tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/international-development-604/articlesInternational development – The Conversation2023-11-15T09:05:21Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2173902023-11-15T09:05:21Z2023-11-15T09:05:21ZHow governments use IMF bailouts to hurt political opponents – new research<p>Sri Lanka <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2023/10/19/pr23357-sri-lanka-imf-reaches-sla-on-the-review-of-sri-lanka-extended-fund-facility-arrangement">received a bailout</a> from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in March amid soaring inflation, debt and a sovereign default. </p>
<p>In exchange for US$3 billion (£2.4 billion), the government committed to spending cuts and tax and financial sector reforms. These have prevented Sri Lankan wages from recovering after they fell <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sri-lanka-government-imf-austerity-deal-will-exacerbate-debt-crisis-by-jayati-ghosh-and-kanchana-n-ruwanpura-2023-09">by almost half</a> in real terms during the preceding financial crisis, leading to protests in the streets of Colombo. </p>
<p>Sri Lankans’ experience of these measures has been far from uniform. Emerging evidence indicates that the government — led by Ranil Wickremesinghe, part of the Buddhist Sinhalese majority — has concentrated the burdens primarily on ethnic minorities, <a href="https://borgenproject.org/tamil-poverty-in-sri-lanka/#:%7E:text=Poverty%20in%20Sri%20Lanka%20affects,lower%20access%20to%20essential%20services.">who are the poorest</a> in Sri Lanka and typically support the opposition. </p>
<p>The government has sought to protect the elite, which is primarily Buddhist Sinhalese, by avoiding imposing wealth taxes and only making small increases in corporation tax. It has placed the costs of austerity on low-income people by doubling the value-added tax rate to 15%. </p>
<p>It has also doubled the tax that people pay on pension-fund returns. Again, this hits poor ethnic minorities hardest because <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sri-lanka-government-imf-austerity-deal-will-exacerbate-debt-crisis-by-jayati-ghosh-and-kanchana-n-ruwanpura-2023-09">they frequently earn</a> too little to pay income tax. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, this experience is part of a worldwide pattern. Our new book, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/imf-lending/14E6106B4EF6D335C1C7404E4C7E5313">IMF Lending: Partisanship, Punishment and Protest</a>, shows how governments lump the burden of adjustment on opposition supporters while shielding their own backers – in other words, using IMF programmes for political gain.</p>
<h2>IMF programmes and past research</h2>
<p>Scholars have long noted that IMF restructuring programmes create winners and losers, but always in relation to different sectors of the economy. For example, the fact that programmes attempt to strengthen exports <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381613000078">has been shown</a> to favour farmers and business owners over urban middle-class state employees like civil servants. </p>
<p>The problem with purely comparing sectors is highlighted when you look at citizens’ experiences. One segment of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/imf-lending/14E6106B4EF6D335C1C7404E4C7E5313">the survey data</a> we used in our research, covering nine countries in Africa, showed that three out of ten civil servants actually thought IMF reforms made their lives better, while a similar proportion observed no difference. </p>
<p>Admittedly this data is from 1999-2001, since none of the more recent surveys that we used asked this question, but it raises an important point: if IMF reforms are entirely bad for the civil service, why are so many civil servants upbeat about the effects? Politics is likely to be the missing piece of the puzzle.</p>
<p><strong>Citizens’ views of IMF programmes in their countries</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558596/original/file-20231109-23-r1i95d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart showing how citizens viewed IMF programmes in their countries" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558596/original/file-20231109-23-r1i95d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558596/original/file-20231109-23-r1i95d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558596/original/file-20231109-23-r1i95d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558596/original/file-20231109-23-r1i95d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558596/original/file-20231109-23-r1i95d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558596/original/file-20231109-23-r1i95d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558596/original/file-20231109-23-r1i95d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Based on 659 civil servants from Afrobarometer (1999-2001), covering Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/survey-resource/merged-round-1-data-12-countries-1999-2001">Afrobarometer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An extensive academic literature already shows that governments often use their discretion to play politics over development loans. For example, a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2019.04.003">recent study</a> found that projects funded by Chinese money are more likely to be undertaken in the birth region of a political leader. </p>
<p>With IMF programmes, it’s commonly assumed that they narrow borrowing governments’ policy options, but that is an oversimplification. Borrowers certainly have less overall freedom over economic policy, but they maintain broad discretion in how they implement loan conditions. Our study is the first to quantify how they use this discretion and examine the consequences for protests within the countries in question.</p>
<h2>Our study</h2>
<p>We collected individual survey data from over 100 countries from four widely used sources: <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/">Afrobarometer</a>, <a href="https://www.asianbarometer.org/">Asian Barometer</a>, <a href="https://www.latinobarometro.org/lat.jsp">Latinobarómetro</a> and the <a href="https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp">World Values Surveys</a>. It covers a 40-year timespan up to the late 2010s, with periods varying from region to region. </p>
<p>We first examined whether opposition supporters had different experiences of reforms than government supporters. Sure enough, these were indeed more negative. </p>
<p>We worried this might be because these people are more critical of their governments in general. So we compared countries which had just experienced a restructuring programme with others which had not, and found that sentiment among opposition supporters was much more negative in borrower countries. </p>
<p>The following graph provides an explanation, showing that opposition supporters in countries on IMF programmes suffer relatively more deprivation than government supporters compared to countries not in programmes. </p>
<p><strong>Partisan deprivation in IMF v non-IMF countries</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559292/original/file-20231114-15-d5i0ol.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing how opposition supporters are affected by IMF programmes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559292/original/file-20231114-15-d5i0ol.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559292/original/file-20231114-15-d5i0ol.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559292/original/file-20231114-15-d5i0ol.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559292/original/file-20231114-15-d5i0ol.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559292/original/file-20231114-15-d5i0ol.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559292/original/file-20231114-15-d5i0ol.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559292/original/file-20231114-15-d5i0ol.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Based on 101,055 individuals from 46 countries surveyed in 2011-18.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp">World Values Survey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This “partisan gap” was also wider in countries who went through a more burdensome recent IMF adjustment, which points to the same conclusion. </p>
<p><strong>Partisan deprivation by severity of IMF restructuring</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559293/original/file-20231114-6026-o19zre.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing deprivation of opposition supporters in less and more severe IMF programmes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559293/original/file-20231114-6026-o19zre.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559293/original/file-20231114-6026-o19zre.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559293/original/file-20231114-6026-o19zre.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559293/original/file-20231114-6026-o19zre.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559293/original/file-20231114-6026-o19zre.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559293/original/file-20231114-6026-o19zre.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559293/original/file-20231114-6026-o19zre.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Based on 101,055 individuals from 46 countries surveyed in 2011-18.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp">World Values Survey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The effect on protest</h2>
<p>We expected that this highly unequal treatment would increase the chances of protest – especially when stoked by opposition politicians. This too was robustly supported across the surveys. </p>
<p>In Africa, people who reported being worse off due to the structural adjustment programme were more likely to protest. Opposition supporters as a whole were also more likely to protest, especially if the country had just experienced a more severe IMF programme. </p>
<p>Again, this data was from 1999-2001. Nonetheless, the other surveys also showed that protest was more likely among opposition supporters, especially during times of high pressure for adjustment.</p>
<h2>What can be done</h2>
<p>Scholars normally blame the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11558-020-09405-x">increase in inequality</a> caused by IMF programmes on the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X18300802?via%3Dihub">loan conditions</a>, but the effects are clearly amplified by governments’ policy choices. How could this situation be improved? The IMF could require borrower countries to impose loan conditions in a non-partisan way, but would probably argue that its mandate prohibits considering domestic politics. Policing this would also be very difficult and time-consuming. </p>
<p>An alternative would be for the IMF to tame its demands on borrower countries. This would reduce the burdens that could be inflicted on opposition supporters. Economists might warn that this could encourage countries to be more financially irresponsible. Equally, however, it ought to make it more likely that adjustment programmes will be completed, thereby making the borrowing country more economically resilient for the future. It would also avoid any <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/rego.12422">adverse reaction</a> from the financial markets against a country breaking conditions. </p>
<p>Another potential avenue is to let opposition parties and civil society organisations participate in bailout negotiations. This would ensure everyone “owns” the bailout, and might even make it harder for incumbent governments to exploit policy conditions for political gain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217390/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sri Lanka is just one of a number of countries in which IMF loan conditions appear to be mainly burdening supporters of the opposition.M. Rodwan Abouharb, Associate Professor in International Relations, UCLBernhard Reinsberg, Reader in Politics, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1993922023-02-26T15:06:31Z2023-02-26T15:06:31ZHow white saviourism harms international development<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509505/original/file-20230210-28-9m08d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=327%2C0%2C940%2C706&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Comedians Seth Meyers (far right) and Amber Ruffin (right) spoofed the 'White Saviour' complex in a fake movie segment on the 'Late Night With Seth Meyers.' </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/seth-meyers-amber-ruffin-spoof-awards-movies-white-savior-trailer-1188928/">Lloyd Bishop/NBC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A little while ago, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/seth-meyers-amber-ruffin-spoof-awards-movies-white-savior-trailer-1188928/">two comedians on a late-night show poked fun of the “white saviour complex.”</a> It’s the idea that people of colour, whether in the Global South or in the West, need “saving” from a white western person or aid worker. </p>
<p>The comedians, Seth Meyers and Amber Ruffin, were talking about representation in movies, but the issue of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/oct/17/did-a-white-saviours-evangelical-zeal-turn-deadly-uganda-renee-bach-serving-his-children">white saviourism and colonial attitudes, especially in international development,</a> is very real. </p>
<p>Accusations of white saviourism often include a story about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/mar/23/comic-relief-to-ditch-white-saviour-stereotype-appeals">white international volunteers taking selfies with Black children</a>. However, such voyeuristic tourism is just the tip of the iceberg. </p>
<h2>White saviourism – in theory and practice</h2>
<p>These conversations are not new. More than a decade ago, writer Teju Cole defined the white saviour mentality as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/">“an emotional experience that validates privilege.”</a> Cole described white saviourism as an intricate web of North/South power relations that involve for example <a href="https://www.history.com/news/us-overthrow-foreign-governments">American-backed coups</a> and western interests in Africa.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511816/original/file-20230222-26-52l9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511816/original/file-20230222-26-52l9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511816/original/file-20230222-26-52l9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511816/original/file-20230222-26-52l9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511816/original/file-20230222-26-52l9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511816/original/file-20230222-26-52l9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511816/original/file-20230222-26-52l9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Invisible Children produced Kony2012 and was criticized for simplifying complex issues.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cole discusses a now infamous social media campaign and documentary, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/style/kony-2012-invisible-children.html">#Kony2012 led by the American organization Invisible Children and its founder Jason Russell</a>. #Kony2012 focused on the importance of arresting the Ugandan militant Joseph Kony, then the No. 1 war criminal for the International Criminal Court.</p>
<p>The impulse behind Russell’s short documentary was that western populations did not know about Kony and that the conflict would resolve itself if they knew. It was based on Russell’s quest to help Ugandans. <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/18/kony_2012_ugandans_criticize_popular_video">“Everything in my heart told me to do something,” Russell said in the movie.</a> But Russell never went into depth with expert sources and he did not offer real potential solutions to the conflict.</p>
<p>Ugandan writer <a href="https://twitter.com/RosebellK">Rosebell Kagumire</a> says white saviour narratives often <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLVY5jBnD-E">lessen the complexity</a> of African socio-political situations. In so doing, they also ignore the role of western countries in encouraging inequalities and wars in the Global South.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-other-we-charity-scandal-white-saviourism-144331">The other WE Charity scandal: White saviourism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Aid workers in unequal power structures</h2>
<p>Scholars have described aid workers as “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3095891">missionaries of development</a>” who represent a system supported by individuals with good intentions who avoid criticizing capitalist mechanisms of exploitation.</p>
<p>This paradox means that our economic system continues to exploit Global South populations for private gains, while international organizations try to help with localized development interventions. All this is undergirded by the western self-perception that westerners are more capable, intelligent and thus more “developed.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BHfD5Q5DJLr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>White saviuorism is thus both a state of mind and a concrete unequal power structure between the Global North and the Global South based on white supremacy and exploitation. </p>
<p>As Frantz Fanon said in the <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/the-wretched-of-the-earth/"><em>Wretched of the Earth</em></a>, white people’s subjectivity is always confirmed, whereas non-whites are victimized. Indeed, most initiatives by European and western donors to address inequality in the non-western world thrive on the assumption that the latter cannot manage themselves and that only external “white saviours” can put things in order. </p>
<h2>Common threads</h2>
<p>As development practitioners and scholars from three countries (Uganda, Pakistan, and Canada) who have witnessed these issues within our fields, we decided to invite those impacted by white saviourism to voice their understandings of it. </p>
<p>We discussed the issue with 15 people from the Global South with diverse professional backgrounds. They talked about their scholarship and lived experience of <a href="https://darajapress.com/publication/the-white-savior-complex-in-international-development-theory-practice-and-lived-experiences">white saviourism in international development</a>. </p>
<p>In our conversations and then in our edited volume, <em>White Saviorism in International Development: Theories, Practices and Lived Experiences</em>, we found several common threads of white saviourism. </p>
<p>The contributors <a href="https://darajapress.com/publication/the-white-savior-complex-in-international-development-theory-practice-and-lived-experiences">described</a> the many woes of the international development industry: its racist tendencies, colonial attitudes, lack of accountability, lack of respect for its subjects and the lack of inclusion of those it works with and its attitude of superiority over others. </p>
<p>These include the continued dispossession of Indigenous people from their lands; the role that white women play in white saviourism; the perpetuation of the saviour complex by “Brown” saviours who take on the mantle in their own countries; how organizations of the Global North steal space from those in the Global South — a space that is not their own. </p>
<h2>Today’s buzz-worthy phrase: ‘Decolonizing aid’</h2>
<p>The goal, “decolonizing aid,” has become <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/decolonisation-comfortable-buzzword-aid-sector/">buzz-worthy</a> in recent years and organizations, activists and civil society organizations have set up <a href="https://centre-arc-hub.ca/">task forces</a>, and <a href="https://www.theracialequityindex.org/">indexes</a>, published reports <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jun/23/racism-in-aid-sector-is-a-hangover-of-colonialism-says-scathing-report-by-mps">here</a> and <a href="https://www.peacedirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/PD-Decolonising-Aid-Report.pdf">there</a> about this issue. They have recorded <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/podcast/2020/1/6/rethinking-humanitarianism-decolonising-aid">podcasts</a>, listed tons of <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/feature/2022/08/12/Decolonising-aid-a-reading-and-resource-list">resources</a>, organized <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEYX5bKQlNc&t=244s&ab_channel=CASID%2FACEDIAdministration">conferences</a> and written <a href="https://ecosociete.org/livres/perdre-le-sud">books</a> and <a href="https://plan-international.org/blog/2022/03/22/thoughts-on-decolonising-the-aid-sector-part-1/">articles</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-time-to-end-child-sponsorship-190407">Why it's time to end child sponsorship</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But as international development practitioner and researcher Themrise Khan <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/aug/31/racism-doesnt-just-exist-within-aid-its-the-structure-the-sector-is-built-on">points out</a>, racism does not only exist within aid: it’s the structure the sector is built on.</p>
<p>To tackle that racism and “decolonize aid,” international development practitioners and scholars first need to understand the structure of white supremacy it is based on. This does not mean North/South solidarity should not exist, but that we need to reinvent its foundations.</p>
<p>Global South observers have voiced <a href="https://www.nowhitesaviors.org/">this same criticism</a> for decades now, but western organizations and individuals have been slow to hear them.</p>
<p>International involvement in Haiti is a seminal example of this <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/insider/investigating-haitis-double-debt.html#:%7E:text=Further%20estimates%20by%20The%20Times,it%20still%20affects%20Haiti%20today.">contradiction</a>, as Rose Esther Sincimat Fleurant indicates in her chapter in <a href="https://darajapress.com/publication/the-white-savior-complex-in-international-development-theory-practice-and-lived-experiences">our book</a>. </p>
<p>On the one hand, the country was founded on the freedom of previously enslaved peoples, who were then economically annihilated over time with the enforced debt reimbursement to France for their independence and the United States occupation from 1915 to 1934. On the other hand, when an earthquake strikes, western populations and governments send money and NGOs, while accusing the Haitian government of corruption.</p>
<h2>The road to change</h2>
<p>To disrupt these legacies of colonial inequalities (not to use the <a href="https://www-tandfonline-com.proxy.bib.uottawa.ca/doi/epdf/10.1080/03906701.2020.1776919?needAccess=true&role=button">“decolonial” buzzword</a>), Global South aid workers need to take more control.</p>
<p>Our book documents and critically analyzes the actions of global aid organizations: it is one step towards dismantling the structure of white saviourism. But it will definitely not end there. </p>
<p><em>Themrise Khan from the International Institute for Migration and Development contributed to the writing of this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199392/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maïka Sondarjee receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dickson Kanakulya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>White saviourism is simultaneously a state of mind and a concrete unequal power structure between the Global North and the Global South.Maïka Sondarjee, Professeure adjointe, International Development and Global Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaDickson Kanakulya, Lecturer, Makerere UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1943452022-11-14T07:42:14Z2022-11-14T07:42:14Z4 signs of progress at the UN climate change summit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494986/original/file-20221114-29604-dwm11g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C24%2C8155%2C5432&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Developing countries are calling for more funding and for changes at the World Bank.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/activists-demanding-climate-finance-and-debt-relief-for-news-photo/1440171310">Sean Gallup/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/cuatro-senales-de-progreso-en-la-cumbre-de-la-onu-sobre-el-cambio-climatico-194661">Leer in español</a></em></p>
<p>Something significant is happening in the desert in Egypt as countries <a href="https://unfccc.int/cop27">meet at COP27</a>, the United Nations summit on climate change.</p>
<p>Despite frustrating sclerosis in the negotiating halls, the pathway forward for ramping up climate finance to help low-income countries adapt to climate change and transition to clean energy is becoming clearer.</p>
<p>I spent a large part of <a href="https://fletcher.tufts.edu/people/staff/rachel-kyte">my career</a> working on international finance at the World Bank and the United Nations and now advise public development and private funds and teach climate diplomacy focusing on finance. Climate finance has been one of the thorniest issues in global climate negotiations for decades, but I’m seeing four promising signs of progress at COP27.</p>
<h2>Getting to net zero – without greenwashing</h2>
<p>First, the goal – getting the world to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to stop global warming – is clearer.</p>
<p>The last climate conference, COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, nearly fell apart over frustration that international finance wasn’t flowing to developing countries and that corporations and financial institutions were greenwashing – making claims they couldn’t back up. One year on, something is stirring.</p>
<p>In 2021, the financial sector arrived at COP26 in full force for the first time. Private banks, insurers and institutional investors <a href="https://www.gfanzero.com/press/amount-of-finance-committed-to-achieving-1-5c-now-at-scale-needed-to-deliver-the-transition/">representing US$130 trillion</a> said they would align their investments with the goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius – a pledge to net zero. That would increase funding for green growth and clean energy transitions, and reduce investments in fossil fuels. It was an apparent breakthrough. But many observers cried foul and <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/press-release/offsets-taskforce-hit-by-protest-at-cop26/">accused the financial institutions of greenwashing</a>.</p>
<p>In the year since then, a U.N. commission has <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/high-level-expert-group">put a red line around greenwashing</a>, delineating what a company or institution must do to make a credible claim about its net-zero goals. Its checklist isn’t mandatory, but it sets a high bar based on science and will help hold companies and investors to account.</p>
<h2>Reforming international financial institutions</h2>
<p>Second, how international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are working is getting much-needed attention.</p>
<p>Over the past 12 months, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/climate/david-malpass-world-bank-cop27-climate-change.html">frustration has grown</a> with the international financial system, especially with the World Bank Group’s leadership. Low-income countries have long complained about having to borrow to finance resilience to climate impacts they didn’t cause, and they have called for development banks to take more risk and leverage more private investment for much-needed projects, including expanding renewable energy.</p>
<p>That frustration has culminated in pressure for World Bank President David Malpass to step down. Malpass, nominated by the Trump administration in 2019, has <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/23/world-bank-president-not-resigning-apologizes-for-climate-science-remarks-00058612">clung on for now</a>, but he is under pressure from the U.S., Europe and others to bring forward <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/world-bank-chief-says-will-keep-intense-focus-addressing-climate-change-2022-10-07/">a new road map</a> for the World Bank’s response to climate change this year.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Standing together in a meeting room, Mia Motley speaks and gestures while Ursula von der Leyen listens intently." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494962/original/file-20221113-24-3c3mzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494962/original/file-20221113-24-3c3mzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494962/original/file-20221113-24-3c3mzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494962/original/file-20221113-24-3c3mzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494962/original/file-20221113-24-3c3mzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494962/original/file-20221113-24-3c3mzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494962/original/file-20221113-24-3c3mzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados and an advocate for international finance reform, speaks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the climate summit in November 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mia-mottley-prime-minister-of-barbados-chats-with-president-news-photo/1439748312?phrase=mia%20mottley&adppopup=true">Sean Gallup/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, a leading voice for reform, and others have called <a href="https://geopolitique.eu/en/articles/breaking-the-deadlock-on-climate-the-bridgetown-initiative/">for $1 trillion</a> already in the international financial system to be redirected to climate resilience projects to help vulnerable countries protect themselves from future climate disasters.</p>
<p>At COP27, French President Emmanuel Macron supported Mottley’s call for a shake-up in how international finance works, and together they have agreed to <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/11/cop27-un-climate-barbados-mottley-climate-finance-imf/">set up a group to suggest changes</a> at the next meeting of the IMF and World Bank governors in spring 2023.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, regional development banks have been reinventing themselves to better address their countries’ needs. The Inter-American Development Bank, focused on Latin America and the Caribbean, is considering shifting its business model to take more risk and crowd in more private sector investment. The Asian Development Bank has launched an entirely <a href="https://www.adb.org/news/adb-adopts-new-operating-model-meet-rapidly-changing-needs-asia-and-pacific">new operating model</a> designed to achieve greater climate results and leverage private financing more effectively.</p>
<h2>Getting private finance flowing</h2>
<p>Third, more public-private partnerships are being developed to speed decarbonization and power the clean energy transition.</p>
<p>The first of these “<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_21_5768">Just Energy Transition Partnerships</a>,” announced in 2021, was designed to support South Africa’s transition away from coal power. It relies on a mix of grants, loans and investments, as well as risk sharing to help bring in more private sector finance. <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/11/15/indonesia-and-international-partners-secure-groundbreaking-climate-targets-and-associated-financing/">Indonesia announced a similar partnership</a> at the G-20 summit in November worth $20 billion. Vietnam is working on another, and Egypt <a href="https://enterprise.press/stories/2022/11/13/us-europe-pledge-more-than-usd-550-mn-to-fund-egypts-energy-transition-86885/">announced a major new partnership</a> at COP27.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Kerry gestures with one hand as he speaks with Scholz amid other seated people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494939/original/file-20221112-18-n0vxt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494939/original/file-20221112-18-n0vxt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494939/original/file-20221112-18-n0vxt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494939/original/file-20221112-18-n0vxt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494939/original/file-20221112-18-n0vxt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494939/original/file-20221112-18-n0vxt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494939/original/file-20221112-18-n0vxt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Special Climate Envoy John Kerry, who proposed new carbon offsets to pay for clean energy, speaks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/november-2022-egypt-scharm-el-scheich-german-chancellor-news-photo/1244584482?phrase=un%20climate&adppopup=true">Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>However, the public funding has been hard to lock in. Developed countries’ coffers are dwindling, with governments including the U.S. unable or unwilling to maintain commitments. Now, pressure from the war in Ukraine and economic crises is adding to their problems.</p>
<p>The lack of public funds was the impetus behind U.S. Special Climate Envoy John Kerry’s proposal to use a <a href="https://climatechangenews.com/2022/11/09/john-kerrys-offsets-plan-sets-early-test-for-un-net-zero-standards/">new form of carbon offsets</a> to pay for green energy investments in countries transitioning from coal. The idea, loosely sketched out, is that countries dependent on coal could sell carbon credits to companies, with the revenue going to fund clean energy projects. The country would speed its exit from coal and lower its emissions, and the private company could then claim that reduction in its own accounting toward net zero emissions.</p>
<p>Globally, voluntary carbon markets for these offsets have grown from $300 million <a href="https://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/articles/the-art-of-integrity-state-of-the-voluntary-carbon-markets-q3-2022/">to $2 billion</a> since 2019, but they are still relatively small and fragile and need more robust rules.</p>
<p>Kerry’s proposal drew criticism, pending the fine print, for fear of swamping the market with industrial credits, collapsing prices and potentially allowing companies in the developed world to greenwash their own claims by retiring coal in the developing world.</p>
<h2>New rules to strengthen carbon markets</h2>
<p>Fourth, new rules are emerging to strengthen those voluntary carbon markets.</p>
<p>A new set of <a href="https://icvcm.org/">“high-integrity carbon credit principles”</a> is expected in 2023. A <a href="https://vcmintegrity.org/">code of conduct</a> for how corporations can use voluntary carbon markets to meet their net zero claims has already been issued, and standards for ensuring that a company’s plans meet the Paris Agreement’s goals are evolving.</p>
<p>Incredibly, all this progress is outside the Paris Agreement, which simply calls for governments to make “finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.” </p>
<p>Negotiators seem reluctant to mention this widespread reform movement in the formal text being negotiated at COP27, but walking through the halls here, they cannot ignore it. It’s been too slow in coming, but change in the financial system is on the way.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated Nov. 15, 2022, with Indonesia’s climate finance deal announced.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194345/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Kyte is co-chair of the Voluntary Markets Integrity Initiative and served in different roles at the World Bank Group from 2000 to 2015.</span></em></p>The biggest issues at COP27 involve financing for low-income countries hit hard by climate change. A former World Bank official describes some promising signs she’s starting to see.Rachel Kyte, Dean of the Fletcher School, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1904862022-09-15T12:18:39Z2022-09-15T12:18:39ZUS is becoming a ‘developing country’ on global rankings that measure democracy, inequality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484375/original/file-20220913-4673-1pyfbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C43%2C4785%2C2687&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People wait in line for a free morning meal in Los Angeles in April 2020. High and rising inequality is one reason the U.S. ranks badly on some international measures of development.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/homeless-people-wait-in-line-for-a-morning-meal-at-the-fred-news-photo/1210677779?adppopup=true">Frederic J. Brown/ AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States may regard itself as a “<a href="https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/E-N/Exceptionalism-The-leader-of-the-free-world.html">leader of the free world</a>,” but an index of development released in July 2022 places the country much farther down the list. </p>
<p>In its global rankings, the United Nations Office of Sustainable Development dropped the U.S. to <a href="https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/rankings">41st worldwide</a>, down from its previous ranking of 32nd. Under this methodology – an expansive model of 17 categories, or “goals,” many of them focused on the environment and equity – the U.S. ranks between Cuba and Bulgaria. Both are widely regarded as developing countries.</p>
<p>The U.S. is also now considered a “flawed democracy,” according to <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/09/a-new-low-for-global-democracy">The Economist’s democracy index</a>.</p>
<p>As a political historian who studies U.S. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleen-frydl-0406b21a5/">institutional development</a>, I recognize these dismal ratings as the inevitable result of two problems. Racism has cheated many Americans out of the health care, education, economic security and environment they deserve. At the same time, as threats to democracy become more serious, a devotion to “American exceptionalism” keeps the country from candid appraisals and course corrections.</p>
<h2>‘The other America’</h2>
<p>The Office of Sustainable Development’s rankings differ from more traditional development measures in that they are more focused on the experiences of ordinary people, including their ability to enjoy clean air and water, than the creation of wealth. </p>
<p>So while the gigantic size of the American economy counts in its scoring, so too does unequal access to the wealth it produces. When judged by accepted measures like the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=US">Gini coefficient</a>, income inequality in the U.S. has risen markedly over the past 30 years. By the <a href="https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm">Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s measurement</a>, the U.S. has the biggest wealth gap among G-7 nations.</p>
<p>These results reflect structural disparities in the United States, which are most pronounced for African Americans. Such differences have persisted well beyond the demise of chattel slavery and the repeal of Jim Crow laws.</p>
<p>Scholar W.E.B. Du Bois first exposed this kind of structural inequality in his 1899 analysis of Black life in the urban north, “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fhpfb">The Philadelphia Negro</a>.” Though he noted distinctions of affluence and status within Black society, Du Bois found the lives of African Americans to be a world apart from white residents: a “city within a city.” Du Bois traced the high rates of poverty, crime and illiteracy prevalent in Philadelphia’s Black community to discrimination, divestment and residential segregation – not to Black people’s degree of ambition or talent.</p>
<p>More than a half-century later, with characteristic eloquence, Martin Luther King Jr. <a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/the-other-america-speech-transcript-martin-luther-king-jr">similarly decried</a> the persistence of the “other America,” one where “the buoyancy of hope” was transformed into “the fatigue of despair.” </p>
<p>To illustrate his point, King referred to many of the same factors studied by Du Bois: the condition of housing and household wealth, education, social mobility and literacy rates, health outcomes and employment. On all of these metrics, <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-americans-mostly-left-behind-by-progress-since-dr-kings-death-89956">Black Americans fared worse</a> than whites. But as King noted, “Many people of various backgrounds live in this other America.”</p>
<p>The benchmarks of development invoked by these men also featured prominently in the 1962 book “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Other-America/Michael-Harrington/9780684826783">The Other America</a>,” by political scientist <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-socialism-stopped-being-a-dirty-word-for-some-voters-and-started-winning-elections-across-america-156572">Michael Harrington, founder</a> of a group that eventually became the Democratic Socialists of America. Harrington’s work so unsettled President John F. Kennedy that it reportedly <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-a-new-yorker-article-launched-the-first-shot-in-the-war-against-poverty-17469990/">galvanized him</a> into formulating a “war on poverty.” </p>
<p>Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, waged this metaphorical war. But poverty <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/poverty-and-place">bound to discrete places</a>. Rural areas and segregated neighborhoods stayed poor well beyond mid-20th-century federal efforts.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Tents line a leafy park; some people can be seen chatting outside one tent" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C19%2C4275%2C2824&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Camp Laykay Nou, a homeless encampment in Philadelphia. High and rising inequality is one reason the US rates badly on some international development rankings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/camp-laykay-nou-celebrated-a-stay-in-the-city-of-news-photo/1227676000?adppopup=true">Cory Clark/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In large part that is because federal efforts during that critical time accommodated rather than confronted the forces of racism, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/american-history-after-1945/gi-bill?format=HB&isbn=9780521514248">according to my research</a>. </p>
<p>Across a number of policy domains, the sustained efforts of segregationist Democrats in Congress resulted in an incomplete and patchwork system of social policy. Democrats from the South cooperated with Republicans to doom to failure efforts to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/universal-health-care-racism.html">achieve universal</a> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-fight-for-health-care-is-really-all-about-civil-rights/531855/">health care</a> or <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/06/07/big-business-and-white-supremacy-the-racist-roots-of-americas-right-to-work-laws/">unionized workforces</a>. Rejecting proposals for strong federal intervention, they left a checkered legacy of <a href="https://www.sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2022/04/conversation-jim-crow.php#.YyHMrOzMK8p">local funding for education</a> and <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01466">public health</a>. </p>
<p>Today, many years later, the effects of a welfare state tailored to racism is evident — though perhaps less visibly so — in the inadequate <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(22)00081-3/fulltext">health policies</a> driving a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220831.htm">shocking decline</a> in average American life expectancy.</p>
<h2>Declining democracy</h2>
<p>There are other ways to measure a country’s level of development, and on some of them the U.S. fares better. </p>
<p>The U.S. currently ranks 21st on <a href="https://hdr.undp.org/">the United Nations Development Program’s index</a>, which measures fewer factors than the sustainable development index. Good results in average income per person – $64,765 – and an average 13.7 years of schooling situate the United States squarely in the developed world.</p>
<p>Its ranking suffers, however, on appraisals that place greater weight on political systems. </p>
<p>The Economist’s <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/09/a-new-low-for-global-democracy">democracy index</a> now groups the U.S. among “flawed democracies,” with an overall score that ranks between Estonia and Chile. It falls short of being a top-rated “full democracy” in large part because of a fractured political culture. This growing divide is most apparent in the divergent paths between “red” and “blue” states.</p>
<p>Although the analysts from The Economist applaud the peaceful transfer of power in the face of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-sore-loser-effect-rejecting-election-results-can-destabilize-democracy-and-drive-terrorism-171571">insurrection intended to disrupt</a> it, <a href="https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2021/?utm_source=economist&utm_medium=daily_chart&utm_campaign=democracy-index-2021">their report laments</a> that, according to a January 2022 poll, “only 55% of Americans believe that Mr. Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/us/politics/america-first-secretary-of-state-candidates.html">Election denialism carries with it the threat</a> that election officials in Republican-controlled jurisdictions will reject or alter vote tallies that do not favor the Republican Party in upcoming elections, further jeopardizing the score of the U.S. on the democracy index. </p>
<p>Red and blue America also differ on access to modern reproductive care for women. This hurts the U.S. gender equality rating, <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2015/10/onward-2030-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights-context-sustainable-development">one aspect</a> of the United Nations’ sustainable development index.</p>
<p>Since the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-decision-overturn">Supreme Court overturned</a> Roe v. Wade, Republican-controlled states have enacted or proposed grossly <a href="https://today.westlaw.com/Document/I1ebf6cf01a6a11ed9f24ec7b211d8087/View/FullText.html%22%22">restrictive</a> <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy">abortion laws</a>, to the point of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/10/us/abortion-bans-medical-care-women.html">endangering a woman’s health</a>. </p>
<p>I believe that, when paired with structural inequalities and fractured social policy, the dwindling Republican commitment to democracy lends weight to the classification of the U.S. as a developing country.</p>
<h2>American exceptionalism</h2>
<p>To address the poor showing of the United States on a variety of global surveys, one must also contend with the idea of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/06/03/obama-and-american-exceptionalism/">American exceptionalism</a>, a belief in American superiority over the rest of the world. </p>
<p>Both political parties have long promoted this belief, at home and abroad, but “exceptionalism” receives a more formal treatment from Republicans. It was the first line of the Republican Party’s national platform of <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiukdmw2pT6AhU6FVkFHRpPDLUQFnoECAsQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fprod-cdn-static.gop.com%2Fmedia%2Fdocuments%2FDRAFT_12_FINAL%255B1%255D-ben_1468872234.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0ZlBtj2Rrovr9mA9DZJCOy">2016</a> and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/The_Republican_Party_Platform,_2020">2020</a> (“we believe in American exceptionalism”). And it served as the organizing principle behind Donald Trump’s vow to restore “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/trump-patriotic-education-406521">patriotic education</a>” to America’s schools. </p>
<p>In Florida, after <a href="https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/florida-board-of-education-approves-new-curriculum-touting-american-exceptionalism-29639851">lobbying by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis</a>, the state board of education in July 2022 approved standards rooted in American exceptionalism while barring instruction in <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05">critical race theory</a>, an academic framework teaching the kind of structural racism Du Bois exposed long ago.</p>
<p>With a tendency to proclaim excellence rather than pursue it, the peddling of American exceptionalism encourages Americans to maintain a robust sense of national achievement – despite mounting evidence to the contrary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen Frydl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The United States came in 41st worldwide on the UN’s 2022 sustainable development index, down nine spots from last year. A political historian explains the country’s dismal scores.Kathleen Frydl, Sachs Lecturer, Johns Hopkins UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1866832022-07-29T12:22:56Z2022-07-29T12:22:56ZWhy men overwhelmingly wear the UN’s blue helmets – a former US ambassador explains why decades of recruiting women peacekeepers has had little effect<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475901/original/file-20220725-11-nocbix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=91%2C0%2C1036%2C688&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Female police officers working with the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Liberia participate in a parade in 2008.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://dam.media.un.org/CS.aspx?VP3=DamView&VBID=2AM94SKKB92P&SMLS=1&RW=1495&RH=648#/DamView&VBID=2AM94SKKBOX8&PN=1&WS=SearchResults">UN Photo/Christopher Herwig</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Nations has about <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/where-we-operate">74,000 peacekeepers</a> in uniform stationed in a dozen conflict zones around the world. It’s easy to spot them in their signature light blue helmets. It’s harder to find a woman among them. </p>
<p>There are military experts, police and infantry units who come from <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/01_contributions_to_un_peacekeeping_operations_by_country_and_post_49_april_22.pdf">121 countries</a> to help maintain peace. </p>
<p><a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/07_gender_statistics_49_april_2022.pdf">Just 8%</a> of peacekeepers are women. </p>
<p>This is a significant increase from 15 years ago – when the number of peacekeepers was about the same as today but women made up only <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/dec07.pdf">about 2%</a> of the ranks. For 20 years, the U.N. has been <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/gender">trying to improve</a> this statistic. </p>
<p>But the U.N.’s long-term goal of having as many female peacekeepers as men may well be unachievable. </p>
<p>As a U.S. diplomat and an <a href="https://sia.psu.edu/faculty/jett">international affairs scholar</a>, I have been involved in peacekeeping in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. While dramatically increasing the number of female peacekeepers has clear benefits, including improved community relationships, the evolution of peacekeeping makes gender parity impossible. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475897/original/file-20220725-13-79362n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in suits walk past a row of female peacekeepers in camo with blue hats" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475897/original/file-20220725-13-79362n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475897/original/file-20220725-13-79362n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475897/original/file-20220725-13-79362n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475897/original/file-20220725-13-79362n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475897/original/file-20220725-13-79362n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475897/original/file-20220725-13-79362n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475897/original/file-20220725-13-79362n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Namibia’s vice president inspects U.N. peacekeeping troops in Windhoek, Namibia, in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/oct-31-2020-namibias-vice-president-nangolo-mbumba-inspects-troops-picture-id1229412837?s=2048x2048">Musa C Kaseke/Xinhua via Getty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What the UN calls for</h2>
<p>The U.N. does not have its own military. So when the U.N. launches a peacekeeping mission, it must ask its 193 member countries to provide the personnel necessary to staff it.</p>
<p>The U.N. pays countries a bit over <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/role-peacekeeping-africa">US$1,400 a month</a> for each soldier loaned to the organization. This can help poorer countries maintain <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2010/12/why-south-asia-loves-peacekeeping/">their armies and pay </a>their soldiers. Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Rwanda <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/troop-and-police-contributors">give the most</a> soldiers to serve as peacekeepers, with over 5,000 people each. The U.S. currently provides only <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/01_contributions_to_un_peacekeeping_operations_by_country_and_post_49_april_22.pdf">30 staff officers</a>. </p>
<p>In 2000, the U.N. Security Council recognized the gender imbalance in peacekeeping when it approved <a href="http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/1325">Resolution</a>1325, which urged that women be given more opportunities to serve. In 2018, the U.N. began specifically <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/uniformed-gender-parity-strategy-2018-2028-full-text">instructing</a> its peacekeeping missions to work toward including as many women as men. </p>
<p>Research shows that including women in resolving conflicts is a good idea, especially since they are frequently the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3877825">victims of war</a> more often than men. When women participate in peace negotiations, the <a href="https://www-tandfonline-com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/doi/full/10.1080/03050629.2018.1492386?src=recsys#">resulting peace</a> is more lasting. </p>
<p>Having more female peacekeepers can also help improve <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/217455354?https://literature-proquest-com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/lion?accountid=13158&parentSessionId=6Us3I5B86vHEja6PB%2BkbKN1ZPDOfkC8tDoSW0btbjUM%3D&pq-origsite=summon">relationships</a> with civilians. Open communication and trust between local communities and peacekeepers can lead to <a href="https://unu.edu/publications/articles/why-un-needs-more-female-peacekeepers.html">better cultural understanding and valuable intelligence</a> – including information about sexual violence that women are more likely to report to a female peacekeeper. </p>
<p>This is particularly important since in the past few years there have been <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/11/un-peacekeeping-has-sexual-abuse-problem">multiple cases</a> of peacekeepers being accused of <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/women-week-un-withdraws-450-peacekeepers-central-african-republic">mistreating and abusing </a>civilians – <a href="https://apnews.com/article/africa-arrests-united-nations-only-on-ap-e6ebc331460345c5abd4f57d77f535c1">including children</a>. </p>
<h2>Not so easy to achieve</h2>
<p>Despite the advantages, there are three major obstacles to getting more women involved in peacekeeping. </p>
<p>First, women make up a <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-countries-with-the-most-women-in-the-military/ar-AAOK9Ab">small percentage</a> of the armed forces in almost every country, ranging from less than 1% in India and Turkey to 20% in Hungary.</p>
<p>Second, very <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_combat">few countries</a> train women for ground combat, which may be part of a U.N. peacekeeping mission. </p>
<p>Third, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/01/25/map-which-countries-allow-women-in-front-line-combat-roles/">countries</a> that do train women for combat are almost always democratic and wealthier. They are also least likely to contribute troops to the more dangerous U.N. peacekeeping missions. </p>
<p>These practical challenges have become even more daunting because of the way peacekeeping has changed.</p>
<h2>Peacekeeping’s evolution</h2>
<p>The U.N. was only three years old when it initiated its <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/undof">first peacekeeping mission </a>in 1948 to respond to the war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. In that operation, and in subsequent ones dealing with conflicts between countries over territory, once the fighting stopped peacekeepers could be placed between the opposing armies to help ensure the cease-fire continued. </p>
<p>In the 1990s, peacekeeping also addressed civil wars in such places as <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/Unavem2/UnavemIIB.htm">Angola</a> and <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/onumozFT.htm">Mozambique</a>. Those operations had to demobilize former combatants, reintegrate them into civilian life and form a new national army. </p>
<p>Often the most important task was helping conduct an election. While I was the U.S. ambassador in <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/onumozS.htm">Mozambique in 1994</a>, all this was successfully accomplished and the peacekeepers went home. But this kind of peacekeeping is also mostly a relic of the past. </p>
<h2>A new broader mandate</h2>
<p>In the U.N.’s five most recent peacekeeping missions, launched between 2010 and 2014 and all in Africa, the peacekeepers are mandated to protect civilians and help the government expand its control to lessen the threat of armed rebel groups. Doing that requires large infantry units, which is why the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/mali-suspends-rotation-of-un-forces/6659011.html">mission in Mali</a>, for example, includes 12,000 troops. </p>
<p>These are not just the largest missions, but also the most deadly – an average of 16 peacekeepers are killed each year in these missions, while an average of two peacekeepers die each year in the oldest peacekeeping operations. </p>
<p>The U.N. initially insisted that all warring parties agree to the presence of the peacekeepers and that the peacekeepers remain impartial and use force only to defend themselves.</p>
<p>In the five newest missions, the mandate required the use of force to be <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/where-we-operate">expanded</a>. This meant peacekeepers no longer had the consent of all the combatants and discarded impartiality to help the government in power. As a result, some of those opposing the government began targeting peacekeepers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475903/original/file-20220725-10216-rtsroy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Soldiers are seen carrying coffins draped in blue flags, in front of a white UN plane." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475903/original/file-20220725-10216-rtsroy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475903/original/file-20220725-10216-rtsroy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475903/original/file-20220725-10216-rtsroy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475903/original/file-20220725-10216-rtsroy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475903/original/file-20220725-10216-rtsroy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475903/original/file-20220725-10216-rtsroy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475903/original/file-20220725-10216-rtsroy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ivorian soldiers carry the coffins of four U.N. peacekeepers in Mali in February 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/ivorian-soldiers-carry-coffins-wrapped-with-united-nations-flags-out-picture-id1230731222?s=2048x2048">Sia Kambou/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The connection to female peacekeepers</h2>
<p>These latest peacekeeping missions require thousands of troops prepared for combat in order to be able to use force. For that reason, 86% of all of the peacekeepers are military troops, but only <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/07_gender_statistics_49_april_2022.pdf">6%</a> of the troops are women.</p>
<p>The low percentage of female troops stands in sharp contrast to the <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/07_gender_statistics_49_april_2022.pdf">other types of peacekeepers</a> who don’t risk being involved in combat – 27% of the military experts, 19% of the staff officers and 19% of the police are women. </p>
<p>While the wealthy countries pay <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/how-we-are-funded">86% of the financial cost</a> of U.N. peacekeeping, which amounts to $6.4 billion year, they contribute less than 8% of all the troops. </p>
<p>In the U.N.’s six oldest missions, like the ones in Israel, only 7% of the troops are women, and 37% of these women come from the rich countries. In the five more lethal missions, however, 5% of the troops are female and <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/07_gender_statistics_49_april_2022.pdf">only 3% </a> of them are from wealthier members.</p>
<p>So, while the rich countries pay in treasure, the poor countries pay in blood.</p>
<p>Getting more female peacekeepers would require countries to assign more women to the most dangerous peacekeeping missions. In other words, it would be necessary to give more women the chance to shed that blood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Jett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The UN has been working for 20 years to increase the number of female peacekeepers – but countries that give their troops to the UN are reluctant to put more women in active combat.Dennis Jett, Professor of International Affairs, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1732292022-02-24T13:53:17Z2022-02-24T13:53:17ZWealthy countries still haven’t met their $100 billion pledge to help poor countries face climate change, and the risks are rising<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444405/original/file-20220203-19-x9ftfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4932%2C3330&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Several countries, including Bangladesh, are facing increasing flooding as sea levels rise.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ClimateBangladeshCostofClimateChange/f0ce004de9e94288bfdf4fcecb6b8389/photo">AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After another year of <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/news/summer-2021-neck-and-neck-with-dust-bowl-summer-for-hottest-on-record">record-breaking temperatures</a> and <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/state-of-climate-2021-extreme-events-and-major-impacts">extreme weather disasters</a>, wealthy countries are under pressure to make good on <a href="https://unfccc.int/topics/climate-finance/the-big-picture/climate-finance-in-the-negotiations">their commitment</a> to mobilize <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/climate-finance-roadmap-to-us100-billion.pdf">US$100 billion</a> a year to help poorer countries deal with climate change.</p>
<p>Developed countries <a href="https://ukcop26.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Climate-Finance-Delivery-Plan-1.pdf">now project</a> that they won’t meet that pledge until 2023 – three years late and still woefully short of the <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/54307_2%20-%20UNFCCC%20First%20NDR%20summary%20-%20V6.pdf">real need</a>.</p>
<p>A new report <a href="https://theconversation.com/transformational-change-is-coming-to-how-people-live-on-earth-un-climate-adaptation-report-warns-which-path-will-humanity-choose-177604">from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>, released Feb. 28, 2022, provides more evidence of what billions of people are facing: Developing countries that have contributed the least to climate change are suffering the most from it, and the damage is escalating.</p>
<p>Small island states and low-lying coastal areas are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2021.05.001">losing land to rising seas</a>. <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/counting-cost-2021-year-climate-breakdown-december-2021">Flooding from extreme storms</a> is wiping out people’s livelihoods in Africa and Asia. <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/how-global-warming-threatens-human-security-africa">Heat waves are harming people</a> who have no access to cooling, killing crops and affecting marine life communities rely on. Documents from the United Nations suggest that the cost for low-income countries to adapt to these and other climate impacts <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/54307_2%20-%20UNFCCC%20First%20NDR%20summary%20-%20V6.pdf">far exceeds the promised $100 billion a year</a>.</p>
<p>What’s less clear is how much impact the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/statement-from-oecd-secretary-general-mathias-cormann-on-climate-finance-in-2019.htm">climate finance already flowing to these countries</a>, estimated at <a href="https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/statement-from-oecd-secretary-general-mathias-cormann-on-climate-finance-in-2019.htm">$79.6 billion</a> in 2019, is having. There is an overwhelming lack of data, as well as evidence that countries have been supporting <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/29/un-green-climate-fund-can-be-spent-on-coal-fired-power-generation">projects that could harm the climate</a> with money they count as “climate finance.” </p>
<p>Part of the problem is how that money gets from donors to projects in countries in need. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=t2nMO728pxoC&hl=en">I have worked closely with developing countries</a> seeking help to deal with climate change. I believe that by paying closer attention to the strengths and weaknesses of climate finance delivery channels and matching them to countries’ needs, the international community can make a real difference in the fight against climate change.</p>
<p><iframe id="UShac" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/UShac/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>How does climate finance flow?</h2>
<p>Donor countries have three major channels through which they can route climate finance: bilateral agreements between small groups of countries, international funds like the <a href="https://www.greenclimate.fund/">Green Climate Fund</a> and development banks like the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/home">World Bank</a>. Each has benefits and drawbacks.</p>
<p><strong>Bilateral agreements:</strong> First, countries can directly negotiate financing commitments, also known as bilateral agreements. These arrangements allow donors to target specific areas of need and are often more efficient than multilateral agreements, since they involve fewer entities. </p>
<p>For example, at the Glasgow climate conference in November 2021, South Africa and a group of donor countries announced <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59135169">an $8.5 billion effort</a> to help South Africa transition away from coal while increasing renewable energy generation. This deal allowed four national governments and the European Union to come together and craft a package around what South Africa wanted. </p>
<p>Groups of donors have also come together to support national-level financing, though <a href="https://www.bu.edu/gdp/national-climate-funds-tracker/">new research</a> suggests these arrangements are underused.</p>
<p>A major drawback of bilateral arrangements is that they can be sensitive to the ebbs and flows of political attention. While issues in the news can attract funding, some countries struggle to get help.</p>
<p><strong>Climate funds:</strong> It is precisely to ensure that countries have regular and consistent access to climate finance that a second option exists: international climate funds.</p>
<p>For example, the U.N.-backed <a href="https://www.greenclimate.fund/">Green Climate Fund</a> is one of the largest and offers universal eligibility. The GCF’s scope is also deliberately broad to allow room for programming based on what countries actually need, rather than what is politically attractive at any given moment. </p>
<p>However, the GCF has received pledges totaling only about <a href="https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/status-pledges-irm-gcf1_7.pdf">$18 billion</a>. Developed countries are more likely to route contributions through their own bilateral channels or major development banks than through climate-focused funds.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man sorts through dried red beans spread on a blanket while a woman winnows more beans in a flat basket, with thatched huts visible in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444406/original/file-20220203-27-a4dzrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444406/original/file-20220203-27-a4dzrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444406/original/file-20220203-27-a4dzrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444406/original/file-20220203-27-a4dzrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444406/original/file-20220203-27-a4dzrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444406/original/file-20220203-27-a4dzrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444406/original/file-20220203-27-a4dzrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Farmers sort through fast-maturing beans harvested in Uganda. Agriculture projects receive a large share of finance for adapting to climate change and increasing sustainability.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/UgandaAfricaSuperBeans/acac9c0eabea48ad8b1d45524c0a2750/photo">AP Photo/Rodney Muhumuza</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Development banks:</strong> Finally, major development banks manage significant amounts of climate financing, though there are two key barriers to fully using them.</p>
<p>First, many of these banks have not ambitiously incorporated climate change into their programming. In fact, some <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a3147c81-a356-462a-811b-0a8b939f2488">came under scrutiny</a> when their <a href="https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/8b63ef9b33c96b80138ac1b1528bd65e-0020012021/original/COP26-Joint-MDB-Climate-Ambition-Statement.pdf">joint statement</a> at the Glasgow climate conference did not include specific targets and timetables for ending financing for fossil fuel projects. </p>
<p>Second, most development banks have not been able to effectively mobilize finance from the private sector, <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/blog/what-multilateral-development-banks-can-do-mobilize-private-capital-scale">in part because of their business models</a>. Development banks tend to prefer projects with lower risk and like to operate in settings where the cost of doing business is not very high. Private-sector funding is crucial to filling the climate finance gap, which means that development banks also need to use instruments that are better able to mobilize private capital such as equity instead of relying too heavily on lending.</p>
<p>Ultimately, splitting climate finance across these different channels is helping to render financing largely ineffective, with developing countries receiving a fraction of the resources necessary to make an impact. Spreading finance thinly across delivery channels means the international community is neither learning from experimentation nor betting on bold ideas.</p>
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<h2>Getting serious about impact</h2>
<p>Currently, the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/climate-finance-for-developing-countries-rose-to-usd-78-9-billion-in-2018oecd.htm">efforts to track the $100 billion</a> are focused on counting how much money has actually flowed and where, not what impact has been achieved. Two key issues are complicating efforts to measure the impact.</p>
<p>First, there is no agreed-upon definition of what climate finance is, and countries use their own definitions. For example, in the past Japan counted money for new coal plants that are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/29/un-green-climate-fund-can-be-spent-on-coal-fired-power-generation">more efficient than old ones, but still highly polluting, as “climate finance</a>.”</p>
<p>Second, some projects focus on helping countries put in place plans and policies. For example, countries have been receiving <a href="https://napglobalnetwork.org/2019/12/the-national-adaptation-plan-nap-process-frequently-asked-questions/">support to create national adaptation plans</a>. The impact of these planning efforts really relies on how well the plans are implemented.</p>
<p>If the global community is serious about rising to the climate challenge, I believe the conversation needs to move forward in three ways:</p>
<p>1) The scale of financing should far surpass $100 billion.</p>
<p>2) The international community should be more targeted about which sources and channels best meet specific needs.</p>
<p>3) More research is needed to assess the impact of international climate finance so far and establish a sound understanding of which delivery channels work best for which purposes.</p>
<p>The $100 billion in promised funding is <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/LTF_Part-I_Summary%20Report_0.pdf">much-needed glue</a> that helps hold the U.N. climate process together – it reflects the responsibility borne by countries that have been emitting greenhouse gases for years for driving climate change and the harm to countries that emit little. </p>
<p>[<a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-youresmart"><em>Read The Conversation daily by subscribing to our newsletter</em></a>.]</p>
<p><em>This article was updated Feb. 28, 2022, with the new IPCC report.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Global Development Policy Center is a university-wide research center in partnership with the Frederick S. Pardee School for Global Studies and the Office of Research at Boston University.</span></em></p>The damage from storms, droughts and sea level rise is in the news almost daily. Some money is flowing to help poor countries, but what isn’t clear is how much impact the funds are having.Rishikesh Ram Bhandary, Assistant Director, Global Economic Governance Initiative, Global Development Policy Center, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1678672021-09-16T12:11:41Z2021-09-16T12:11:41Z4 strategies for a global breakthrough on energy and climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421446/original/file-20210915-25-w0b0qb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C83%2C3992%2C2886&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reducing fossil use and increasing renewable energy worldwide are crucial to both sustainable development and fighting climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chinese-worker-from-wuhan-guangsheng-photovoltaic-company-news-photo/684080492">Kevin Frayer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two important global events are coming up that are widely hoped to help address what the United Nations calls the “dual challenge” – fighting climate change and ensuring that poorer countries can develop sustainably. Energy is a central theme in both.</p>
<p>For the first time in 40 years, the U.N. General Assembly is convening a <a href="https://www.un.org/en/hlde-2021/page/world-leaders-meet-24-september">global summit of world leaders focused solely on energy</a>. If all goes as planned on Sept. 24, 2021, they will <a href="https://mailchi.mp/un/hlde2021_updateissue13-4937782">consider a road map</a> that includes tripling investment in renewable power and making affordable modern and clean energy available to everyone everywhere within the decade. </p>
<p>The second event is the <a href="https://ukcop26.org/">U.N. climate conference</a> in November, where negotiators representing nations around the world will be asked to ramp up their countries’ efforts to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>This year’s climate summit will be the first to assess progress toward meeting the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">2015 Paris climate agreement</a>. There are a few new efforts – President Joe Biden announced on Sept. 17 plans for a U.S. and European Union <a href="https://theconversation.com/biden-eu-urge-30-methane-emissions-cuts-a-move-crucial-for-protecting-climate-and-health-and-it-can-pay-for-itself-168220">pledge to cut methane emissions</a> by 30% within the decade and urged other countries to join – but there are also some remaining sticking points in how nations will meet their promised targets. Resolving these will be important for the credibility of the agreement and the willingness of developing countries to commit to further progress. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DAwwVkwAAAAJ&hl=en">climate</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sfI-c0YAAAAJ&hl=en">policy experts</a> with decades of experience in international energy policy, we have identified four strategic priorities that would help provide the foundations for success in cleaning up both energy and climate change. </p>
<h2>What has been achieved so far?</h2>
<p>Despite the ambitious goals in many countries, the world’s greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise. The year 2020 was a brief exception – <a href="https://www.iea.org/articles/global-energy-review-co2-emissions-in-2020">emissions fell</a> significantly due to the global pandemic – but that trend has already reversed as economies recover.</p>
<p>The statements released by world leaders after the recent <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/g7-climate-and-environment-ministers-meeting-may-2021-communique/g7-climate-and-environment-ministers-communique-london-21-may-2021">G7</a> and <a href="https://www.g20.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2021_G20-Energy-Climate-joint-Ministerial-Communique.pdf">G20</a> meetings underlined recognition of the problem. Still, very few countries and companies have detailed plans and budgets in place to meet their own high-level goals.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Illustration showing where to cut emissions soonest most efficiently" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421580/original/file-20210916-21-15niz3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421580/original/file-20210916-21-15niz3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421580/original/file-20210916-21-15niz3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421580/original/file-20210916-21-15niz3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421580/original/file-20210916-21-15niz3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421580/original/file-20210916-21-15niz3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421580/original/file-20210916-21-15niz3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Meeting the Paris climate agreement goal of keeping global warming under 1.5 C (2.7 F) will require reducing fossil fuels and increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency, as well as keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere with techniques such as carbon capture and storage or use (CCS and CCU).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">International Renewable Energy Agency</span></span>
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<h2>4 strategic priorities</h2>
<p>Getting energy and climate policies worldwide headed in the same direction is a daunting task. Here are four strategies that could help countries navigate this space:</p>
<p>1) Deploy carbon pricing and markets more widely.</p>
<p>Only a few <a href="https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/">countries, states and regions currently have carbon prices</a> that are high enough to push polluters to cut their carbon dioxide emissions. The climate negotiations in Scotland will focus on getting the rules right for global markets. </p>
<p>Making these markets function well and transparently is essential for effectively meeting the many net zero climate goals that have been announced by countries from <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-pledges-grow">Japan and South Korea to the U.S., China and the European Union</a>. These include rules on the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/sep/16/carbon-offset-projects-carbon-emissions">use of carbon offsets</a> – they allow individuals or companies to invest in projects that help balance out their own emissions – which are currently highly contentious and largely not functional or transparent. </p>
<p>2) Focus attention on <a href="https://www.irena.org/publications/2020/Sep/Reaching-Zero-with-Renewables">the “hard-to-decarbonize” sectors</a>.</p>
<p>Shipping, road freight and industries like cement and steel are all difficult places for cutting emissions, in part because they don’t yet have tested, affordable replacements for fossil fuels. While there are some <a href="https://theconversation.com/bendable-concrete-and-other-co2-infused-cement-mixes-could-dramatically-cut-global-emissions-152544">innovative ideas</a>, competitiveness concerns – such as companies moving production outside regulated areas to avoid regulations – have been a key barrier to progress.</p>
<p>Europe is trying to overcome this barrier by establishing a <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12228-EU-Green-Deal-carbon-border-adjustment-mechanism-_en">carbon border adjustment mechanism</a>, with emission levies on imports similar to those for European producers. The Biden administration is also <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-23/biden-exploring-border-adjustment-tax-to-fight-climate-change">exploring such rules</a>. </p>
<p>3) Get China and other emerging economies on board.</p>
<p>It is clear that coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, needs to be phased out fast, and doing so is critical to both the U.N.’s energy and climate agendas. Given that more than <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-china-coal/china-generated-over-half-worlds-coal-fired-power-in-2020-study-idUSKBN2BK0PZ">half of global coal</a> is consumed in China, its actions stand out, although other emerging economies such as India, Indonesia and Vietnam are also critical.</p>
<p>This will not be easy. <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants">Notably half of the Chinese coal plants are less than a decade old</a>, a fraction of a coal plant’s typical lifespan. </p>
<p>4) Focus on innovation.</p>
<p>Support for innovation has brought us cutting-edge renewable power and electric vehicles much faster than anticipated. More is possible. For example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-just-set-ambitious-offshore-wind-power-targets-what-will-it-take-to-meet-them-158136">offshore wind</a>, geothermal, carbon capture and <a href="https://theconversation.com/hydrogen-is-one-future-fuel-oil-execs-and-environmentalists-could-both-support-as-rival-countries-search-for-climate-solutions-159201">green hydrogen</a> are new developments that can make a big difference in years to come.</p>
<p>Who leads in developing these new technologies, and which companies, will reap important economic benefits. They will also support millions of new jobs and economic growth. </p>
<p>Luckily, investors are actively supporting these technologies. More investors are starting to believe in energy transitions and <a href="https://about.bnef.com/blog/energy-transition-investment-hit-500-billion-in-2020-for-first-time/">are putting their money into developing the associated technologies</a>. Still, increased government support for research and development funding can catalyze these efforts.</p>
<p>An opportunity also exists to broaden innovation efforts beyond technology, to a systemic approach that includes dimensions such as <a href="https://www.irena.org/events/2020/Aug/Thirty-Innovations-for-a-Renewable-Powered-Future">market design, social acceptance, equity, regulatory frameworks and business models</a>. Energy systems are deeply interconnected to social issues, so changing them will not be successful if the solutions focus only on technology. </p>
<h2>Not one solution</h2>
<p>It is likely that U.N. energy and climate deliberations over the coming months will continue to move in fits and starts. The real work needs to take place at a more practical implementation level, such as in states, provinces and municipalities. If there is one thing we have learned, it is that mitigating climate change will be a long slog, not a one-off political announcement or celebrity endorsement. It requires much more than simply repeating platitudes.</p>
<p>Politicians need to show that the many energy transitions emerging are good for economies and communities, and can create long-lasting jobs and tax revenues. While it’s uncontested that <a href="https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2021/Jun/IRENA_World_Energy_Transitions_Outlook_2021.pdf?la=en&hash=C2117A51B74EAB29727609D778CDD16C49E56E83">the benefits of greenhouse gas mitigation far exceed the cost</a>, it is not always easy to marry this with short-term political cycles. </p>
<p><em>This article was updated Sept. 17, 2021, with Biden’s methane pledge announcement.</em></p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-need-to-know">Sign up for Politics Weekly</a>._]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Energy and climate policies aren’t always headed in the same direction, but if they work together they can tackle two of the biggest challenges of our time.Morgan Bazilian, Professor of Public Policy and Director, Payne Institute, Colorado School of MinesDolf Gielen, Payne Institute Fellow, Colorado School of MinesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1606042021-05-18T20:09:40Z2021-05-18T20:09:40ZWhile rich countries experience a post-COVID boom, the poor are getting poorer. Here’s how Australia can help<p>The latest <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2021/03/23/world-economic-outlook-april-2021">IMF</a> and <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eap/publication/uneven-recovery-east-asia-and-pacific-economic-update-april-2021">World Bank</a> reports show a global economic boom gathering steam. This is thanks to <a href="https://www.un.org/en/desa/un-covid-19-could-lead-lost-decade-development">US$16 trillion</a> in fiscal stimulus packages spent mostly across the world’s rich nations since the pandemic began.</p>
<p>After the reversal of 2020, the global economy is now projected to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/07/imf-upgrades-australias-post-covid-economic-outlook#:%7E:text=The%20world%20economy%20is%20expected,possible%20downside%20and%20upside%20risks.">grow by 6% in 2021</a>, powered by strong growth in the US and China, which are forecast to grow by 6% and 8%, respectively. </p>
<p>Australians are not missing out, thanks to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/11/federal-budget-2021-papers-reveals-huge-cost-of-covid-australian-government-economy-economic-stimulus-packages">A$311 billion</a> in public spending. The <a href="https://budget.gov.au/index.htm">federal budget</a>’s GDP growth forecast is 4.25% in 2021. Unemployment is forecast to fall to below 5% by mid-2023.</p>
<p>Before we get ahead of ourselves, however, we should consider the risks the pandemic continues to pose, not only to our recovery but the global boom the world’s rich nations have generated. </p>
<h2>New variants could lead to COVID surge</h2>
<p>As a rich nation surrounded by developing countries, Australia can see these risks around its region, not only in India, but also Southeast Asia and the Pacific. </p>
<p>The first of these risks is that all our forecasts and projections assume the progress of successful vaccination programs, not only in Australia but around the world. Yet, the virus is potentially adapting more quickly than developing countries are able to vaccinate their populations. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-ways-to-vaccinate-the-world-and-make-sure-everyone-benefits-rich-and-poor-155943">3 ways to vaccinate the world and make sure everyone benefits, rich and poor</a>
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<p>The B.1.617 virus variant has become the dominant strain in India and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01274-7">spread to some 40 countries</a>, including many in Southeast Asia. </p>
<p>Indonesia is particularly vulnerable. The vaccine rollout here has been sluggish, with <a href="https://vaksin.kemkes.go.id/#/vaccines">just under 14 million people</a> having received their first dose so far. The government has set an ambitious target of vaccinating <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/mixed-reception-to-indonesias-ambitious-covid-19-vaccination-drive">181 million people</a> by next March, but it will struggle to reach this target.</p>
<p>Although the government prohibited travel during the recent Eid holiday, data suggests at least <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/indonesia-seen-risk-covid-19-timebomb-after-eid-travel-2021-05-17/">1.5 million left homes before the ban</a>, causing one epidemiologist to warn of a COVID “timebomb” in the country.</p>
<p>The government is already warning the appearance of the B.1.617 variant (and others) could cause the country to <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2021/05/15/new-covid-19-variants-may-jeopardize-recovery-economists.html">miss its growth target</a> of between 4.5% and 5.3% this year, if the poor are unable to work due to new mobility restrictions.</p>
<h2>Millions more have fallen into extreme poverty</h2>
<p>The second risk to a post-pandemic global recovery is many developing nations are simply not benefiting from the start of the economic rebound. </p>
<p>COVID-19 has reduced per capita GDP by <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eap/publication/uneven-recovery-east-asia-and-pacific-economic-update-april-2021">as much as one-fifth</a> in these countries. </p>
<p>Last year, <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2020/gaef3534.doc.htm">100 million people</a> — mostly in South Asia — were on the brink of extreme poverty. This could rise to as many as <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/10/07/covid-19-to-add-as-many-as-150-million-extreme-poor-by-2021">150 million people</a> this year. As a result, millions of children could drop out of school this year around the world.</p>
<p>The Pacific Island countries have been badly affected, not only by the economic effects of border closures, but in the case of PNG, by the virus itself. With many reliant on tourism, commodities, and remittances, the Pacific Island countries’ economies <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eap/publication/uneven-recovery-east-asia-and-pacific-economic-update-april-2021">shrank</a> by 11% in 2020 collectively. </p>
<p>Fiji’s GDP contracted by a massive 19%, while in typhoon-affected Vanuatu, the economy shrank by 10%. </p>
<p>The effects on human development outcomes are immediately obvious. In PNG, <a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/459511607010120078/pdf/Papua-New-Guinea-High-Frequency-Survey-on-COVID-19-First-Round-Results.pdf">52% of families</a> surveyed by the World Bank in 2020 indicated they were sending fewer children to school because of reduced incomes. </p>
<p>More broadly, across East Asia and the Pacific, students are <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eap/publication/uneven-recovery-east-asia-and-pacific-economic-update-april-2021">expected to lose</a> 0.8 Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS) — a measure that combines quantity and quality of schooling — between January 2020 and December 2021. This is almost half their school time over two years.</p>
<h2>Australia’s aid spending still not enough</h2>
<p>Unlike Australia, many developing countries cannot free up large amounts of public money to invest in stimulating their economies. For them to join in the global recovery, they will need assistance.</p>
<p>Australia’s response is helping to some extent. Australia invested an extra <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/about-us/corporate/portfolio-budget-statements/pbs-2021-22-aid-budget-summary">A$479.7 million</a> in international development spending in 2020–21 above its notional baseline allocation of <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview202021/AustraliasForeignAidBudget">$4 billion per annum</a>. </p>
<p>In 2021–22, it is projecting a total investment of <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/australia-s-2021-aid-budget-focuses-on-past-promises-99880#:%7E:text=Announced%20as%20part%20of%20the,respond%20to%20COVID%2D19%E2%80%9D.">$4.34 billion</a>. This is still extra, but it represents a cut in real terms of 5% on the previous year. </p>
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<p>Compared to other wealthy nations, however, Australia is still not giving much. Australia’s investment in Official Development Assistance (ODA) as a proportion of gross national income <a href="http://devpolicy.org/aidtracker/trends/">is 0.21% in 2021–22</a>, much lower than the <a href="https://acfid.asn.au/media-releases/covid-19-spikes-across-asia-australian-aid-falls">OECD average of 0.32%</a>.</p>
<p>Given the scale of need and the pace of developments in our region, Australia will very likely offer more as the financial year progresses.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-asia-how-to-ensure-progress-on-reducing-poverty-isnt-reversed-by-coronavirus-146169">South Asia: how to ensure progress on reducing poverty isn't reversed by coronavirus</a>
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<h2>Greater stimulus spending and social protection schemes</h2>
<p>But Australia also needs to do much more to mobilise other forms of funding to assist its neighbours’ economic recoveries. </p>
<p>One thing Canberra is doing right is investing some of its ODA in social protection schemes around the region, including an <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/australia-s-2021-aid-budget-focuses-on-past-promises-99880">A$18 million Partnerships for Social Protection package</a> for the Pacific that will scale up assistance to vulnerable households. </p>
<p>Australia has also issued a <a href="https://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/insights/australias-a$1.5-billion-covid-related-loan-to-indonesia">concessional loan to Indonesia</a>, which it stipulates includes money for strengthening Indonesia’s health and social protection systems.</p>
<p>On top of this investment, Australia should use its access to global forums to advocate for more assistance to developing countries, especially in Asia and the Pacific. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/india-is-facing-a-terrible-crisis-how-can-australia-respond-ethically-159992">India is facing a terrible crisis. How can Australia respond ethically?</a>
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<p>One such forum is the <a href="https://www.g7plus.org/">G7+</a>, where Australia says it wants to promote prosperity and security in the Indo-Pacific. </p>
<p>Another is the coming <a href="https://www.g20.org/">G20 summit</a> in Italy in October, where Australia will have an opportunity to advocate for debt relief and restructuring for developing countries. This will allow them to free up cash for stimulus schemes like JobKeeper and JobSeeker, which protected many of us in Australia over the past year.</p>
<p>Australia is already meeting with the United States’ new aid administrator, Samantha Power, to discuss more cooperation on this front, including through the informal Quad alliance (which also includes Japan and India). </p>
<p>Australia should also continue to advocate to multilateral banks and funding agencies to invest real cash in new and additional stimulus packages and social protection systems around the region. </p>
<p>These systems could fund universal child benefits to keep children schooled and properly fed, protecting the advances our neighbours have made over the past 40 years of economic development. </p>
<p>Key to our own security and prosperity is our neighbours’ resilience to shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn. </p>
<p>Australia will need to allocate more money from its own coffers — and encourage more giving from the rest of the developed world — to stimulate our neighbours’ economies. Only then will we see a global economic recovery where everyone benefits — not just the wealthy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160604/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amrita Malhi works for Save the Children. </span></em></p>Many developing countries cannot free up public money to invest in economic stimulus packages. For them to join in the global recovery, they will need assistance.Amrita Malhi, Visiting Fellow, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs; Senior Adviser Geoeconomics, Save the Children, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1564692021-05-13T16:07:30Z2021-05-13T16:07:30ZClimate adaptation finance is ineffective and must be more transparent<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391851/original/file-20210325-23-q3319u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Riccardo Mayer / shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2019, an international climate fund approved a ten year <a href="https://www.greenclimate.fund/document/climate-resilient-food-security-women-and-men-smallholders-mozambique-through-integrated">US$9.3 million project</a> to support communities in the drylands of Mozambique that are affected by frequent droughts. This money seems a lot, but it really is not much for a country also affected by other climate-related events such as <a href="https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/620870/mb-who-takes-the-heat-230919-en.pdf">cyclones</a>. Indeed, the World Bank estimates Mozambique needs at least <a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/978481468178764388/pdf/702640v10ESW0P0IC000EACC0Mozambique.pdf">US$400 million a year</a> to protect itself from climate change. The difference between the amount of money that developing countries, such as Mozambique, need and what they get from developed countries begins to highlight some of the problems related to financing responses to climate change. </p>
<p>Poor and developing countries will be hit hardest by climate change and will need money to adapt, for instance, by building walls to protect against rising seas and storm surges. But there are three key problems: available finance is not enough, the amount of money needed will continue to grow, and the money currently being spent is often making things worse. </p>
<h2>Problem 1: Not enough money for adaptation</h2>
<p>In 2009, rich and developed countries committed to setting aside US$100 billion a year to support developing countries to protect themselves against climate change. Initiatives that <a href="https://climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/A-Snapshot-of-Global-Adaptation-Investment-and-Tracking-Methods-April-2020.pdf">track this money</a> show that developed countries have since set aside much less than that. </p>
<p>It’s hard to estimate the actual size of this deficit mainly because money that does not address climate change sometimes gets misreported. For instance, even though <a href="https://insights.careinternational.org.uk/media/k2/attachments/CARE_Climate-Adaptation-Finance_Fact-or-Fiction_Jan-2021.pdf">a loan</a> provided by the government of France to the Philippines was used to pay off another loan, this money was still reported as finance for climate change. This means that reports are often based on overestimates. </p>
<p>However, researchers generally agree that developing countries are working with much less money than they need.</p>
<h2>Problem 2: Growing needs</h2>
<p>In January 2021, the UN Environment Programme published a <a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/adaptation-gap-report-2020">report</a>, which noted that the money available for adaptation was not increasing fast enough. The World Bank estimates that developing countries need about <a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/646291468171244256/pdf/702670ESW0P10800EACCSynthesisReport.pdf">US$70 billion a year</a> to respond to climate change. These <a href="https://unepdtu.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/unep-gap-report-2016-web-6-6-2016.pdf">costs will increase</a> by at least 300% to US$200-300 billion a year by 2030 and US$280-500 billion a year in 2050. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400556/original/file-20210513-19-10ul2k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man walks through flooded street" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400556/original/file-20210513-19-10ul2k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400556/original/file-20210513-19-10ul2k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400556/original/file-20210513-19-10ul2k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400556/original/file-20210513-19-10ul2k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400556/original/file-20210513-19-10ul2k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400556/original/file-20210513-19-10ul2k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400556/original/file-20210513-19-10ul2k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rising seas and extreme weather means the Philippines is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">at.rma / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Problem 3: Money not doing its job</h2>
<p>An international group of researchers recently published a study that indicated that climate adaptation finance was <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X20305118?via%253Dihub">not doing what it was supposed to do</a>. Instead, they found evidence this money was actually making communities more likely to be affected by climate change. </p>
<p>This is because people who deliver this money to developing countries do not consider the reasons why these communities are affected by climate change in the first place, or what the communities need to protect themselves against climate change. The solutions offered are therefore likely to push communities into precarious situations that leave them more affected by existing or new climate problems. </p>
<p>For example, in the early 2000s, the government of Mozambique led <a href="https://liverman.faculty.arizona.edu/sites/liverman.faculty.arizona.edu/files/2018-06/Arnall%20et%20al.%20-%202013%20-%20Flooding,%20resettlement%20and%20livelihoods%20change%20evidence%20from%20rural%20Mozambique_1.pdf">resettlement initiatives</a> to protect people living in floodplains from frequent floods. However, these resettlements left some households with limited sources of income and poorer than they were before their resettlement. This made the households more likely to suffer from other effects of climate change such as droughts or illnesses in the household.</p>
<p>My own research in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104525">Tanzania</a> backs this up. There, I looked at an internationally funded project that prohibited cutting down mangroves, so that the mangroves would reduce coastal erosion by creating buffers against rising sea levels. However, the project overlooked the needs of poor households, who previously cut these mangroves and sold them or used them for cooking. Poor households were left with limited income to buy food which was becoming even scarcer due to the effects of climate change on fishing and farming. This project therefore exposed these communities to climate change in newer ways. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400381/original/file-20210512-15-uo11cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Girl looks into ocean beside a tree" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400381/original/file-20210512-15-uo11cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400381/original/file-20210512-15-uo11cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400381/original/file-20210512-15-uo11cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400381/original/file-20210512-15-uo11cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400381/original/file-20210512-15-uo11cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400381/original/file-20210512-15-uo11cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400381/original/file-20210512-15-uo11cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tanzania’s mangroves form a useful buffer against rising seas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sun_Shine / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) also found that local institutions are usually <a href="https://media.ifrc.org/ifrc/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IFRC_wdr2020/20201113_WorldDisasters_7.pdf">excluded from decision making</a> on how money for adaptation is spent. These institutions, such as <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2020/07/08/brazils-indigenous-peoples-face-a-triple-threat-from-covid-19-the-dismantling-of-socio-environmental-policies-and-international-inaction/">indigenous groups</a>, have a better understanding of how and why their communities are vulnerable to climate change and can better target their funding.</p>
<h2>Transparency as a starting point</h2>
<p>Greater transparency could begin to address these problems. People ultimately need to know who gets what, and how money is used once it is allocated. </p>
<p>Developed country governments do already regularly <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=crs1">report</a> how much money they are sending to developing countries for climate change, yet these reports do not provide detailed information on how this money is actually spent and whether it goes to the most affected communities. </p>
<p>For example, according to the OECD’s database, <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=crs1">Italy</a> sent US$1.3 million in 2012 to Mozambique to support agriculture, but information on whether poor communities benefited from this money is inadequate or missing altogether. My research in Tanzania has shown that even after this money is sent to developing countries, governments in these countries are likely to use this money to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.04.019">control what local organisations do</a>, resulting in actions that are not in line with local needs. </p>
<p>This means that simply “<a href="https://www.wri.org/publication/afai">following the money is not enough</a>”. Institutions responsible would need to provide transparent accounts about not just how they are sourcing and allocating money for adaptation, but also whether (or not) this money is spent on communities’ pressing needs.</p>
<p>This is in line with growing calls for <a href="https://pubs.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/2021-01/10211IIED.pdf">locally led</a> climate change adaptation, which emphasise that, in the end, providing money for adaptation only matters if it is in sufficient quantities and protects communities in developing countries from climate change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Omukuti gratefully acknowledges financial support from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through the Place-Based Climate Action Network (P-CAN), grant number: ES/S008381/1.</span></em></p>We need to know who gets what, and how money is used once it is allocated.Jessica Omukuti, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1577942021-04-07T13:34:57Z2021-04-07T13:34:57ZForeign aid can help stem the decline of democracy, if used in the right way<p>Democracy is having a hard time. In India, once the world’s largest democracy, the pandemic has hastened the country’s <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/covid-vs-democracy-indias-illiberal-remedy/">slide toward authoritarianism</a>. In the US, the Trump administration’s attacks on democratic norms reached new lows when the former president, backed by the Republican party, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-election-why-democratic-legitimacy-remains-at-stake-148572">refused to accept his loss</a> in the November 2020 elections. </p>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/foreign-aid-can-help-stem-the-decline-of-democracy-if-used-in-the-right-way-157794&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p>In fact studies show democratic norms are in decline worldwide. Freedom House recently argued that <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2021/democracy-under-siege">democracy has been declining since 2005</a>, while the <a href="https://www.v-dem.net/en/">latest report</a> from the Varieties of Democracy Institute reveals that 68% the world’s population now live in autocracies.</p>
<p>More countries have slid down the democracy ladder in the last decade than have moved up. States such as Hungary, Turkey and Venezuela that enjoyed a period of growing democratic norms now see a dramatic freefall in political freedoms. Several countries in south Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East are moving towards authoritarianism, while Brazil, Mexico and South Africa have recently experienced deterioration of democratic institutions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Graph showing gradual increase in democratic institutions in different world regions." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391933/original/file-20210326-15-10qd5sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391933/original/file-20210326-15-10qd5sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391933/original/file-20210326-15-10qd5sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391933/original/file-20210326-15-10qd5sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391933/original/file-20210326-15-10qd5sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391933/original/file-20210326-15-10qd5sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391933/original/file-20210326-15-10qd5sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Regions are assigned a score based on the political systems within them, from zero for closed autocracies to values closer to one for liberal democracies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rachel M Gisselquist and Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, based on V-Dem's electoral democracy index.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This entails not just loss of civil liberties and political rights for those in “backsliding” countries, but also a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/liberal-international-order-free-world-trump-authoritarianism/569881/">major shift in the international liberal order</a>, with potentially far-reaching consequences for economic progress, prosperity and peace worldwide.</p>
<h2>Champions and sceptics of foreign aid</h2>
<p>These trends alone could make the case for investing in <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/rejuvenating-democracy-promotion/">promoting democracy</a>, through democracy aid: foreign aid specifically to support core democratic processes and institutions including elections, political parties, civil society groups, the media and human rights.</p>
<p>The use of <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/13/trump-fraud-republicans-iri-ndi-osce-americas-democracy-demotion/,">diplomatic carrots and sticks</a> also plays a role. For example, in 2019 Sweden launched its <a href="http://www.swemfa.se/drive-for-democracy/">Drive for Democracy</a>, which made democracy central to its foreign policy including security, development and trade. Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, recently advocated for a “<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-wants-us-eu-to-forge-marshall-plan-for-democracy/a-56181438">Marshall Plan for democracy</a>”, while US President Joe Biden has called for a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/us/politics/biden-democracy-summit.html">Global Democracy Summit</a>. </p>
<p>But we should not paint too rosy a picture of democracy aid. Since its origins in the US Marshall Plan of 1948, foreign aid has been closely linked to the strategic political considerations and interests of the donor country. The implications and potential impact this has on local needs deserves careful attention. </p>
<p>In fact, a number of researchers have long claimed that foreign aid is actually bad for democracy. US economist William Easterly argues that <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/03/10/the-new-tyranny/">foreign aid empowers dictators</a>. Other research lays out the ways in which aid can <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/13/why-trying-to-help-poor-countries-might-actually-hurt-them/">weaken local accountability</a>, <a href="https://deborahbrautigam.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/2004-foreign-aid-institutions-and-governance-in-subsaharan-africa.pdf">governance processes</a> and state institutions. </p>
<p>Equally, there is research that <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438781500111X">challenges these positions</a>, showing <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democratic-trajectories-in-africa-9780199686285?cc=fi&lang=en&">how effective democracy aid specifically</a> can be. For instance, support that facilitated <a href="https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/changing-dynamics-foreign-aid-and-democracy-mozambique-0">Mozambique’s transition from war to peace</a> and multiparty politics in the early 1990s, or symbolic and financial assistance in support of multiple <a href="https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/beyond-electoral-democracy-0">free and fair elections in Benin</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393580/original/file-20210406-13-1umuc5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Globe showing countries colour-coded by government type" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393580/original/file-20210406-13-1umuc5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393580/original/file-20210406-13-1umuc5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393580/original/file-20210406-13-1umuc5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393580/original/file-20210406-13-1umuc5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393580/original/file-20210406-13-1umuc5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393580/original/file-20210406-13-1umuc5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393580/original/file-20210406-13-1umuc5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Democracy Index 2020, from the Economist Intelligence Unit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Democracy_Index_2020.svg">The Economist/Jackinthebox</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New insight into aid’s effectiveness</h2>
<p>Our new <a href="https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/effects-swedish-and-international-democracy-aid">study</a> built on existing evidence to create a new analysis of the impact of democracy aid in 148 countries between 1995–2018. Our approach married quantitative analysis to the <a href="https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/does-aid-support-democracy">large amount of research on democratisation</a> to present a framework that addresses how aid should, in theory, support democracy.</p>
<p>We had three main findings: first, aid specifically aimed at improving democratic infrastructure and institutions has a modest but positive impact overall. This impact is clearer than for the impact of development aid generally, but there is no evidence that either has a negative impact on democracy on average. </p>
<p>Second, aid aimed at supporting civil society, media freedom, and human rights seems to be the most effective in terms of its impact on democracy. Third, democracy aid is more effective at supporting ongoing democratisation than at halting democratic backsliding. </p>
<p>In short, democracy aid works, but it’s not magic. The sums invested are usually pretty modest in comparison to the funds available to domestic opponents of democracy, such as in electoral autocracies like Russia, Nicaragua and Turkey. And democratisation of a country tends to be a long, hard road – demonstrating that something has a specific impact along the way is a challenge.</p>
<h2>A three-point plan for supporting democracies</h2>
<p>The international community needs to staunch democracy’s global decline, and our analysis identifies some clear recommendations.</p>
<p>First, maintain and consider increasing democracy aid. It surely will not work everywhere, but the evidence shows it can be effective. At the same time, domestic expectations need to be managed.</p>
<p>Second, recognise that prematurely cutting democracy aid can increase a country’s risk of democratic backsliding into authoritarianism, at which point it is harder for aid to help. This means we should reconsider the role of aid in middle-income countries. It is many of these countries in Latin America, eastern and central Europe that have seen sharp cuts in development and democracy assistance over the past decades, where there is now a pronounced slip into authoritarianism.</p>
<p>Third, direct aid toward the core elements of democracy: human rights, democratic participation and civil society, and a free media. A <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/press-gazette-media-freedom-health-check-70-world-no-free-press/">recent analysis</a>, for example, reveals 70% of the world lives in countries with limited media freedom. Assistance to other areas can support democracy as well, but this is where the best democratic returns on investment can be made.</p>
<p>Which nations among the international community can we expect to act? Embroiled in its own domestic politics, the role of the US in promoting democracy <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/10/01/can-u.s.-democracy-policy-survive-trump-pub-77381">remains in question</a>, although the new Biden administration <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/04/remarks-by-president-biden-on-americas-place-in-the-world/">has signalled</a> a more active position to push back the advance of authoritarianism. Against this backdrop, support for democracy from the heart of Europe is now more important than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This study was supported by the Swedish Expert Group for Aid Studies (EBA). Findings and conclusions are those of the authors, not EBA. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This study was supported by the Swedish Expert Group for Aid Studies (EBA). Findings and conclusions are those of the authors, not EBA.</span></em></p>How can democratic nations help fledgling democracies and others struggling against the tide of autocrats?Rachel M Gisselquist, Senior Research Fellow, World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), United Nations UniversityMiguel Niño-Zarazúa, Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, and Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow, World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1530482021-03-10T13:32:49Z2021-03-10T13:32:49ZChina’s ‘mask diplomacy’ wins influence across Africa, during and after the pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386239/original/file-20210224-13-187tfge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=239%2C35%2C3532%2C2568&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zimbabwe leaders welcome Chinese COVID-19 experts at the Robert Mugabe International Airport in Harare on May 11, 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/zimbabwe-minister-of-local-government-and-social-welfare-news-photo/1212652388?adppopup=true&uiloc=thumbnail_more_search_results_adp">Jekesai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Being Chinese in Africa was the worst possible <a href="https://chinaafricaproject.com/2020/03/03/chinese-in-kenya-face-stigmatization-and-discrimination-due-to-covid-19/">stigma for much of 2020</a>. </p>
<p>Africans vilified the Chinese, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51770856">blaming them for the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. At the same time, China was blaming Africans for the pandemic, too. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-svwKWBkys">Viral videos</a> in March and April 2020 showed Chinese authorities forcibly evicting Africans from their homes in Guangzhou, China, for allegedly spreading COVID-19. </p>
<p>These actions sparked an <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/african-countries-respond-to-guangzhous-anti-epidemic-measures/">uproar on the continent</a>. On social media, there were calls for deporting Chinese residents in Africa. The Twitter hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DeportRacistChinese?src=hashtag_click">#DeportRacistChinese</a> trended throughout the continent.</p>
<p>Beijing sought to improve its pandemic-era image in Africa with “<a href="https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/covid-mask-diplomacy">mask diplomacy</a>,” an effort to supply the continent with <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/china-to-donate-coronavirus-vaccines-to-three-african-countries">vaccines</a>, <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-04/06/c_138951984.htm">medical equipment and personnel</a> – and it worked.</p>
<p>As a <a href="http://portfolio.du.edu/Hanaan.Dinko.Dinko/page/83655">doctoral student in geography</a> who has written <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016718520303043">extensively about Africa</a>, I recognize this “mask diplomacy” by China as part of its broader incursion into Africa that arose from <a href="https://newlinesinstitute.org/regional-politics/americas-global-retreat-and-the-ensuing-strategic-vacuum/">the United States’ global retreat</a>.</p>
<h2>China building Africa</h2>
<p>China’s rising economic influence in Africa has been in the works for two decades.</p>
<p>In North Africa, China has spent US$11 billion since 2015 on the <a href="https://www.au-pida.org/news/trans-maghreb-highway-facilitating-the-movement-of-people-vehicles-and-goods/">Trans-Maghreb highway</a> – from the Western Sahara to Libya – that will connect 60 million of the region’s 100 million people. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388547/original/file-20210309-13-r3occz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A section of the Maghreb highway in Algeria." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388547/original/file-20210309-13-r3occz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388547/original/file-20210309-13-r3occz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388547/original/file-20210309-13-r3occz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388547/original/file-20210309-13-r3occz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388547/original/file-20210309-13-r3occz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388547/original/file-20210309-13-r3occz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388547/original/file-20210309-13-r3occz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Algeria East-West Highway, a section of the Maghreb highway, built in part by a Chinese consortium.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/east-west-highway-wilaya-de-ain-defla-a-controversial-news-photo/601131320?adppopup=true">Andia/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In East Africa, China built a network of roads and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-china-loan-idUSL5N1VS4IW">a rail line linking Ethiopia and Djibouti</a> that has facilitated trade.</p>
<p>In southern Africa, Namibia partnered with China and the African Development Bank in 2013 on a <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190803-namibia-inaugurates-chinese-built-port-terminal">$300 billion port expansion</a>. And Angola will be benefiting from a <a href="https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/chinese-contractor-starts-45bn-angolan-hydropower-/">$4.5 billion Chinese-funded hydroelectric power plant</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/chinese-contractor-starts-45bn-angolan-hydropower-/">Similar infrastructure projects</a> are in the works in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/14/africa/nigeria-china-hydropower/index.html">west</a> and <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3115249/chinese-companies-are-betting-heavily-democratic-republic">central Africa</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-china-africa/pompeo-says-chinas-africa-lending-creates-unsustainable-debt-burdens-idINKBN23V2S3">Some Western leaders</a> have described Chinese financing mechanisms as <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/25/chinas-debt-diplomacy/">debt traps</a>, suggesting they saddle African countries with high debts while increasing China’s power in the region. </p>
<p>But China’s willingness to fund Africa’s infrastructure has been viewed favorably by <a href="https://apnews.com/article/904c9563409542ab93c37694aced0872">African leaders</a> – especially as U.S. trade with Africa has <a href="http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=1846522568&Country=Gabon&topic=Politics">steadily declined for a decade</a>.</p>
<p>“They say China has lent too much to Africa,” <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-09/03/c_137439506.htm">Rwandan President Paul Kagame said in 2018</a>, “but another perspective of the issue is that those criticizing China on debt give too little, and Africa needs the funding to build capacity for development.”</p>
<p>In 2002, U.S.-Africa trade was <a href="http://www.sais-cari.org/data-china-africa-trade">nearly double</a> China’s trade with the continent: $21 billion, compared to $12 billion. By 2008, U.S.-Africa trade had surged to <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2018/04/16/competing-in-africa-china-the-european-union-and-the-united-states/">$100 billion</a>. </p>
<p>By 2019, however, it had dropped to $56 billion. Meanwhile, China-Africa trade rose from <a href="http://www.sais-cari.org/data-china-africa-trade">$102 billion to $192 billion</a> within the same 11-year period. Today, no other single country <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1122389/leading-countries-for-fdi-in-africa-by-investor-country/#:%7E:text=Leading%20countries%20for%20FDI%20in%20Africa%202014%2D2018%2C%20by%20investor%20country&text=Between%202014%20and%202018%2C%2016,of%20the%20total%20FDI%2C%20respectively.">comes close to matching China’s investments</a> across Africa. </p>
<p>The Trump administration ignored Africa as China exerted its influence. Trump never set foot on the continent as president – the first <a href="https://www.politico.com/gallery/2015/07/8-us-presidents-plus-a-retired-one-who-traveled-to-africa-002058?slide=0">U.S. president in 27 years</a> to avoid Africa. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386240/original/file-20210224-21-1bwnh1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Medical donations from China at Algiers International Airport" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386240/original/file-20210224-21-1bwnh1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386240/original/file-20210224-21-1bwnh1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386240/original/file-20210224-21-1bwnh1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386240/original/file-20210224-21-1bwnh1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386240/original/file-20210224-21-1bwnh1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386240/original/file-20210224-21-1bwnh1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386240/original/file-20210224-21-1bwnh1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Staff members unload medical donations from China at Algiers International Airport, Algeria, April 21, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/april-21-2020-staff-members-unload-medical-donations-from-news-photo/1210699240?adppopup=true">Xinhua/via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>China first in Africa</h2>
<p>Already Africa’s <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2019/10/09/figure-of-the-week-foreign-direct-investment-in-africa/">largest economic partner</a>, China was able to pivot quickly after the coronavirus hit to offer the region aid, attention and expertise.</p>
<p>The results were immediate. </p>
<p>Some African leaders who criticized China’s treatment of Africans in China during the early days of the pandemic have changed their tone. Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, for example, recently proclaimed that he was <a href="https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1844913.shtml">“satisfied with the progress of” Nigeria’s relationship with China</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, Beijing is assuming powerful leadership positions within <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/05/china-global-influence-who-united-states/611227/">international institutions</a> that play important roles in Africa. Out of 15 United Nations agencies, China heads four of them, including the <a href="http://www.fao.org/director-general/en/">Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO,</a> and the <a href="https://www.unido.org/who-we-are-structure-director-general/biography#:%7E:text=LI%20Yong%2C%20Director%20General%20of,economic%20and%20financial%20policy%2Dmaker.">United Nations Industrial Development Organization</a>. No country rivals China in this sense. </p>
<p>China is also establishing international organizations that compete with the functions of the Western-dominated U.N., including the <a href="https://www.aiib.org/en/index.html">Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank</a> and the <a href="http://www.cdb.com.cn/English/">China Development Bank</a>. As of 2018, the China Development Bank had funded <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-09/22/c_137486141.htm">500 projects in 43 different African countries worth $50 billion</a>.</p>
<p>Beijing is also courting influence and favor in ways beyond lending. </p>
<p>China <a href="https://africa.cgtn.com/2019/01/23/china-writes-off-nearly-78-million-of-cameroons-debt/">canceled $78 million</a> in debt owed by Cameroon in 2019 – money borrowed for infrastructural development – <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2019/07/10/view-for-africa-there-s-more-than-just-money-to-repaying-chinese-debt/">allegedly in exchange for Cameroon’s support</a> for its candidacy as director-general of the FAO. Cameroon, an influential central Africa country, stands out with its <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/international-partnerships/where-we-work/cameroon_en">diversified economy</a> and strong private sector.</p>
<h2>The importance of a new US-Africa relationship</h2>
<p>For the U.S., China’s surging influence in Africa has global implications. American companies are increasingly facing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/13/world/africa/china-loans-africa-usa.html">tough competition from state-backed Chinese</a> corporations as they bid for contracts in Africa. If left unmatched, Chinese companies could increasingly outcompete U.S. companies.</p>
<p>The Biden administration has vowed to <a href="https://www.voanews.com/africa/biden-signals-new-tone-us-africa-relations">engage more with Africa</a>, likely signaling a long-term U.S. strategy to counter China in Africa.</p>
<p>But China’s strategic <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/china-to-donate-coronavirus-vaccines-to-three-african-countries">vaccine</a> distribution and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-covid-vaccine-africa-developing-nations-11613598170">PPE donations</a> to African countries have built a lot of goodwill and embellished its reputation as a responsible global power acting to protect vulnerable populations in Africa – which the U.S. and Europe have largely overlooked during the pandemic. </p>
<p>The U.S. may be ready to recommit to Africa, but by the time it starts to reengage, it could be too late to outpace China. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dinko Hanaan Dinko is affiliated with Global Research Network as a Junior Fellow.</span></em></p>China is providing masks, vaccines, medical equipment and personnel to African countries ignored by the U.S. in recent years, positioning itself as an essential partner to the region.Dinko Hanaan Dinko, Ph.D. Student, University of DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1516662021-01-06T18:58:07Z2021-01-06T18:58:07ZWanted in 2021: A coherent global health strategy for Canada<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377059/original/file-20210104-13-13fwnqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C1920%2C1256&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated the need for Canada to develop a global health policy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Pixabay)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Canada’s foreign policy efforts are fragmented, a jumble of trade and aid deals that fail to adequately consider that our security is deeply tied to the health of the rest of the world. The current pandemic has shone a spotlight on this weakness. </p>
<p>The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has erased any doubts that health is a global phenomenon, and it’s become abundantly clear that Canada urgently needs a global health strategy. While the majority of the health community in Canada <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.17269/s41997-020-00436-w?wt_mc=Internal.Event.1.SEM.ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst&utm_source=ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AA_en_06082018&ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst_20201112">learned some lessons from SARS almost two decades ago</a>, COVID-19 has also helped all Canadians realize that we can no longer afford to separate our own health from the world’s. We are only as strong as our weakest health link.</p>
<p>Too often Canada’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0020702014540282">foreign policy engagement</a> in health has focused on advancing global security — minimizing security threats from pandemics or climate change that spill across borders — or through development policy focused on helping to eliminate major infectious diseases such as HIV, <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/drugs-health-products/progress-report-2015-federal-action-plan-antimicrobial-resistance-use.html">antimicrobial resistance</a>, malaria and tuberculosis. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2016.1202103">Maternal, newborn and child health</a> have also been a flagship for development priorities for Canada. But we have neglected, at our peril, to address the systemic inequities causing these global health threats.</p>
<h2>Gender equality</h2>
<p>The current federal government has taken some meaningful steps towards promoting <a href="https://cfc-swc.gc.ca/index-en.html">gender equality in Canada and globally</a>. While important, these efforts don’t sufficiently address other mounting global inequities and health needs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/gac-amc/publications/odaaa-lrmado/index.aspx?lang=eng">Canada’s Official Development Assistance</a> investments, as currently designed, are not properly set up to support these and other <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25005028/">health challenges</a>. Although health has been previously used by Canada and other countries as a political instrument to promote <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/peace_security-paix_securite/index.aspx?lang=eng">peace, security and prosperity,</a> Canada can no longer afford to separate its own security agenda from its global fight against health, racial and other social inequities. </p>
<p>These problems are going to be exacerbated in the coming decades by the existing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32579-4">climate crisis</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People wearing masks march in a climate protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377057/original/file-20210104-23-1ywlauj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377057/original/file-20210104-23-1ywlauj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377057/original/file-20210104-23-1ywlauj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377057/original/file-20210104-23-1ywlauj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377057/original/file-20210104-23-1ywlauj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377057/original/file-20210104-23-1ywlauj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377057/original/file-20210104-23-1ywlauj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People take part in a climate change protest in Montréal on Nov. 21, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The triple crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and related health and economic fallouts, climate change and persistent inequities present major challenges for wealthy countries like Canada. They require countries to address domestic needs while also <a href="https://www.cgai.ca/covid_19_and_canadas_development_assitance_in_sub_saharan_africa">tackling development priorities</a> in vulnerable regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa.</p>
<p>That’s why we need a global health strategy for Canada that’s integrated, mindful of health, racial and gender equity, and also serves Canada’s security and global citizenship agendas. Canada needs to be innovative when it comes to research and policy.</p>
<h2>Linking domestic and global policy</h2>
<p>In addressing global health threats, the federal government must erase the artificial divisions between domestic and global policy. </p>
<p>Canadian strategy must fundamentally strengthen the country’s political voice in the G7 and G20. We must commit public funds and expertise toward strengthening multilateral and bilateral partnerships with other governments and global institutions such as the World Health Organization. </p>
<p>The federal government must also approach its commitment to global health with openness, seeking out a wide range of perspectives that will form the basis of the design and monitoring of a renewed global health strategy for Canada.</p>
<p>Establishing global health strategies is nothing new. Back in 2007, the foreign affairs ministers of Brazil, France, Indonesia, Norway, Senegal, South Africa and Thailand signed the Oslo Ministerial Declaration on global health as a pressing foreign policy issue. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60498-X">Canada was absent</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/sante_mondiale_en_web_cle4c7677-1.pdf">France</a>, <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/departementene/ud/vedlegg/utvikling/betterhealth_summary.pdf">Norway</a>, <a href="https://www.eda.admin.ch/dam/eda/en/documents/das-eda/organisation-eda/broschuere-gesundheitsaussenpolitik_EN.pdf">Switzerland</a> and others have followed up by establishing specific strategies. The <a href="https://twitter.com/CorinneHinlopen/status/1336615384892518401/photo/1">Dutch parliament</a> just adopted a motion to develop one. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377056/original/file-20210104-23-v4k4zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau shake hands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377056/original/file-20210104-23-v4k4zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377056/original/file-20210104-23-v4k4zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377056/original/file-20210104-23-v4k4zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377056/original/file-20210104-23-v4k4zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377056/original/file-20210104-23-v4k4zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377056/original/file-20210104-23-v4k4zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377056/original/file-20210104-23-v4k4zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets German Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel during the G7 leaders summit in La Malbaie, Que., in June 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span>
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<p>Germany’s recently launched <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l4662">global health strategy</a> could be a model for Canada. It takes a whole-of-government approach to improve policy coherence rather than leaving it up to any one ministry to lead in a silo. Germany will invest more in the World Health Organization, among other multilateral organizations, and in health promotion and research that supports its strategy.</p>
<p>Canada too must fully acknowledge that our security interests are directly linked to health equity across the globe — and nowhere is this more evident than in the race we have witnessed to develop and now deploy a COVID-19 vaccine. Here, a coherent global health strategy would ensure that Canada lives up to its commitment to universal access to a vaccine in the face of rising vaccine nationalism.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-me-first-covid-19-vaccine-strategy-may-come-at-the-cost-of-global-health-146908">Canada's 'me first' COVID-19 vaccine strategy may come at the cost of global health</a>
</strong>
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<h2>Showing global leadership</h2>
<p>The strategy needs to be aligned with <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/">2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda</a>, which provides an integrated framework for member states, including Canada, to measure progress on actions taken across sectors to address health, social, economic, gender and environmental inequities. </p>
<p>We need a strategy with a clear mandate, accountability and monitoring mechanisms, and one that is clearly communicated. We also need to solicit advice from our global partners. Choosing to bring outside perspectives to inform strategy development would make Canada unique while also deliberately engaging a wide range of Canadian stakeholders. </p>
<p>A parliamentary committee on global health could also be established to guide the work across various federal departments. And we could follow <a href="https://donortracker.org/policy-updates/france-appoints-new-ambassador-global-health-issues">France</a> and <a href="https://www.who.int/pmnch/media/news/2012/20120403_global_health_ambassador/en/">Sweden</a> in appointing a global health ambassador to lead government engagements. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377050/original/file-20210104-15-k7pd93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Justin Trudeau smiles in profile." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377050/original/file-20210104-15-k7pd93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377050/original/file-20210104-15-k7pd93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377050/original/file-20210104-15-k7pd93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377050/original/file-20210104-15-k7pd93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377050/original/file-20210104-15-k7pd93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377050/original/file-20210104-15-k7pd93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377050/original/file-20210104-15-k7pd93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is seen in Vancouver shortly after his election in October 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
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<p>We already have precedents, including <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/corporate/transparency/briefing-materials/corporate-book/canada-ambassador-climate-change.html">Canada’s Ambassador for Climate Change</a> and <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/gender_equality-egalite_des_genres/women_peace_security-femmes_paix_securite-rep.aspx?lang=eng">Canada’s Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security</a> — roles that signal the country’s leadership and commitment to collaborate with the global community.</p>
<p>Canada can use a global health strategy to engage proactively as a leader on the global stage. In 2015, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6047377/justin-trudeau-2015-and-now/">a newly elected Justin Trudeau declared that Canada was “back.”</a> There’s no better way and better opportunity for Canada to prove it than now with a comprehensive global health strategy for the post-pandemic era.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151666/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erica Di Ruggiero receives/has received funding from CIHR, SSHRC, and IDRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Garry Aslanyan was a federal public servant at Global Affairs Canada and Public Health Agency of Canada until 2010. </span></em></p>There’s no better way and better opportunity for Canada to prove it can be a world leader than now, with a comprehensive global health strategy for the post-pandemic era.Erica Di Ruggiero, Director, Centre for Global Health & Associate Professor, University of TorontoGarry Aslanyan, Manager of Partnerships and Governance at the WHO Special Programme TDR, and Adjunct Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1483872020-10-21T12:22:52Z2020-10-21T12:22:52ZImmigrants are still sending lots of money home despite the coronavirus job losses – for now<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364542/original/file-20201020-17-1tydsf1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=334%2C27%2C5703%2C3983&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman counts money outside a U.S. remittance collection agency in San Isidro, El Salvador.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-counts-money-outside-a-u-s-remittance-collection-news-photo/1219675522">Marvin Recinos/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Banks and aid agencies <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-emerging-remittanc/global-remittances-could-fall-by-100-billion-in-2020-says-citi-idUSKBN2382WY">have been warning</a> of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-pandemic-could-hit-the-billions-migrant-workers-send-home-in-cash-135602">pandemic-related plunge</a> in the amount of money sent by migrants to family back home who rely on the income. In a typical year, more than <a href="https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/InternationalMigration2019_Report.pdf">270 million migrants</a> living and working abroad send these cash transfers, known as remittances, to their home countries.</p>
<p>Yet so far, <a href="https://blogs.imf.org/2020/04/14/the-great-lockdown-worst-economic-downturn-since-the-great-depression/">despite the lockdowns</a> that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53574953">have devastated wealthier economies</a> and caused <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/06/1067432">massive unemployment</a>, remittances have generally held up this year. In some cases they’ve even been higher than usual, based on our review of the latest available data and press releases for top remittance recipient countries. <a href="https://theconversation.com/mexican-workers-in-us-are-sending-record-money-home-despite-coronavirus-related-economic-shutdowns-138704">Remittances to Mexico</a>, for example, <a href="https://www.banxico.org.mx/SieInternet/consultarDirectorioInternetAction.do?sector=1&accion=consultarCuadroAnalitico&idCuadro=CA11&locale=en">surged 9.4%</a> in the first eight months of the year. Pakistan is also experiencing a <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-09/14/c_139367493.htm">record increase</a>, while cash transfers to such countries as <a href="https://m.sggpnews.org.vn/business/covid19-hits-remittances-to-vietnam-88145.html">Vietnam</a> and the <a href="https://cnnphilippines.com/business/2020/9/15/Filipino-remittances-July-pandemic.html?fbclid=IwAR0ipZKoBiwOz2feGDMubocBJmRAAy3gpn9KOAAilByPIj74lQihS7JHQzg">Philippines</a> have held steady. </p>
<p>There a few likely reasons for the positive news for these and other countries – but there’s also reason to worry. </p>
<h2>The importance of remittances</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.knomad.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/Migrationanddevelopmentbrief31.pdf">Remittances normally flow</a> from rich countries like the U.S., the United Arab Emirates and Germany to lower- and middle-income countries.</p>
<p>In 2019, migrants sent a record <a href="https://www.knomad.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/R8_Migration%26Remittances_brief32.pdf">US$554 billion</a> home. This is <a href="https://www.knomad.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/R8_Migration%26Remittances_brief32.pdf">more than the sum of all investments</a> made by foreign companies in such developing countries and over triple the amount of <a href="https://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/development-finance-data/ODA-2019-detailed-summary.pdf">aid governments provide</a>. </p>
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<p>Remittances are also <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/basics/pdf/ratha-remittances.pdf">more dependable than either international aid or investment</a>. During bad times, remittances tend to increase, while foreign investments usually fall. And beyond directly supporting the intended recipient, they <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/blog/migrant-remittances-will-plummet-here-what-means-global-development">are essential</a> for helping poorer nations fight poverty and improve health care and education. </p>
<p>Our research with Michael Clemens on <a href="https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/REST_a_00657?mobileUi=0&">Filipino workers in South Korea</a>, for example, found that overseas work increased investment in their children’s education and health care by several hundred percent. In such South Asian countries as Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh, remittances <a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/903161585816440273/pdf/Towards-Safer-and-More-Productive-Migration-for-South-Asia.pdf">have helped reduce poverty</a>.</p>
<p>In some countries, remittances are a substantial part of the national economy, in some cases <a href="https://www.knomad.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/R8_Migration%26Remittances_brief32.pdf">making up as much as 30%</a> of GDP.</p>
<p>This is why forecasts of a sharp drop in remittances due to the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns were so alarming. In April, the World Bank projected a <a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/989721587512418006/pdf/COVID-19-Crisis-Through-a-Migration-Lens.pdf">20% decline in remittances</a> to low- and middle-income countries. This would have amounted to more than $100 billion in lost income, equivalent to <a href="https://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/development-finance-data/ODA-2019-detailed-summary.pdf">two-thirds of all foreign aid</a> distributed by governments in 2019. </p>
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<h2>Remittances stay strong</h2>
<p>Many countries did experience an initial hit to remittances in the spring, but summer cash transfers mostly made up for it. And some countries have experienced rising remittances throughout the pandemic. </p>
<p>Mexico, which took in over <a href="https://www.knomad.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/R8_Migration%26Remittances_brief32.pdf">$38 billion</a> last year, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-economy-remittances/remittances-to-mexico-hit-third-highest-level-on-record-in-july-idUSKBN25S5D1">received the most remittances in a single month ever in March</a>, with cash transfers continuing to surge through the summer. Egypt <a href="https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/3/92234/Egyptian-expats%E2%80%99-remittances-witness-steady-increase">is seeing a nearly 8% jump</a> this year.</p>
<p>In the Philippines, where remittances make up <a href="https://www.knomad.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/R8_Migration%26Remittances_brief32.pdf">10% of GDP</a>, money transfers decreased in the spring but <a href="https://cnnphilippines.com/business/2020/9/15/Filipino-remittances-July-pandemic.html">mostly recovered later in the year</a>. The story was similar in <a href="https://sggpnews.org.vn/business/covid19-hits-remittances-to-vietnam-88145.html">Vietnam</a>, <a href="https://bdnews24.com/economy/2020/10/08/bangladeshs-forex-reserves-top-40bn-on-remittance-inflow">Bangladesh</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-remittance-mexico-guatemala-salvador-honduras/2020/08/05/5a1bcdbe-d5be-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html">El Salvador and Honduras</a>. </p>
<h2>Some likely causes</h2>
<p>So what explains these rising or steady remittance flows? While there’s no definitive answer because of a lack of data, there are a few possibilities. </p>
<p>Despite the onset of severe recessions, many migrant workers have been able to keep earning income. For one thing, they <a href="https://atalayar.com/en/content/covid-19-and-remittances-why-are-latin-american-transfers-increasing">tend to be employed in essential businesses</a> such as agriculture and construction that have not suffered as much during the pandemic. In Europe, in certain essential sectors, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/05/22/less-gratitude-please-how-covid-19-reveals-the-need-for-migration-reform/">migrant workers account for a third of all workers</a>. </p>
<p>And governments in some countries such as <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/q-and-a-progress-for-migrant-workers-in-italy">Italy</a> and <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/29/coronavirus-portugal-grants-temporary-citizenship-rights-to-migrants">Portugal</a> <a href="https://www.odi.org/migrant-key-workers-covid-19/">have implemented reforms</a> that are making it easier for undocumented workers to access services or even offering temporary citizenship to some. <a href="https://accueil-integration-refugies.fr/2020/04/14/les-refugies-peuvent-contribuer-au-service-public-de-sante/">France</a>, <a href="https://www.elnacional.com/mundo/espana-abre-la-puerta-a-mas-de-2-000-medicos-venezolanos-para-la-lucha-contra-el-coronavirus/">Spain</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/freylindsay/2020/03/26/germanys-agriculture-minister-wants-asylum-seekers-to-help-with-coronavirus-labor-shortages/#73f1d6a85e18">Germany</a>, meanwhile, are opening up sectors of their economy to migrants and asylum seekers that were previously closed to them.</p>
<p>All of this makes it easier for migrant workers to keep earning and sending money home to their families, who may be struggling a lot more than their relatives in their wealthy host countries. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w15419">Research has found</a> that migrant workers often send more remittances home when their countries of origin are experiencing economic hardship. This altruism is the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/313176/a-good-provider-is-one-who-leaves-by-jason-deparle/">reason many workers choose to migrate abroad</a> in the first place. Jesus Perlera, a worker from El Salvador who has not stopped sending remittances to his mother despite his own economic challenges, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/us/coronavirus-immigrants-remittances.html">told The New York Times</a>: “If I don’t support her, how will she eat?”</p>
<p>Another factor likely driving remittances is government stimulus spending. While a lot of pandemic aid isn’t available to undocumented immigrants in the U.S., California, for one, let them access the <a href="https://en.as.com/en/2020/05/08/other_sports/1588972345_433751.html">$1,200 economic impact checks</a> sent out as part of the coronavirus relief bill. Goldman Sachs <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-economy-remittances/remittances-to-mexico-hit-third-highest-level-on-record-in-july-idUSKBN25S5D1">credited this coronavirus spending</a> for the strong remittances to Mexico, while the World Bank <a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/428451587390154689/pdf/Potential-Responses-to-the-COVID-19-Outbreak-in-Support-of-Migrant-Workers-June-19-2020.pdf">cited social protection programs</a> such as unemployment and in-kind transfers for shoring up migrant workers around the world. </p>
<p>For migrants who are having more difficulty finding work, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/coronavirus-migration-trends-gulf-states-india/">decision to move back home</a> may also spur a flurry of remittance activity as they send their savings ahead of their own departures. </p>
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<p>It’s also possible some of the apparent increase in remittances, <a href="https://tribune.com.pk/article/97174/the-curious-case-of-pakistans-spiralling-remittances">as in Pakistan</a>, is artificial. Traditionally, large amounts of remittances have been sent through informal means, such as cash sent or carried by migrants when they visit home. The pandemic has forced <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/remittances-and-financial-inclusion-sending-money-home-in-the-covid-era">more people</a> to make <a href="https://www.pymnts.com/news/cross-border-commerce/cross-border-payments/2020/pandemic-drives-growth-in-global-digital-remittances">digital transfers</a>, which are a lot easier to track but don’t necessarily indicate an increase in remittances. </p>
<h2>A crash may still come</h2>
<p>While the fact that remittances have held up is good news for developing countries and their populations, which <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-pandemic-ravages-worlds-largest-developing-economies-11599171833">have been hit especially hard by the pandemic</a>, there are worrying signs that we may yet see the predicted crash. </p>
<p>The return of migrants to their home countries means they’re no longer able to earn extra money that they can send back to their families. Some 78,000 migrant workers from Bangladesh, for example, have <a href="https://www.thedailystar.net/business/news/remittance-keeps-rising-despite-pandemic-headwinds-1954477">already returned home</a> since April because of the pandemic. And the <a href="https://kmhub.iom.int/sites/default/files/publicaciones/surveyeffects_of_covid-19_june_2020_final.pdf">International Organization for Migration interviewed</a> migrants from Mexico and Central America in June and found that 41% had stopped sending remittances, while over 80% of those still sending money had reduced the amounts.</p>
<p>Even as some countries lift restrictions on migrant workers, others are adding new ones or denying visas. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development <a href="http://www.oecd.org/migration/covid-19-crisis-puts-migration-and-progress-on-integration-at-risk.htm">issued a report</a> on Oct. 19 indicating that the number of visas and residence permits countries issued in the first half of the year fell by 46% from 2019. </p>
<p>Given how much so many people depend on remittances, we believe aid agencies and governments should monitor the data carefully and do what they can to protect this fragile lifeline.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148387/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Caron consults for the World Bank.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erwin R. Tiongson consults for the World Bank.
Some of his previous migration research was funded by 3ie (<a href="https://www.3ieimpact.org/">https://www.3ieimpact.org/</a>). The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UKaid through the Department for International Development and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation are the main funders of 3ie and the World Bank is among its supporters.</span></em></p>Remittances to countries like Mexico, Pakistan and Vietnam are keeping pace with 2019’s record levels or in some cases rising, despite spring forecasts of a 20% decline.Laura Caron, PhD student in Economics, Columbia UniversityErwin R. Tiongson, Professor of the Practice and Deputy Director, Global Human Development, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1469742020-10-05T17:33:19Z2020-10-05T17:33:19ZCanada is starting to answer the call on UN Sustainable Development Goals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361141/original/file-20201001-22-9mrepb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3887%2C2564&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Malala Yousafzai, an honorary Canadian citizen and a UN Messenger of Peace, speaks as she sits with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in his office during her visit to Parliament Hill for her Honorary Canadian Citizenship ceremony in April 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prime Minister Justin Trudeau <a href="http://webtv.un.org/search/canada-prime-minister-addresses-general-debate-75th-session/6194672447001">addressed the United Nations General Assembly</a> this year by way of pre-recorded video. </p>
<p>The COVID-19 crisis has shown that “things have to change,” <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/09/1073812">he declared</a> in the international spotlight, months after Canada’s unsuccessful bid for a seat on the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/17/un-vote-deals-trudeau-embarrassing-defeat-on-world-stage-326617">UN Security Council</a>. “Not just on the world stage, but at home, too.”</p>
<p>He’s right.</p>
<p>On the same day, Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, an <a href="https://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/house-of-commons/episodes/49352296/">honorary Canadian citizen</a> and UN Messenger of Peace, reminded world leaders that the UN’s <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/">Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)</a> are the future. </p>
<p>Yousafzai, also a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, asked the leaders when they’re <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/09/1072782">planning to do the work</a> towards a “new sustainable, healthy, educated and equitable era.”</p>
<h2>Canada’s global goals</h2>
<p>Trudeau’s speech to the United Nations was bold in tone and content. He highlighted several of the UN’s <a href="https://www.globalgoals.org/">Global Goals</a> — tackling climate change, inequality and health and women’s rights.</p>
<p>In September 2015, Canada and all UN member states adopted the <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld">2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development</a>, a universal call for action made up of 17 goals and 169 targets to be met by 2030. Canada’s <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/priorities-priorites/agenda-programme.aspx?lang=eng&">commitment to the agenda</a>, domestically and internationally, has been a top priority of Trudeau’s government.</p>
<p>But has it actually been a priority, or is it just “business as usual” in Canada? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-we-prevent-the-uns-sustainable-development-goals-from-failing-45282">How can we prevent the UN's Sustainable Development Goals from failing?</a>
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<h2>Progress and actions</h2>
<p>Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the <a href="https://www.sdgindex.org/reports/sustainable-development-report-2020/">Sustainable Development Report 2020</a> on the impact of COVID-19, Canada falls short, <a href="https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/profiles/can">ranking 21st out of 193</a> countries in the world on its overall progress towards the UN’s Global Goals.</p>
<p>The 2020 <a href="https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/rankings">SDG Index</a> tracks countries’ performance on the 17 SDGs. In Canada, only quality education was achieved. Several goals like zero hunger, gender equality, industry, innovation and infrastructure, responsible consumption and production, climate action and life on land are still facing significant challenges. </p>
<p>Action is needed. Other SDG goals like clean water and sanitation, reduced inequalities and sustainable cities and communities remain daunting. The data is staggering. Canada must take action on all the other goals.</p>
<p>In 2017, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/who-and-what-gets-left-behind-assessing-canadas-domestic-status-on-the-sustainable-development-goals/">a report</a> authored by global economic development experts <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/experts/john-mcarthur/">John W. McArthur</a> and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/author/krista-rasmussen/">Krista Rasmussen</a> concluded that Canada <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2017/10/04/even-canada-needs-breakthroughs-to-reach-un-global-goals/">“is not yet fully on track for any of the SDGs.”</a></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canada-must-use-its-soft-power-to-champion-global-human-rights-132177">Canada must use its 'soft power' to champion global human rights</a>
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<p>The British Columbia Council for International Cooperation (BCCIC) also offers a picture of SDG progress in Canada through its <a href="https://www.bccic.ca/sustainable-development-goals/where-canada-stands-sdg-reports/">“Where Canada Stands” series</a> that provides a snapshot of Canadian performance. The reports acknowledge that while Trudeau’s government is “already making an effort to integrate the SDG framework into a Canadian agenda in order to achieve the Global Goals,” Canada is still lagging behind in meeting many of the indicators. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bccic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/bccic-2019-WhereCanadaStands-updated.pdf">2019 report</a> states that several groups are still “left behind,” including Indigenous communities, families living in poverty, people with disabilities, and women and girls.</p>
<p>But the BCCIC also found that, domestically, Canada adopted its <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/agenda-2030/national-strategy.html">national strategy</a> and took several actions to accelerate progress on the SDGs by 2030.</p>
<p>Internationally, Canada adopted a new policy vision in 2017 for international assistance in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. With its <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/priorities-priorites/policy-politique.aspx?lang=eng">Feminist International Assistance Policy</a>, Canada is playing a leading role helping the poorest countries make progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.</p>
<h2>Trudeau’s reaffirmation</h2>
<p>In December 2019, <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2019/12/13/minister-international-development-mandate-letter">Trudeau reaffirmed</a> Canada’s commitments to deliver international development assistance to reduce global poverty and inequality, provide humanitarian assistance, help the world’s poor adapt to climate change and support displaced people, particularly with access to education. These efforts are aimed at meeting the SDGs by 2030. </p>
<p>But in 2020, the world is facing the worst public health and economic crisis in a century. </p>
<p>Because of the impact of COVID-19, UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched a call for action called the <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sdg-moment/">SDG Moment 2020</a>. In his <a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2020-09-18/secretary-generals-opening-remarks-sustainable-development-goals-moment-delivered">opening remarks</a>, he said:</p>
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<p>“The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is designed to address the very fragilities and shortcomings that the pandemic has exposed.”</p>
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<p>To celebrate its 75th anniversary, the UN released the video <em>Urgent Solutions for Urgent Times</em> that describes the world’s biggest issues, from COVID-19 to poverty, inequality, gender discrimination, climate change, justice and human rights. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xVWHuJOmaEk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Urgent Solutions for Urgent Times (The United Nations)</span></figcaption>
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<p>Earlier this year, the UN called this decade a crucial <a href="https://unsdg.un.org/2030-agenda/decade-action">Decade of Action</a> to achieve the SDGs by 2030. Will 10 years be enough?</p>
<h2>Answering the call</h2>
<p>Despite slow progress on the SDGs, Canada is beginning to answer the call. In May 2020, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/coronavirus/financing-development">Canada convened</a>, along with Jamaica and the UN secretary-general, an event on development financing in the COVID-19 era with 50 heads of state and government. The event discussed how to overcome challenges in <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2020/05/28/governments-and-international-organizations-come-together-address">six areas</a>. Among them was “ensuring a sustainable and inclusive recovery by aligning recovery policies with the Sustainable Development Goals.”</p>
<p>In late September 2020, Canada convened a <a href="http://webtv.un.org/watch/press-conference-un-secretary-general-along-with-the-prime-ministers-of-canada-and-jamaica-h.e.-justin-trudeau-and-h.e.-andrew-holness-on-the-meeting-on-%E2%80%9Cfinancing-the-2030-agenda-for-sustainable-development-in-the-era-of-covid-19-and-beyond.%E2%80%9D/6195698030001/">second meeting</a> on development financing in the COVID-19 era.</p>
<p>Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada is pursuing its international policy on sustainable development and <a href="https://www.iisd.org/articles/canada-covid-leave-no-one-behind">scoring points on the world stage</a> by leading the global support for recovery after COVID-19. It’s doing so by ensuring that the UN’s SDGs are not at risk during the pandemic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146974/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Filipe Duarte does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada is pursuing its international policy on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and scoring points on the world stage by leading the global support for recovery.Filipe Duarte, Assistant Professor, Social Work, University of WindsorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1444732020-08-14T00:01:41Z2020-08-14T00:01:41ZWE Charity’s international development efforts offered quick fixes, not real impact<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352817/original/file-20200813-24-1fwzh50.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=107%2C65%2C2561%2C1839&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Craig Kielburger and Marc Kielburger speak during "We Day" in Toronto on Oct. 2, 2014. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Hannah Yoon</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The political uproar surrounding WE Charity’s <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/we-charity-student-grant-program-1.5636332">$912-million youth volunteer contract</a> with the federal government has obscured a more fundamental question about WE: do its international development efforts help the communities in which it works?</p>
<p>From our perspective as global health specialists, WE’s development model has some clear weaknesses that could be reflected in high costs and limited impact. At the same time, its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/sep/13/the-business-of-voluntourism-do-western-do-gooders-actually-do-harm">voluntourism business</a>, one of the cornerstones of its work, conflicts with a push by those in the field of international development to <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/the-activists-trying-to-decolonize-global-health-94904">decolonize global health and international development</a>.</p>
<h2>WE’s roots in international development</h2>
<p>The Toronto-based group has grown into one of the largest charities in the country since its inception 25 years ago. WE Charity raised <a href="https://www.charityintelligence.ca/charity-details/82-we-charity">$28.1 million in donations last year</a>, including a $1.6 million subsidy from the federal government.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-has-exposed-the-limits-of-philanthropy-144035">COVID-19 has exposed the limits of philanthropy</a>
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<p>WE has tended to measure success in terms of how many schools it has built and the number of volunteers it has sent overseas through <a href="https://www.metowe.com/">its affiliated social enterprise, ME to WE</a>, which is now up to <a href="https://www.we.org/en-CA/about-we/me-to-we/impact">42,000</a> according to the organization.</p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/dime/">international development experts</a> take the view that metrics around implementation, health and social well-being, quality-of-life, sustainability and cost-effectiveness are far more critical for understanding impact. But assessing an organization’s value along these lines requires significant investment in measurement and evaluation.</p>
<p>Much of the debate surrounding WE in international development circles also centres on whether it is a charity, which offers money and other resources, or an international development organization, which emphasizes local ownership, collaboration and sustainability. </p>
<p>Rebecca Tiessen, professor of international development at the University of Ottawa, <a href="https://www.mcleodgroup.ca/2020/07/wes-international-development-identity-problem/">explains the distinction in a recent blog post</a> about what she calls WE’s “identity problem.” Tiessen says that many international development organizations in Canada are registered charities for tax purposes, but “seek to distance themselves from the charity model, applying more appropriate terms such as solidarity or international cooperation to define themselves and the work they do.”</p>
<h2>It takes more than a village</h2>
<p>WE’s main international initiative, <a href="https://www.we.org/en-ca/our-work/we-villages/">WE Villages</a> aims to improve communities’ access to water, food, education, health and income opportunities. WE provided $26.8 million last year to 86 villages in nine countries, such as Ecuador, India and Kenya.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://staticsb.we.org/f/52095/x/ba98028106/mission-measurement_we-villages-research-report.pdf">2012 report compiled by WE Charity and Mission Measurement</a>, WE Villages has a similar design to an international development program called the Millennium Villages Project. WE described it as “one of those most well-informed, advanced approaches to development.”</p>
<p>American economist Jeffrey Sachs launched the decade-long Millennium Villages Project in 2005. The project involved <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30065-2">interventions in 14 villages across 10 countries</a>, including building health centres and schools, improving access to clean water and toilets, scaling up vaccination programs, distributing fertilizer to farmers and providing bed nets to prevent the spread of malaria. Ultimately, the project aimed to achieve the <a href="https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/">Millennium Development Goals</a> through a multitude of interventions within each village, with some estimating that <a href="https://healthpolicy.fsi.stanford.edu/news/fog-development-evaluating-millennium-villages-project">US$600 million was invested over a decade</a>.</p>
<p>But the project became <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/the-millennium-villages-evaluation-debate-heats-up-boils-over-76363">one of the most contentious issues in global health</a>, with many development experts concluding that it was futile. Nina Munk, a Canadian journalist, noted in her 2013 book <em>The Idealist</em> that the interventions designed by Sachs and his Columbia University colleagues <a href="https://psmag.com/social-justice/smart-guy-jeffrey-sachs-nina-munk-idealist-poverty-failure-africa-65348">represented a myopic view of the local context</a>.</p>
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<img alt="A market in northern Ghana in 2012" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352821/original/file-20200813-22-1xmrbi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352821/original/file-20200813-22-1xmrbi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352821/original/file-20200813-22-1xmrbi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352821/original/file-20200813-22-1xmrbi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352821/original/file-20200813-22-1xmrbi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352821/original/file-20200813-22-1xmrbi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352821/original/file-20200813-22-1xmrbi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Millennium Villages Project included communities in northern Ghana.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ericsson_images/8864264477">(Ericsson/flickr)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>For instance, according to Munk, those overseeing a Millennium Villages Project in Ruhiira, Uganda, encouraged farmers to grow maize instead of plantains, a staple of the diet in this area. There were high yields of maize but no demand. In turn, much of it went to waste instead of having farmers generate a profit.</p>
<p>An analysis by GiveWell, which gauges the impact of charitable activities, concluded that the Millennium Villages Project was probably no more effective than simply <a href="https://blog.givewell.org/2012/05/18/millennium-villages-project/">distributing insecticide-treated bed nets to more people at a fraction of the cost</a>. Bed nets cost less than US$2 per person per year, while the Millennium Villages Project costs US$72 per person per year with a similar effect on curtailing child mortality.</p>
<h2>International development goes beyond charity</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.we.org/en-CA/our-work/we-villages/impact">WE Charity measures its impact</a> — at least in its public communications — by detailing how much infrastructure and resources it has given to WE Villages. For example, it says that it has built 1,500 schools and classrooms, helped one million people gain access to clean water and supplied 30,000 women with tools for economic self-sufficiency.</p>
<p>However, such numbers risk blurring the lines with its international development work and its true impact. This makes it difficult to understand if WE Charity is truly a development organization, or a charity that simply donates resources to communities.</p>
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<img alt="Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears on a screen" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352823/original/file-20200813-16-i7xo9o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352823/original/file-20200813-16-i7xo9o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352823/original/file-20200813-16-i7xo9o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352823/original/file-20200813-16-i7xo9o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352823/original/file-20200813-16-i7xo9o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352823/original/file-20200813-16-i7xo9o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352823/original/file-20200813-16-i7xo9o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testifies about his government’s decision to award WE Charity a contract to manage a $900-million student grant program, on July 30, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
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<p>A fundamental issue is that the charitable approach does not usually work without partnerships and capacity building, with a goal of sustainability from the start. A <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/charity/against_1.shtml">BBC blog about the ethics of charities</a> expands on several of the issues with this approach. Charities often target symptoms of the problem, in this case poverty, rather than root causes. They often favour quick fixes that get in the way of real progress.</p>
<h2>Voluntourism can be damaging</h2>
<p><a href="https://travel.metowe.com/en-ca/">ME to WE Trips</a> is another source of confusion. Through ME to WE, volunteers travel to WE Villages, mainly to help build schools and, more recently, to establish medical clinics. WE says that tourism is essential in <a href="https://travel.metowe.com/en-CA/why-me-to-we-trips-are-different">supporting the income opportunity pillar</a> of the WE Villages model.</p>
<p>While the social enterprise of voluntourism is undoubtedly a creative approach to finance the charity, with volunteers paying <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/travel/volunteer-trips-is-your-family-ready.html">upwards of $4,000 per short-term trip</a>, many researchers, former staff and even past volunteers have decried ME to WE for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/2569732">perpetuating the stereotype that privileged individuals are more skilled and knowledgeable</a> than people in the countries they are trying to help.</p>
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<p>Writing in the <em>Huffington Post</em>, Rebecca Klaassen, who has taken part in a ME to WE trip, questions <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/we-charity-volunteer-white-saviour_ca_5f0e0652c5b648c301f07314">WE’s “white-saviour problem.”</a> Reflecting on her own experience, she says that “few [volunteers] stopped to question whether their international programming lived up to expectations in contributing to ethical, sustainable change.”</p>
<p>All in all, WE Charity’s work appears to be far-removed from the current international development landscape. Instead of spreading its wings ever more widely — the latest example being the Canadian student grant program — WE should concentrate first on getting the basics of its charity right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Allison Daniel receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erica Di Ruggiero receives (or has received) funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and International Development Research Centre.</span></em></p>The “voluntourism” business promoted by WE Charity conflicts with efforts to decolonize global health and international development.Allison Daniel, PhD Candidate, Nutritional Sciences, University of TorontoErica Di Ruggiero, Director, Centre for Global Health & Associate Professor, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1321772020-02-25T18:33:34Z2020-02-25T18:33:34ZCanada must use its ‘soft power’ to champion global human rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316992/original/file-20200225-24680-o93hvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4285%2C2828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, in Ottawa in June 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the world enters the third decade of the 21st century, it is waking up to a new reality, facing threats to international solidarity and human security that are not necessarily economic in nature. </p>
<p>Climate change, inequality, populist movements, ethnic nationalism and global epidemics are posing major challenges to international development and human security. Disenchantment with the neoliberal economic system and unregulated capitalism is growing. And on the political front, the global balance of power is shifting as we move away from a unipolar world, dominated largely by the United States, to a bipolar world where China is emerging as the major counterpart to the U.S.</p>
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<p>These turbulent times pose challenges and call for collective action since many threats to human security can no longer be contained within the geographical boundaries of nation states. </p>
<p>Although Canada has reduced its <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-oecd-report-urges-canada-to-increase-spending-on-foreign-aid/">foreign aid commitments recently</a>, it has great potential to make up for it by using its soft power to address issues of international development and security. <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2004-05-01/soft-power-means-success-world-politics">Soft power</a> is defined as a persuasive approach to international relations and diplomacy that doesn’t involve coercion and trades on a country’s cultural and economic influence.</p>
<p>Since the world and the nature of threats to human security and solidarity have changed, our approach to international solidarity and development must also change. In many ways, Canada is well-prepared to lead that change. </p>
<h2>No longer all about income</h2>
<p>The notion of international development, as historically understood in light of an income-centred approach, is now being <a href="https://www.weforum.org/focus/beyond-gdp">increasingly contested</a>. For too long, we have measured progress and well-being in terms of expansion in GDP alone and framed issues of international development predominantly in terms of lack of income. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-our-obsession-with-gdp-ignores-harm-done-to-welfare-and-the-world-91763">Why our obsession with GDP ignores harm done to welfare and the world</a>
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<p>There are growing calls to <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/10/gdp-is-not-a-measure-of-human-well-being">question this approach</a>. Economic growth is of little use if it doesn’t promote broad-based human well-being, leads to climate change and threatens the very survival of the human race. </p>
<p>What the world needs today, more than ever, is a model of international development that is decolonized, humane and centred on human rights and freedoms. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316993/original/file-20200225-24694-19n5vkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316993/original/file-20200225-24694-19n5vkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316993/original/file-20200225-24694-19n5vkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316993/original/file-20200225-24694-19n5vkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316993/original/file-20200225-24694-19n5vkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316993/original/file-20200225-24694-19n5vkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316993/original/file-20200225-24694-19n5vkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316993/original/file-20200225-24694-19n5vkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nobel laureate Amartya Sen is seen at an event at Harvard University in May 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Gretchen Ertl/AP Images for FXB)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The United Nations — under the intellectual guidance of scholars like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/nov/22/amartya-sen-human-development-doyen">Amartya Sen</a> and development practitioners like <a href="http://www.hdr.undp.org/en/content/assessing-human-development">Mahbub ul Haq</a> — has made significant headway in popularizing a more humane model of international development through the publication of its <a href="http://www.hdr.undp.org">Annual Human Development Reports</a> and the Human Development Index. </p>
<p>It has also influenced global security discourse by popularizing a concept of <a href="https://www.un.org/humansecurity">human security</a> that transcends the traditional focus on territorial security and encompasses health, food and environmental safety. </p>
<p>That concept recognizes the geographic and spatial connectivity of threats. It’s based on the realization that the battle for human survival in the future will be fought not by defending national borders but by understanding the interconnectedness of the fate of human race — and by evoking the compassion that unites us as fellow human beings.</p>
<p>The intellectual foundations of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also rest on the <a href="https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/news-centre/speeches/2019/25th-anniversary-of-the-human-security-concept.html">concept of human security</a>. Canada has been at the forefront of promoting this concept. Through the formation of the <a href="https://www.austria.org/the-human-security-network">Human Security Network</a> with like-minded countries, Canada was successful, to an extent, in influencing <a href="https://www.cips-cepi.ca/2013/05/21/the-human-security-network-fifteen-years-on">global institutions</a> to promote a human security agenda.</p>
<h2>New threats</h2>
<p>Canada needs to continue its efforts in this direction, especially in light of new or heightened threats to human security that the world faces today in the form of climate change, polarization, ethnic nationalism, intolerance and the global spread of disease. Canada’s efforts in promoting a <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/priorities-priorites/human_rights-droits_personne.aspx?lang=eng">human rights-based approach to international solidarity</a> are commendable.</p>
<p>Whether it’s an issue of <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-morning-update-trudeau-says-canada-will-stand-up-for-human-rights">freedom of speech violations in repressive regimes</a> or assisting international refugees, Canada has adopted a humane approach and has set high moral standards. </p>
<hr>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/syrian-refugees-in-canada-four-years-after-the-welcome-126312">Syrian refugees in Canada: Four years after the welcome</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Given the current <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/09/the-global-economic-balance-of-power-is-shifting">shift in the global balance of power</a> from U.S. dominance to the one that includes China and other emerging economies, middle-power countries like Canada, France and Germany will <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/anonymous?id=GALE%7CA352615119&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00207020&p=AONE&sw=w">be in a better position</a> to use their soft power to influence global institutions on human rights-based development and to promote much-needed human rights around the world.</p>
<p>Although Canada’s recent reduction in foreign aid has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-inhumanity-of-cutting-canadian-aid-to-countries-in-need-124680">harshly criticized</a>, it can be seen in a positive light as it signals a move away from problem-solving approach that is based on short-term humanitarian assistance. </p>
<p>What’s really needed for long-term sustainable development is to address the root causes of underdevelopment, which include unaccountable governments, corruption, concentration of political power in the hands of the few without proper checks and balances or rule of law, weak property rights and contract enforcement, and lack of opportunities for the vast majority of citizens.</p>
<h2>Genuine global leadership needed</h2>
<p>But whether Canada’s decision to reduce foreign aid signals the need to address the root causes of underdevelopment isn’t clear. Too often, the Global North has supported repressive, dictatorial regimes in the Global South to promote its own economic and geopolitical interests. </p>
<p>It’s time to realize that sustainable and people-centred development is not possible as long as unequal structures of power and repressive political regimes remain intact in developing countries.</p>
<p>The world is ready for a new vision that defines human progress in a profound way and recognizes the interconnectedness of the fate of humanity. But to achieve this, we need a genuine and credible global leadership. </p>
<p>Given Canada’s global image and its historical record in promoting ethical norms and freedoms around the world, it commands greater legitimacy. However, to bring about genuine change, middle-power countries like Canada must adopt a leadership role in pursuing an ethical agenda to ensure the security and survival of humanity. </p>
<p>Is Canada ready to lead?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132177/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sadia Mariam Malik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To bring about genuine change, middle-power countries like Canada must adopt a leadership role in pursuing an ethical agenda to ensure the security and survival of humanity.
Is Canada ready to lead?Sadia Mariam Malik, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1086522019-01-25T11:54:01Z2019-01-25T11:54:01ZIn Haiti, climate aid comes with strings attached<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255428/original/file-20190124-196241-1klsjw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Haiti had not yet recovered from its devastating 2010 earthquake when it was hit hard by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. It is one of the world's most vulnerable nations to climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Haiti-Hurricane-Matthew/3c9cbaf824854ceb9ed5b34ef298b0b0/56/0">AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Perhaps <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/04/why-is-haiti-vulnerable-to-natural-hazards-and-disasters">no people</a> know better than Haitians just how dangerous, destructive and destabilizing climate change can be. </p>
<p>Haiti – which had not yet recovered from a massive 2010 earthquake when <a href="https://theconversation.com/caring-for-haitian-women-after-hurricane-matthew-what-we-learned-from-the-2010-earthquake-66799">Hurricane Matthew</a> killed perhaps a thousand people and caused a cholera outbreak in 2016 – is one of the world’s <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/climate-change-vulnerability-index-2017">most vulnerable countries</a> to climate change. </p>
<p>Scientists say extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods and droughts will become worse as the planet warms. <a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2017/09/18/small-island-nations-at-the-frontline-of-climate-action-.html">Island nations</a> are expected to be among the hardest hit by those and other impacts of a changing climate, like shoreline erosion.</p>
<p>For poor island countries like Haiti, <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/rr-climate-change-resilience-haiti-260314-en.pdf">studies show</a>, the economic costs, infrastructural damage and loss of human life <a href="https://www.germanwatch.org/sites/germanwatch.org/files/Global%20Climate%20Risk%20Index%202019_2.pdf">is already overwhelming</a>. And scientists expect it will only get worse.</p>
<p>To help Haiti address this pending crisis, international donors have stepped in with funding for climate action. The problem with that system, as I found in a <a href="http://environment.harvard.edu/events/2018-11-05-173000-2018-11-05-184500/addressing-climate-change-haiti-are-current-actions">recent analysis of international climate aid in Haiti</a>, is that the money may not be going where it’s most needed.</p>
<h2>Extreme vulnerability</h2>
<p>Though Haiti’s greenhouse gas emissions amount cumulatively to <a href="https://www.climatelinks.org/sites/default/files/asset/document/Haiti%20Fact%20Sheet%20-%20rev%2010%2008%2016_Final.pdf">less than 0.03 percent of global carbon emissions</a>, it is a full participant in <a href="https://unfccc.int/news/haiti-submits-its-climate-action-plan-ahead-of-2015-paris-agreement">the 2015 Paris climate agreement</a> and has committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emission by 5 percent by 2030.</p>
<p>To meet that goal, Haitian officials say, the Caribbean country must switch 1 million traditional light bulbs for more efficient LED bulbs, grow 137,500 hectares of new forest and shift 47 percent of its electricity generation to renewable sources. Those are just a few objectives in Haiti’s <a href="https://www4.unfccc.int/sites/submissions/INDC/Published%20Documents/Haiti/1/CPDN_Republique%20d'Haiti.pdf">2015-2030 climate plan</a>.</p>
<p>It needs help to meet them. </p>
<p>Haiti is among the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly 60 percent of the population lives on less than US$2.41 per day, according to <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview">the country’s 2012 household survey</a>, the most recent poverty data available. </p>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/haitis-troubled-path-development">20 percent of its national budget</a> is funded by loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – a setup that gives international lenders an unusual level of control <a href="https://theconversation.com/haitis-deadly-riots-fueled-by-anger-over-decades-of-austerity-and-foreign-interference-100209">over Haiti’s government expenditures</a>. </p>
<p>The same is true of <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/rr-climate-change-resilience-haiti-260314-en.pdf">Haiti’s climate mitigation efforts</a>. The majority of the money behind its 15-year plan to finance climate mitigation and adaptation activities – from disaster preparation and renewable energy development to increasing food security – also comes from international donors.</p>
<p>The crowdsourced nature of Haiti’s climate budget can make it hard to determine just how much money Haiti has to spend – and what, exactly, the government can spend it on. </p>
<p>So, last year, I worked with the Climate Policy Lab at the Fletcher School at Tufts University to analyze Haiti’s climate budget. </p>
<h2>A hodgepodge of climate funding</h2>
<p>In an unpublished 2018 study, we found that the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank are the two biggest donors to Haiti’s $1.1 billion climate fund. Switzerland is also a major financier, having given the Caribbean nation $64.4 million since 2009, as is Japan, which has given $14.8 million to help fund Haiti’s climate efforts.</p>
<p>Most of this $1.1 billion comes in the form of grants, not loans – it’s free money. And, in a country with a gross domestic product of $8 billion, $1.1 billion for climate mitigation is a substantial sum of money. </p>
<p>However, as <a href="http://environment.harvard.edu/events/2018-11-05-173000-2018-11-05-184500/addressing-climate-change-haiti-are-current-actions">my recent analysis of the Tufts climate study shows</a>, the bulk of the money appears to be misallocated. </p>
<p>Numerous international donors, each of which has set its own climate objectives, fund climate action in the country. The result, I found in my analysis, is that Haiti’s climate budget is a mashup of donor priorities that puts too much money behind certain initiatives while underfunding other environmental needs. </p>
<p>Fully 70 percent of Haiti’s $1.1 billion climate budget – $773 million – is earmarked for making energy production more sustainable in Haiti. This involves improving hydroelectric power and increasing solar usage, among other energy upgrades. </p>
<p>Renewable energy may have seemed like a sensible priority for the World Bank and other individual donors. But, put together, this is a disproportionately high investment for a country with <a href="https://www.iied.org/qa-haiti-aims-for-31-co2-emission-reduction-2030">such low carbon emissions</a>, my analysis shows. My research suggests the money could be better used to connect more Haitians to the energy grid. Currently, just <a href="https://www.bu.edu/ise/files/2018/03/FINAL-Haiti-Electricity-Report-March-2018.pdf">20 percent of Haitians</a> – most of them in Port-au-Prince – have semi-reliable electricity. Power is a necessity after any disaster. </p>
<p>Reforestation projects are also notably absent in Haiti’s climate budget. </p>
<p>Haiti is the Caribbean’s <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/has-haiti-lost-nearly-all-of-its-forest-its-complicate-1830108360">most deforested nation</a>. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303243414000300">Seventy percent of forests</a> on the island have disappeared since the late 1980s. It desperately needs reforestation projects to <a href="https://psmag.com/environment/haiti-is-set-to-lose-its-forests-in-twenty-years">reduce flooding, coastal erosion and water pollution</a> and prevent mudslides. </p>
<p>Yet in my analysis of the total $116 million in donor funds earmarked for watershed management and soil conservation, I found barely a mention of reforestation. </p>
<h2>Mismatch between perception and reality</h2>
<p>Other areas of Haiti’s climate change plan are somewhat better funded but, to my mind, misguided. </p>
<p>Take disaster risk reduction, for example. Of the $269 million earmarked for reducing disaster risk in Haiti, most funds are set aside for rebuilding after disasters. </p>
<p>That may seem sensible in a country prone to earthquakes, flooding and hurricanes, but research shows that <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/new-research-lays-out-how-deliver-investment-sustainable">sustainable construction</a> – not merely rebuilding – better prepares a country for disasters and other long-term effects of climate change. Planning saves time, energy, money and human life.</p>
<p>Haiti’s international donors have set aside little money for ensuring that new highways, buildings and other critical infrastructure in Haiti are constructed in a resilient, climate-ready manner – before the next big disaster happens. </p>
<h2>Addressing the power imbalance</h2>
<p>This kind of mismatch between local needs and donor priorities is a common hazard of internationally funded budgets. </p>
<p>Donors call the shots about how their money is spent from afar. Often they don’t have enough on-the-ground information to be making such important executive decisions. </p>
<p>In interviews, local Haitian officials <a href="http://environment.harvard.edu/events/2018-11-05-173000-2018-11-05-184500/addressing-climate-change-haiti-are-current-actions">told me</a> that the municipal agencies that actually engage with people and communities have little say over how they may spend climate funds or which environmental projects are implemented.</p>
<p>In Haiti, this problem is not limited to climate funding – <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/poldev/1625">it’s a hazard of running a national government</a> on the largess of other countries.</p>
<p>Last year, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a United Nations donor agency, <a href="https://www.ifad.org/documents/38714170/39150184/Enabling+the+rural+poor+to+overcome+poverty+in+Haiti.pdf/1572827b-a187-4635-a706-46a0daaabf88">announced a community-based strategy</a> to building climate resilience in Haitian agriculture by partnering with local organizations and agencies. </p>
<p>“This community-based approach <a href="https://webapps.ifad.org/members/lapse-of-time/docs/english/EB-2018-LOT-P-5-Rev-1.pdf?attach=1">will support Haitians working together</a> to enhance their economic potential, resilience and coping strategies when faced with climatic and economic shocks,” a 2018 report said.</p>
<p>My climate research in Haiti supports this assessment.</p>
<p>If international donors allow Haitian
authorities more control over funding, working more closely with local community organizations, they would not only help address its most important needs, the strategy would be cost-effective. Money channeled to where Haiti most needs it is money well spent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keston K. Perry is a former postdoctoral scholar at the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, Fletcher School, Tufts University.</span></em></p>Haiti is extremely vulnerable to climate change. It is also very poor. International donors have stepped in to help the country fund climate mitigation, but is the money going where it’s most needed?Keston K. Perry, Postdoctoral researcher, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1073222018-12-11T23:22:35Z2018-12-11T23:22:35Z‘Leaving no one behind’ conveys a paternalistic approach to development<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249730/original/file-20181210-76974-1de4upr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C810%2C5751%2C2888&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The United Nations says people “left behind” include those vulnerable to the effects of climate change, but aren’t the furthest behind those damaging the environment? Here, a man rides a bicycle through a devastated Homs, Syria. Numerous studies say climate change was a factor in record-setting drought, one of several causes of the country’s civil war. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Dusan Vranic</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The term “leaving no one behind,” now at the centre of a United Nations <a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/poverty-reduction/what-does-it-mean-to-leave-no-one-behind-.html">framework and campaign</a>, has gained centre stage in the era of sustainable development goals (SDGs).</p>
<p>It does not stop there: leaving no one behind is also now prevalent among the public health academics, development agencies and <a href="https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/resource-documents/12145.pdf">organizations that aspire to realize development goals</a>, like not-for-profit bodies and civil society organizations. </p>
<p>In a recent <a href="http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2018/">health systems global conference in Liverpool, England</a>, the term was thrown around, presented, used and dissected <a href="http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2018/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/HSR2018-Program.pdf">throughout</a>. That’s despite the fact that while the term purports to advocate for inclusivity and progressive universalism, it also conveys a subtle message of paternalism. </p>
<p>The undesirable interpretations of the term can be understood from two perspectives: a paternalistic view of the marginalized and an ecological view of our shared planet. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld">United Nations Declaration on Sustainable Development</a> refers to leaving no one behind in the preamble and then also in the fourth section: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“As we embark on this great collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind. Recognizing that the dignity of the human person is fundamental, we wish to see the Goals and targets met for all nations and peoples and for all segments of society. And we will endeavour to reach the furthest behind first.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Elizabeth Stuart and Emma Samman of the Overseas Development Institute <a href="https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/resource-documents/11809.pdf">argue that “leaving no one behind” captures three concepts</a>: ending extreme poverty in all its forms, reducing inequalities and addressing discriminatory barriers. </p>
<h2>The paternalistic perspective</h2>
<p>We argue the term “leaving no one behind” assumes there is a direction to development. The assumption is that the high-income countries are ahead and the low-income countries are behind. Within countries, the term exacerbates the social stratification among the groups of people who are ahead (the affluent, the privileged and the elites), the groups of people who are behind (the poor and the marginalized) and the groups of people who are in between (the middle class). </p>
<p>One of the assumptions in “no one left behind” arguments is that no one wants to be poor. Certainly, while nobody wants to remain in a state of extreme poverty, some may choose not to over-consume. They may reject living in a state of unnecessary abundance. </p>
<p>But because there is an apparent movement towards a direction of affluence as total fulfilment, there is even a sense that people who are middle class will be left behind if they don’t move “up” or “forward” over time. </p>
<p>And it often happens that people born into poverty are systemically unable to increase their wealth or class status. </p>
<p>Development expert Franz von Roenne has drawn an image to illustrate the notion of leaving no one behind in this linear track of development: </p>
<p>The image clarifies a number of points. First, the notion of “left behind” makes sense only from the perspective of those who are, or successfully claim, to be ahead. Second, the assumption or the expectation that those with power and access to resources will follow a moral impulse and they know better how to upgrade the lives of people who are “behind” is paternalistic. </p>
<p>The image echoes colonialist attitudes and ways of thinking epitomized in the phrase “the white man’s burden,” based on the <a href="https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/white-mans-burden">Rudyard Kipling poem</a> and now also the title of a book by economist William Easterly <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/292753/the-white-mans-burden-by-william-easterly/9780143038825/">that criticizes the failures of Western development</a>. </p>
<p>Third, the paternalistic ideology runs a risk of discounting the agency of the marginalized and the resiliency of the poor. Psychologically, the stigma attached to the term “behind” can further hamper the capability of the marginalized to prosper. </p>
<p>What’s more, the term “leaving no one behind” presents a neutral tone and obscures the mechanisms through which some are already ahead. </p>
<p>What about the historical, political, economic and social factors that have caused several groups of population to be “left behind?” </p>
<p>Ronald Labonté, a globalization and health equity researcher, asks in his <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14976179">article about global social inclusion</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“How can one ‘include’ people and groups into structured systems that have systematically ‘excluded’ them in the first place?” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>An ecological perspective</h2>
<p>From an ecological perspective, sustainability is as important, if not more so, as development. We believe development could be conceived as a process towards a satisfactory and stable equilibrium of living conditions for all. </p>
<p>We must not forget that we are all together in our only home, planet Earth, and if it does not remain sustainable for human living, development is futile. </p>
<p>Our survival as humans remain dependent on the survival of the Earth. Given the direction of development is towards the high-income countries, if everyone in the world consumed as much as an average American, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712">four Earths would be needed to sustain ourselves</a>. </p>
<p>The World Bank has classified countries based on their income levels of <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/new-country-classifications">high, middle and low</a>. The ecological footprints of an average person living in a high-income country is much bigger, and thus worse for sustainability, than those in low-income and middle-income countries. </p>
<p>If sustainability of the Earth is the measure, those ahead of the development pack are actually behind. </p>
<p>Giving a central role to “leaving no one behind” will not on its own help sustainable development. Other measures are needed to shift the balance — measures that are explicitly part of, or supplement, the plan at the foundation of sustainable development goals. </p>
<p>Inclusion of everyone in the development processes, and social accountability of all of us towards the sustainability of planet Earth, are the more desirable terms.</p>
<p><em>Franz von Roenne has co-authored this article. Franz is an expert in health policy and development with 25 years of experience in three continents.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107322/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The United Nations Declaration on sustainable development stresses “leaving no-one behind,” but what about the factors that cause many to be behind in the first place?Maisam Najafizada, Assistant Professor of Population Health Policy, Memorial University of NewfoundlandSunisha Neupane, PhD Candidate, Université de MontréalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1022992018-08-30T10:22:07Z2018-08-30T10:22:07ZTheresa May in Africa: cynical post-Brexit development agenda smacks of desperation<p>British ministers in 1948 discussed development investment needs for African colonial territories. The focus was not on the needs of those countries, but on how colonial development might best support the British economy. There was also a political calculation to be considered. Following the rebalancing of global power after 1945, ministers felt that only by strengthening Europe’s African empires could an emergent Western European bloc compete with the US and Soviet blocs. Now, 70 years on, “Africa” remains a shibboleth for British politicians, only this time as the solution to the problem of how Britain can maintain global power and influence following its departure from that Western European bloc under Brexit.</p>
<p>Theresa May’s much hyped and much reported visit to “Africa” (a trip encompassing South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria) has been sold as the means for deepening economic ties between Britain and the region. May <a href="http://www.theafricareport.com/Southern-Africa/may-wants-uk-to-be-g7s-number-one-investor-in-africa.html">announced aspirations</a> for Britain to become the G7’s largest investor in Africa by 2022. There is to be an additional £4 billion in direct British government investment, to be matched by private sector investment (a relatively modest ambition). The prime minister pledged to defend the level of British aid (against conservative and media critics who wish to see it cut), while positing a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42528712">reorientation of that aid spending</a> to support the post-Brexit British economy.</p>
<p>May is the latest in a long line of prime ministers who have evoked the potential of “Africa” for their own political purposes. From Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who saw international aid as a mechanism for highlighting British <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/42897318.pdf">global moral leadership</a>, to <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/8644297/David-Cameron-arrives-in-Africa-for-trade-mission.html">David Cameron’s 2011 visit</a> (of which May’s is an echo), when he called for aid to be used to create future consumers for British goods and services.</p>
<p>What makes May’s visit and proclamations different is the smell of desperation. There are many good reasons for deepening trade links across the region, and for establishing better relationships between Britain and African governments. But presenting this as the solution to Britain’s likely post-Brexit economic woes seems misguided at best, deluded at worst.</p>
<p>May has been criticised for her promise to refocus aid in ways that are seen to reflect British domestic and diplomatic interests. She wants to downgrade short-term poverty alleviation in favour of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/27/may-africa-trip-rightwing-tories-overseas-aid">job creation</a>. She wants to increase security and support for fragile African states but her motive for doing so seems largely to be reducing migration to Europe and Britain. Now she is using aid as a tool for supporting the creation of trade deals with non-EU blocs.</p>
<p>Yet British aid has always been about British interests: political, economic and diplomatic. Indeed, the first act that established British aid, the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/20-21/5/enacted">1929 Colonial Development Act</a>, was passed as the world tipped into global economic crisis and depression. It was explicit in its aim to boost the British economy and jobs.</p>
<h2>Aid for trade?</h2>
<p>Subsequent iterations of British aid from the 1940s to the 1990s, under both Labour and Conservative governments, “tied” aid so that spending on equipment and experts was made in the UK. Aid has always been seen as a foreign policy tool as much as a moral obligation to help poorer world regions develop. Nor was Britain alone in this: “tied aid” requirements <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/39653421/uk-foreign-aid-where-does-it-go-and-why">remain common</a> despite their poor record in reducing poverty. Blair’s government <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1064978.stm">made tied aid illegal</a> in 2002, but it remained a core element in the UK’s diplomatic arsenal – a means to ensure global influence (helpful, for example, in defending Britain’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council).</p>
<p>In 2009, Hillary Clinton, then the incoming secretary of state under US president Barack Obama, reflected the use of aid as both a means for tackling poverty and insecurity in poor regions of the world as well as for protecting domestic interests when she announced development aid was to be <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/index.htm">a central pillar</a> of US foreign policy. France is relatively overt in its linking of aid to promoting its own African interests.</p>
<p>Nor is May’s promised refocus really substantively new. Under the coalition government, aid was to be refocused on job creation, with a promise that this would be good for British business. Priti Patel, during her <a href="https://theconversation.com/priti-patel-in-israel-a-funny-way-to-bring-accountability-to-aid-spending-87037">disastrous period</a> at the helm of the Department for International Development, repeatedly asserted that the purpose of UK aid was to serve the UK’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37758171">national interest</a>. She regularly linked aid spending to future trade relationships and deals.</p>
<p>May’s “new approach” is essentially the same policy wrapped in shiny new Brexit packaging. But as a mechanism for achieving a bright, post-Brexit future, it seems as convincing as her efforts at <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-45329910/theresa-may-dons-her-dancing-shoes-in-sa">dancing</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Jennings does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many leaders before her have sought to make aid spending all about their own agendas – but there’s a new element in this case.Michael Jennings, Head of department, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/965872018-05-14T15:54:16Z2018-05-14T15:54:16ZStop telling Palestinians to be ‘resilient’ – the rest of the world has failed them<p>Viewed from Palestine, it’s hard to disagree that we’ve perhaps seen one of the most inflammatory weeks in recent memory. In just a few days, several extremely sensitive events have coincided to devastating effect: the culmination of weekly protests in the Gaza Strip, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-44104599">relocation of the US embassy</a> from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the 70th anniversary of the 1948 <a href="https://www.vox.com/cards/israel-palestine/nakba">Nakba</a> (from the Arabic, “Immense Catastrophe”) and the start of the holy month of Ramadan. Throw in for good measure Israel and Iran’s recent clash over the occupied <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-why-is-the-golan-heights-so-important-96440">Golan Heights</a> and it seems that more than ever, the region is something of a tinderbox.</p>
<p>As 800 guests arrived in Jerusalem to bear witness to the US embassy’s relocation – 33 of them representatives from foreign <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Watch-White-House-officials-arrive-for-embassy-opening-ceremony-556282">embassies</a> – protesters in the Gaza Strip were being shot and killed. In what’s been dubbed the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/gaza-rallies-women-shape-great-march-return-movement-180511154850216.html">Great March of Return</a>, Palestinians in Gaza (the vast majority of whom are refugees, or descended from refugees) have amassed at the edge of the territory to demand their right of return, a right that is protected under <a href="https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/C758572B78D1CD0085256BCF0077E51A">international law</a>. So far, their demands have been met with a brutal show of force, with <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/jerusalem-embassy-gaza-protests/index.html">more than 50</a> Palestinians shot dead, including children, paramedics and journalists. </p>
<p>Much is being made of the US’s decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and perhaps rightly so. Undoubtedly, that change is symbolically resonant. But there is a risk that focusing too narrowly on that issue will obscure a far deeper issue: the continued destruction of the fabric of Palestinian society and ongoing attacks on Palestinian civil liberties. </p>
<p>As others have <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/palestinians-embassy-move-cements-occupation-status-quo-180513192601854.html">reported</a>, the embassy move does little to change the actual reality of Palestinians living under occupation in the city. What it does do is remove any naive notion that the US is acting as an honest broker for peace. </p>
<p>Those who are calling the embassy move the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-israel-palestinian/kiss-of-death-to-two-state-solution-if-jerusalem-declared-israel-capital-plo-envoy-idUSKBN1DY2UB">death of the two-state solution</a> would do well to look more critically at recent history. Israel has aggressively ramped up the construction of settlements; the Israeli military has killed scores of Palestinian protesters in Gaza (not just this week), and civilian infrastructure has been damaged and destroyed across the Occupied Territories. All the while, world governments have failed to hold Israel to account. </p>
<p>Instead, as Israel entrenches its occupation, the Palestinian National Authority continues its state-building efforts and the international development industry’s failures become clear, the Palestinians are being asked to develop a greater capacity for “resilience”. </p>
<h2>The ‘resilience’ agenda</h2>
<p>Resilience, it seems, is the buzzword of the day. It’s particularly popular in the field of international development, where it’s used to evoke a capacity to “bounce back”, survive, or more optimistically “thrive” in the face of extreme adversity. International organisations have turned their attention to promoting “resilience” both individually and at community level, to better equip people to cope and overcome adversity. </p>
<p>Looking at the state of Palestinian society and standards of living today, it’s abundantly clear that the international development sector has failed in its mission. And yet a “resilience industry” has taken hold in Palestine, and the discourse of resilience is everywhere. It has crept into the operational language of major international organisations, including the United Nations Development Programme, an organisation that recently hosted two major international conferences focusing on the development of Palestinian <a href="http://www.ps.undp.org/content/papp/en/home/ourwork/resilience-conference-2016.html">resilience</a>.</p>
<p>This agenda is disingenuous on a number of levels, and as it becomes a driving force in the international development agenda in Palestine, it needs to be viewed more critically than it currently is. For a start, it’s not clear how its achievements are to be evaluated. But more than that, Palestinians don’t need lessons in resilience from an international community that has utterly failed in its stated mission.</p>
<p>By promoting Palestinian resilience instead of holding Israel accountable for its multiple breaches of international law, and its involvement in the destruction of Palestinian society, the international community is masking its own failures – and shamefully abdicating its responsibility to the people it claims to be helping.</p>
<p><em>Dr Emma Keelan contributed to this article. She is currently pursuing an MA in Global Health at the University of Manchester’s Humanitarian Conflict Response Institute. Her research involves conducting fieldwork on Palestine, resilience and international NGOs.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96587/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendan Ciarán Browne receives funding from Trinity College Dublin, Arts & Social Sciences Benefactions Fund, and the Wellcome Trust, Institutional Strategic Support Fund, Seed Funding.
</span></em></p>International NGOs are promoting a ‘resilience agenda’ that masks their own failings in Palestine.Brendan Ciarán Browne, Assistant Professor and Course Coordinator MPhil Conflict Resolution, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/896572018-03-04T21:50:32Z2018-03-04T21:50:32ZHow to reduce poverty and re-connect people to nature<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208724/original/file-20180302-65541-lltibu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Farmer-led development projects in places like Tanzania, shown here, can increase access to food and water, and reconnect people to nature.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciliaschubert/15137829173/">(Cecilia Schubert/flickr)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Access to food and water — once considered common goods and a basic human right — are increasingly treated as commodities, like precious metals or lumber. Instead of being necessities for life that are available to all, they are being kept from people who cannot afford them. </p>
<p>The perils of this commodification are rife — and sometimes tragically untold — yet several stories have survived. </p>
<p>Water and food issues in <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/special-features/2014/08/140822-detroit-michigan-water-shutoffs-great-lakes/">Detroit</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/27/573774328/california-says-nestle-lacks-permits-to-extract-millions-of-gallons-of-water">the San Bernardino National Forest in California</a>, <a href="http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509500796">the Global South</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/06/07/make-it-safe/canadas-obligation-end-first-nations-water-crisis#page">First Nations communities in northern Ontario</a> speak to the negative effects of treating food and water as mere commodities. </p>
<p>In each of these crises, people were separated from the basic necessities of food and water, leading to instability, strife and suffering. What’s more, people have been separated — alienated — from each other. </p>
<p>The current free market economic system has promoted and perpetuated such inequality, and it would be illogical to say that it can lead us to a solution. But development, when done well and from the ground up, can improve people’s lives by connecting them to their environment, food production processes and other people in their communities.</p>
<h2>How did we get here?</h2>
<p>The commodification of food and water began to take shape more than three decades ago, when Western governments, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank embraced largely unfettered free market policies. </p>
<p>As governments deregulated their food and water industries, these goods moved <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Food,+2nd+Edition-p-9781509500802">out of public control and into the hands of the few</a>. </p>
<p>These actions spurred entrepreneurship in water and food, in selling necessities for life for a profit. Of course, they are able to do so precisely because water and food are essential to life. </p>
<p>This change in direction further separated people in developing countries from the environment, from their production of food and from each other. It changed the way people saw nature and each other. </p>
<p>When peering through the current free market lens, nature, food, water, land or people themselves are viewed as merely something to extract monetary value from. Food and water have been commodities for a while, but an appeal to history is not a legitimate reason to maintain a harmful system. </p>
<h2>Pressing impacts, making change</h2>
<p>The impacts of commodifying food and water are occurring today and are pressing. <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/after-mixed-messaging-fema-clarifies-it-will-not-end-aid-to-puerto-rico">Puerto Rico</a> is in the midst of a food and water crisis. In Canada, Nestlé has been <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/595wy5/nestle-is-extracting-water-from-canadian-towns-on-expired-permits">bottling water on expired permits in Ontario</a>, leading to public pressure to not privatize water. These cases are similar because, while both areas are facing food and water commodification and development issues, people are protesting to enact positive change in their communities.</p>
<p>If we are to see change, it must begin at the community level, later unite with others and <em>then</em> lead to pressing one’s government to act for the good of all people. In <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/3/puerto_ricans_protest_trumps_visit_denounce">Puerto Rico</a> and <a href="http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2017/11/27/protests-continue-over-nestle-pumping-and-sale-of-ground-water/">Ontario</a>, community-led protests have tried to effect positive change — people are fighting back. </p>
<p>Development work should aim to improve life by connecting people to their environment, food production processes and other people in their communities. Doing so could promote the importance of the environment, including food and water, and foster a protective relationship that prevents a resource’s exploitation, whether through destruction or privatization. <a href="https://viacampesina.org/en/struggles-la-via-campesina-agrarian-reform-defense-life-land-territories/">La Via Campesina</a>, the world’s largest mass movement of peasants, advocates for a similar strategy.</p>
<h2>Getting involved</h2>
<p>One approach that works well is participatory development, where communities and development professionals work together to reach their goals and find solutions to their problems.</p>
<p>Farmer-led research is but one example of participatory, bottom-up, community-based development. Groups like the <a href="http://www.practicalfarmers.org">Practical Farmers of Iowa</a> and the <a href="https://efao.ca">Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFAO)</a> do work that tries to reconnect people with the environment, production processes and each other through their research programs. </p>
<p>In some areas, the practice of development has moved away from the top-down approach. <a href="https://agricultureandfoodsecurity.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40066-015-0023-7">An analysis of farmer-led research</a>, conducted in Africa, Central America and Southeast Asia, has found that farmer-led development work promotes interconnectivity between people and a strong exchange of ideas. The study found that participatory development, such as farmer-led research, grew community, a connection with the natural world, and harnessed people’s creativity and ingenuity.</p>
<p>Critics of the participatory development family of approaches might say it lacks rigour and the necessary expertise to enact meaningful change. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208525/original/file-20180301-152559-16hulil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208525/original/file-20180301-152559-16hulil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208525/original/file-20180301-152559-16hulil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208525/original/file-20180301-152559-16hulil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208525/original/file-20180301-152559-16hulil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208525/original/file-20180301-152559-16hulil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208525/original/file-20180301-152559-16hulil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A peasant farmer grows vegetables at a small farm near São Paulo, Brazil.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Horta_150706_REFON.jpg">(José Reynaldo da Fonseca/Wikimedia)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But I have found in my experience with the EFAO, as well as research in participatory development, that continued bottom-up collaboration between locals and professionals as mutually beneficial. Locals benefit from the expertise and support of professionals, and professionals benefit from the perspective and knowledge that locals offer. The participatory approach grounds academics and scientists who often approach these issues with an abstracted, solely technocratic distance.</p>
<p>The increased collaboration between locals and development professionals makes more explicit the public’s disdain for the privatization and commodification of food and water. A participatory approach also engages with, and uses, local knowledge and practices.</p>
<p>Development professionals must shirk the current economic model that has led us to our current predicament of rampant inequality and environmental degradation. Embracing the <em>status quo</em> framework cannot guide us away from this problem that it has initiated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89657/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cameron Fioret is a Graduate Research Assistant in the Arrell Food Institute's "Food From Thought" Program. His research group is partnered with the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario. Cameron receives funding from an Ontario Graduate Scholarship.</span></em></p>Farmer-led development work can improve people’s lives, provide access to food and water - and re-connect them to nature.Cameron Fioret, PhD Student in Philosophy, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/907182018-01-30T12:33:35Z2018-01-30T12:33:35ZGesture politics and foreign aid: evidence vs spin<p>Secretary of State for International Development Penny Mordaunt has warned recipient governments that they face cuts in UK aid if they don’t “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/01/14/britain-will-no-longer-fund-good-works-foreign-governments-can/">put their hands in their pockets</a>”. Her warning is grounded on a claim of public concern: “Nagging doubts persist for many people, about what we are doing, why we are doing it … especially when there are domestic needs and a national debt to address.” It is a compelling point but, as it turns out, one for which there is actually very little evidence.</p>
<p>The most recent <a href="https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/he2sxuwbgo/TimesResults_180108_Issues%20and%20Best%20Party_Trackers.pdf">YouGov/Times survey</a> poll asked Britons what issues they considered most important among those facing the country: Brexit, health and the economy topped the list. The potential misuse of foreign aid funds, as one would expect, did not even register.</p>
<p>Surveys on public opinion about aid are scarce and often contradictory. While <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/22/twice-as-many-british-voters-want-to-scrap-07-gdp-aid-pledge-tha/">a Telegraph poll in April 2016</a> found that 57% of people opposed the commitment to spending 0.7% of national income on foreign aid, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/feb/29/majority-uk-believes-overseas-aid-should-rise-survey-eurobarometer-developing-countries">a Eurobarometer survey</a> later that year found that 55% of respondents in the UK thought aid commitments should be kept and 14% believed that they should be increased. “Nagging doubts”, it would seem, are in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203962/original/file-20180130-107713-k4p8su.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203962/original/file-20180130-107713-k4p8su.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=160&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203962/original/file-20180130-107713-k4p8su.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203962/original/file-20180130-107713-k4p8su.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=160&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203962/original/file-20180130-107713-k4p8su.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203962/original/file-20180130-107713-k4p8su.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203962/original/file-20180130-107713-k4p8su.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/DFID_UK/status/952834382997393408">Twitter</a></span>
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<p>Part of the alleged public concern about aid stems from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/mar/09/uk-passes-bill-law-aid-target-percentage-income">legislation passed in 2015</a> by the coalition government that committed to ringfence 0.7% of national income for foreign aid (a <a href="http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/the07odagnitarget-ahistory.htm">decades-old demand</a> from international development advocates). The commitment has resulted in a budget of around £13 billion, a significant figure at a time when other departments cannot rely on ringfenced targets to avoid budget cuts. </p>
<p>Like many others, I am alarmed and appalled by the funding gaps in the National Health Service, which translates into <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-staff-vacancies-rise-10-per-cent-2017-86000-nurses-midwives-doctors-recruitment-crisis-brexit-a7858961.html">staffing problems</a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11974620/Quality-of-NHS-care-is-poor-to-mediocre-compared-to-other-developed-nations-OECD-warns.html">lower quality of care</a>. In this context, it is not unreasonable to wonder whether an extra £13 billion could help save the NHS by increasing the level of spending – tripling <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/22/budgets-16bn-cash-boost-for-nhs-less-than-half-of-experts-advice">the kind of boost that experts recommend</a>. </p>
<p>But once we start down this path we need to also examine other public expenditures. The Trident replacement programme, for instance, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/18/trident-may-be-removed-from-mod-budget-mps-told">costs £41 billion</a> and I have yet to see a persuasive argument for why four nuclear submarines are more important than a functioning NHS (whereas UK aid is effective both on humanitarian grounds <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/greenpolitics/developingworld/11463658/Spending-more-on-foreign-aid-makes-Britain-richer-safer-and-morally-better.html">and as a source of strategic influence</a>).</p>
<p>But of course, that would be a tough public conversation to have. Whereas aid talk, for politicians, is cheap. </p>
<h2>A more honest conversation</h2>
<p>Even if we discount Mordaunt’s claims about public concern, the larger point remains that the UK should consider the commitment of its development partners to build sustainable public services. Aid emancipation should be the ultimate priority of development assistance and it is not a bad criterion on which to judge the relative usefulness of foreign aid. That being said, there are three caveats to this argument.</p>
<p>The developing world is seeing a growing gap between those countries that can finance their own development and those that cannot. Aid is still a necessary resource for those weaker states with no fiscal capacity or access to private finance.</p>
<p>Humanitarianism remains a valid argument for spending foreign aid wherever it can stop the spread of disease, displacement, or violence, especially when recipients are unable to cope with sudden shocks caused by pandemics or refugee flows.</p>
<p>Most importantly, it is actually very hard to determine whether a government is not “putting its hands in its pockets” out of capriciousness, mismanagement, inability, or unwillingness. Consider the UK itself: why is the NHS underfunded? Is the British government “failing to invest in its own people”?</p>
<p>These are just some of the questions that I would throw back at Mordaunt as she ponders where UK aid should be heading. The public debate about aid in donor countries like the UK <a href="https://www.zedbooks.net/shop/book/why-we-lie-about-aid/forthcoming/">is largely disconnected from the realities of development on the ground</a>. Bridging this gap requires an alternative way of thinking about the politics of change. One that does not draw such a crisp distinction between the taken-for-granted messiness of our own policy-making and the kinds of capacity and commitment that we demand from aid recipients.</p>
<p>Like Mordaunt, I too <a href="https://dfidnews.blog.gov.uk/2017/11/15/penny-mordaunt-i-believe-in-aid/">believe in aid</a>. And like her, I believe that the UK should work with partners to ensure that aid feeds into sustainable, effective and accountable states and markets. I am sure that she is a moral person and that she means well when she invokes the concerns of British taxpayers. But a political leader’s responsibility isn’t just to represent, but to lead and educate. And while Mordaunt raises some good questions, the British public deserves better, more honest answers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90718/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pablo Yanguas consults for a DFID-funded project in Ghana, and has worked at the DFID-funded Effective States and Inclusive Development research centre.
He has also written a book, 'Why We Lie About Aid'.</span></em></p>There needs to be a more honest debate around the topic of foreign aid – there isn’t much evidence in the claim that it’s a pressing concern for much of the public.Pablo Yanguas, Research Fellow, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/868202017-11-16T01:38:07Z2017-11-16T01:38:07ZMany small island nations can adapt to climate change with global support<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194841/original/file-20171115-19845-1mh17kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">COP 22 President Salaheddine Mezouar from Morocco, right, hands over a gavel to Fiji's prime minister and president of COP 23 Frank Bainimarama, left, during the opening of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, Monday, Nov. 6, 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Germany-Climate-Talks/c96123b12ee940378099e30743bcb3ab/79/0">AP Photo/Martin Meissner</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Island nations are on the front lines of global climate change. Heavy rainfall and rising sea levels are <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg2/WGIIAR5-Chap29_FINAL.pdf">eroding shorelines and causing flooding</a>. Warming and increasingly acidic oceans are <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/resources/res_pdfs/ga-66/inputs/psids.pdf">damaging coral reefs</a> that support fisheries and attract tourists. Some island communities are already <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/township-in-solomon-islands-is-1st-in-pacific-to-relocate-due-to-climate-change/">moving or making plans to relocate</a>.</p>
<p>Fiji, a chain of 300 islands in the South Pacific, currently is chairing the meeting of the Conference of Parties of the <a href="https://cop23.unfccc.int/">U.N. Climate Change Convention</a> in Bonn, Germany. Frank Bainimarama, the prime minister of Fiji and president of COP-23, has <a href="https://cop23.com.fj/fijis-vision-cop23/">called on all nations to take climate action</a> because “we are all vulnerable to climate change and we all need to act.”</p>
<p>Fiji’s leading role in Bonn presents an opportunity for island nations to raise their voices. Islanders know that sea level rise <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/440734a">could completely eliminate their homelands</a>. Their concerns, symbolized by the <a href="http://newsroom.unfccc.int/cop-23-bonn/fijian-canoe-as-symbol-of-resilience-and-unity-displayed-at-cop23/">Fijian canoe</a> on display at the Bonn conference center, have been a legitimate and powerful force in international climate change negotiations. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"927487906284961792"}"></div></p>
<p>But it would be a mistake to assume that their only option is to abandon their islands now or at some future point. Many of these countries are taking steps today to adapt to climate change impacts. If the international community can agree on ways to limit greenhouse gas emissions and aggressively pursue local adaptation, it may be possible to preserve many island nations and cultures.</p>
<h2>Measuring vulnerability</h2>
<p>We all participate in an initiative hosted at the <a href="https://gain.nd.edu/">University of Notre Dame’s Global Adaptation Initiative</a> that works to measure <a href="http://index.gain.org/">individual nations’ vulnerability to climate change</a>. This index is designed to help governments, businesses and communities prioritize investments for a more efficient response to immediate global challenges, such as food security. </p>
<p>The index combines information on future impacts of climate change, such as changes in a country’s crop yields; sensitivity to climate hazards, such as that nation’s dependence on agriculture; and its capacity to cope with the impacts of climate change through steps such as increasing protected ecosystem areas. The first two measures describe a country’s risk, while the third indicates its ability to reduce that risk.</p>
<p>The index shows that not all island nations are equally vulnerable or prepared to deal with impacts of climate change. Among Pacific Island nations, Papua New Guinea is the most vulnerable – on a par with countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Fiji, on the other hand, is less vulnerable to change and more prepared to invest in adaptive measures. Some nations, such as the Republic of Maldives, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2014.900603">Kiribati and Tuvalu</a>, are considering international migration as an option for adapting.</p>
<p>Many island nations are taking steps to reduce their climate risk. For example, Fiji is working to expand its economy by <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/653091468333012994/pdf/937080CEN0R201060Box385412B00OUO090.pdf">investing in public infrastructure, adjusting taxes and reorienting away from agriculture toward services and tourism</a> to generate capital for investments in climate adaptation. Palau is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174787">expanding its network of marine protected areas</a> to reduce stresses on its reefs and fisheries. And Tonga is slowly <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.AGR.TOTL.ZS?locations=S2">decreasing its economic reliance on climate-sensitive sectors</a> such as agriculture.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L-gpHgebunY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The prospect of relocating is wrenching for many residents of Tuvalu and Kiribati.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moving out of vulnerable zones</h2>
<p>Development agencies, such as the <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/">U.S. Agency for International Development</a> and the <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/">World Bank</a>, are prepared to fund projects to help island states adapt to climate change, using both hard solutions, such as sea walls and levees, and softer solutions, such as replanting coastal mangroves or installing early warning systems in case of floods. But many communities are already finding that they need to relocate away from flood-prone areas of their islands, which is a socially and economically disruptive process. </p>
<p>In Fiji, for example, coastal communities are threatened by extreme storms and rising sea levels that cause flooding, especially at high tide. The government has established a Climate Change Mitigation Fund with its own resources to help relocate villages that wish to move. The village of <a href="http://www.umcmission.org/find-resources/new-world-outlook-magazine/2016/may/june/0614risingsealevels">Vunidogolo</a> was the first to move in January 2014, settling on a site on their traditional land one mile inland. Villagers were even able to move their cemetery so that their ancestors were not abandoned. </p>
<p>Hundreds of other Fijian villages are at risk. About 40 were planning similar moves when <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=87562">Cyclone Winston</a> struck Fiji in February 2016. The storm caused extensive damage: Recovery costs are <a href="https://www.gfdrr.org/sites/default/files/publication/Fiji%20DRF.pdf">estimated at US$1 billion</a>, which represents about 20 percent of Fiji’s gross domestic product. Assistance for recovering and “building back better” has flowed into Fiji, and more villages now are considering relocating. </p>
<p>The Fijian government is taking a proactive approach to financing climate-related needs. In October 2017 Fiji became the first emerging nation to <a href="https://cop23.com.fj/fiji-launches-first-emerging-market-green-bond-third-world/">issue a sovereign green bond</a>, raising $50 million to fund climate change mitigation and adaptation actions. Proceeds from green bonds are exclusively applied to projects that have clear environmental benefits and promote low-carbon, climate-resilient growth. They are attractive to investors seeking socially responsible portfolios, such as pension funds. Some of the proceeds from these bonds will be used to create more resilient village societies. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194856/original/file-20171115-19789-ma0wjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194856/original/file-20171115-19789-ma0wjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194856/original/file-20171115-19789-ma0wjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194856/original/file-20171115-19789-ma0wjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194856/original/file-20171115-19789-ma0wjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194856/original/file-20171115-19789-ma0wjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194856/original/file-20171115-19789-ma0wjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194856/original/file-20171115-19789-ma0wjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Palau has created extensive marine reserves to protect coral reefs and other ocean habitats, which it relies on for food and tourism revenues.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/dGiwAf">Jeff~</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Adapting locally</h2>
<p>Moving to new locations off-island is not an easy solution for many islanders. Those who move will need income sources and social contacts in their new locations. And some moves may actually put migrants at <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su9050720">greater climate risk</a> – for example, moving to urban areas in coastal regions that are exposed to flooding.</p>
<p>New Zealand leaders are considering <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/31/new-zealand-considers-creating-climate-change-refugee-visas">creating a new visa</a> for people migrating from areas affected by climate change. While this is a positive step, the first priority for funding agencies should be to support local adaptation within island nations. </p>
<p>For example, one recent <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wcc.350">study</a> found that while the shapes of low-lying atolls may shift under the force of waves and tides, these islands will not necessarily erode as long as they retain enough sediment. But human activities such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-world-is-facing-a-global-sand-crisis-83557">sand mining</a>, sea wall construction and land reclamation <a href="https://doi.org/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-11-00008.1">amplify shoreline losses</a>. Reducing these impacts is essential for island states seeking to adapt to climate change. Funding agencies can support those efforts.</p>
<p>Pacific Islanders have lived on atolls for <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.1997.99.1.30">at least 2,000 years</a>, and have adapted to life there in spite of isolated conditions and limited resources. By pursuing climate adaptation strategies that build on their accumulated knowledge, and driving development that is economically and environmentally sustainable, they can minimize the number of communities that may have to move to other shores.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86820/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Noble recently retired from the World Bank as the Lead Climate Change Specialist with particular responsibility for the Bank’s activities in adaptation to climate change.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Hellmann receives funding from the US federal government and private foundations. She also advises several renewable energy and conservation organizations.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martina Grecequet does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Although climate change threatens the world’s small island nations, many can find ways to adapt and preserve their homes and cultures – especially if wealthy countries cut emissions and provide support.Martina Grecequet, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Institute on the Environment, University of MinnesotaIan Noble, Chief Scientific Advisor, Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative, University of Notre DameJessica Hellmann, Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior; Director, Institute on the Environment, University of MinnesotaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/857212017-10-25T23:37:43Z2017-10-25T23:37:43ZIs it time for a Cyber Peace Corps?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191453/original/file-20171023-1722-7u8c5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C678%2C1804%2C1601&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some Peace Corps volunteers already provide computer assistance and instruction.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/peacecorps/4951936574/">Peace Corps</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hackers around the world are attacking targets as diverse as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/us/politics/us-tells-21-states-that-hackers-targeted-their-voting-systems.html?_r=0">North Dakota’s</a> state government, the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40886418">Ukrainian postal service</a> and a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-attack-indonesia/indonesia-warns-of-more-cyber-attack-havoc-as-business-week-starts-idUSKCN18A0CG">hospital</a> in Jakarta, Indonesia. Unfortunately, many governments – in the developing world, and even cash-strapped <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/03/election-hackers-russia-cyberattack-voting-242266">states and local communities</a> in the United States – lack the skills to effectively protect themselves.</p>
<p>The U.S. has an opportunity to serve itself and the world by revitalizing the ideals of global service popularized in another era of its history. Congress should expand the mandates of the <a href="https://www.peacecorps.gov/">Peace Corps</a> and <a href="https://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps">AmeriCorps</a> to create a Cyber Peace Corps. It could do this by amending the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr1388/text">Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act</a>, which was passed in 2009 to reorganize and expand the AmeriCorps program.</p>
<h2>A call to service</h2>
<p>President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps in 1961 as a way for American volunteers to <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Peace-Corps.aspx">bring their skills and energy</a> to the world. In the decades since, more than 225,000 Americans have <a href="https://www.peacecorps.gov/news/fast-facts/">served in the Peace Corps</a> in more than 140 nations. Currently, there are more than 7,000 volunteers serving abroad in 65 nations working on a <a href="https://www.peacecorps.gov/volunteer/what-volunteers-do/">wide range of projects</a> including fighting hunger by reducing soil erosion, promoting maternal health and teaching environmental sustainability.</p>
<p>Though not without its <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/reconsidering-the-peace-corps/">critics</a>, overall the Peace Corps has done a <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2008/04/22/think-again-the-peace-corps/">tremendous amount of good</a> around the world. It has long enjoyed strong <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international-affairs/340695-now-isnt-the-time-to-cut-peace-corps-funding">bipartisan support</a> at a relatively small cost.</p>
<p>Similarly, more than 900,000 Americans have served in <a href="https://www.nationalservice.gov/newsroom/marketing/fact-sheets/americorps">AmeriCorps</a> since its founding in 1993, at more than 21,000 locations across the country, contributing some 1.2 billion hours of service. These efforts are focused on <a href="https://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps/americorps-nccc">community support</a> in the U.S., through disaster response and recovery work, and providing assistance to local residents who are disabled, poor, elderly or homeless.</p>
<p>AmeriCorps has not enjoyed the same level of bipartisan political support as the Peace Corps, in part, <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/09/12/americorps-20-years-old-limited-success">some argue</a>, because inadequate funding has limited its potential. The <a href="https://www.nationalservice.gov/about/legislation/edward-m-kennedy-serve-america-act">Serve America Act</a> boosted AmeriCorps’ funding to more than US$1 billion annually, for example, but this is an amount still far less than the <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/09/12/americorps-20-years-old-limited-success">$10 billion per year</a> that the original proponents envisioned. </p>
<h2>Expanding service options</h2>
<p>Adding cybersecurity to the mandates of America’s national and international service programs would help fight the dire <a href="https://www.csoonline.com/article/3153707/security/top-5-cybersecurity-facts-figures-and-statistics-for-2017.html">cyber-insecurity problems</a> facing the country and the world. The effort could bolster political support, and funding, for the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps. But more importantly, it could help train the <a href="https://theconversation.com/teaching-the-next-generation-of-cybersecurity-professionals-64475">next generation</a> of cybersecurity professionals.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-florida-is-helping-train-the-next-generation-of-cybersecurity-professionals-69848">Partnerships with universities</a> and community colleges across the nation could create summer cybersecurity boot camps and <a href="https://www.securityroundtable.org/zoom-inside-the-case-for-cybersecurity-clinics-and-what-they-can-teach-your-firm/">clinics</a> to teach young Americans how to defend computer systems against malicious hackers. That would help address the <a href="https://fcw.com/articles/2017/04/04/hurd-cyber-guard-gunter.aspx">projected shortage</a> of 1.8 million cybersecurity professionals by 2022, and prepare prospective members of a <a href="https://gcn.com/articles/2017/01/06/national-guard-cybersecurity.aspx">Cyber National Guard</a>.</p>
<p>If Congress doesn’t act, other options exist for both individuals and companies. A program like <a href="https://www.teachforamerica.org/">Teach for America</a> could recruit willing volunteers and help prepare them for service. And private firms and civic groups could <a href="https://staysafeonline.org/">create their own coalitions</a>, perhaps along the lines of the <a href="https://www.score.org/">Service Corps of Retired Executives</a>, linking trained professionals with communities needing help. A similar effort in India, the nonprofit <a href="http://www.cyberpeacefoundation.org/corps.html">Cyber Peace Foundation</a>, has partnered cybersecurity experts with community organizations to help protect vulnerable populations, such as the <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Cybersecurity%20for%20Older%20Americans_0.pdf">elderly</a>.</p>
<h2>Toward cyber peace</h2>
<p>In the U.S., a pilot project could start with <a href="https://www.nationalisacs.org/">existing industry organizations</a> focused on sharing cyber-threat information. Interested member corporations could contribute their workers for a fixed period of time to strengthen cybersecurity capabilities <a href="http://sentinelips.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Pell-Center-State-of-the-States-Report.pdf">in their communities</a>, including for school districts, municipalities and utility companies. Firms with <a href="http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Cybersecurity/Pages/GCI.aspx">international operations</a> could do the same abroad.</p>
<p>When President Kennedy called for the creation of the Peace Corps during the turbulent 1960 election, the world was different: At the height of the Cold War, America faced a difficult challenge to win <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/reconsidering-the-peace-corps/">hearts and minds</a>, especially in nations not yet aligned with either the U.S. or the Soviet Union. Today <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/topics/u-s-global-image-and-anti-americanism/">negative perceptions</a> about the United States are rising around the world. </p>
<p>Developing U.S. cybersecurity talent and deploying it to mitigate <a href="http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/">threats to information security</a> both at home and abroad would help protect vulnerable communities and rebuild social ties. In fact, the efforts involved in getting Cyber Peace Corps workers and their hosts to work together to protect potentially sensitive information may help <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/06/05/318770896/a-year-after-snowden-u-s-tech-losing-trust-overseas">strengthen trust</a> and goodwill among nations. And it would recast 20th-century service commitments to face 21st-century challenges.</p>
<p>There are untold thousands of people on college campuses, working for small businesses and in leading tech firms who are <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/01/26/americans-and-cybersecurity/">worried about</a> the world’s lack of cybersecurity, but who feel powerless to change things. If given an opportunity, their work would help create the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. And it could offer new opportunities to bridge partisan divides at home, and geopolitical fault lines abroad.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Shackelford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US could help solve a global security problem and boost its image abroad by helping willing experts share their cybersecurity knowledge around the country and the globe.Scott Shackelford, Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics; Director, Ostrom Workshop Program on Cybersecurity and Internet Governance; Cybersecurity Program Chair, IU-Bloomington, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/760592017-05-01T01:57:44Z2017-05-01T01:57:44ZCan blockchain technology help poor people around the world?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167209/original/file-20170428-12970-fr3av3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">No need for a bank: Just a smartphone and a blockchain. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://insight.wfp.org/what-is-blockchain-and-how-is-it-connected-to-fighting-hunger-7f1b42da9fe">Houman Haddad/UN World Food Program</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Big Wall Street companies are using a complicated technology called blockchain to further <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-street-backs-blockchain-for-savings-on-derivatives-1483979438">increase the already lightning-fast speed of international finance</a>. But it’s not just the upper crust of high finance who can benefit from this new technology.</p>
<p>Most simply, a blockchain is an inexpensive and transparent way to record transactions. People who don’t know each other – and therefore may not trust each other – can securely exchange money without fear of fraud or theft. Major aid agencies, nonprofits and startup companies are <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604144/how-blockchain-can-lift-up-the-worlds-poor/">working to extend blockchain systems across the developing world</a> to help poor people around the world get easier access to banks for loans or to protect their savings.</p>
<p>In my work as a scholar of business and technology focusing on the impact of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2017.1298438">blockchain</a> and other modern technologies such as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2011.586225">cloud computing</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951714564227">big data</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1191942">the Internet of Things</a> on poor people, I see four main ways blockchain systems are already beginning to connect some of the world’s poorest people with the global economy.</p>
<h2>How does a blockchain work?</h2>
<p>A blockchain is a fancy word for a transaction-recording computer database that’s stored in lots of different places at once. The best-known example of <a href="http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=cf0c71c5-055a-4d57-92f8-c75d1e282414">blockchain technology</a> is the electronic cryptocurrency called bitcoin, but the concept can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/blockchains-focusing-on-bitcoin-misses-the-real-revolution-digital-trust-58125">applied in lots of different ways</a>.</p>
<p>One way to think about a blockchain is as a public bulletin board to which anyone can post a transaction record. Those posts have to be digitally signed in a particular way, and once posted, a record can never be changed or deleted. The data are stored on many different computers around the internet, and even around the world.</p>
<p>Together, these features – openness to writing and inspection, authentication through computerized cryptography and redundant storage – provide a mechanism for secure exchange of funds. They can even involve what are called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/blockchains-focusing-on-bitcoin-misses-the-real-revolution-in-digital-trust-58125">smart contracts</a>,” transactions that happen only if certain conditions are met – such as a life insurance policy that sends money to the beneficiary only if a specific doctor submits a digitally signed death certificate to the blockchain.</p>
<p>Right now, these sorts of services are available – even in the developed world – only because nations have strong regulations protecting the money people deposit in banks, and clear laws about obeying the terms of formal contracts. In the developing world, these rules often don’t exist at all – so the services that depend on them don’t either, or are so expensive that most people can’t use them. For instance, to open a checking account in some parts of Africa, <a href="http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/Banking_Services_for_Everyone.pdf">banks require enormous minimum deposits</a>, sometimes more money than an average person earns in a year.</p>
<p>A blockchain system, though, inherently enforces rules about authentication and transaction security. That makes it safe and affordable for a person to store any amount of money securely and confidently. While that’s still in the future, blockchain-based systems are already helping people in the developing world in very real ways.</p>
<h2>Sending money internationally</h2>
<p>In 2016, emigrants working abroad sent an <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2016/10/06/remittances-to-developing-countries-expected-to-grow-at-weak-pace-in-2016-and-beyond">estimated US$442 billion</a> to their families in their home countries. This global flow of cash is a <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2005/12/basics.htm">significant factor in the financial well-being</a> of families and societies in developing nations. But the process of sending money can be extremely expensive. </p>
<p>Using MoneyGram, for example, a worker in the U.S. with US$50 to send to Ghana <a href="https://www.newsghana.com.gh/report-puts-ghana-amongst-countries-with-high-cost-of-remittance/">might have to pay $10 in fees</a>, meaning her family would receive only $40. <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/paymentsystemsremittances/publication/cost-sending-remittances-june-2015-data">In 2015, transaction costs and commission rates averaged</a> 10.96 percent for remittances sent from banks and 6.36 percent for sending money through money transfer operators. Companies justify their costs by saying they reflect the price of <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201703010933.html">providing reliable and convenient services</a>.</p>
<p>By contrast, Hong Kong’s blockchain-enabled Bitspark has transaction costs so low it <a href="http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1679904/bitcoin-transactions-cut-cost-international-money-transfers">charges a flat HK$15 for remittances of less than HK$1,200</a> (about $2 in U.S. currency for transactions less than $150) and 1 percent for larger amounts. Using the secure digital connections of a blockchain system lets the company <a href="https://news.bitcoin.com/bitspark-bitcoin-remittance-asia/">bypass existing banking networks and traditional remittance systems</a>.</p>
<p>Similar services helping people send money to the Philippines, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Rwanda <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/african-bitcoin-startup-wins-bill-melinda-gates-foundation-grant-launches-blockchain-event-series-nairobi-1436993383">also charge a fraction of the current banking rates</a>.</p>
<h2>Insurance</h2>
<p>Most people in the developing world lack health and life insurance, primarily because it’s so expensive compared to income. Some of that is because of high administrative costs: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jid.3380040602">For every dollar of insurance premium collected</a>, administrative costs amounted to $0.28 in Brazil, $0.54 in Costa Rica, $0.47 in Mexico and $1.80 in the Philippines. And many people who live on less than a dollar a day have neither the ability to afford any insurance, nor any company offering them services.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167206/original/file-20170428-13007-zo33ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167206/original/file-20170428-13007-zo33ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167206/original/file-20170428-13007-zo33ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167206/original/file-20170428-13007-zo33ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167206/original/file-20170428-13007-zo33ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167206/original/file-20170428-13007-zo33ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167206/original/file-20170428-13007-zo33ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167206/original/file-20170428-13007-zo33ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smartphones are increasingly common in the developing world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/7561270846">Russell Watkins/UK Department for International Development</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In India, for example, <a href="http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/business/health-insurance-roadmap-for-2015/42439.html">only 15 percent of the population has health insurance</a>. Even those people <a href="http://www.ajmc.com/journals/issue/2011/2011-2-vol17-n2/ajmc_11feb_thomaswebx_e26to33">pay higher relative premiums</a> than in developed countries. As a result, people in South Asia pay a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/theimpactofhealthinsurance_fulltext.pdf">much greater share of their health care costs</a> out of their own pockets than do people in high-income industrialized countries.</p>
<p>Because blockchain systems are online and involve verification of transactions, they can <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1191942">deter (and expose) fraud</a>, dramatically cutting costs for insurers.</p>
<p>Consuelo is a <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/consuelo-offers-blockchain-powered-microinsurance-to-migrant-workers">blockchain-based microinsurance service</a> backed by Mexican mobile payments company Saldo.mx. Customers can pay small amounts for health and life insurance, with claims verified electronically and paid quickly.</p>
<h2>Helping small businesses</h2>
<p>Blockchain systems can also help very small businesses, which are often short of cash and also find it expensive – if not impossible – to borrow money. For instance, after delivering medicine to hospitals, <a href="http://www.coindesk.com/ibm-amps-china-blockchain-new-supply-chain/">small drug retailers in China often wait up to 90 days to get paid</a>. But to stay afloat, these companies need cash. They rely on intermediaries that pay immediately, but don’t pay in full. A $100 invoice to a hospital might be worth $90 right away – and the intermediary would collect the $100 when it was finally paid.</p>
<p>Banks aren’t willing to lend money in places where <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Companies/vkpTgJ1M39TbRHvG1nZGsK/Reebok-India-fake-sales-and-secret-depots.html">fraudulent invoices are common</a>, or where manufacturers and their customers might have <a href="https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ibm-mahindra-develop-blockchain-supply-chain-finance-solutions-india/">inconsistent and error-ridden records</a>. A blockchain system reduces those concerns because these records must be authenticated before being added to the books, and because they can’t be changed.</p>
<p>Those Chinese pharmaceutical companies are <a href="http://www.coindesk.com/ibm-amps-china-blockchain-new-supply-chain/">getting help from Yijan</a>, a blockchain that is a joint effort of IBM and Chinese supply management company Hejia. Electronics, auto manufacturing and clothing companies facing similar difficulties are the <a href="https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/chinese-fintech-firms-launch-blockchain-supply-chain-finance-platform/">test markets for Chained Finance</a>, a blockchain platform backed by financial services company Dianrong and FnConn, the Chinese subsidiary of Foxconn.</p>
<h2>Humanitarian aid</h2>
<p>Blockchain technology can also improve humanitarian assistance. <a href="https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/audit-reports/4-674-11-004-p.pdf">Fraud, corruption</a>, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tie.20404">discrimination</a> and <a href="https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/audit-reports/1-524-09-002-p.pdf">mismanagement</a> block some money intended to reduce poverty and improve education and health care from actually helping people.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167208/original/file-20170428-12979-82psfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167208/original/file-20170428-12979-82psfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=210&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167208/original/file-20170428-12979-82psfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=210&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167208/original/file-20170428-12979-82psfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=210&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167208/original/file-20170428-12979-82psfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167208/original/file-20170428-12979-82psfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167208/original/file-20170428-12979-82psfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A pilot project in Pakistan is using a blockchain system to help needy families get cash and food.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://innovation.wfp.org/blog/blockchain-crypto-assistance-wfp">Farman Ali/UN World Food Program</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In early 2017 the U.N. World Food Program launched the first stage of what it calls “<a href="http://innovation.wfp.org/blog/blockchain-crypto-assistance-wfp">Building Block</a>,” giving food and cash assistance to needy families in Pakistan’s Sindh province. An internet-connected smartphone authenticated and recorded payments from the U.N. agency to food vendors, ensuring the recipients got help, the merchants got paid and the agency didn’t lose track of its money.</p>
<p>The agency expects using a blockchain system will reduce its overhead costs <a href="http://innovation.wfp.org/project/building-blocks">from 3.5 percent to less than 1 percent</a>. And it can <a href="https://insight.wfp.org/what-is-blockchain-and-how-is-it-connected-to-fighting-hunger-7f1b42da9fe">speed aid to remote or disaster-struck areas</a>, where ATMs may not exist or banks are not functioning normally. In urgent situations, blockchain currency can even take the place of scarce local cash, allowing aid organizations, residents and merchants to exchange money electronically.</p>
<p>Blockchains can even help individuals contribute to aid efforts overseas. Usizo is a South Africa-based blockchain platform that <a href="http://disrupt-africa.com/2015/11/5-african-crowdfunding-startups-to-watch/">lets anyone help pay electricity bills for community schools</a>. Donors can track how much electricity a school is using, calculate how much power their donation will buy and transfer the credit directly using bitcoin.</p>
<h2>Future potential</h2>
<p>In the future, blockchain-based projects can help people and governments in other ways, too. As many as 1.5 billion people – 20 percent of the world’s population – <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/id4d">don’t have any documents that can verify their identity</a>. That limits their ability to use banks, but also can bar their way when trying to access basic human rights like voting, getting health care, going to school and traveling.</p>
<p>Several companies are launching <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/03/blockchain-will-help-us-prove-our-identities-in-a-digital-world">blockchain-powered digital identity programs</a> that can help create and validate individuals’ identities. Using only an internet-connected smartphone, a person is photographed and recorded on video making particular facial expressions and speaking, reading an on-screen text. The data are recorded on a blockchain and can be accessed later by anyone who needs to check that person’s identity. </p>
<p>Without email, phones, passports or even birth certificates, a blockchain could be the only way many poor people have to prove who they are. That could really make their lives better and expand their opportunities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nir Kshetri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Already becoming a darling of Wall Street, blockchain technology’s biggest real benefits could come to the world’s poorest people. Here’s how.Nir Kshetri, Professor of Management, University of North Carolina – GreensboroLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.