Weekending Sunday, 28 October 2007

854 MILLION WORLDWIDE SUFFER FROM HUNGER, SAYS FAO

22 OCTOBER 2007 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The earth produces enough food to adequately feed its entire population, yet over 854 million women, men and children still suffer from hunger, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on World Food Day. The “right to food” was chosen as the theme of this year’s World Food Day so that the voice of the disadvantaged might be heard, said David Walter Bowen, FAO Country Representative in the Gambia. “The right to food has been strengthened by further international measures. By ratifying the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, 156 states accepted the right to food as a legal obligation,” he said. Freedom from hunger is one of the fundamental goals set out in the FAO’s constitution, Bowen noted, and heads of state and governments reaffirmed that “the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food [is] consistent with the right to adequate food and fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger.” Kanja Sanneh, the Gambia’s Secretary of State for Agriculture, said that the right to food is an inherent human right. “Hunger is not an inescapable destiny, but can be eliminated by wise policies. This requires that our government and other developing countries’ governments make food security a priority. All people have a right to healthy food,” he said. Reports issued by the FAO, have indicated that 40,000 children die every day throughout the world due to malnutrition and related diseases, noted Sanneh.

WOMEN’S ROLE IN DEVELOPMENT “GROSSLY UNDER-FUNDED”

23 OCTOBER 2007 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Women’s participation is essential to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and gender equality is a priority of the United Nations and civil society institutions the world over. Yet when it comes to funding, women’s organizations are anything but equal. “There’s no driver for development that is as effective as the empowerment of women,” June Zeitlin, Executive Director of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), told correspondents at UN Headquarters on Tuesday. “We know that empowerment of women will help to reduce infant and maternal mortality, improve nutrition, health [and] address poverty,” she said. According to the World Economic Forum, nations that limit the contributions of the female half of their populations suffer economically, and other studies have shown that the involvement of women speeds development. Despite such statistics, gender equality initiatives are “grossly under-funded,” Zeitlin said, particularly at the UN, where promises to create a powerful women’s program have yet to be realized. “Structurally, the UN has a real problem. There’s not a substantial mechanism to promote gender equality system-wide,” she said, outlining plans for an agency that would advance women’s initiatives “on the ground” while holding other UN entities accountable for ensuring women’s role in management and decision-making. “Most of the women leaders in the UN understand that there’s a real gap in the allocation of resources,” Zeitlin told MediaGlobal. Funds for the new agency would come from voluntary contributions, not from within the UN, she added. “It’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s having the donors who claim they are supportive of this to put the money on the table. And we think that’s quite possible.” Women’s groups are calling for the new UN entity to be funded at $500 million a year. UNIFEM, currently the UN’s only women’s fund, receives just $57 million a year, while the UN Population Fund gets $565 million.

ILLICIT CAPITAL FLOWS DEEPEN POVERTY AND STIFLE DEVELOPMENT

23 OCTOBER 2007 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Criminal activity moves up to $1.6 trillion a year across national borders. Half of that money leaves developing countries illegally, deepening poverty and stifling growth, experts on illicit capital flows said at a panel discussion on Tuesday. “These are huge amounts,” Norwegian State Secretary Anne Stenhammer observed. “Compare them to the $150 billion needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.” Much of the resources draining illegally from the developing world do so through tax evasion and money laundering schemes powered by wealthy nations. “The basic motivation for this structure is the shift of money from poor to rich,” said Raymond Baker, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy. Large amounts of illicit capital began flowing out of developing nations in the 1960s, Baker said, as former colonies gained independence and multinational corporations moved in, maximizing profit by evading tax laws and illegally purifying their assets in financial centers back home. “How is it that we can have banks in Switzerland that ask no questions when people come with 45 million Swiss francs in one day – in liquid?” asked Eva Joly, Norad’s Special Advisor on Anti-Corruption. “No Western country does a particularly good job of enforcing a strong anti-money laundering regime,” Baker said. Economically, “Nothing is so damaging to the global poor” as the stream of illicit capital into the hands of the rich. “It drains hard currency reserves, heightens inflation, reduces tax collection, worsens income gaps, cancels investment, hurts competition and undermines trade,” Baker said, adding that only around 3 percent of this cross-border flow is due to corruption. About a third can be traced to criminal activities, while nearly two-thirds are due to tax evasion. When asked by MediaGlobal whether corporations would stop investing needed funds in developing countries if tax loopholes were closed, Baker was adamant. “I’d rather have legitimate investment than investment under any circumstances,” he said. “There is reason to fear that the wrong kind of investment would drop. I’m not afraid of that investment going out.”

BANGLADESH CALLS FOR DUTY-FREE, QUOTA-FREE MARKET ACCESS FOR LDC PRODUCTS

24 OCTOBER 2007 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Bangladesh called upon the international community to provide duty-free and quota-free market access for all products from the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) without any restrictions. Ismat Jahan, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, made the request while speaking at the general debate of the Economic and Financial Committee of the UN General Assembly. She said international trade was a driver of global partnership for development. Jahan praised the developing countries that have provided duty-free, quota-free market access for products from the LDCs and invited other developing countries to do the same. She said that the LDCs, despite their significant efforts, have remained trapped at the bottom of the development ladder, with the proportions of people living in extreme poverty and with deadly diseases still alarmingly high. “The LDCs must remain in the special focus of the international community, as committed in the Brussels Programme of Action, otherwise achievement of MDGs for them will remain only a dream,” she said. Highlighting the importance of financing for development, Jahan expressed concern that current and projected levels of official development assistance (ODA) to the LDCs fell far short of targets of 0.2 percent of the gross national product of the developed countries, and that the allocation of ODA endured serious distributive inequities. She called upon donor nations to address these challenges with urgency.

LACK OF DOCTORS IN LIBERIA A CAUSE FOR CONCERN

25 OCTOBER 2007 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: At a medical conference in London hosted by the British aid agency Merlin, Liberian Health Minister Walter Gwenigale expressed the urgent need for more medical doctors in his country. While donor countries have given the requisite resources to buy drugs and vehicles, doctors remain a necessity. “[Donors] will fund projects but not human resources. That is the tragedy,” he said. With a population of over three million people, Liberia has a total of 108 doctors, and this number continues to dwindle. Most of Liberia’s doctors fled to Europe or the US at the outbreak of civil war, but despite the current peace, the lack of opportunities and salaries has continued to keep most away. Liberia has a healthcare budget of $5 per person, and medical salaries in the country amount to a total of $100 per month, further discouraging doctors from practicing. Doctors in rural areas are especially scarce, with poor roads and inadequate transportation systems ensuring that the most vulnerable almost always lack assistance. “We appreciate the help in giving the money for malaria and AIDS and tuberculosis,” Gwenigale said. “But if you don’t give us the money to hire people to do the work, it is really difficult.”

DRC TAKING STEPS TO PROTECT ENVIRONMENTAL ASSETS

26 OCTOBER 2007 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has announced a plan to partner with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to draft national environmental laws to protect economically important nature-based assets. The government is trying to keep pace with the multi-billion dollar international investments into the DRC’s forestry and agricultural sectors. “This new initiative follows a UNEP mission to the DRC in September. The catalyst for that mission was a request for assistance from the minister of the environment amid mounting national and international alarm over the slaughter of gorillas and damage to one of Africa’s most famous national parks,” said Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director. This initiative resembles the ones carried out by UNEP in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Sudan. The strategy will aim to put a UNEP expert within the country to support the UN Mission in the DRC on development and investment projects for the environment. “The DRC’s abundant natural and nature-based resources have been a source of tension and conflict, but they also represent a major opportunity to fight poverty, fuel economic growth and build peace over the coming years and decades,” said Steiner. UNEP is allotting $300,000 to launch the program.

TWO BILLION PEOPLE IN DEVELOPING WORLD LACK ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY

27 OCTOBER 2007 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Two billion people in the developing world have no access to electricity, the head of ECOBANK said at a renewable energy conference in Abuja, Nigeria. Rotime Nihinlola noted that people in developing countries must turn to poor energy sources like firewood, candles and lanterns. These small and rural communities constitute a future market for renewable energy, he said, and the answer lies in micro-finance. “Micro-finance is the safest lending institution, and lending to the poor is very safe, as they are committed to paying back on time. This has been proved over time.” Nihinlola said. “To ensure success, micro-finance institutions must focus on the market by using local information, social collateral and partner[ships] with stakeholders,” he said. Collins Gardner, chairman of Global Investment Outlook, said at the event that the use of renewable energy was expected to rise to nearly 50 percent by 2030. Public-private partnerships must be approached and encouraged with a realistic target and long-term planning, he advised.