported more than $1trillion in trade and investment in 2007. The figure increased by 35% in 2008-2009 as an effort by European governments to save their export industries at a time of dwindling global markets.

Export credits greatly reduce the amount of aid to developing countries, as when most European governments cancel developing country debt they charge that amount from the aid budget. According to the study, 85% of developing country debt cancelled by European governments and charged from the aid budget in 2005-2009 was actually debt created from export credits, which are in most cases driven by commercial, not development objectives. Counting cancellation of export credit debt as aid monies draws monies away from real aid, making fewer resources available for the world’s poor. The activities of these public bodies are hardly controlled at all, so the projects they support have often caused human rights violations and environmental damage in poor countries.

European Union regulations agreed in September, although welcome, don’t go far enough. Based on its Responsible Finance Charter, Eurodad is proposing concrete measures for governments to clean up their export credit operations including:
* Ensuring that ECAs and the projects they back are opened up to public scrutiny;
* Ending the use of aid money to cancel export credit debt;
* Introducing binding regulations to stop export credits being peddled aggressively to developing countries to the benefit of companies in industrialised nations.

Durban: Turning Green Climate Fund into Greedy Corporate Fund?

Today 163 civil society organisations from 39 countries released a letter exposing an attempt led by the US, the UK and Japan to turn the Green Climate Fund into a “Greedy Corporate Fund” at UN climate talks in South Africa. The Green Climate Fund was created to support people in developing countries – people who are the most affected by the climate crisis but are the least responsible for it. But at the climate negotiations this week, developed countries are trying to allow multinational corporations and financiers to directly access GCF financing. This means companies could bypass developing country governments and their national climate strategies to get to public money.

“Turning the Green Climate Fund into a Greedy Corporate Fund would be
shameful, yet this is what is being attempted at the Durban climate
talks,” said Meena Raman from Third World Network. “Led by the US and the UK on behalf of Wall Street and The City, this attempt to hijack developing countries’ funding is outrageous. Communities need this money to address climate change and to finance their own development – without repeating the same mistakes that the rich countries have made,” said Karen Orenstein from Friends of the Earth US. “The role of private investment in financing climate activities must be decided at the national and sub-national levels in line with countries’ priorities, not corporate bottom lines. The move to allow the private sector to go directly to the Green Climate Fund for money undermines the possibility of a democratic, participatory process for meeting the needs of communities struggling to fight climate change,” said Lidy Nacpil of Jubilee South Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development.

Few adaptation measures in developing countries will be attractive to the private sector, as they will not generate revenue. Some key mitigation programs may also not be financially lucrative. Groups also warned against closed door negotiations on the Green Climate Fund by South Africa, the US, and other developed countries. “Whatever happens in Durban must be fully transparent. We are deeply concerned by reports that South Africa is informally consulting behind closed doors on the Green Climate Fund decision,” said Bobby Peek of groundwork / Friends of the Earth South Africa. “This will greatly undermine the legitimacy, and ultimately the effectiveness, of the Green Climate Fund.”

The concerns expressed in the letter come on top of the long-held
rejection by many in civil society of any role for the World Bank in the
Green Climate Fund.

Civil Society Reflection Group: Statement to Rio+20

“We have exceeded the ecological limits and ignore the planetary boundaries. With the climate change threat we are already living on borrowed time. However, we refuse to cut back on emissions and allocate the scarce resources to those who have not yet benefitted from their exploitation,” warned the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives in its statement for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+2012) to be held next June. “We live in a world where the top 20% of the population enjoy more than 70% of total income and those in the bottom quintile get only 2% of global income” and where “50% of carbon emissions are generated by 13% of the population,” adds the document of the Reflection Group, created a year ago by an alliance of civil society groups, networks and foundations to provide specific policy recommendations for Rio+2012, among other tasks.

The statements noted that “the ideals and principles” set in the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 “have been overshadowed, as implementation has mostly not occurred”. “Similarly, a host of international commitments to human rights and gender justice have not been fulfilled. World product per capita has more than doubled in the last two decades, yet with widening disparities. Globalization has yielded millions of poor quality jobs. Financial and commodity speculation has undercut food security and turned millions of hectares of land away from growing food and into unsustainable uses. Little has been done to change patterns of production and consumption that pollute, erode biodiversity and lead inexorably to climate change,” adds the Group, which members are Alejandro Chanona, Barbara Adams, Beryl d'Almeida, Chee Yoke Ling, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, Danuta Sacher, Filomeno Sta. Ana III, George Chira, Gigi Francisco, Henning Melber, Hubert Schillinger, Jens Martens, Jorge Ishizawa, Karma Ura, Roberto Bissio, Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, and Yao Graham.

The failure, said the group, happened because “states have reneged on their democratic values and governments have become less accountable to the people”, and because “universal norms and standards are being ignored or side-stepped by new rules that favour markets”. “Risks are being borne by those who had no role in taking them while a new classification of ‘too-big-to-fail’ has re-ordered the distribution of public resources. We are confronted with a hierarchy of rights with those protecting human and eco systems relegated to the lowest rungs Polluter pays principle. The simple message of this principle is that the costs of pollution have to be borne by those who cause it,” explained the Group.

The Reflection Group proposal remarked eight core principles: the “precautionary principle”, the “do not harm principle”, the “subsidiarity principle”, the “principle of free, prior and informed consent”, the “principle of peaceful dispute settlement”, and the principles of freedom, equality, diversity and respect for nature. “All governments agreed to these principles in general”, but “they have mostly failed to translate them into enforceable obligations and specific policies”.

The statement proposes to fix fiscal policies for “the four R’s”: “the raising of revenues in order to provide the necessary public goods and services; the redistribution of income and wealth from the richer to poorer sections of society; the repricing of goods and services in order to internalize ecological and social costs and discourage undesirable behaviour; and the justification for citizens to demand democratic representation and accountability.” It also suggested, in the area of public expenses, the abolition of harmful subsidies, the strengthening of public spending to stimulate sustainable production and consumption, cutting military spending, setting an universal social protection floor for all, the universal access to public healthcare, guaranteed state allowances for every child and support for unemployed and underemployed people, an universal basic pension provided by the state for persons in old age or with disabilities, the public provision of essential services, the strengthening participatory, gender and human rights budgeting initiative, the use of public procurement policies to promote sustainability and the use of sovereign wealth funds to finance sustainable investment.

The document also proposes a new global system of financial burden sharing beyond ODA and a compensation scheme to pay off climate debt. The Reflection Group finally suggested to “re-arrange and re-configure” international and national institutions in charge of the sustainable development, as the creation of a “Sustainable Development Council”, international ombudsperson (one for “future generations”) and special rapporteurs, a “Sherpa for Sustainability”, parliamentary committees on policy coherence on sustainability and upgrading the Committee on Development Policy.

The preliminary statement (full text >>> here) produced by the Civil Society Reflection Group is a “work in progress” and has not been fully discussed by all its members. Not every recommendation in the statement was explicitly endorsed by each of its members, but the text captures the ideas and the fundamental consensus formulated in previous meetings. A more comprehensive final report of the Group will be published in spring 2012.

Gates Report highlights role of innovation in expanding development resources

In a report about financing for development delivered today at the G20 Summit, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, urged leaders to commit to increasing the pool of resources dedicated to development or risk causing irreparable damage to the livelihoods of millions of the poorest people. Underlying these recommendations is the idea that innovation can multiply the impact of the resources devoted to development. Gates’ report, Innovation with Impact: Financing 21st Century Development, was presented to heads of State and Governments in Cannes, France, at the request of G20 chairman French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In his report, Gates stresses the need for rich countries to continue their generosity and meet their foreign aid commitments – which are generally between one and two percent of government’s budgets – while ensuring that aid is spent effectively in areas such as health and agriculture. Beyond rich countries’ responsibility, Gates says rapidly emerging economies represented in the G20 also play a growing role in driving progress in development. In his report, he proposes ideas for enabling speedier transfer of the innovations these countries are pioneering – particularly in the areas of health and agriculture, such as vaccines and seeds – to transform the lives of poor people in Africa and beyond. “I am particularly excited about the possibility of ‘triangular partnerships’ among rapidly growing countries, traditional donors, and poor countries, because they exploit the comparative advantages of many different countries,” Gates says in his report.

“Ultimately, developing countries’ domestic resources will be the largest source of funds for development,” according to Gates, who recommends measures the G20 could take to help poor countries’ maximize their own resources to reduce poverty. Ideas include directing foreign aid at helping developing countries better collect tax revenue, which could raise approximately $20bn a year at today’s GDP, and increasing transparency requirements for mining and oil companies. Gates calls on poor countries to focus resources on priorities which directly benefit poor people, like health and agriculture, and urged African leaders to meet the targets they had set in the Abuja Declaration to devote at least 15% of their budgets to improving health, and in the Maputo Declaration, which calls for devoting 10% of budgets on agriculture.

The report to G20 leaders also calls for adopting innovative ways to mobilize private sector finance and encourage private sector growth as a way to raise funds for development. Recommendations include making sovereign wealth funds available for infrastructure investments in poor countries, continuing to lower transaction costs of remittances by diaspora communities, and using pull mechanisms in agriculture to encourage innovation in agricultural technologies.

Gates also uses the report to identify new streams of funding, by directing a percentage of funds from a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), Solidarity Tobacco Contribution, and an aviation and bunker fuel tax, to fund development and climate change. Concerning the FTT the report says: “Some modelling suggests that even a small tax of ten basis points on equities and two basis points on bonds would yields about $48bn on a G20-wide basis, or $9bn if it were confined to larger European economies. Other FTT proposals offer substantially larger estimates, in the S100bn to $250bn range, especially if derivatives are included.”

World of Work Report 2011: ILO warns of a new and deeper jobs recession

In a grim analysis issued on the eve of the G20 leaders summit, the International Labour Organization (ILO) says the global economy is on the verge of a new and deeper jobs recession that will further delay the global economic recovery and may ignite more social unrest in scores of countries. The new World of Work Report 2011: Making markets work for jobs says a stalled global economic recovery has begun to dramatically affect labour markets. On current trends, it will take at least five years to return employment in advanced economies to pre-crisis levels, one year later than projected in last year’s report.

Noting that the current labour market is already within the confines of the usual six-month lag between an economic slowdown and its impact on employment, the report indicates that 80 million jobs need to be created over the next two years to return to pre-crisis employment rates. However, the recent slowdown in growth suggests that the world economy is likely to create only half of the jobs needed.

The report also features a new “social unrest” index that shows levels of discontent over the lack of jobs and anger over perceptions that the burden of the crisis is not being shared fairly. It notes that in over 45 of the 118 countries examined, the risk of social unrest is rising. This is especially the case in advanced economies, notably the EU, the Arab region and to a lesser extent Asia. By contrast, there is a stagnant or lower risk of social unrest in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

The study shows that nearly two-thirds of advanced economies and half of emerging and developing economies with recent available data are once again experiencing a slowdown in employment. This comes on top of an already precarious employment situation in which global unemployment is at its highest point ever, surpassing 200 million worldwide.

The report cites three reasons why the ongoing economic slowdown may have a particularly strong impact on the employment panorama: first, compared to the start of the crisis, enterprises are now in a weaker position to retain workers; second, as pressure to adopt fiscal austerity measures mount, governments are less inclined to maintain or adopt new job- and income-support programmes; and third, countries are left to act in isolation due to lack of international policy coordination.

G20 leaders must put people before bankers

G20 leaders must meet the demands of working people at the G20 summit in Cannes on 3-4 November 2011 and deliver on their promises to reform the financial sector. As the economic and financial crisis enters its most dangerous phase so far, G20 leaders must deliver a co-ordinated response which puts people before bankers, warns the international trade union movement. Meeting alongside the G20, the ‘Labour 20’ Summit in Cannes will bring together elected trade union leaders from G20 countries for crisis talks on the economy and on attacks on labour rights.

International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Sharan Burrow said unemployment is the largest single threat to recovery and has reached record levels with over 200 million people out of work and many more working in insecure jobs. Meanwhile, the financial system continues to be bailed out by governments who fail to take the necessary action to reform their destabilising and highly risky lending practices. “Public pressure for governments to act in the interests of people and not the bankers will grow and grow. People are angry. The international trade union movement will be in Cannes to demand action and reform to respond to that justified anger,” said Burrow.

Global Unions are calling on G20 leaders to adopt a four-point plan for jobs and recovery that stems the jobs crisis and re-shapes the world economy for working people:

* Establish a co-ordinated jobs target and immediate measures of job-intensive infrastructure programmes, green jobs investment and labour market programmes to raise skills;
* Reduce income inequality and strengthen workers’ rights;
* Put in place a social protection floor;
* Reform the financial sector and establish a financial transactions tax.

The proposals for recovery plans from the L20 will be delivered to G20 host President Nicolas Sarkozy and to other G20 Heads of State and Government, and must be taken into account in the final G20 conclusions. The statement of global unions to the G20 is >>> here.

No land investments without consent of local communities, CIDSE says

This week, the UN Committee on Food Security (CFS) held its 37th session in Rome, which looked at food price volatility, gender, food security and nutrition and agricultural investment. The session was meant to open with the adoption of new voluntary guidelines on land tenure, but governments were unable to finalise negotiations. The international alliance of Catholic development agencies CIDSE welcomes the efforts put into the talks so far, while urging governments to finalise negotiations as soon as possible and move towards putting the guidelines in practice. The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests are meant to protect land tenure of small scale food producers, urgently needed in view of land grabbing which has dramatically increased in recent years.

CIDSE and other civil society organisations who participated in the negotiations in Rome highlight the progress made. Nearly three quarters of the text of the Voluntary Guidelines were successfully negotiated, including critical issues such as the recognition and protection of customary tenure, the tenure of forests and fisheries and the protection of rights defenders responding to the critical issue of their criminalisation. Several controversial issues, such as those relating to investments in agriculture remain open, however. According to CIDSE, “The land belongs to those who work it. Acknowledging the right of small farmers and local communities to cultivate their own land is an important step towards food security, as their right to food should always have priority over land investments.”

The issue of land governance is of growing importance. As much as 227 million hectares of land in developing countries (about the size of Western Europe) has been sold or leased since 2001. The bulk of these have taken place in the last 2 years, an overwhelming majority in Africa. The increase in land grabbing is linked to the 2007-2008 food price crisis which has triggered the interest of investors and governments in agriculture because of its profit making potential. The demand for food, timber, carbon sequestration and mineral exploration, as well as agro-fuels directives in developed countries, are key drivers of land grabbing. Investors include national elites, foreign companies and international governments, including oil rich states and China looking to secure food for their populations.

New CAP proposals exclude development obligations

The European Commission presented a draft proposal for a new Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) on 10 October for the period after 2013. The main aims of the draft are “to strengthen the competitiveness, sustainability and permanence of agriculture throughout the EU”, reads an official EU press release. Ten key points are stressed in this respect, including better targeting of income support, developing crisis management tools, greening agricultural production, stimulating rural employment and channelling additional funding towards research and innovation.

However, the Commission proposal does not mention Policy Coherence for Development (PCD). “Until now in the debates on the reform process, all EU institutions have made reference to take into account the principle that the CAP must seek to reduce its overseas impact through greater Policy Coherence for Development. Yet the Commission has not translated this into concrete measures in its proposals”, comments Oliver Consolo, Director of the Concord network.

Moreover, in a public hearing of the EP Development Committee (DEVE) taking place before the publication of the proposal, Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloş maintained that food security is a global concern that needs to be taken into account in all policies. However, “the widespread support from the European Parliament (EP) to include global responsibility for food security in the CAP reform to improve the policies’ impact on developing countries and the world’s poor has been ignored”, reads the Concord press release.

Calling on the EP and the Council to design a CAP mechanism that complies with the Lisbon Treaty provision of PCD, the European Development NGOs outlined a series of recommendations for this purpose, mainly for the creation of grievance and monitoring mechanisms. Farmer organisation in developing countries should be granted a space to be heard and even an EU Ombudsman for PCD should be instituted. In addition, a CAP Impact Monitoring System should “include an indicator specific to the objectives of monitoring the consistency between the CAP and its development and trade policies”, proposes Concord. In addition, unfair trading practices such as export subsidies should be phased out, yet the new reform proposal mentions no commitment to completely stop this practice.

The present draft opens the ordinary legislative proposal in which the three institutions — Commission, Council and European Parliament — will decide on the future of the European Common Agricultural Policy after 2013.

IMF-inspired labour laws in Romania: Hardship for workers

Major changes in Romania’s labour laws, introduced at the behest of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, have stripped away key protections for the country’s workforce and are denying large numbers of workers the right to union representation. More people are now forced to take a second job to make ends meet as labour market conditions become more precarious and incomes stagnate. According to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the IMF prescription in Romania contradicts the positive signals about workers’ rights from its Washington Headquarters. The government has ignored the advice of the ILO despite promising to respect international labour standards.

“A small number of employers and foreign investors are getting the benefits of the government’s lack of concern for the men and women who produce the goods and provide the services that keep the economy running,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow. The new laws, which the Romania’s trade union movement are trying to have amended, exclude workers in the “liberal professions” from the right to union membership, and introduced a series of legal and procedural obstacles to remove workers’ collective bargaining rights. Government claims that the laws have reduced unemployment are not supported by its own statistics.

“Powerful corporate and financial interests are succeeding in turning back two decades of democratic progress for Romania’s workers. These laws are a threat to the country’s economic and social stability, yet the government is putting ideology ahead of the interests of its own citizens,” said Burrow.