Recovery with a human face

There have been many fora for discussions about the crisis, and its consequences on the more vulnerable around the globe. The electronic debate moderated by United Nations was among the more interesting. Topics ranged from the impacts of the crisis to policy responses and alternative options for socio-economic recovery. Now a summary of the debates is avaliable here:

A Recovery with a Human Face? Summary of a UN e-discussion

A more thorough analysis of the issues debated can be found in the recent publication A Recovery for All: Rethinking Socio-Economic Policies for Children and Poor Households, which can be downloaded for free here.

Thanks go to Isabel Ortiz for sharing the information, and for her commitment to the whole project.

The UN Should Be Anywhere But New York

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world - Eleanor Roosevelt

There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States...The Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost ten stories today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference - John Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations

Given that his campaigning self promised a more internationalist outlook, it is striking how Barack Obama hews more closely to the John Bolton School of International Relations (now there's a thought for you) than that of Eleanor Roosevelt. In addition to keeping that shining example of American justice Guantanamo Bay alive and strong, the Obama administration has done little in terms of Roosevelt's "concerted citizen action" at home. As Eleanor Roosevelt suggested, a likely reason why we often "look in vain for progress in the larger world" is because of unyielding negativity about the UN from the country it is headquartered in. Home ain't where the heart is.

As I will enumerate, the US routinely flouts conventions people from other parts in the world consider valuable--especially in terms of advancing rights. Given the plenitude of such examples, it is best to consider the US a delinquent parent of the organization. Unfortunately, John Bolton's flippant suggestion that nothing much would be lost if ten floors of the UN were blown off is not far from actual US policy. Indeed, the Obama administration is next to no improvement seen in this light -

"The United States is concerned about children's rights and welfare."

Americans blather on and on about human rights. Call it the white man's harangue. So much so that you'd expect it to have ratified the well-meaning UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), right? If you read my lengthy post on why the shameless publicity seeker Amy Chua is more American than Chinese, then you would know that it isn't. How embarrassing is this? Well, aside from a failed state (Somalia), the US is the only other country that hasn't ratified it. Alike Guantanamo, it appears Obama has not been more talk than action in behaving in an internationally acceptable manner.

For all its human rights happy talk, the truth, dear readers, is this: the United States is a miserable place to be a kid. But don't take my word for it. The OECD recently compared the well-being of children across developed countries and found that the US ranked second worst next to the UK--and by quite some margin. Perhaps you and I should be concerned about this American failing that is only reinforced by its failure to ratify this convention. Child misery, thy name is America:

"The United States wishes that women have equal rights to men."

While the US does somewhat better on measures of gender equality such as the pay gap, it has yet to achieve several milestones others have alike having a female head of state. Most plausibly, America's chauvinistic tendencies are behind it not inking the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In another shameful display, the US is noted by commentators to be the only developed nation not to ratify CEDAW. A shining beacon of gender equality for the world to follow? I think not.

"The United States condemns crimes against humanity."

The Bush administration was famously hostile to pursuing the ratification of US membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in the Hague. While the Obama administration has stopped its predecessor's outright hostility to the body, it still remains aloof to the idea of ratifying participation. Then again, given the United States' continuing penchant for extrajudicial imprisonment, I guess membership in the ICC is not on the game plan for the immediate future despite more internationalist voices calling for it.

"The United States cares about the welfare of migrants."

It is well-known that virtually all signatories to the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families are migrant-sending nations. Despite calling itself the land of opportunity, a melting pot, and so forth, the truth is that the US is just as reluctant as other developed nations to sign on to something which concerns guaranteeing the welfare of migrants. In trade terms, it is unsurprising a country that has so far been unwilling to implement WTO provisions concerning temporary migration is also unwilling to extend them substantive international rights.

"The United States does not want to deploy land mines indiscriminately."

Activists have, for a long time, been championing the reduction in the use of land mines for the simple reason that they tend to kill and maim civilians--often long after conflicts that resulted in them being deployed have ended. However, the US has once again not ratified the Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention. For a country that is already malodorous in so many parts of the world due to its militaristic excursions, this shameful omission only reinforces America's negative image.

"The United States cares about the environment."

Kyoto Protocol. Nuff said.

"The United States has a national interest in respecting international maritime law."

Of all the conventions left unsigned by the US at the UN, the Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is perhaps the most interesting one in terms of geopolitical implications. In fact, Hillary Clinton alluded to it last year during the non-controversy over the South China Sea the US fomented at the ASEAN Regional Forum. As I have explained, the utterly hypocritical point is that the US has not ratified UNCLOS but claims that its stipulations should be followed when it comes to resolving others' disputes. Hypocrisy aside, meddling in others' disputes without a discernible legal basis to do so takes a lot of nerve.
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All in all, here is the bottom line when it comes to the US and the UN: If you don't bother with much of anything people of the world devote their valuable time and effort to, then you might as well not host the United Nations. Let's face it: Americans tend to be very parochial in outlook. This negative kind of American exceptionalism poisons international relations through thinking that what goes on in the UN is not in US interests in so many instances. Alike with the IMF which really ought to be in Beijing, the time has come to move the UN elsewhere. The world has moved on. I won't even get into the US offering the sole veto over discouraging continued Israeli settlement of the occupied territories.

There's a saying that you shouldn't stick around where you're not wanted. I guess now is as good as time as any for the UN to move from a country of the past that doesn't care much for it (by brushing off any number of conventions) to a country of the future that at least embraces its core belief in the value of multilateralism. There is no point remaining in a location which undermines it at almost every turn like the United States does. A reason why the UN is often ineffective is because of America's delinquent parenting as its host nation. Think of a child continuously being belittled, insulted and threatened by its parents and modern US treatment of the UN comes to mind. (Not that actual American parenting is much better--see above.) That it even functions at all is a wonder.

When the United States is such an all-around bad example for core UN principles alike human rights, justice, opportunity, and non-discrimination, it's best to skip town. That's something John Bolton and I can probably agree on. Does modern America do Eleanor Roosevelt proud? As I said, the UN should be anywhere but New York.

Libya suspends help on illegal EU immigration

TRIPOLI - LIBYA has decided to suspend cooperation with Europe in the fight against illegal immigration, state television reported on Sunday, quoting a security official.

'Libya has decided not to be responsible over the illegal immigration to Europe,' the television cited the official as saying.

The decision follows air strikes and the unleashing of barrages of Tomahawk missiles at Libyan targets on Saturday by the United States, Britain and France after a UN Security Council resolution with Arab backing authorised military action to stop Muammar Gaddafi's forces attacking pro-democracy rebels.

The European Commission in October offered Libya up to 50 million euros (S$89.8 million) in aid to stop the flow of illegal migrants to Europe and protect refugees.

Libya alone has 2,000km of coastline and twice as much in borders with north African neighbours.

Boats carrying thousands of undocumented migrants, mainly Tunisians, have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa in recent weeks putting a heavy strain on Italy's immigration infrastructure and leading to pleas for EU assistance. -- AFP

Qatar to take part in military action over Libya

CAIRO - QATAR will participate in military action over Libya with the aim of ending bloodshed there, Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told Doha-based Al Jazeera television channel.

The Arab League had called for a no-fly zone over Libya a week before Western powers backed a UN Security Council resolution that authorised such a zone and 'all necessary means'- code for military action - to protect civilians.

'Qatar will participate in military action because we believe there must be Arab states undertaking this action, because the situation there is intolerable,' he told Al Jazeera television channel.

But the channels said he did not specify what Qatar's precise role would be.

When the resolution was passed, UN diplomats had said they understood the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan were among Arab League members prepared to take part in enforcing the no-fly zone.

'The cause of killing is not a protest ... it has become an open war involving mercenaries. I think that this is an issue that must stop very quickly,' the prime minister said. -- REUTERS

UN must condemn China 'one child' policy: Lawmaker

A Chinese child wears a traditional costume as he walks with his parents. A US lawmaker has urged UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to condemn China's one-child policy. -- PHOTO: AP

WASHINGTON - UN SECRETARY General Ban Ki Moon must step up public condemnation of China's 'one-child' policy and investigate the alleged use of forced abortions to carry it out, a key US lawmaker said on Monday.

'To fail to speak out against what is by far the worst gender-based violence in history would make a mockery of the UN's claim to promote women,' Republican Representative Chris Smith said in an appeal to Mr Ban.

Mr Smith also urged Mr Ban to direct special UN envoys for violence against women, torture, and trafficking in persons to travel to China to investigate the way the policy is applied and its effects on women and girls.

China, under a 1980 policy designed to control its population, permits most couples to have only one child, an approach critics charge is backed with forced sterilisations and abortions.

The lawmaker - a long-time foe of abortion and a sharp critic of Beijing - also complained that the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) was backing China's policy, which he described as 'the most massive human rights violation in the world today' and said the agency must 'cease and desist.'

A US State Department report in 2002 found 'no evidence that UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilisation' in China. -- AFP

China blocks UN report on N.Korea nuclear breaches

UNITED NATIONS - CHINA has told UN Security Council members it plans to block publication of a UN special report that accuses North Korea of violating sanctions on its nuclear program, Western diplomats said.

The UN Panel of Experts on North Korea submitted a report on Jan 27 to the Security Council's sanctions committee, which monitors compliance with UN sanctions on Pyongyang imposed after its two nuclear tests.

Diplomats told Reuters that China informed council members it would block the publication and transfer of the report to the full council. They said China's move was odd since one of the experts who prepared the report, Xiaodong Xue, is Chinese.

The panel's report, which was seen by Reuters, says that North Korea almost certainly has several more undisclosed enrichment-related facilities. It also says that Pyongyang's uranium enrichment program and its development of a light-water reactor are serious violations of UN sanctions.

The report of the panel, which includes experts from the five permanent Security Council members, South Korea and Japan, was partly based on conversations with US nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker, who saw around 2,000 centrifuges used to enrich uranium during a rare visit to North Korea last year.

Western diplomats said they hoped the sanctions committee could meet before Feb. 23. But China has made it difficult to schedule a committee meeting, they said, and wanted as few details as possible of the panel's enrichment assessment and Mr Hecker's visit to North Korea mentioned in the committee's quarterly update. -- REUTERS

'Tiger Mom' Amy Chua More American Than Chinese

Oh, to be rid of this riff-raff once and for all. Let's face it: there are certain popular authors social science academics find cringeworthy. Reading the output of such writers usually reveals obvious shortcomings. Dambisa Moyo combines regurgitation of others' ideas with simple factual errors. Meanwhile, Amy Chua stretches personal anecdotes to represent wide-ranging phenomena. Views of (prejudiced) Chinese-Filipinos become the basis of setting the World on Fire. Or, in perhaps the most puzzling simplification to date, her wish to continue strict parenting she experienced becomes a 'Chinese' parenting war cry in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Although she claims this book to be more of a memoir, she does list it among her academic publications, so it's fair game here.

My first major objection is that Chua skips over her nanny's contributions:

...something doesn't add up. That missing piece is her Mandarin-speaking nanny.

That's right, the full-time growling Tiger Mom didn't raise her daughters herself, or even in a simple partnership with her husband. She isn't a stay-at-home mom, she isn't a middle-class working mom, she is a rich woman. And although she insists that her recently published book is not meant to be taken as parenting advice, its message is widely being read as suggesting that the "Chinese" mothering style is superior to the more lenient "Western" way. In any case, the truth is that for mothers who don't have her resources, following her lead would be impossible.

My second major objection is that, for someone teaching law--a trade where one should be precise with the use of words--she uses the term 'Chinese mother' in a very loose sense. In fact, I doubt whether she would even qualify as one. To be exact, she is a Filipino-Chinese migrant to the United States baptised as a Catholic who is not fluent in Mandarin:

She became a law professor and now teaches at Yale. She and her husband, another Yale law professor, hired a Chinese nanny to speak Mandarin, though Ms. Chua doesn’t speak it herself. Ms. Chua grew up as a Roman Catholic, but her daughters were raised as Jews.

My third major objection--one that various talking heads including those who claim to be international relations scholars haven't brought up yet--is that, for a lawyer by profession, Amy Chua does not seem to make much use of international law in discussing international parenting differences. This pattern of simplification is consistent with her previous work as I've mentioned above. Anyway, for the benefit of our dear readers, there is this thing called the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) under the auspices of the UN Children's Fund or UNICEF:

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights—-civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. In 1989, world leaders decided that children needed a special convention just for them because people under 18 years old often need special care and protection that adults do not. The leaders also wanted to make sure that the world recognized that children have human rights too...

By agreeing to undertake the obligations of the Convention (by ratifying or acceding to it), national governments have committed themselves to protecting and ensuring children's rights and they have agreed to hold themselves accountable for this commitment before the international community. States parties to the Convention are obliged to develop and undertake all actions and policies in the light of the best interests of the child.

However, alike with the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), let's say 'world leaders' of a certain North American nation have not signed up to this important international law. Which, in retrospect, is in keeping with environs where folks like Amy Chua can thrive. Contrary to the image Chua wants to portray, China has acceded to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child unlike the United States. Embarrassingly, the only state other than the US not to ratify it is a failed one (Somalia). President Obama cringes at this fact, but then again, he's done next to nothing about the matter:

The head of a United Nations monitoring committee today called on Somalia and the United States, the only two countries not to have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to do so immediately. “With the best interests of all children at heart, I would respectfully like to reiterate our appeal that these States ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” Committee on the Rights of the Child Chairperson Yanghee Lee told the General Assembly today. That pact is the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights – civil, cultural, economic, political and social – for youngsters under 18...

Asked at an earlier news conference why the United States had not ratified the treaty, she cited a raft of reasons from lack of political will to myths and misunderstandings about the convention. “The lack of political will is the biggest reason,” she said, noting that President Barack Obama in his 2008 election campaign had said that the US would ratify the treaty, “but we have yet to see that come to fruition.”

Ms. Lee noted that “then there is the misunderstanding that once you ratify this convention parents will have to give up their parental rights, and then children would be running around with all kinds of rights, taking the rights away from parents. “But that’s really a myth and a strong misunderstanding because the convention calls for guidance and support of parents, and families with responsibilities is one of the major provisions in the convention.”

Ms. Lee also cited a pushback from religious groups and also concerns from people who advocate home schooling and are concerned that CRC would abolish it. “But that’s not the case,” she stressed. “We have consistently said for States parties to provide for formal and non-formal education that also includes home schooling.” She also noted that some people have said CRC is pro-abortion and pro-adolescent health but “there is nothing in the convention that would suggest anything that the CRC is pro-abortion.”

It's insular America all over again, profoundly unconcerned about the rest of the world while constructing its own warped narratives. And just what would this self-styled 'Chinese tiger mom' be discouraged from doing? Let us count the ways:

Article 13

1. The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice.
2. The exercise of this right may be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; or
(b) For the protection of national security or of public order, or of public health or morals.

Contrast this with tiger parenting:

• As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English
  
• The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—-even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—-lose some weight."
• Back at the piano, [7-year-old] Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day.
• [Recall those toothmarks on the piano keys from another anguished child]
  

And speaking of which, consider this article too:

Article 16

1. No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation.
2. The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Lastly, what would UNICEF suggest parents sensibly do?

• Respect children. Use positive and non-violent discipline, including respecting the child’s perspective.
• Communicate with children. Children and adults should actively and consistently talk to each other, sharing information and ideas in the home, school and community with mutual respect. Listen to, and take seriously, the views of both boys and girls. Ensure that vulnerable children are able to express their opinions and make decisions

She can say that the Convention is wishy-washy, that Chinese parents don't really abide by it, or that the US is right not to ratify it. However, not engaging with the Convention is a professional boo-boo. She seems to be pretty good at self-promotion, but not particularly at her job of understanding laws that pertain to things she's interested in--like parenting. Remember, she's the 'John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law,' not yours truly. Instead of attempting to generalize the experience of Chinese parents, she could have done any number of things like review the substantial literature on culturally-based parenting styles. I understand there are any number of academic journals on education, family studies, and cross-cultural differences. Or, she could have investigated why China has adopted the Convention while the United States not.

So, for (1) being ill-informed about a great many things the rest of us are aware of despite her high-faluting credentials [typical Amerocentrism]; (2) maltreating her kids in apparent contravention of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child [which only the US and a failed state have failed to ratify]; (3) exploiting her kids for shameless self-promotion [America is the land of Jerry Springer and the reality show]; and (4) hypocritically failing to mention that a nanny does a considerable part of the upbringing in their household [too many examples of US hypocrisy to cite]--I dub Amy Chua an American phenomenon. I won't even mention the dubious genealogical bit.

Why does this sort of wilful kidsploitation gain so much attention Stateside and virtually none to intelligent debate about passing meaningful international laws concerning the protection of children? It shows you just how skewed American priorities are towards rewarding cheap sensationalism. Surely, I know which nation is famous for acting out its behavioural issues in public. While Americans may be preoccupied with obvious US decline, my argument is that Amy Chua presents nothing more than a caricature of being a Chinese parent. Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, Amy Chua...honestly, what's the difference?

Amy Chua, do us a favour: You're supposedly a lawyer. Do your job and tell us something about laws pertaining to topics you're interested in.

UN Soon to Ditch Millenium Development Goals?

Well, not really. But, a report suggests the MDGs are, well, incomplete. A recent Associated Press article clued me to the release of a new UN Research for Social Development (UNRISD) report reviewing the UN's efforts in helping promote development, particularly regarding use of the Millennium Development Goals. As someone who's taught international organization, let me say that even my head spins trying to identify the countless UN agencies dealing with development and what they do specifically. To make a long story short, think of UNRISD as the UN's near-equivalent of the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group that invites others not usually involved in day-to-day activities to critique ongoing activities.

William Easterly aside, the UNRISD critique of the Millennium Development Goals fall under three main categories from what I can tell: First, inequality is given short shrift. Again, this makes sense since x amount of additional income would benefit poverty alleviation efforts more if spread evenly throughout the population instead of going mostly to those in the top income tiers, leaving those below in a struggle to meet income thresholds. Second, social policy needs to be more systematically addressed, perhaps as opposed to being boiled down to a number of indicators. Third, and this should come as no shocker, politics matter in development.

While I'm not generally a fan of the MDGs, perhaps the UNRISD critics miss the point of the MDGs in that they were meant to present simple, relatively hard targets to compare development progress across nations. Setting inequality aside for now, UNRISD talks more about "soft" indicators such as governance quality. At any rate, what follows is the beginning of the AP article:

The United Nations is ignoring the critical role of jobs and income equality in its strategy to fight world poverty and hunger, to the detriment of developing nations, the world body's own researchers said in a critique Friday. The U.N. has said it is on track to halve the number of people living on less than $1 a day by 2015, and that the picture is mixed for other Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs, in the fields of health, education and the environment.

But the 15-year antipoverty plan agreed to by governments in 2000 has serious failings, the Geneva-based U.N. Research Institute for Social Development said in its report. People need jobs to combat poverty, the report argued, calling for a shift in focus away from safety nets and welfare programs. It also urged new approaches to address rising income inequality.

"Despite an ambitious agenda, the MDGs nonetheless represent a cautious approach to social development," the 360-page report said. "A number of critical issues and obstacles to overcoming poverty have not been addressed." The criticism is surprising, given the U.N.'s decade-long advocacy of the goals as the greatest hope for eradicating extreme poverty, hunger and disease around the world.

And here are the policy implications identified in the policy brief for "Combating Poverty and Inequality." I will probably have more to say when I get the full report, but here's a taster:

Economic growth is important, but alone it does not necessarily reduce poverty and inequality. Employment represents an important channel through which additional income generated by growth can be widely distributed throughout a population. Where poverty has been reduced successfully and sustainably, governments used policy interventions to facilitate employment-centred structural transformations of their economies. They invested substantially in infrastructure; channelled credit to specific productive activities; and pursued well-managed industrial and agricultural policies, as well as social policies that improved the skill levels and welfare of the population.
„
Equality and redistribution matter for poverty reduction. The MDGs and PRSPs do not directly address inequality. It is often assumed that absolute poverty or income level, rather than distribution, matter. However, high levels of inequality make it difficult to reduce poverty even when economies are growing; and poor countries are generally more unequal than rich ones. Poverty and inequality are part of the same problem. Inequality manifests itself in relation to class or income status, gender and ethnicity, and also across various dimensions, such as employment, earnings and access to social services. There is a strong case for redistributive policies to address these dimensions of the poverty problem.

Social policy is an integral part of the development strategies of countries that have transformed their economies and reduced poverty relatively quickly. A number of welfare policies are feasible and affordable for countries at fairly low levels of income. For social policy to be effective as a transformative instrument against poverty and inequality, it must transcend its residual role of safety net and engage with broad public policy issues of distribution, protection, production and reproduction. Successful countries have tended to invest substantially in education and skills development, as well as in health and social protection. Social policies must also address the unpaid work that goes into sustaining families, households and societies by investing in infrastructure and basic services, and thus reducing the unpaid carework done largely by women.

The linkages between policies and institutions in the social, economic and political spheres must be recognized if poverty is to be fought effectively. Poverty reduction is not just about having the right economic policies; it is also about pursuing appropriate social policies and types of politics that elevate the interests of the poor in public policy. Similarly, policy coherence goes beyond effective implementation and coordination. Securing the benefits of potential synergies between policies requires conscious design of both economic and social policies, backed by sufficiently powerful coalitions to ensure their implementation.

Politics matters for poverty reduction. The protection of civic rights, active and organized citizens, well-organized and representative political parties, and effective states with redistributive agendas are all important for sustained progress towards poverty reduction. The participatory framework of the PRSPs (often “consultation” without the power to effect real change) is of limited effectiveness in the absence of these conditions. Strategies to reduce poverty and inequality require institutionalized rights that allow citizens to organize and contest public policies as autonomous actors; political parties that are embedded in broad social coalitions; social pacts that give a broad range of groups voice and influence in shaping development policies and outcomes; and democratic regimes that are sufficiently competitive to allow for periodic alternations in power and prevent ruling parties from becoming complacent.

There is no one right way to reduce poverty. Most countries that have successfully reduced poverty adopted heterodox policies that reflected their national conditions, rather than fully embracing market-conforming prescriptions. Countries and peoples must be allowed the policy space to adopt different models of development where aspects of livelihood and food security, land reform, cultural rights, gender equity, social policy and associative democracy figure prominently.
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I should disclose that I've been asked to review some work for a UN publication, though I'm still free to say that I hope the full report is more substantial than some of the platitudes given above suggest. So institutions matters and so do politics. But what are the implications then for the framing of the MDGs, if any? Some like Easterly think they miss the point, while others think they need revamping. Hopefully, the UNRISD taps into this ongoing debate. 2015 is pretty near, after all.

What Now With Millennium Development Goals?

So here we find ourselves just five years away from the Millennium Development Goals' designated target date of 2015. Now comes another thought-provoking article from the LSE house journal Global Policy on "What Next for the Millennium Development Goals?" by Todd Moss of the US-based Center for Global Development (CGD). Followers of international development should be familiar with the criticisms of William Easterly that the goals are cast in such a way as to downplay the encouraging gains made by African nations in particular. In general, Easterly is famously critical of plans and targets.

However, what Moss emphasizes here is that the global mindset is often fixated on concepts like the "war on poverty" and other similarly high-faluting notions. Rather than fight that trend, he suggests recasting the MDGs in such a way that makes them both more palatable to development critics and more cognizant of the development challenges that result in material improvements in the lives of the poor. What follows is the concluding section of a rewarding read:

In an ideal world, we could avoid all the circus of UN summits and misleading use of targets and finger pointing by just abandoning utopian global goals. However, given the cycle of the past and the dynamics within international organizations, another round of MDG-like goals seems inevitable. A second-best approach is to try to fix them based on the following principles that directly try to address some of the shortcomings. Any new MDGs should be:

• Bottom up, not global down. New global goals should be based on the aggregation of each country's targets rather than setting a world goal and then retrofitting targets to country plans.

• Based on ambitious yet reasonably achievable expectations. New country-based goals must take into account the context and starting point of each country's circumstances, combined with bold yet practicable improvements. It took the United States from 1800 to 1905 to make the transition from 40 per cent school enrollment to universal coverage. Expecting countries currently at a similar 40–50 per cent level (like Ethiopia, Mali, Burkina Faso or Senegal) to race ahead to 100 per cent completion rates in just 15 years seems utterly unworkable.

• Aimed, where possible, on intermediate outcomes. A requisite for upholding even a modicum of accountability means picking targets that are more closely linked to things under control of the relevant actors. For instance, health officials and their partners in donor agencies have much more scope to influence immunization rates than overall child mortality rates.

• Considered warning markers rather than operational goals. Global goals are useful in letting us know where we are and as a signal for where we hope to be one day. They also can add pressure on governments, in both the rich and poor worlds, to identify where they may need to apply additional efforts and arm their own citizens with information. Yet such benchmarks are not necessarily useful either for making funding decisions or for assigning praise or condemnation to regimes or the development community as a whole.

• Able to identify success. Scorecards of progress should be able to identify and celebrate success of those countries ahead of the curve and being creative in enhancing the lives of their people.

There are many other goals that could be added to the mostly social indicators currently on the MDG list. My ideal set of goals would include things like job creation, access to electricity and, perhaps, bank accounts – things that help generate economic opportunity and are the only sustainable path out of poverty and aid dependency. If we fail to adapt the next round of international development goals, we are likely to remain stuck in a cycle of well-meaning but ultimately empty global aspirations – and destined to having the same debate, yet again, in 2030.

Let's Talk About Global Food Governance

Conflicts over resources are the stuff of history. In the previous century, petroleum was considered The Prize in the words of a Pulitzer Prize winning book by Daniel Yergin. In this day and age, new resource issues have emerged that attract interest from international relations / international political economy scholars in search of new areas of investigation over who gets what where and when. One is the struggle for water resources, especially in arid regions where growing nations compete for this increasingly scarce commodity. Another is that for food which tends to cut across the globe's (poorer) regions.

Like my particular area of research, migration, food security is an issue area whose global governance is overlapping yet tenuous. Alike for migration, food is a domain covered by a multiplicity of regional and international organizations that do not necessarily operate in a coordinated fashion. In plain English, there's a whole bunch of people who don't seem to bother checking how their efforts fit together with those of others. Heck, the United Nations contains a number of bodies alike the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) that not only fail to work together but also engage in turf wars over matters such as obtaining UN funding.

Overall, global food governance is something of a mess. Given increasing incidences of hunger that occurred in the wake of the global financial crisis, these concerns are not trivial ones. Yet, the existing infrastructure of international organizations has not acquitted itself well in recent times. While browsing Nature, I came across this interesting piece by Joachim von Braun who suggests what we can do to improve matters. The prescribed solutions deal more with organizational matters than with food production per se. What follows in his conclusion, though the rest of the article is well worth reading. In particular, he highlights the role that can be played by reform in making the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) act as the "quarterback." Adding to the complexity, however, the CFS itself is under the FAO. It is, in a word, complicated:

The establishment of global governance is a complex and sensitive political matter, so it is pragmatic to build on existing elements. The CFS was established in 1974 as a result of the food crisis of the 1970s. Long criticized as a talking shop, it has the potential to be much more. It is an ideal candidate for the overarching strategic body that is needed to synchronize action in the world food system.

The 2009 reform plan for the CFS aims to give the committee strong coordination roles at the global level. It pictures a group with wider membership, including representatives of all UN member governments, the UN organizations, international finance organizations, industry, foundations and non-governmental organizations. The committee would have a flat, non-bureaucratic structure and access to sound expert advice, enabling it to take quick, informed action.

Nothing currently stands in the way of government-to-government networks in food, nutrition and agriculture. They are simply not being created. A reformed CFS could identify people with an interest in such networking, connect them and give them access to science and policy expertise, and provide a forum in which they can meet.

The CFS reform plan, however, is not sufficient. The body remains under the control of UN organizations rather than being independent of them, and depends for funding on the very organizations it is supposed guide. It must be independent to provide sound global governance covering all aspects of food, agriculture and nutrition.

A system is only as strong as its weakest parts. Even with a robust and independent CFS, existing global bodies would need to respond to the criticisms of their independent reviews much more quickly than they are doing.

Governments must grant the CFS the authority it needs for these roles. A good place to start would be an agreement between the leaders of the G20 to establish the CFS as an independent intergovernmental body, endowed with the resources to operate effectively. There is already strong political momentum for this issue. The G8 and G20 discussed food security extensively at their 2008 and 2009 meetings, for example, and the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this January had a greater focus on food issues than ever.

The G20 meeting on 26 and 27 June in Canada has food on its agenda, and the G20 chaired by South Korea later in the year could close the deal. Such a change in global food governance is sorely needed to help avert another food crisis.

Certainly, there is better time to get going as the present.

Introducing UNEP Climate Competitiveness Index

As if we didn't have enough measures of competitiveness already, here comes yet another one for us to consider. Given the rising prominence of environmental issues, it's only natural that they gained status as one of the emerging arenas for developing metrics for competitiveness. Certainly, this idea is not new. Harvard's legendary management guru Michael Porter identified it as far back as 1991 as the next arena for global contestation. Meanwhile, journalist Thomas Friedman basically ripped off Porter's idea in also identifying green technologies as an area where America can renew itself.

Not one to be left out it the environmental competitiveness craze, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) has teamed up with environmental consultancy AccountAbility to develop a "climate competitiveness index" or CCI. (I suppose it's inevitable that they came up with another measurement of this sort in mimetic fashion.) Here is how UNEP defines ita as well as how it fits in with the grander scheme of things with the Copenhagen climate talks yielding decidedly mixed results. While we await the full report from UNEP, the executive summary has some interesting stuff. Here is the definition of climate competitiveness:

Climate Competitiveness is the ability of an economy to create enduring economic value through low carbon technology, products and services.

Climate competitiveness strategies have not been stalled by Copenhagen. Despite uncertainty about the international negotiations, businesses, governments and citizens around the world are getting on with the task of seizing opportunities in the emerging low carbon economy. The report identifies significant activity in the first quarter of 2010. India’s new commitments will create 1,200 energy efficiency projects and open up a market worth US$15 billion. Germany has already created 250,000 green jobs and aims to find 400,000 more, while China and the USA are neck and neck in the race to generate renewable energy.

The Climate Competitiveness Index 2010 identifies good practices in countries around the world. From the investment promotion agency in Finland and the Presidential office in Guyana to consumer watchdogs in New Zealand, key institutions are preparing for climate competitiveness. If such good practices are converted into meaningful national strategies, it will accelerate progress towards the low carbon economy.

The low carbon economy will be competitive. While economic value can eventually become widely shared and collaborative, the market in 2010 is fiercely competitive as people strive to achieve first mover advantages. Climate-related businesses could have revenues in excess of US$2 trillion by 2020. Investors are asking the leading companies in all sectors to show how they are winningmarket share. Smaller businesses, entrepreneurs, urban planners, policymakers, business associations, stock exchanges, investment agencies, labour unions and civil society organisations are all building support for climate competitiveness and prosperous, low carbon societies.

The Climate Competitiveness Index 2010 shows which countries and regions are best placed to thrive in the low-carbon economy. The Climate Competitiveness Index (CCI) is a new metric that analyses low carbon leadership, performance and accountability. The underlying model captures the key trends in a sample of 95 countries covering the vast majority of businesses and 97% of global economic activity, as well as 96% of global carbon emissions.

The CCI is a dynamic model assessing both accountability (the climate strategy is clear, ambitious, and supported by all stakeholders) and performance (the country has the track record and capabilities to deliver the strategy).

And here is a graphic explaining how climate competitiveness was determined based on various stakeholder inputs:

Lastly, the Climate Competitiveness Index 2010 has ten key findings...

1) Countries that have strong climate performance generally have higher levels of climate accountability. Lessstrong performers tend to be less accountable. While there are many exceptions to this pattern, and only anecdotal evidence as yet on causality between the two dimensions, prudent climate strategies will focus on
strengthening both dimensions.

2) There has been an increase in climate accountability since the UNFCCC Copenhagen conference in December 2009. Nearly half (46%) of the countries assessed have improved their climate accountability somewhat or significantly, suggesting the Copenhagen Accord has had a positive impact, with improved climate competitiveness registering in 32 countries. Major climbers include Rwanda, Kenya andGhana, and from the OECD, Republic of Korea and Ireland. These developments demonstrate the importance of debate and citizen action in strategy development.

3) There are examples of good practice to be shared in dozens of countries. In most countries, there is still plenty of room for improvement among many of the competitiveness actors. Specifically, much more can be done by business associations, competitiveness and investment agencies, stock exchanges and consumer groups to promote more business action.

4) Each country will have a distinctive competitiveness strategy, but some broad patterns are discernible in different regions and in different economic clusters. For example, Bolivia, Ghana, Vietnam and Bangladesh all demonstrate strong citizen concern coupled with limited business engagement. Emerging economies like Brazil and the Philippines enjoy strong government leadership. In other cases, leadership is evident in the business community, for example in Scandinavia and Singapore. However, climate leadership will increasingly require engagement from most or all stakeholders.

5) Climate accountability is becoming a vote-winner for governments and parliamentarians. Citizens are demanding visible, coherent and tangible climate leadership fromnational leaders. Many politicians are opening dialogues to gauge opinions. Climate accountability is becoming a key differentiator in elections, for example in Brazil, Japan and the UK. In Republic of Korea, the President’s office has engaged with numerous stakeholders to create the ‘Low Carbon Green Growth Strategy’.

6) Climate competitiveness is not dictated by income level, despite strong performance on the Index by many northern European countries. The Philippines is highly accountable and has made green jobs a political priority. Guyana, China, Chile, Mauritius and South Africa are all building distinctive strategies for low carbon competitiveness. There is no evidence for a climate Kuznets Curve or that resource endowments dictate national performance.

7) Consistency is the key to climate competitiveness. Northern European countries, notably Germany, France, the UK and Nordic countries, have the most consistent performance across the eight domains and between accountability and performance. In North America and Australia, there is a telling mismatch between citizen concerns and price signals, and divergent views within the business community and in politics. The BASIC states outperform the rest of the G20 on accountability. Latin American countries are stronger on performance than accountability. In Asia, the Middle East and in Africa, there is high variability in both performance and account-
ability, as indeed there is in the EU27 states.

8) Climate action in the private sector is crucial for climate competitiveness. Strong performance on the CCI by Japan, Republic of Korea, Germany, the Nordics and the USA is manifested by active engagement by the largest firms in reducing their emissions and offering low carbon products and services. The track record on carbon disclosure and management of the five largest companies headquartered in each country is a robust predictor of broader business action within the country. In some countries, action is still lacking even among the biggest firms, let alone the broader business community.

9) Companies and countries are scrambling to win share in new markets. The clean energy sector, estimated to be worth US$200 billion in 2010, has seen rapidly growing investment in recent years, with a moderate setback due to the 2009 downturn. Low carbon street lighting is a good example of fierce competition. Trials of rival LED technologies, running in Hong Kong, New York, Tianjin and Toronto will dictate success for companies in what is expected to be a US$1 billion market in 2010. Countries such as Turkey, Italy, the USA and China have all increased their investments in clean energy by over 100% in the last five years. It is of concern that significant investments are being made in some countries with only moderate levels of climate accountability.

10) The countries most vulnerable to climate change do not yet have the accountability and capacity they will require to adapt and thrive. Proactive adaptation policies are being developed in countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia and the Maldives, but international support will be needed for many countries to build climate resilient growth strategies. This support includes the current offerings of climate models, mitigation menus and strategy advice, but also needs to encompass capacity building for all the key actors in climate competitiveness, including business associations, trades unions, stock exchanges and civil society and consumer groups.

Deja Vu Time: G-20 as Bretton Woods Rehash

To its credit, the G-20 process seems to be making meaningful progress on fronts I thought would be sacrosanct only a few months ago: cracking down on tax havens; increasing transparency of hedge fund positions; regulating "systemically important" banks; and even a then-unheard one of charging these banks for the public service of bailouts going forward. We now know that the current IMF head has proclaimed the death of the Washington Consensus, while its quest for ever-freer capital flows has been abandoned (for now).

Now, Eric Helleiner should be a very familiar name to IPE readers. As his edited volume The Future of the Dollar demonstrates, there is a wide range of opinions on where it is headed. Nevertheless, in a recent UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) discussion paper, he makes an number of salient points, First, the Bretton Woods conference was itself a UN-sponsored event. Second, as we often forget, the World Bank and IMF are nominally under the umbrella of the UN system. Thus, UN bodies alike UNCTAD should have a way in how these institutions function. Third, many of the issues we face today--regulating capital flows, accommodating heterodox (read: contra Washington Consensus) policies, and what else have you were also the points of debate at Bretton Woods.

As he is writing for UNCTAD, Helleiner is unsurprisingly friendly to causes dear to developing countries. Yes. it's a slant I'm partial to obviously, but he makes several points that require meaningful consideration in any discussion of the subject matter of The Contemporary Reform of Global Financial Governance: Implications of and Lessons from the Past. Here is the conclusion, though the rest is well worth reading:

The G20 leaders’ summit in November 2008 invariably invited comparisons with Bretton Woods. At both meetings there was a shared desire to assert public authority more centrally into the international financial system in the wake of a devastating international financial crisis. But the G20 leaders have so far been much more cautious than their Bretton Woods predecessors in laying out an agenda to achieve this goal. This paper has suggested that the three broad innovations in global financial governance outlined at Bretton Woods may serve as useful road map if policymakers want to set their sights higher: the regulation of international financial markets, the management of global imbalances, and the promotion of international development.

Some of the specific long-forgotten proposals that were discussed during the Bretton Woods negotiations in each of these three categories also deserve reconsideration today, such as those relating to debt restructuring, heterodox fnancial advice for developing countries, and the role of international cooperation in efforts to control capital movements. This is not to suggest that history should simply repeat itself. If the Bretton Woods objectives are to be met in the contemporary context, a number of the proposals they discussed would need to be adjusted to the new economic and political circumstances. Efforts to regulate international financial markets today must go far beyond the border control issues addressed at Bretton Woods to strengthen international prudential rules. For those wanting to curtail speculative international financial flows, the Tobin tax provides a new approach not considered at Bretton Woods. With respect to the management of global imbalances, the Bretton Woods principle that both surplus and deficit countries have shared responsibilities needs to be reinforced via new mechanisms such as an international substitution account, support for domestic currency borrowing in developing countries [instead of in reserve currencies], and new kinds of reserve pooling arrangements at the global and regional levels. The promotion of international development must also be extended to cover the new international prudential regulations being developed.

Important to all these areas is also the need for governance reform to adjust international financial institutions to today’s more decentralized international political environment. At the Bretton Woods conference, United States leadership within the multilateral Bretton Woods institutions was simply assumed. Today, the world is changing in ways that make governance questions a much more important part of the agenda of global financial reform. It is not just a question of giving developing countries more say in the Bretton Woods institutions as well as in the FSF and other standard-setting bodies. Also significant is the need to consider decentralizing international financial governance by assigning more tasks to the regional level. At the same time, greater resort to a principle of subsidiarity via regional arrangements in international financial governance must be grounded within the broad multilateral framework set not just by the Bretton Woods institutions, but also the United Nations system more generally.

This last point deserves special emphasis for those seeking to build a new Bretton Woods. As we have seen, from the very start, United States policymakers in the early 1940s intended the planning for the post-war international financial order to be situated within the larger process of creating the United Nations system. It is no coincidence that the formal title of the Bretton Woods meeting was the “United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference”. In the lead-up to the conference, British policymakers had pressed at various moments for bilateral negotiations, but United States policymakers insisted on a more inclusive multilateral meeting which included not just smaller industrialized countries, but also countries from the non-industrialized world. In the contemporary period, the United States decision to create a summit of the G20 leaders for the first time in November 2008 marked an important effort to be more inclusive of emerging powers in discussions of global fnancial reform. If the goal is to build a new Bretton Woods order, however, the process will need to be embedded within a more representative, inclusive and universal political framework.

0.7% of GDP Aid Target: Where Did It Come From?

I serendipitously came across this fascinating paper by Michael Clemens and Todd Moss of the Center for Global Development (CGD) while looking for the history of the much-vaunted aid target. As someone interested in all matters dealing with development, I've been curious about the somewhat obscure origins of the target that official development aid (ODA) constitute, at a minimum, 0.7% of the GDPs of developed nations' respective outputs. Even today, the UN Millennium Project harps on the 0.7% target:

The UN Millennium Project's analysis indicates that 0.7% of rich world GNI can provide enough resources to meet Millennium Development Goals, but developed countries must follow through on commitments and begin increasing ODA volumes today. If every developed country set and followed through on a timetable to reach 0.7% by 2015, the world could make dramatic progress in the fight against poverty and start on a path to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and end extreme poverty within a generation.

While several Nordic and Benelux countries approach or exceed this target of 0.7%--see a review from not so long ago--many others fall short. Here is the abstract from the Clemens and Moss contribution:

The international goal for rich countries to devote 0.7% of their national income to development assistance has become a cause célèbre for aid activists and has been accepted in many official quarters as the legitimate target for aid budgets. The origins of the target, however, raise serious questions about its relevance. First, the 0.7% target was calculated using a series of assumptions that are no longer true, and justified by a model that is no longer considered credible. When we use essentially the same method used to arrive at 0.7% in the early 1960s and apply today’s conditions, it yields an aid goal of just 0.01% of rich-country GDP for the poorest countries and negative aid flows to the developing world as a whole. We do not claim in any way that this is the ‘right’ amount of aid, but only that this exercise lays bare the folly of the initial method and the subsequent unreflective commitment to the 0.7% aid goal. Second, we document the fact that, despite frequent misinterpretation of UN documents, no government ever agreed in a UN forum to actually reach 0.7%—though many pledged to move toward it. Third, we argue that aid as a fraction of rich country income does not constitute a meaningful metric for the adequacy of aid flows. It would be far better to estimate aid needs by starting on the recipient side with a meaningful model of how aid affects development. Although aid certainly has positive impacts in many circumstances, our quantitative understanding of this relationship is too poor to accurately conduct such a tally. The 0.7% target began life as a lobbying tool, and stretching it to become a functional target for real aid budgets across all donors is to exalt it beyond reason. That no longer makes any sense, if it ever did.

And here are the key parts of the paper to me. While most of us know that it had something to do with the UN--particularly the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) formed by more activist developing countries--there is more to the story. First, there is the involvement of the World Council of Churches that had indirect clout at the United Nations. American officialdom circa the mid-Sixties also figures into the preliminary argument for 1% of rich-country GDP being devoted to ODA:

The World Council of Churches is a Geneva-based organization that has promoted cooperation between different Christian sects since 1948, and claims to represent 400 million people in 100 countries. From its inception the Council was a conduit for cash donations from parishes in rich countries to those in poor countries. At its 1955 Central Committee meeting in Davos, the Council asked Dutch agricultural economist Egbert de Vries, a senior World Bank official and devout Christian, to advise it on its aid efforts. De Vries made the case that no amount of church donations could reasonably do the job and that “a great amount of capital would be needed from the rich nations in order to achieve only a modest increase in the standard of living of the poorer.”

In 1955, total public and private capital flows to poor countries were about 0.5 percent of rich countries’ GNI. The Council’s Central Committee, meeting in Denmark in 1958, adopted a statement that “[o]nly with substantial outside aid from the economically more developed countries … can countries with soundly based development plans hope to carry them through and avert the human disasters that follow from their failure. … Far more grants and generous loans are essential. … If at least one per cent of the national income of countries were devoted to these purposes, the picture would become much more hopeful.”

Though the Council provided no record of how it arrived at the one percent figure, it is unlikely that it was settled on for any other reason than that it was a round number representing roughly a doubling of capital flows from the levels of the mid-1950s. The Council’s request was transmitted to several developed countries’ missions to the United Nations.

Throughout the late 1950s public and private capital flows all developing countries increased, and by 1960 had reached 0.83% of rich countries’ GNI. In that year, the United Nations General Assembly called that level “inadequate” and adopted without vote the resolution that it “[e]xpresses the hope that the flow of international assistance and capital should be increased substantially so as to reach as soon as possible approximately 1 per cent of the combined national incomes of the economically advanced countries.”

The 1% figure got more than just this hopeful nod from the UN. It was supported directly and explicitly—though not publicly—by rich-country governments. US State Department internal memos from early 1961 reveal that the Undersecretary of State for Economic and Agricultural Affairs “thought the Germans might agree to one per cent of gross national production. This seemed satisfactory to Mr. [Secretary of State Dean] Rusk”, and that the State Department told all its European missions that “we can perhaps set as a collective target a sum of one per cent of our aggregate income”.

We now need to complete the story by explaining how the 1% figure above came to be the 0.7% standard of today that we all know and at least some people love. What's remarkable here is the involvement of Robert S. McNamara in arriving at this figure during his term as World Bank president. Often a target for activists' ire for his role in the Vietnam conflict as US Secretary of Defence, perhaps it's time the aid activists cut him some slack in pushing for the time-tested standard:

A final step remained for this “1%” goal for aggregate capital flows to become the modern “0.7%” goal for aid. The first meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1964 noted that capital flows to developing countries had reached 0.8% of rich-country income in 1961, approximately three quarters of which were official bilateral aid. The meeting thus hinted at, but did not adopt, an aid goal. The Conference’s final act stated that it “recommends” that “[e]ach economically advanced country should endeavor to supply … financial resources to the developing countries of a minimum net amount approaching as nearly as possible to 1 per cent of its national income …” An aid goal was not only absent but notably and explicitly ruled out: “This is not intended to represent either a ceiling or a suitable method for comparing the appropriate quantitative or qualitative development assistance efforts between economically advanced countries.”

The second meeting of UNCTAD, in New Delhi in 1968, went one step further but stopped just short of a formal aid target. Background studies by the UNCTAD secretariat noted that combined public and private capital flows had slipped from 0.87% of rich-country GNI to 0.62% over 1961–1966. These background studies—which were not endorsed by the delegates—suggested that to meet the General Assembly’s one percent goal for total capital flows, “it would be desirable to have a target for official development assistance as a measure of the commitment of governments to international development” and “consistent with the 1 per cent target, … [c]ountries whose net official assistance is currently below 0.75 per cent of their GNP might undertake to raise it to this level by, say, 1971.” To arrive at this number, the study explicitly assumes that official flows would continue to represent roughly two thirds to three quarters of total capital flows through the mid 1970s.

Though the Conference reiterated support for the 1% goal of total capital flows, it did not adopt the secretariat’s suggestion of an aid goal. The Conference’s “decision” on an “aid volume target” reads: “A number of developed countries stated that within the 1 per cent target defined above, they were prepared to attempt to provide a minimum of 0.75 per cent of their GNP by way of net official financial resource transfers. One developed country expressed the view that this proportion should be at least half of the 1 per cent target. The other developed countries, even though they are not prepared to accept any precise ratio, believe that endeavors should be made to ensure that official bilateral and multilateral flows represent a substantial part of the totality of financial resources provided.” The anonymity of these references suggests deep and sensitive divisions at the meeting.

The aid community wanted more. World Bank President Robert McNamara together with British Minister of Overseas Development Lord Reginald Prentice conceived the Commission on International Development—more commonly known as the “Pearson Commission” after its chair, former Canadian prime minister and Nobel laureate Lester Pearson. The main purpose of the group was to use the commissioners’ political clout to draw attention to the UNCTAD target in legislatures, especially the United States. From its inception, the Pearson Commission was conceived in order to “rejuvenate the commitment to the UNCTAD target… The Commissioners were largely ‘political influentials’ and well-known economists to help persuade legislatures, with the US as a prime target,” explains Ernest Stern, who was Deputy Staff Director for the Commission.

Arrival at the 0.7% figure was also the result of an arbitrary compromise based on what was thought politically feasible at the time. Former Pearson Commission staffer Sartaj Aziz recalls:

By the time the Pearson Commission met, there was a virtual consensus on the 1% target. From there, the rationale for reaching the 0.70% target for ODA was straightforward. ODA had already reached 0.54% in 1961. An increase to 0.6% would have been considered too modest since countries like France had reached 0.72% by 1968. I remember one staff discussion in which we debated whether the ODA target should be 0.70% or 0.75%. Consensus reached was in favor of 0.70%, as a ‘simple, attainable and adequate’ target.

The final report, delivered to McNamara in September 1969, read: “We therefore
recommend that each aid-giver increase commitments of official development assistance for net disbursements to reach 0.70 per cent of its gross national product by 1975 or shortly thereafter, but in no case later than 1980.”

The UN took on the 0.7% figure, but agreed that governments would exert “efforts” to reach it rather than agreeing to actually reach it. On November 19, 1970, the General Assembly adopted without vote the declaration of the Second Development Decade, calling for six percent GNI growth in developing countries and stating, “Each economically advanced country will progressively increase its official development assistance to the developing countries and will exert its best efforts to reach a minimum net amount of 0.7 per cent of its gross national product … by the middle of the Decade.” What constituted sufficient effort was not defined.

The text of the General Assembly resolution is here. It's good investigative work by Clemens and Moss and makes for a compelling story in its own right. Like with so many other things, standards often come about by happenstance and accident than any conscious effort to make them so.

Shark Tales: Int'l Institutions Fail Overfishing

In some ways, I am a reluctant environmentalist. If we lived in a world of infinite fish stocks and immediate replenishment, there would be no problem. However, I must draw the line when overfishing threatens extinction and collective action fails to do anything about it. A few days ago, I discussed how motions to limit overfishing of bluefin tuna--an increasingly affected species as the popularity of sushi and sashimi increase worldwide--failed before the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in the face of Japanese opposition in tandem with source countries like Libya. Now we receive news that another proposed measure to limit the fishing of sharks has met a similar fate due to the objections of countries led by (surprise!) Japan. And don't forget the whales as it believes "domino theory" is operative in endeavours to limit fishing.

As with the bluefin tuna objections, these measures were voted down by those with vested commercial interests. The popularity of Japanese cuisine doesn't need much elaboration here. However, some of you may be less familiar with the popularity of shark's fin soup--an expensive delicacy served in Chinese restaurants. In China and Chinese diaspora communities, shark's fin soup is a prestige dish often served during wedding banquets and other important events to indicate the graciousness of the hosts. The economic rise of East Asia has meant greater demand for shark's fin from middle class consumers. However, environmentalists have long bemoaned fishing sharks for this dish as the fins are basically cut off and the rest of the shark is discarded. Here is a description from Reuters of its rising popularity:

One of the world's most expensive food products, a bowl of shark fin soup can cost $100, with a single fin worth more than $1,300. Up to 10 million kg of shark fin is exported annually to Hong Kong by nearly 87 countries, according to Oceana, a marine conservation group. Demand for the soup has exploded in Asia, where an expanding middle class can now more easily afford a delicacy once reserved for the wealthy. Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and China are big shark fin consumers.

The net result is a noticeable decline in shark populations. Agence-France Presse has the post-mortem on how three out of four species marked for conservation have not made the grade; the only one making it is, to no one's surprise, that whose fin is not valuable:

The UN wildlife trade body slapped down a trio of proposals on Tuesday to oversee cross-border commerce for sharks threatened with extinction through overfishing, sparking anger from conservationists. The only marine species granted protection at a meeting of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) was the temperate zone porbeagle, a shark fished for its meat...

The shark species left exposed to globally unregulated commerce were the scalloped hammerhead, the oceanic white tip and the spiny dogfish. Millions of hammerhead and whitetip are extracted from seas each year, mainly to satisfy a burgeoning appetite for sharkfin soup, a prestige food in Chinese communities around the world. The US proposals were rejected by a narrow margin, opening the possibility that one or both could get a second hearing on Thursday when the 13-day conference ends.

Only decades ago, the two species were among the most common of the semi-coastal and open-water sharks. But incidental catch and demand for fins have slashed populations by 90 per cent in several regions. The fish are often tossed back into the water after their precious fins have been sliced away.

The scalloped hammerhead is listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as "vulnerable" globally, while the whitetip is "critically endangered" in the north-western Atlantic, and "vulnerable" elsewhere. Once the highest level of biomass in the Gulf of Mexico, the whitetip is 99 per cent depleted there today, marine biologist Julia Baum said.

Japan led opposition to the four measures, arguing that management of shark populations should be left to regional fisheries groups, not CITES. Conservationists counter that fishing for sharks is unregulated. "The problem today is not there is serious mismanagement of trade in sharks, as for tuna, but that there is no management at all," said Sue Lieberman, policy director for the Washington-based Pew Environment Group.

The proposals called for listing on CITES' Appendix II, which requires countries to monitor exports and demonstrate that fishing is done in a sustainable manner. The scientific panel of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recommend protection for all the species except the spiny dogfish which, along with the porbeagle, was also voted down at the last CITES meeting in 2007...

And if you haven't figured out the arch-villain yet -

Many NGOs said that intensive lobbying by Japan played a critical role in the measures being shot down. "We see clearly now the Japanese motivation for opposing all these marine species proposals," said Anne Schroeer, a Madrid-based economist with Oceana. "For the whales, they say we are catching it traditionally. For the bluefin tuna, they say we are eating it. But for the sharks, there is nothing but pure economic interest." All told, a third of the world's 64 species of pelagic, or open water, sharks face extinction, according to a report issued last June by the IUCN's Shark Specialist Group.

It is all quite sad, really. While Japan always says it is interested in conservation, it always leads movements to thwart efforts designed to prevent overfishing. It's not very self-enlightened, methinks, and will ultimately backfire in the long run as doing nothing and fishing these species to extinction or near-extinction is a solution acceptable only to the Bjorn Lomborg set.

The issue here comes down to one familiar with limiting trade in controlled substances--reducing demand. Consuming and producing nations will, in the final analysis, go for their interests. Fortunately, there are recent efforts such as Shark Savers and WildAid's ongoing high-profile campaign in China to increase consumer education about the hazards associated with overfishing:

During 2007-08, WildAid developed and expanded its work to reduce demand for shark products, primarily in China. This campaign included television and billboard campaigns featuring leading Olympic stars pledged not to eat shark fin soup. The advertising featured the main stars of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, Yao Ming, who carried the Chinese flag for the Chinese team, Li Ning, who lit the giant torch and musician Liu Huan, who sang the official theme song of the 2008 Olympics.

In 2009, WildAid and Shark Savers have come together to amplify the impact of this awareness and education campaign in China to reduce consumption of shark fin soup. This campaign will utilize cultural, athletic, and business heroes of China, including basketball legend Yao Ming, to deliver a message proven to make shark fin soup socially unacceptable...

We, at Shark Savers, are very excited to be working with WildAid on this campaign. No where in the world can we affect as big a change in shark consumption habits than in China. We think that, together, we have the right skills, message, and elements to 'close the sale' with the Chinese public. It is an urgent time as shark populations continue to dwindle, but we think that there are signs of real hope. With the athletic and cultural heroes and prominent businessmen that are coming together for this cause, and the already-proven message, we think we may be at a tipping point in China on the issue of shark fin soup.

You can say that marketing led us into this mess, so (social) marketing should help lead us out of it. Ultimately, there is nothing culturally ingrained about having to consume this dish and there are substitutes for it using similar recipes. There is still a chance of limits being placed before CITES wraps up later today, but if not, curbing appetite for the dish is really the way to go in the absence of collective action.

And no, I don't eat shark's fin soup.