UN expert urges World Bank to amend its constitution to effectively advance human rights
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- Written by de Zayas / UN Human Rights Council
- Category: Articles
The World Bank’s commitment to development can and should go beyond financing mega-projects and proactively support smaller, inclusive projects likely to create employment while advancing human rights and environmental protection, a United Nations rights expert has urged.
“Progress cannot be measured only by increases in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but must also encompass the enhanced enjoyment of human rights and a higher standard of living,” said the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Alfred de Zayas.
“I have gathered numerous examples of human rights violations which have been alleged in connection with projects the World Bank has financed, including mass evictions and involuntary resettlements, land-grabbing, pollution, the destruction of livelihoods, forced and child labour, and sexual abuse,” said Mr. de Zayas, who has highlighted many such cases in his full report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Global Poverty Revisited
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- Written by Ravallion and Chen
- Category: Articles
Past studies have measured poverty in either relative terms (mostly in the developed countries) or absolute terms (the developing world). This column presents a new unified approach to global poverty that assumes that people care about both their own income and their income relative to others in their country of residence. The study finds that global poverty has declined more in absolute terms than in relative terms. The vast bulk of the relatively poor now live in the developing world. The advanced countries have seen little progress against poverty, unlike the developing world.
UNCTAD: Beyond austerity...
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- Written by Francine Mestrum
- Category: Articles
"The Trade and Development Report 2017 argues that now is the ideal time to crowd in private investment with the help of a concerted fiscal push – a global new deal – to get the growth engines revving again, and at the same time help rebalance economies and societies that, after three decades of hyperglobalization, are seriously out of kilter. However, in today’s world of mobile finance and liberalized economic policies, no country can do this on its own without risking capital flight, a currency collapse and the threat of a deflationary spiral. What is needed, therefore, is a globally coordinated strategy of expansion led by increased public expenditures, with all countries being offered the opportunity of benefiting from a simultaneous boost to their domestic and external markets."
And Unctad examines the possibilities of taxing the 10 % richest ...
Fiscal Space for Social Protection and the SDGs: Options to Expand Social Investments in 187 Countries
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- Written by ILO/UNICEF/UNWOMEN
- Category: Articles
The argument that spending on social protection is unaffordable is becoming less common in international development forums. Finding fiscal space for critical economic and social investments is necessary for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), for sustained human development of children and women, and for realizing human rights, particularly during downtimes.
This paper presents eight financing alternatives, based on policy positions by the United Nations and international financial institutions, and shows that fiscal space for social protection and the SDGs exists even in the poorest countries.
Treaty Alliance: Please sign the statement
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- Written by Francine Mestrum
- Category: Articles
Please find below the Call of the Treaty Alliance (www.treatymovement.com), which has been conformed with the support of the Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity jointly with other networks and organisations, since 2013 in the process towards the UN Binding Treaty.
Thanks a lot for spreading and endorsing this call and for endorsing (see below the instructions, please DON'T send your endorsement copying the list).
Strong call by Treaty Alliance as UN process enters new phase
EU Proposal for taxing Apple & Co: Need to slaughter the sacred cow of unanimity in the Council of Member States
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- Written by Sven Giegold MEP
- Category: Articles
The finance ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Spain have made a
joint proposal to combat tax avoidance of Apple, Google, Amazon and
other large digital companies. Because companies in the digital world
can easily shift their profits to low-tax countries, in the future,
internet companies are expected to pay taxes on their turnover. This
would be a paradigm shift from the taxation of profits to the taxation
of turnover. As of Friday, EU finance ministers meet in Tallinn to
discuss the proposal.
Chinese neocolonialism in Africa
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- Written by Akemayehu G. Mariam /Pambazuka
- Category: Articles
China has literally invaded Africa with its investors, traders, lenders, builders, developers, laborers and who knows what else. The fancy phrase for that is win-win cooperation. The “cooperation” has opened up Africa as a source of raw materials for China and a dumping ground for cheap Chinese manufactured goods. It is Chinese neocolonialism.
Read the report
Scaling Up Development Finance
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- Written by A. Chowdury & J.Kwame Sundaram
- Category: Articles
The Business and Sustainable Development Commission has estimated that achievement of Agenda 2030 for the Sustainable Development Goals will require US$2-3 trillion of additional investments annually compared to current world income of around US$115 trillion. This is a conservative estimate; annual investments of up to US$2 trillion yearly will be needed to have a chance of keeping temperature rise below 1.5°C.
The greatest challenge, especially for developing countries, is to mobilize needed investments which may not be profitable. The United Nations and others have revived the idea of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issuing Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to finance development.
BRICS Xiamen Summit doomed by centrifugal economics
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- Written by Patrick Bond
- Category: Articles
The Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa summit in Xiamen from September 3-5 is already inscribed with high tension thanks to Sino-Indian border conflicts. But regardless of a welcome new peace deal, centrifugal forces within the fast-whirling world economy threaten to divide the BRICS. South Africa, which plays host to the BRICS in 2018, is already a victim of these trends – even as President Jacob Zuma continues to use the bloc as a primary crutch in his so-called “anti-imperialist” (talk-left walk-right) political survival kit.
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The Informal Sector: a Drag on productivity
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- Written by Aleksander Surdej / OECD
- Category: Articles
The informal economy remains a problem when we discuss the prospects of economic development. It is perceived as a hindrance to economic progress because the informal sector does not pay taxes, does not include its employees in social insurance schemes and does little to offer labour law protections. Increasingly, various researchers (La Porta1, Shleifer2, 2014) and international organisations, like the OECD, converge in seeing the informal economy as an obstacle to economic development due to its imminent low productivity. Indeed, informal businesses are concentrated in low productivity sectors. They are, on average, smaller and hence less productive. They generate lower value added. They pay lower wages to their employees and do not train them. And the owners of informal businesses manage their firms less efficiently than their better educated formal sector counterparts.
The very very slow death of neoliberalism
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- Written by Francine Mestrum
- Category: Articles
On the IMF evaluation report on the institution’s approach to social protection
For many years now, neoliberalism has been declared dead. The report of the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the IMF on the institution’s approach to social protection shows this is far from true. And it does not look as if human rights, universalism and redistribution are going to be part of the IMF-agenda soon.
