03.14.06
The 4th World Water Forum
Sampsa Daily has couple of thorough posts about water privatisation debate and the problems of financing the water sector. Good reading before The 4th World Water Forum beginning on 16th of march in Mexico.
01.24.06
WTO Hong Kong Meeting Analysed by Oxfam
“The final ministerial declaration contained some minor gains on agriculture, such as setting a 2013 end date for export subsidies, and providing developing countries with extra flexibility to protect their small farmers. There was some progress on preventing the abuse of food aid as a disguised form of dumping, but on cotton, the steps agreed fell short even of those required by the cotton panel ruling against the USA.
Developing countries successfully fended off some of the attempts to force open their markets to Northern industrial and service sectors. However, even the toned-down text on non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and services is inimical to development. The offer of duty-free, quota-free market access to the poorest countries contains sufficient loopholes to rob the agreement of almost all value. An ‘aid for trade’ deal was agreed consisting largely of recycled money, and there was no progress on other ‘development issues’.
When talks recommence in early 2006, rich-country negotiators cannot simply turn up and carry on where they left off in Hong Kong. They need to go away, examine their consciences, and make a New Year’s resolution to turn this into a development round for the world’s poor.”
Oxfam Briefing Paper 85: What happened in Hong Kong?, Oxfam Briefing Paper, December 2005 (pdf-document)
01.17.06
Visualising the World with Maps
I ran into even better maps than before. Maplecroft a specialist research and advisory company for large multinationals, offers flash maps which portrait environmental, social and political information of overs 200 states around the World. Maplecroft’s aim with the maps is:
“This innovative tool is designed to raise awareness amongst corporations, government and non governmental organisations, academics and students of how an organisation’s operations interact with wider society, and how the risks and opportunities generated can be responsibly managed through stakeholder engagement and partnership.”
You can choose the issue you want to know more about from the drop down menus above the map. The topics include global pandemic risk in 2006, climate change (actually, who is responsible of it), digital inclusion, aid depth ratio, military expenditure, human rights and many more. By clicking the maps you can find more information on specific countries or cases.
01.08.06
The Congo Situation
The Demogratic Republic of Congo, the third largest country in Africa will hold it’s presidential election in April 2006. According to a new survey, the long continued war over rich natural resources, also now as the First World War of Africa, was/is the deadliest one in The World in the last 60 years.
“More people have been killed in the second Congo war than in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and Darfur.There are factions from six different countries involved. This along with the loose organisation of the forces make peace keeping and agreements difficult because small militias do as they please, ignoring all truces between the leaders. The origin of the conflict lays in the Rwandan genocyde…”
Read the full post in Sampsa Daily: Situation in Congo
The Taungya System
The traditional forest plantation system, Taungya or Shamba has been critisised in kenya. The critics claim that it leads to destruction of water catchments and loss of biodiversity.In taungya, plantation forest is established on a government owned land by the local farmers. The government provides seedlings and tools as well as instructions and training. In return for their work local people have an opportunity to cultivate the plantation area until the canopy closes, usually this takes from 2 to 4 years.
As the system is only used in plantation areas, I think the argument about loss of biodiversity is out of place. The main objective of plantation management being a high yield of raw material for forest industry. Of course there are several methods to attain this goal, with monoculture plantation or multiple species plantation. The rule of thumb is that the more you have species the more complex and difficult it’ll be to achive a high output of desired wood. With multiple species the biodiversity might be a bit higher for a decade or two before clear cutting.
The destruction of water catchments by plantation forestry depends mostly on species selection and in some degree on carefull planning of logging (where to place roads etc.) not on plantation forestry itself. With site matching tree species possible negative effects can be reversed so that the site’s water holding capacities actually increase (if that’s the aim).
The protection of biodiversity, in my view, should not alter the livelyhood of local people. Sufficient amount of protected areas and nature reserves are the places where this protection should take place. Of course, one can argue that Taungya could be brought up to date by taking the government off the equation with a land reform that would decentralise the land rights. This would minimise the need of local people to destroy the seedlings in order to prolong the cultivation period, as they would get even higher revenues from the wood crop. But this is a decision that should be made by politicians not by foresters. Today, community or private ownership with appropriate extension work is found to be the most efficient way to manage and protect forests at the same time.
People simply take better care of their own property.
Farmers ‘eat away’ Kenyan mountain forests – article in People and the Planet
Banning shamba system will not replenish forests – open letter in The Standard
Shooting government in the head – Article in The East African Standard
01.04.06
Development and Trade
Referring to yesterday’s post about EU providing aid for Africa, I’d like to explore it a bit further. A well known proverb says that “don’t give hungry man a fish, teach him how to fish”. This could be converted into “don’t let poor countries rely on your aid, give them a chance to make their own money”. Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland states it well:
If poor countries could increase their share of world exports by just one percent, they could lift 128 million people out of poverty. In Africa alone, this would generate US$70 billion – more than five times what the continent receives in aid.
As I have understood, the main one of the main problems, or obstacles for development is subsidies. Rich/developed/the North nations pay subsidies for their producers to export their products or just for them to stay in bussiness. This way producers can keep the prizes low and dump the product for example rice to poor countries making it impossible for local farmers to compete thus keeping them poor or even worsening their situation. Edward Gresser gives a good example of this with olive oil:
The olive tree grows all around the Mediterranean, and should bring income and rural employment to Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon – but it doesn’t. Each year the European Union spends $2.5 billion or so to supplement the incomes of growers in Spain, Italy and Greece. The subsidy, at more than two dollars for every dollar of global olive oil trade, keeps Moroccan and Lebanese oil out of American supermarkets, even as tariffs and quotas limit oil sales to Europe.
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has stated:
“By blocking value-added products, our partners in the world kill the following opportunities: ability to earn more foreign currency, employment, enhancing the purchasing power of the population, expanding the tax base for the governments of Africa and the chance to transform African societies from the backward, pre-industrial states – in which they are now – to modern ones by building a middle class and a skilled working class.”
The WTO delegates in Hong Kong last December, were in charge with an agricultural trade reform plan, which was designed to open markets for farmers and in particular to cut the subsidies, tariffs and quotas of the WTO’s wealthy members. They were not able to do this. Export subsidies will continue untill 2013 and after this countries can simply increase the WTO-legal subsidies, domestic subsidies to keep the “bussiness as usual”. Doesn’t sound like free trade that rich nations have been after, does it? Another proverb says: “Don’t talk the talk, if you can’t walk the walk”!
Future plans of rich nations is to pressure developing nations to open their markets in services (finance, telecommunications, distribution, education, postal services, computer and business services etc.). Road side food stalls and small bussiness competing with hypermarkets, right.
Further reading:
Africa Needs Fair Trade, Not Charity
Fate of the Farmers in Balance
QUICK GUIDE: THE DISASTER THAT IS THE HK MINISTERIAL DECLARATION
DECEPTION – EU to Still Provide 55 Billion Euros in Export Supports Even if Export Subsidies are Cut
01.03.06
Vietnam’s Road to Capitalism
Very interesting article about The Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the reform of the country, launched in 1986. From communism to WTO, how did that happen? -YaleGlobal
Somali Government Set to Relocate
Somalia is the only country without a government. This has been so since 1991, when the war between rival clans started. Somalia got a president in 2004, elected by a transitional parliament (based in Kenya as I recall). The parliament and president Yusuf have since moved to Somalia but haven’t been able to work in the capital Mogadishu. This is due to their safety;
“The prime minister has twice survived assassination attempts when he has visited the capital for talks.”
The interim government and rivals have held talks in yemen are close to making a deal that would allow the government to relocate itself to Mogadishu. BBC -has the full story.
