World Bank's 'Doing Business' reformed indicators will favour land grabbing
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- Written by Tiago Stichelmans/Eurodad
- Category: Articles
Instead of taking suggestions on board from CSOs or its own monitoring bodies, the World Bank continues to push its agenda at the expense of small-scale farmers. In essence, this makes it easier for foreign investors, at the potential cost of local farmers.
This week, the World Bank published the 2016 edition of the Doing Business report. Since 2002, this publication has annually ranked 189 countries’ business climate through 11 indicators1 such as corporate taxation and access to credit. This edition concluded a series of methodological changes that were taken on after extensive criticism of the report from the Bank’s own Independent Evaluation Group, an Independent Panel appointed by the Bank, and civil society organisations.
Read more: World Bank's 'Doing Business' reformed indicators will favour land grabbing
Nigeria and Illicit Financial Flows
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- Written by The Nation
- Category: Articles
NIGERIA lost $83.3 billion from 1960 to 2011 through illicit financial flows, Africa Development Bank (ADB) Country Office Director, Dr. Orismane Dore has said.
New e-book:From social protection to the social commons
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- Written by Francine Mestrum
- Category: Articles
Ideas for social justice in postneoliberal times
Social protection is high on the international political agenda to-day.
In 2012 the International Labour Organisation adopted a recommendation on ‘social protection floors’. One could think this is a minimalist agenda, but if all people all over the world had their rights respected, this would be a tremendous social progress. Social protection is indeed a human right, mentioned in the Universal Declaration on human rights and in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Nevertheless, more ambition is called for. I would like to go beyond ‘the floors’ and propose a programme for a ‘social common’, for the North as well as for the South. Why?
Read more: New e-book:From social protection to the social commons
NGOs disappointed with final round of climate negotiations
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- Written by Thalif Deen / IPS
- Category: Articles
Civil society groups have expressed disappointment over the outcome of the final round of U.N. climate change negotiations in Bonn — 38 days ahead of the upcoming summit in Paris.
The weeklong negotiations, which concluded Oct. 23, triggered mostly negative comments from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) monitoring the talks.
Denise M. Fontanilla, Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, told IPS technically, this is the last round of climate negotiations before Paris.
“But anything can happen – especially given the hype,” she added.
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Zigzagging with the World Bank and its poverty statistics
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- Written by Francine Mestrum
- Category: Research
In 2015, for the first time ever, global extreme poverty will fall below 10 %, according to the World Bank in a triumphant press release of three weeks ago. But the Bank remains cautious about its in 2013 defined objective : to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030, or to have it at around 3 %.
This is obviously good news. The United Nations just adopted its ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ as a follow up to the Millennium Development Goals and objective number one, the halving of extreme poverty between 1990 and 2015 has been met. The World Bank’s Global Monitoring Report 2014/15[1] estimated extreme poverty in 2011 at 14,5 %, expecting it to lower to 11,5 % in 2015.
Global poverty, then, is diminishing. Some may remember that at the start of this century a percentage of around 20 was mentioned for 2010. In the past year, many scholarly articles were published saying that new measurements would further diminish extreme poverty, others estimating it to remain stable and still others expecting it to rise.
It is sometimes difficult to believe and it can be useful to try and follow the thread, look at how debates are developing and put the poverty measures into their right context. It is useless to try and prove the figures are ‘false’, since that would imply other figures are ‘right’ and that thesis particularly has to be rejected.
Read more: Zigzagging with the World Bank and its poverty statistics
The Hidden Truth of Banks Enabling Corruption and the Devastating Human Cost
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- Written by Stuart McWilliam / Righting Finance
- Category: Articles
There has been no shortage of highly publicized scandals involving the financial sector in recent years, from the crash in 2008 onwards. A much less known, yet equally shocking, one is the key role banks play in enabling corruption, which has a devastating impact on people around the world. This is the focus of Banks and Dirty Money, a recently published report by Global Witness. It highlights how regulatory failure lies at heart of this problem too.
Read more: The Hidden Truth of Banks Enabling Corruption and the Devastating Human Cost
Risks for the new development agenda: annual meeting of WB/IMF
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- Written by Bodo Ellmers and Maria Romero
- Category: Articles
The 2015 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank had offered the opportunity to put some flesh on the bare bones of what is called the ‘Means of Implementation’ for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, not much has been achieved in this respect. The meetings were rather overshadowed by the economic downturn in major middle-income countries and their negative spillovers for the mostly resource-based economies of other developing countries, due to falling commodity prices. Here, the Bretton Woods institutions could not present a credible response strategy either.
Read more: Risks for the new development agenda: annual meeting of WB/IMF
Illicit Financial Flows: The most damaging problem for the developing world
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- Written by D. Kar, R. Baker, T. Cardamone
- Category: Articles
Russia’s illicit outflows were 8.3% of GDP (1994-2012); Illicit outflows from Mexico (1970-2012) and the Philippines (1960-2012) were 4.5% of GDP. $682.2 billion drained illicitly out of India 1948-2012; $561.7 billion leaked out of Brazil 1960-2012.
Dr. Thomas Pogge, Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, calls illicit financial outflows a drag on human rights realization in developing countries. Erik Solheim, the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee chair, considers the links between IFFs and development
This book is dedicated to all those who suffer the indignities of poverty due to illicit financial flows.
The book features five condensed and updated quantitative country studies on illicit financial flows (IFFs) from India, Mexico, Russia, the Philippines, and Brazil by GFI Chief Economist Dr. Dev Kar, as well as chapters written by GFI President Raymond Baker and Managing Director Tom Cardamone. Dr. Thomas Pogge, Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, writes on the human rights impact of illicit financial flows. The relationship between illicit flows and development is considered by Erik Solheim, the chair of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee.
The Truth about Poverty and How to Address it
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- Written by Rajesh Makwana
- Category: Articles
As the star-studded endorsements and media hype surrounding the all-pervasive Global Goals campaign begins to subside, a very different truth is beginning to emerge about this latest attempt by the international community to end poverty and create an ecologically viable future. Despite the UN’s ambitious claims, all the indications are that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) do not have the potential to “free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want” or “heal and secure our planet”. On the contrary, the ‘new agenda for development’ fails to address the root causes of today’s interconnected global crises, perpetuates a false narrative about poverty reduction, and reinforces an unsustainable economic paradigm that is inherently incapable of reducing the true scale of human deprivation by 2030.
Don't target the poor if you want to help the poor
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- Written by Stephen Kidd / Development Pathways
- Category: Articles
In this report, the author examines the evidence on the political economy of 'targeting'. By first examining the history behind social security in developed countries, and then looking at contemporary tax-financed social security schemes in both developed and developing countries, Stephen demonstrates how the targeting design of a social security programme can influence both political commitment and the value of transfers. The paper helps in explaining why 'programmes for the poor tend to be poor programmes.'
Seed Treaty Undermined by Biopiracy
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- Written by Via Campesina
- Category: Articles
16 October: International Day of Action for Peoples' Food Sovereignty
After a week of arduous debates at the FAO headquarters in Rome, on the 9th of October, The Governing Body of the International Seed Treaty (1) in its sixth session had to choose between plague and cholera: to accept as fait accompli its irregular "governance arrangements”, to say the least, or to sink into an open crisis.
