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Credit: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)

By Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Oct 6 2021 (IPS)

It’s bad enough that mainstream news outlets routinely call the Pentagon budget a “defense” budget. But the fact that progressives in Congress and even many antiwar activists also do the same is an indication of how deeply the mindsets of the nation’s warfare state are embedded in the political culture of the United States.

The misleading first name of the Defense Department doesn’t justify using “defense” as an adjective for its budget. On the contrary, the ubiquitous use of phrases like “defense budget” and “defense spending” — virtually always written with a lower-case “d” — reinforces the false notion that equates the USA’s humongous military operations with defense.

In the real world, the United States spends more money on its military than the next 10 countries all together. And most of those countries are military allies. What about military bases in foreign countries?

The U.S. currently has 750, while Russia has about two dozen and China has one. The author of the landmark book “Base Nation,” American University professor David Vine, just co-wrote a report that points out “the United States has at least three times as many overseas bases as all other countries combined.”

Those U.S. bases abroad “cost taxpayers an estimated $55 billion annually.”

As this autumn began, Vine noted that President Biden is “perpetuating the United States’ endless wars” in nations including “Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Yemen” while escalating “war-like tensions with China with a military buildup with Australia and the UK.”

All this is being funded via a “defense” budget? Calling George Orwell.

As Orwell wrote in a 1946 essay, political language “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” In 2021, the hot air blowing at gale force through U.S. mass media is so continuous that we’re apt to scarcely give it a second thought.

But the euphemisms would hardly mean anything to those in faraway countries for whom terrifying and lethal drone attacks and other components of U.S. air wars are about life and death rather than political language.

You might consider the Pentagon’s Aug. 29 killing of 10 Afghan civilians including seven children with a drone attack to be a case of “respectable” murder, or negligent homicide, or mere “collateral damage.”

Likewise, you could look at numbers like 244,124 — a credible low-end estimate of the number of civilians directly killed during the “war on terror” in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq — and consider them to be mere data points or representing individuals whose lives are as precious as yours.

But at any rate, from the vantage point of the United States, it’s farfetched to claim that the billions of dollars expended for ongoing warfare in several countries are in a budget that can be legitimately called “defense.”

Until 1947, the official name of the U.S. government’s central military agency was the War Department. After a two-year interim brand (with the clunky name National Military Establishment), it was renamed the Department of Defense in 1949.

As it happened, that was the same year when Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” appeared, telling of an always-at-war totalitarian regime with doublespeak slogans that included “War Is Peace.”

Today, the Department of Defense remains an appropriately capitalized proper noun. But the department’s official name doesn’t make it true. To call its massive and escalating budget a “defense” budget is nothing less than internalized corruption of language that undermines our capacities to think clearly and talk straight.

While such corroded language can’t be blamed for the existence of sloppy thinking and degraded discourse, it regularly facilitates sloppy thinking and degraded discourse.

Let’s blow away the linguistic fog. The Pentagon budget is not a “defense” budget.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

 

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As schools slowly reopen in parts of Afghanistan, it is important to ensure that both girls and boys are able to return safely. Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August, they have made some commitments to uphold human rights. However, their subsequent actions have “sadly contradicted” those promises, the UN rights chief told a side event of the General Assembly on 21 September 2021. Credit: UNICEF

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 6 2021 (IPS)

When the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan receives the political blessings of the 193-member General Assembly– and eventually inherits its seat at the United Nations– it will have to ultimately prove its credentials as a member of good standing by adhering to the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) – as all member states do.

But judging by Taliban’s crackdown on women’s rights since it took office after the US pullout on August 30, it has given no indication it will abandon its longstanding policy of repressing women – and have barred them from schools, universities and workplaces.

The Taliban’s UN membership will undeniably give legitimacy to the only – or perhaps one of the few – member states which is ruled by an insurgent group once designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.

But a lingering question remains: will the Taliban, as a member state, honour all those UN treaties and international conventions—guaranteeing both human rights and women’s rights—signed or ratified by the former US-backed Afghan government over the last 20 years?

“With regard to accepting and honouring international human rights Treaties and Conventions– based on what we know today and the public declarations they have made, as opposed to practices on the ground– I would speculate they may declare their observation of Human Rights Treaties ‘within the context of Sharia Law’ which, of course, they will not define,” says one former senior UN official, who served in Afghanistan during the former Taliban regime (1996-2001).

Dr Palitha Kohona, a former Chief of the UN Treaty Section, set the record straight, when he told IPS: “Afghanistan is a member state of the UN, not the Taliban. Being a member state of the UN does not imply that Afghanistan is a party to all UN treaties. Only to those treaties to which it has, as a State, become party. The act of becoming party to a treaty is a conscious, well considered and deliberate act of a State.”

Afghanistan, as a State, will continue to be bound by the treaties to which the State of Afghanistan is a party, he said.

“When a State becomes party to a convention/treaty, the government becomes bound by it too. If Afghanistan is already party to any Human Rights treaty, including women’s rights and child rights, the government of Afghanistan will be bound by it,” he noted.

And there is no squiggling out of such an obligation, declared Dr Kohona, a former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations.

Meanwhile, one of the Articles of the UDHR, described as a milestone document in the history of human rights, points out everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, says the UDHR, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

The former Taliban government was described as an oppressive regime that denied some of the basic civil liberties to Afghans and provided a safe haven for terrorists of all political stripes while it also rejected a demand from the UN and the international community to name an inclusive cabinet with representation of women.

“Those who hoped for, and urged for, inclusivity will be disappointed,” said Deborah Lyons, UN Secretary-General’s Representative for Afghanistan.

“There are no women in the names listed,” she said last month.

Lyons also pointed out that the (new) Taliban government in Kabul “contains many of the same figures who were part of the Taliban leadership from 1996-2001”.

Of the 33 appointments, she said, many are on the UN’s sanctions list, including the prime minister, two deputy prime ministers and the foreign minister.

According to published reports, the Taliban has not only dismantled the Ministry for Women’s Affairs but also replaced it with the Ministry for Vice and Virtue, a notorious religious police of a by-gone era known to ruthlessly crack down on women who were seen in public without male relatives.

Dr Kohona, meanwhile, said the current Taliban authorities are not recognised by any other state. In the circumstances could they be considered to be the legitimate successor government to the previous authorities?

For all practical purposes, he pointed out, the Taliban appears to be in full control, including of the territory of Afghanistan and its population.

“The Taliban’s writ applies through most of the country. These elements are critical for the recognition of a government by the international community.”

Already Afghanistan’s neighbours have begun the process of working with the new authorities. Reports suggest that Afghanistan has been invited to join the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, said Dr Kohona.

“Afghanistan’s strategic location and its hoard of precious minerals tempted many before. One can assume that it would only a matter of time before the new authorities are recognised by other important states”.

Recognition of the new authorities in Kabul and efforts to pressure them into abiding by global human rights standards might also open up another can of worms, he argued.

The Afghan authorities could also turn round and seek accountability for the human rights violations and war crimes committed by the occupying NATO and other forces. Allegations abound, he said.

Australia has publicly acknowledged and apologised for the egregious acts committed in Afghanistan by its Special Forces. Many allegations relating to the troops of other occupying forces have also been made, said Dr Kohona.

Addressing the UN’s Third Committee on October 4, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Afghanistan’s human rights situation is “deeply worrisome”.

The Taliban said it will build a more inclusive political order which respects the rights of all persons. But early actions have been inconsistent with those commitments.

“We welcome the UN’s efforts to monitor and report on the human rights situation moving forward. We will judge the Taliban by its actions, not its words.,” she declared.

Meanwhile, the Taliban—represented by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan—last month named its own Ambassador Suhail Shaheen to replace the outgoing office holder Ghulam Isaczai –even as it unsuccessfully staked its claim for a speaking slot at the high-level session, which ended September 25, and a seat at the UN General Assembly.

So far, it failed in all its efforts.

Perhaps the most significant is its attempt to capture a UN seat which has to be approved, first, by the nine-member UN Credentials committee comprising Russia, China, the US, Sweden, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Chile, Bhutan and the Bahamas, and subsequently ratified by the 193-member General Assembly.

A tall order but it is likely to clear both hurdles—sooner or later. As of now, the Credential Committee is expected to meet sometime in November.

Asked about the status of Afghanistan’s membership, the President of the General Assembly Abdulla Shahid told reporters last week: “The General Assembly, as the universal body, makes the decision”.

So, it will be the 193 countries who will decide,” he said, pointing out that the Credentials Committee will review and submit its findings and then the entire 193 member countries “will have the opportunity to decide.

“This has been the past practice and it’s been done many, many times”, he declared.

 

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By External Source
GENEVA / NEW YORK, Oct 5 2021 (IPS-Partners)

On this World Teachers’ Day, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, announced it has reached more than 4.6 million children and adolescents (48% of whom are girls) with quality education in more than 30 of the worst humanitarian crises around the world.

The Fund’s new Annual Results Report ‘Winning the Human Race,’ stresses the importance of investing in the teaching force to support and promote quality learning outcomes for crisis-affected girls and boys. To date, ECW has recruited or financially supported close to 150,000 teachers (including over 41,000 women) and provided over 2.6 million children and adolescents with individual learning materials in emergency contexts and protracted crises.

ECW’s COVID-19 education in emergency response also helped an additional 29.2 million vulnerable girls and boys and 310,000 teachers living in crises and emergency settings. This included support to distance-learning solutions and various integrated messages and products to ensure continuing education and protect the health and wellbeing of children, teachers and their communities through the pandemic.

Despite these achievements, ECW’s report underlines that COVID-19 acted as a risk-multiplier, not only creating new challenges but also amplifying existing risks for the most vulnerable groups, particularly girls and children and adolescents with disabilities.

“For millions of marginalized children and adolescents already caught in armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate change-induced disasters and protracted crises, COVID-19 hit as a ‘crisis within an already ongoing crisis’,” said UN Special Envoy for Global Education, The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown. “An entire generation in emergencies and protracted crisis faces irreversible loss. Among them, an estimated 20 million displaced girls, particularly adolescent girls, are at risk. The Annual Results Report 2020 is a living testimony of how we can resist the threats and stand greater chances of winning the human race. World leaders must step up and ensure adequate financing for education dedicated to all girls, children and adolescents support by our collective mission.”

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the importance of education to the fore. Today more than ever, education is the key to unlocking opportunity for the next generation: it kick-starts economic recovery, innovation, and climate action, and provides a safety net and lifeline for children and adolescents living in crisis-affected areas.

At the same time, the pandemic also negatively affected both overseas development assistance (ODA) and humanitarian funding for education. Some donor countries have already started shifting their budgets away from aid to domestic priorities. Meanwhile funding requirements for education in humanitarian appeals have significantly increased – from $1 billion in 2019 to $1.4 billion in 2020 – further widening the funding gap for the sector.

“COVID-19 has compounded the effects of armed conflict, instability, climate-related disasters and forced displacement from Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, to the Sahel, Ethiopia and Venezuela – to name but a few of the crises where ECW is working with partners to fulfill the right of every girl and boy to a safe, quality education,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait. “We can win the human race provided that we are ready to invest in it and ensure that these children and adolescents access an inclusive 12 years of quality education. This is an investment in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, an investment in peace, an investment in our future, and an investment in our universal human rights and our shared humanity.”

Key Trends

While nearly all children worldwide have been affected by school closures due to COVID-19, those living in the poorest countries have been disproportionately so, according to the report. Since March 2020, schools in crisis-affected countries – where ECW prioritizes its investments to ensure that no child is left behind – have closed for an average of 32 days more than in other countries. Students in South Sudan, for example, lost 16% of their schooling over a lifetime, compared to 3% for students in countries of Europe and Central Asia.

The ECW report shows that this learning loss will only aggravate the pre-pandemic rate of learning inequalities, particularly affecting the 53% of children in low- and middle-income countries who, by the age of 10, cannot read or understand a simple text.

Aside from the COVID-19 pandemic, the report also underscores multiplying risks for crisis-impacted children and adolescents.

The global climate crisis is having a significant impact on the well-being and educational opportunities of children and adolescents, with weather-related hazards such as storms and floods, displacing over 30 million people in 2020. With scientific consensus that extreme weather events will increase in severity and frequency, even more children will be put at risk.

In times of disaster, children usually account for almost half of those affected. Globally, more than a half-billion children live in areas with an extremely high flood rate and 160 million live in high or extremely high drought severity zones.

Forced displacement of people, including children, due to conflicts increased significantly in 2020, with ten countries producing three-quarters of the world’s refugees. In addition, there were 40.5 million new internal displacements in 2020 – connected in part to conflict, climate change, poverty and insecurity – the highest number on record.

Schools continue to be targeted in attacks. Between 2017 and 2019, there were more than 11,000 reported attacks on schools, universities, students and education personnel.

A call to action

Since its inception in 2016, ECW has mobilized US$828.3 million through the ECW Trust Fund, and helped leverage with its partners US$1 billion worth of programmes aligned with ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programmes in 10 countries.

“Working together with our partners, the scope of our collective achievements is unequivocal: less than 5 years into existence, ECW has demonstrated its proof of concept through concrete results. I call on world leaders, the private sector and our global community to urgently and generously support Education Cannot Wait in reaching the millions of children that are at risk of falling through the cracks,” said Sherif.

#ECWResults
• Total reach: ECW’s investments in holistic education programmes for crisis-affected girls and boys have reached 4.6 million children and adolescents (48% of whom are girls), with a focus on those left furthest behind: refugees (38%), internally displaced children (16.4%), and of host community children and adolescents and other vulnerable populations (45.6%). In addition, shorter and more targeted COVID-19 interventions aimed at continuing education and keeping children and adolescents safe from the pandemic reached a total of 29.2 million girls and boys in 2020 alone.
• Increased access to education: 96% of ECW-supported programmes increased access to education for crisis-affected children and adolescents. In Uganda, for example, the gross enrolment ratio of refugee children grew steadily from 72% in 2017 to 79% in 2020.
• Strengthening equity and gender equality: 94% of ECW-supported programmes show improvement in gender parity in access to education. Girls represent 48% of all children reached through ECW’s investments since inception, and 40% of teachers recruited or financially supported through ECW’s funding in 2020 are women. The percentage of children with disabilities reached grew from 0.2% since inception to 1.3% in 2020 across ECW’s programme portfolio.
• Increased continuity and sustainability of education: By the end of 2020, ECW had cumulatively reached some 275,000 children (51% girls) with early-childhood or pre-primary education interventions since its inception. The share of children reached with secondary education across ECW’s programme portfolio increased from 9% in 2019 to 13% in 2020.
• Improved learning and skills: Since ECW’s inception nearly 70,000 teachers (48% female) have been trained through regular non-COVID-19 programming. A total of 2.6 million teaching and learning materials were provided to children and adolescents (47% to girls). Learning outcome measurement has also expanded to an increasing number of ECW grants.
• Safe and protective learning environment: In 2020, ECW’s partners increased access to water and sanitation facilities in 2,225 learning spaces and provided some 3,100 children with safe transportation mechanisms to and from school. In 2020 remote mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) interventions for children, teachers, and caregivers were undertaken, and more than 19,500 teachers (54% female) were trained on MHPSS. ECW investments supported children with school feeding programmes in Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Sahel region.

 

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Excerpt:

Building on its innovative model that has already reached +4.6 million children & adolescents in the world’s worst humanitarian crises, Education Cannot Wait calls for urgent, bold investments in education in emergency programmes to avoid irreversible loss for entire generations.

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the EU, the U.S. (beginning under Biden) ) and others have been campaigning for governments to end their financing for new overseas coal-fired projects. Credit: Bigstock.

By Philippe Benoit
PARIS, Oct 5 2021 (IPS)

President Xi announced last month that China is stopping its financing for new coal-fired power plants overseas. With this announcement from Beijing, the governments of the world’s largest economies have now achieved a consensus to halt their overseas funding of coal plants in developing countries, thereby advancing global efforts to reduce future carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Energized by this success on climate, these governments should now turn their efforts to mobilizing the massive financing required to build the clean power projects that the developing world still needs to fight poverty.

Globally, nearly 30% of the energy sector’s CO2 emissions come from coal-fired power plants.  Even as various developed countries moved to reduce their own coal use to lower emissions domestically, new coal power plants were being proposed across the developing world, often with financing from China under its massive Belt and Road Initiative.

The EU, the U.S. (beginning under Biden) ) and others have been campaigning for governments to end their financing for new overseas coal-fired projects. China’s announcement last month, following on similar ones by South Korea and Japan (as well as the G-7) earlier this year, represents the culmination of a successful international campaign against this financing

As China, as well as notably Japan and South Korea, funded coal plants abroad (cumulatively providing 90% of overseas public sector financing), climate specialists raised the alarm that these new plants would threaten global emissions reduction efforts.

Given these concerns, the EU, the U.S. (beginning under Biden) ) and others have been campaigning for governments to end their financing for new overseas coal-fired projects. China’s announcement last month, following on similar ones by South Korea and Japan (as well as the G-7) earlier this year, represents the culmination of a successful international campaign against this financing.

Even though there are other sources of financing for coal power plants (by some estimates, substantially larger than China’s), the decisions by Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul, as well as the parallel international effort among private banks and other financial institutions, will significantly slow new coal power investments in the developing world.

For example, it has been estimated that China’s new commitment could impact 44 power projects in Asia and Africa, resulting in a cut of $50 billion in investment.  Moreover, the U.S. recently announced that it would oppose any new coal-based projects by multilateral development banks (MDBs), shutting off another source of potential financing.

And yet this success presents its own challenges, at least for poorer countries that were looking to benefit from the additional electricity these coal plants would provide.  For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) foresees that Africa’s electricity generation will need to more than double over the next 20 years under a business-as-usual case, and more than triple under a high development scenario.

To achieve this high development scenario, Africa will need to add about 700 gigawatts in new plants, which is nearly three times the continent’s existing installed generating capacity.  Similarly, the IEA projects that the countries of the ASEAN region (such as Indonesia and Vietnam) will in the aggregate need to invest $350 billion in the power sector between 2025 and 2030 to further their economic development, a figure that rises to $490 billion under the Agency’s  low-carbon scenario.

But will poorer countries be able to mobilize the financing for these electricity investments, especially as overseas financing for new coal plants disappears?

The U.S. and China have both recently announced their intention to increase funding to help developing countries meet the climate challenge, with Biden looking to double the U.S.’s annual contribution to $11.4 billion and Xi coupling his decision to end overseas financing for coal plants with a pledge to step up China’s support for green and low-carbon investments in developing countries.

Unfortunately, there are concerns that poorer countries will nevertheless be left wanting, especially as previous pledges to provide them financing have failed to fully materialize, notably the $100 billion per year in climate finance that developed countries committed to mobilize by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries.

To avoid this outcome and enable poorer countries to obtain the additional electricity they need, the successful diplomatic efforts that have gone into eliminating public funding for overseas coal projects need to be matched, and even exceeded, by a drive to boost funding for clean power plants.

This should not only involve increasing flows from the large development finance institutions of the U.S., China, the EU, Japan, etc. and from their other overseas investment agencies, but also mobilizing more private sector investment in developing countries, both foreign and domestic.

Non-traditional funders (including private foundations) also have a role to play.   In addition, as the U.S. moves to block any coal projects and severely curtail other MDB investments in fossil fuel-based electricity, it and other wealthy nations should increase their shareholder contributions to these banks to increase lending to developing countries for clean electricity.

The rationale supporting these efforts is not only that the U.S., China, the EU, Japan, and South Korea are the world’s largest economies (representing over two thirds of global GDP), but also that they themselves continue to rely on coal plants to power their own economic growth.  These coal plants, in turn, are generating large amounts of emissions that are using up the common carbon budget and leaving less room for electricity-related emissions from poorer countries.

For example, in 2019, 65% of China’s electricity came from coal-fired power plants that generated 4.9 gigatons in CO2 emissions (GtCO2), while the U.S. emitted 1.0 GtCO2 and the EU 0.5 GtCO2 from these plants.  By comparison, all of Africa’s coal-fired power plants produced less than 0.3 GtCO2.

As a result, there are also important equity considerations which justify stronger action by these wealthier countries to support clean power investments in poorer ones.  While many also point to the need for wealthier nations to reduce their own domestic coal emissions, the focus of this article is not on how these countries choose to run their national power systems, but rather on what poorer countries need and how wealthier ones can help.

As President Biden has repeatedly remarked, “climate change poses an existential threat to our future.” Ending investment in new overseas coal-fired plants will help to address this danger, for the benefit of both rich and poor.  But poverty is also an existential threat, albeit one that does not imperil everyone. Rather it is a life-threatening menace principally aimed at the poor of the developing world. It is also one which wealthier countries can help to counter.

To fight poverty, the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America need a lot more electricity.  In the interest of climate, wealthy countries have succeeded in cutting off coal financing to these regions.  These wealthy countries now should build off this success by carrying out an even more ambitious poverty alleviation program funding clean power across the developing world.

 

Philippe Benoit has over 25 years of experience working in international energy affairs, including prior management positions at the World Bank and International Energy Agency. He is currently Managing Director-Energy and Sustainability at Global Infrastructure Advisory Services 2050.  

 

By Daud Khan and Leila Yasmine Khan
ROME and AMSTERDAM, Oct 5 2021 (IPS)

The USA and its allies have repeatedly stated that promoting women’s rights was one of the key reasons they were in Afghanistan. The US military top brass, in a letter to marines stated that they were in Afghanistan “for the liberty of young Afghan girls, women, boys, and men who want the same individual freedoms we enjoy as Americans”.

Daud Khan

Post-war, women’s rights are now among the conditions for improved relations. For example, it is a one of the conditions for release by the US of US$9 billion of Afghan assets. Similarly, the EU has made also women’s rights one of the conditions of engagement with the new Afghan Government.

There is also much talk in the western press of how the new Government is trampling or women’s rights – girls are not allowed to go to school, working women are being told to stay home, and demonstrations by women are put down brutally. There is also much discussion of the fact that there are no women in the new Government. The position of the US and its allies, and the apparent intransigence of the Taliban, seems to suggest a long stalemate which will bring additional misery to ordinary Afghans.

However, there is also a second narrative on women in Afghanistan that is emerging. The starting point for this alternative narrative is that the vast majority of Afghan women live in rural areas; and have seen their suffering increase many fold during the 20 years of the war. The bombings, the killings, the arbitrary violence by warlords, some of who were allied with US forces, were what defined their daily existence. These rural women saw few, if any, benefits of the efforts by donors and aid agencies to improve living conditions. Corruption siphoned off much of the money and what little did get to the rural areas did not make any significant improvement in public services such as health, education or water supplies. For these women the return of the Taliban means, above all, a cessation of violence and a return to a rule of law – however flawed it may be.

This alternative narrative also points out that the women “who want the same individual freedoms we enjoy as Americans” are a small minority living in Kabul. Moreover, the freedoms they had under US occupation – to wear jeans, play football or cricket – are alien to Afghan society and traditional values. Hence losing such “rights” are quite irrelevant to the much of the country.

Leila Yasmine Khan

The two narratives lead to different courses of action. For those who ascribe to the first, it provides a moral justification for using all possible leverage to get the Talban to reverse their current positions on women’s rights, as well as on many other aspects of government. Moreover, it justifies suspending development projects, minimizing humanitarian aid, and even freezing Afghan assets – money which belongs to the Afghan people.

For those to who the second narrative holds more appeal, the ceasing of conflict and the departure of the foreign troops were the most important events for Afghanistan. From here onwards, the Afghan people have to decide for themselves what social mores and traditions they want to follow.

And, if they want to change, it has to be at the speed and pace of their own choosing. The international community which has a large responsibility for the misery and mayhem of the last decades should focus on repairing and improving infrastructure such as roads and irrigation; ensuring supplies of essential goods and services including food, water, fuel, health services and electricity; and creating the institutional structure and the trained manpower for the administration of public services such as administration, justice and policing.

Both narratives, as well as the actions deriving from it, are flawed.

Whatever geopolitical or economic interests drove the war, it is disingenuous for the US and allies to say that they were in Afghanistan for 20 years to help the Afghans and in particular Afghan women. The war has cost the US taxpayer US$2 trillion most of which went to the defense contracts with some crumbs to the corrupt Afghan Government officials. Given an average Afghan family size of seven, the US$ 2 trillion spent on the war is equivalent to US$350,000 per family. If even a fraction of this if had been invested properly it would have transformed lives – but this never happened. Now after 20 years of war, to impose further pain on the Afghans in the name of women’s rights seems heartless. Particularly galling is the freezing of Afghan assets in western banks at the time when the country desperately needs this money.

A laissez faire approach towards the new Government is, however, is equally callous. Women’s rights are not just about dressing as one likes, about participating in sports or wearing a veil in public. It is also about giving the right to be educated; to aspire to any job or career they wish; to live without repression; and have to freedom to move, to think and to speak without fear or hindrance.

The fact that 80% of Afghan girls don’t have schools that they can go to, jobs to which they can aspire, or the time, energy or money for sports or recreation, does not negate the rights of the 20% who do have some of these opportunities.

The countries in the region with influence in Afghanistan – countries such as China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey – must not turn a blind eye to women’s rights. On the contrary, they should use all the leverage they have with the Afghan Government to respect women’s rights be it for those who live in Kabul, be it for those who live in the most remote areas.

Daud Khan works as consultant and advisor for various Governments and international agencies. He has degrees in Economics from the LSE and Oxford – where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology. He lives partly in Italy and partly in Pakistan.

Leila Yasmine Khan is an independent writer and editor based in the Netherlands. She has Master’s degrees in Philosophy of Cognition and one in Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric – both from the University of Amsterdam – as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Rome (Roma Tre).

 

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Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, visited a refugee site in the village of Modale, located 30 kms from Yakoma, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Courtesy: Education Cannot Wait

By Alison Kentish
NEW YORK/GENEVA, Oct 5 2021 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the face of education globally, but for children in emergencies and protracted crises, its blow has been particularly devastating.

Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund that brings teaching and learning to children and adolescents in emergencies and crises, has said that 2020 was ‘exceptionally challenging.’

ECW released its Annual Results Report, Winning the Human Race today, October 5, World Teachers’ Day.

“The pandemic acted as a risk multiplier, as it not only created new challenges but also amplified existing challenges and risks for the most vulnerable groups, especially girls and children and adolescents with disabilities,” the report stated.

“With COVID-19 upending entire societies and socio-economic systems, 2020 is remembered as a uniquely challenging year in modern history. While close to 90 percent of learners worldwide saw their education disrupted – with nearly one year lost in schooling for one billion children – those who were already marginalized and left furthest behind in crisis contexts are paying a heavier price,” said UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown.

“An entire generation faces irreversible loss. Among them, an estimated 20 million displaced girls, particularly adolescent girls, are at risk of permanently dropping out of school, not only losing the opportunity to learn, but also the protection that education offers against gender-based violence, child marriage, sexual exploitation, and human trafficking.”

For the past nearly 5 years, Education Cannot Wait has worked tirelessly to minimize disruption in learning for close to 5 million children in some of the world’s most dire emergency and crisis zones in countries like Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine, and Yemen.

“Without immediate additional significant financial investments to support education in emergencies and protracted crises, entire generations will be lost. COVID-19 has compounded the already existing devastation of conflicts, climate-related disasters, and forced displacement from Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, to the Sahel, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Venezuela – to name but a few of the 38 crises where ECW is working with partners to deliver on the right of every girl and boy to a safe, quality education,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait.

As the world honors teachers at a challenging time for education, the latest ECW report is confirming that the global fund has recruited close to 150,000 teachers to help fill the gaps in education for children in crucial crisis settings.

ECW ensures that the teachers have access to resources and receive training in education in emergencies and protracted crises (EiEPC). The educators are also trained in the provision of mental and psycho-social support, gender, and inclusion.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, ECW acted proactively and decisively. Soon after the World Health Organization’s March 11, 2020 pandemic declaration, ECW initiated 85 grant packages in 32 countries. According to the annual report, ‘US$23.0 million was mobilized from the First Emergency Response (FER) reserve within 21 days, and a further US$22.4 million was approved in July 2020 – a total of US$45.4 million.’

It was the fund’s most rapid disbursement of funds and a concerted effort to protect the world’s children furthest behind. Over 29 million children and adolescents benefitted, with girls making up 51 percent of that figure.

With Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong opportunities for all as a guide, ECW has pivoted through the pandemic; scaling up resources and support for distance-learning amid school closures, promoting COVID-19 protocols, and supplying health and hygiene products.

In some countries, like Afghanistan, home visits ensured that the pandemic did not derail children’s learning.

In Yemen, ECW partner UNICEF donated electronic learning materials to over 330,000 children.

In Iraq, ECW and its partners embraced technology and used applications such as WhatsApp and Viber to communicate, send lessons, and support over 5,000 students.

Children in protracted crises in Afghanistan, Chad, Palestine, and Uganda received health and hygiene lessons, while emergency funds supported a range of continuing education programs.

ECW credits its rapid response and impact during the pandemic to the flexibility of the fund, and the resilience of its partners, communities, and the children and adolescents its serves. However, interrupted education and learning in the face of armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate, and food crises, and a pandemic pushing millions more into poverty, financing will remain a major challenge.

“If we are going to advance in our quest for the human race, our global community must play a pivotal role in making the notion of our ‘shared humanity’ a reality. This means providing these children with at least 12 years of quality education. This is an investment in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, an investment in peace, an investment in our future, and an investment in our universal human rights,” Sherif said.

ECW’s vision is to bring quality and inclusive education to at least two-thirds of children in the world’s most acute and urgent crisis regions.

According to the report, ECW has raised US$828.3 million through the ECW Trust Fund, and with its partners, helped leverage US$1 billion worth of programs aligned with ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programmes in close to 18 countries.

The fund has been a lifeline for millions of children in the grips of war, displacement, humanitarian and emergency crises. The fund has proven that even in the world’s worst crisis-affected countries, children and adolescents do not have to be left behind. On the contrary, they should, according to ECW, be the first in line for empowerment and global support.

“Working together with our partners, the scope of our collective achievements is unequivocal: less than 5 years into existence, ECW has demonstrated its proof of concept through concrete results for crisis-affected children and youth. I call on world leaders, the private sector, and our global community to urgently and generously support Education Cannot Wait in reaching the millions of children that are already falling through the cracks,” said Sherif.

 

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By Raghav Gaiha and Shantanu Mathur
NEW DELHI, India, Oct 5 2021 (IPS)

There is broad consensus that realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change require a transformative agenda for agriculture and food systems. In this context, the importance of mobilizing more investments and aligning them to sustainable development and inclusive rural transformation objectives, is widely acknowledged.

The gaps in investment
Estimates of investment required for achieving these goals show that the financing needs are considerable although the appraisals of incremental financing requirements differ significantly.

Raghav Gaiha

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Program (WFP) estimate that US$265 billion per year is needed to reach “zero hunger” by 2030 (SAFIN, 2021).

In 2019, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimated total investment needs for food and agriculture at US$ 480 billion to achieve related SDGs in developing countries, with actual investment at US$220 billion, thus leaving a gap of US$260 billion.

These estimates suggest that transforming food systems to deliver healthy people, a healthy planet, and a healthy economy will require US$300 – US$350 billion extra per year over the next decade.

The swift and massive shock of the coronavirus pandemic has plunged the global economy into a severe contraction. The prospects of economic revival are highly uncertain and downside risks are predominant. Development finance gap is thus likely to worsen.

Towards meeting the financing gaps
To meet these needs, finance will be required from all sources to work in alignment with the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement. The extension of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) through to the end of 2021 led by the World Bank – will help most developing countries to focus on domestic priorities including getting SDG delivery back on track.

A Common Framework for Debt Treatments beyond the DSSI is in the making, while some International Financial Institutions (IFI) are expecting historical highs in their replenishments (IFAD, IDA, AfDB). In addition, there is a call for a new general allocation of USD 650 billion (IMF Special Drawing Rights) to be channelled to benefit vulnerable countries.

Shantanu Mathur

A Role for Public Development Banks
Public Development Banks (PDBs) have considerable untapped potential here, as financial institutions with state capital have a mandate to pursue developmental goals, (as opposed to solely commercial objectives in their bank operations. PDBs are distinct from State-owned commercial banks; they also differ in their mandates and instruments (World Bank Group & World Federation of Development Financing Institutions, 2018, IFAD, 2020, SAFIN, 2021). Non-sector specific PDBs have significant portfolios in agriculture or in other activities within food systems (e.g. in financing rural infrastructure, agro- processing, or other).

Yet other PDBs have a primary focus on agriculture but their portfolio includes other sectors. This is based on the notion that supporting sustainable small-scale farming through inclusive agri-food value chain development is between two to three times more effective as a means to eradicate poverty than other sectors.

Some PDBs target small-scale enterprises including producers, while others focus their portfolios on larger agribusinesses or larger investments, for instance, in agricultural infrastructure and markets. This diversity is key to understanding the role of different types of PDBs in advancing the 2030 Agenda.

The overarching goal, however, is to address market failures, with counter-cyclical roles, and greater risk tolerance than what other financial institutions have. Given their public mandate and close proximity to public policy and governance institutions, PDBs can play a catalytic role supporting accessible, affordable and usable financial services for rural poor people socially, environmentally and economically sustainable outcomes across food systems.

PDBs (which are already responsible for over two-thirds of formal financing for agriculture), can facilitate a change of course across the financial ecosystem. This includes mobilizing sustainable and green finance, issuing investment products, structuring blended solutions and public-private financing schemes.

At the same time, adopting digital solutions across their business operations, and delivering a suite of financial services and products to different types of clients in food systems – including women, youth, SMEs and smallholders. It is known that private investment in agriculture and/or in other activities within food systems is often constrained by many risks associated with poor infrastructure and economic returns. PDBs are capable of increasing their capacity to crowd in, de-risk, and help align commercial finance to the SDGs and to climate-related goals such as those set in the Paris agreement.

Mobilizing catalytic investments
Stimulating responsible private investment and financial innovations – such as through blended finance – are required to improve food security and nutrition and inclusive rural transformation, and to address the post pandemic gap in ODA. UNCTAD has estimated that around 75 per cent of the gap could be financed, in principle, by the private sector – with the potential to mobilize US$195 billion annually. PDBs are actively engaged in platforms where private investors, businesses, philanthropists and other entities are investing to fund SDG aligned projects.

In their Communiqué (Matera, June 2021) the G20 Development Ministers have welcomed the establishment of a “Finance in Commons” Working Group on Financing Sustainable Food Systems, led by IFAD, that is meant to bring together PDBs, recognizing the critical role of the private sector to build upon public efforts to improve agri-food systems.

As a concrete action – emerging out of the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) is the advent of a Coalition for Action to launch a PDB global Platform, with focus on increasing investments in inclusive and sustainable food systems chains, for accelerated learning, innovation, mobilization and deployment of capital and services.

Going forward, closing the financing gap will require strong international cooperation and political will to enhance the fiscal space to ensure sustainable domestic financing. Multilateral Development Banks can work with PDBs and test/validate sustainability-related financial instruments, encompassing (sustainability/green) bonds, funds and other investment vehicles aimed at advancing sustainable development objectives. This will play an important role in mobilizing much-needed finance to reduce the SDG financing gaps in developing countries and become possible long-term financing instruments of international and national public financial institutions.

Raghav Gaiha is Research Affiliate, Population Aging Research Centre, University of Pennsylvania, USA, & (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK; Shantanu Mathur is Lead Adviser & Senior Partnership Officer, Global & Multilateral Engagement International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
(The views are personal)

 

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Prayer flags during the COVID-19 pandemic. Empowerment platform Fuzia is concerned with their audience's mental health. Credit: Ankita Gupta Pramanik

By Fairuz Ahmed
New York, Oct 5 2021 (IPS)

Telemedicine and health-related information have experienced a massive uptake since the COVID-19 pandemic began last year. While online health services are seen as a panacea for many ills, disinformation and fake news reports have tarnished their credibility.

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2021 found that many consumers have rapidly adopted new digital behaviors during lockdowns. This has opened up new digital opportunities and highlighted the next set of challenges. Across countries, almost 73% of the population now access news via a smartphone, up from 69% in 2020. During the pandemic, governments worldwide have focused on these personal devices to communicate. Consumers now depend more and more on personal devices to read up on Government restrictions, report symptoms, book appointments for vaccines, and access news.

Research done in 12 countries indicates that 66 percent of users use one or more social networks or messaging apps for consuming, sharing, or discussing news. Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, Instagram, and WhatsApp are among the leading social media platform for user engagement and news sharing.

Nina Jain, who lives in Connecticut, USA, says she has used online health information extensively since the start of the pandemic.

“I was frantically looking from one portal to the next, trying to make sense of what is going on with the pandemic. Being a mother of five children and taking care of elderly in-laws, it was imperative to navigate well and stay prepared. Community health centers were closed in our areas, and getting appointments at the doctor’s offices was very difficult,” Jain said in an interview with IPS.

“Telephone helplines, nurses-on-call, and government sites were my go-to portals for credible health news and services online. It took me and my family a lot of convincing to make my parents, who reside in India, agree to use online portals to book appointments and get treated. As a caregiver, this was a breakthrough and much-needed adjustment.”

An article published in Fierce Healthcare says telemedicine demand is expected to grow annually by approximately 38% over the next five years. Worldwide, innovative telemedicine companies and social media platforms are stepping up to meet this trend and are increasing telemedicine’s reach and improving what it can do.

Throughout the pandemic, women empowerment platform Fuzia has been concerned about ensuring its readers have credible and up-to-date information.

Fuzia co-founder Riya Sinha says this aligns with the website’s ethos of empowerment, diversity, inclusion and supports good health and well-being in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.

“Through our community, we have begun to organize events and webinars and have tried to become a knowledge sharing and an experience-sharing platform, where real users express their concerns about menstruation, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), mental health, depression, stress, teen issues, and overall health factors,” Sinha says.

Fuzia’s co-founder Shraddha Varma agrees: “We do not want women to just be givers of care, but we also want them to be receivers of care. To actually take some time off and just listen to what the body is telling us, to not constantly feel like they deserve to suppress their voices.”

The site has more than 5 million followers. They have an active user base on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn and use its extensive global presence to create a safe and creative space for users.

Dedeepya Tatineni, a user of the platform, found herself suffering from mental health problems during the pandemic. She made use of the forum and its counselors.

“The counselors of Fuzia are really helpful. I do not feel depressed now, and I feel a lot better. Expressing myself on Fuzia has made me feel more confident and happier,” Tatineni said.

Empowerment platform Fuzia assists communities through outreach programs. Credit: Fuzia

Research has indicated that as the pandemic spread throughout the world, it caused considerable fears – the disruptions during lockdowns and its effects on livelihoods exacerbated the impact.

An article in Nature indicates that early results from studies on mental health suggest that during the pandemic, “young people rather than older young people, are most vulnerable to increased psychological distress, perhaps because their need for social interactions are stronger. Data also suggest that young women are more vulnerable than young men, and people with young children, or a previously diagnosed psychiatric disorder, are at particularly high risk for mental health problems.”

For many women around the world, wellness, in general, is perceived as a luxury. Men often get priority for healthcare. Topics like menstruation, pregnancies, female hygiene, teen and tween’s mental, physical, sexual, and emotional well-being, postpartum depression are overlooked or not discussed because they are taboo.

Women and girls too are affected by “period poverty,” where lack of access to sanitary products, menstrual hygiene education, toilets, handwashing facilities, and waste management students miss classes and stay indoors.

Menstrual health is not just a women’s issue. Globally, 2.3 billion people live without basic sanitation services, and in developing countries, only 27% of people have adequate handwashing facilities at home, according to UNICEF. Not using these facilities makes it harder for women and young girls to manage their periods safely and with dignity.

Varma and Sinha are determined that Fuzia remains committed to providing a judgment-free zone and prepared for difficult discussions about taboo topics.

• This article is a sponsored feature.

 

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President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (on screen) of Sri Lanka addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-fifth session. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Neville de Silva
LONDON, Oct 5 2021 (IPS)

Addressing the UN General Assembly last month President Gotabaya Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka raised several concerns, two that had to do with health. One concerned the health of the human race; the other the health of Planet Earth on which man struggles increasingly to survive.

It is understandable for the President to draw the world’s attention to the current pandemic that plagues the people of Sri Lanka as it does the populations of most other nations that constitute the UN family that have struggled in the last two years to overcome COVID-19 which has brought some nations almost to their knees.

As we know some countries have dealt with the spreading virus more effectively and efficiently than others because they relied on the correct professional advice and had the right people in the places instead of dilettantes with inflated egos.

The immediacy of the pandemic with its daily effects on health care and peoples’ livelihoods is seen as urgent political and health issues unlike the dangers surrounding our planet which, to many, appear light miles away while still others treat it with large doses of scepticism.

Quite rightly President Rajapaksa pointed to the dangers ahead for the survival of the planet – as underscored in the recent report of the Inter-government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — due to human activity and said that Sri Lanka, among other measures, aims to increase its forest cover significantly in the future.

What really matters is whether those on the ground — like some of our politicians and their acolytes who seem to think that saving the planet is somebody else’s responsibility but denuding the forests and damaging our eco-systems for private gain is theirs — pay heed to the president’s alarm signals that should appropriately have been sounded at least a decade ago.

But what evoked a quick response was not the call for international action to save the people from the pandemic or the planet from climate change as President Rajapaksa told the UN but what he told the UN chief Antonio Guterres at their New York meeting.

While reiterating Sri Lanka’s stance that internal issues should be resolved through domestic mechanisms what aroused interest was the president’s sudden and unexpected readiness to invite the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora scattered across the Global North and in smaller numbers elsewhere, for discussions presumably on reconciliation, accountability and other outstanding matters.

One would have thought that there would be a gush of enthusiasm from some sections of the Tamil diaspora which had previously shown an interest in being involved in a dialogue with the Sri Lanka Government over a range of issues that concern the Tamil community.

But the few reactions that have been reported from a few Tamil organisations appear lukewarm. Yes, the Non-Resident Tamils of Sri Lanka (NRTSL), a UK-based group, welcomed the President’s announcement saying that “engagement with the diaspora is particularly important at the time when multiple challenges face Sri Lanka”.

However, there was a caveat. The NRTSL is supportive of “open, transparent and sincere engagement of the government of Sri Lanka,” the organisation’s president V. Sivalingam was quoted as saying.

The better-known Global Tamil Forum (GTF) called it a “progressive move” and welcomed it. But its spokesman Suren Surenderan questioned what he called President Rajapaksa’s “sudden change of mind”.

Surendiran said that in June President Rajapaksa was due to meet the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) but that meeting was put off without a new date been fixed.

“When requests are made by democratically elected representatives of Tamil people in Sri Lanka to meet with the President, they are “deferred with flimsy excuses”, {and} now from New York he has declared that he wants to engage with us, Tamil diaspora,” Surendiran said rather dismissively in a statement.

Though the Sri Lanka Tamil diaspora consists of many organisations and groups spread across several continents there has been a studied silence from most of them, a sign that many of them are sceptical about how genuine the gesture is.

In March this year, after the UN Human Rights Council passed a highly critical resolution on Sri Lanka, the Rajapaksa government proscribed several Tamil diaspora organisations and more than 300 individuals labelling them terrorist or terrorist linked. These included Tamil advocacy organisations such as the British Tamil Forum, Global Tamil Forum, Canadian Tamil Congress, Australian Tamil Congress and the World Tamil Coordinating Committee.

Precisely seven years earlier in March, the Mahinda Rajapaksa government banned 424 persons and 16 diaspora organisations.

The problem for the present administration is that if it is intent on inviting Tamil organisations to participate in talks it would have to lift the existing bans on individuals and groups without which they are unlikely to talk with the government.

As transpired before peace talks at various times between the government and the LTTE, the Tamil groups are most likely to insist on participation as legitimate organisations untainted by bans. That is sure to be one of the key conditions, if not the most important pre-condition.

It is also evident that the Tamil diaspora is not a homogenous entity. It consists of moderate organisations that are ready to resolve the pressing issues within a unitary Sri Lanka, to those at the other end of the spectrum still loyal to the LTTE ideology and demanding a separate state.

If the Government cherry-picks the participants-particularly the ones that are more likely to collaborate with the administration, it would be seen as an attempt to drive a huge wedge in the Tamil diaspora.

That could well lead to the excluded groups strengthening their existing links with political forces in their countries of domicile including politicians in government as one sees in the UK and Canada, for instance, and Tamil councillors in other elected bodies to increase pressure on Sri Lanka externally.

That is why some Tamil commentators already brand this as a “diversionary move” to lessen the international moves against Colombo.

What would be the reactions of powerful sections of the Buddhist monks and the ultranationalist Sinhala Buddhists who strongly supported a Gotabaya presidency?.

And across the Palk Strait there are the 80 million or so Tamils in Tamil Nadu and an Indian Government watching developments with a genuine interest and concern.

Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 5 2021 (IPS)

As finance ministers and central bank governors gather next week for the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in the US capital, the first shots of a new putsch against multilateralism have been fired. The target: Kristalina Georgieva, Fund Managing Director (MD) since 2019.

Georgieva’s sins
She has tried to enhance multilateral coherence by aligning the Fund with the United Nations, as envisaged by then US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Like predecessor Christine Lagarde, the former Bank environmental economist is committed to the Sustainable Development Goals and addressing global warming.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Despite Trump administration opposition, she supported issuing IMF special drawing rights (SDRs) to help members cope with the pandemic. She thus enhanced countries’ scarce foreign exchange resources and seeks to accelerate mass vaccination to enable recovery.

Following the change at the White House in January, new US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen agreed to issuing US$650 billion of SDRs. From Bulgaria, Georgieva is appreciated by many governments – especially those with little or no clout at the Fund – for expediting efforts to cope with the pandemic.

Gaming the business
The World Bank Group’s annual Doing Business Report (DBR) has long ranked countries by how ‘investment-friendly’ they seem, especially to foreign investors. Unsurprisingly, the DB index appreciates low corporate income tax rates and weak labour protection.

The DBR has long been considered problematic, attracting many criticisms, even from within the Group. But as its most widely read and influential annual publication, it was jealously defended by management for decades with promises of reform over many years.

Middle income country governments the world over now pay consultants well to help game their DB scores and ranking. They hope to thus attract more investments, especially from abroad. With financialisation, real economic criteria declined in significance as financial market indicators became more important.

Prosecution by innuendo
The WilmerHale law firm report about the DBR to the Bank executive board is cited by London’s right-wing Economist to demand Georgieva’s head. It covers improprieties involving the 2018 and 2020 DB indices for Azerbaijan, China and Saudi Arabia.

Her heinous crime: as the senior Bank executive responsible, Georgieva failed to lower China’s already low ranking. Instead, they insist she must resign for maintaining its 2017 rank of 78 in 2018! Her nefarious act was supposedly to get China’s support for the capital increase the Bank was seeking.

But China had long advocated such a capital increase, opposed by successive US administrations before Trump. In fact, while still at the US Treasury in 2018, current Bank President David Malpass had reversed US policy, recommending a capital increase.

The case falls apart
Reporting directly to Georgieva then, now retired Bank economist Shanta Devarajan – who led the Ease of Doing Business team – insists he was never pressured by her to change data or results.

“The changes to China’s score were either correcting coding errors or judgment calls on questions where judgment was required. I was comfortable that China’s score was comparable to previous years’ (and future years’) scores. At no point did I feel I was being pressured.”

“Georgieva’s direction was to verify the China numbers, making sure that China received credit for the reforms they undertook, without compromising the integrity of Doing Business. The Bank’s lawyers left out the latter phrase.” Instead, he complains of tendentious selective reporting of what he told WilmerHale.

Political bias
Former Bank Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has characterised using the report to attack Georgieva as a ‘hatchet job’. Like Stiglitz two decades before, Paul Romer received a Nobel laureate after being forced out as Bank Chief Economist. His sin: questioning DBR’s ‘integrity’.

Center for Global Development (CGD) research showed how supposed methodological tweaking improved Chile’s and India’s DB rankings to bolster rightwing regimes vis-à-vis their centrist rivals. Reacting angrily, another Bulgarian Simeon Djankov, DB index inventor, slandered the mainstream CGD as “reformed Marxist”.

A year after Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder in October 2018, the Bank announced Saudi Arabia’s DB rank had risen 30 places. Malpass cited this upgrade at a well-attended Riyadh investment conference. Unsurprisingly, the WilmerHale report concludes the Bank leadership’s innocence in achieving this stunning progress.

Suppressing China’s rising ranking
After Georgieva left the Bank in 2019, China’s ranking did not fall, but instead rose sharply. With Trump appointee Malpass at the helm from 2019, China rose from 78 in both 2017 and 2018, to 31 in 2019 for DBR 2020, and to 25 the following year!

Malpass himself tried to change DB methodology to suppress China’s ranking. Apparently alarmed by China’s rapidly rising ranking, he cancelled release of the next report. Thus, in August 2020, the Bank “paused” publication of DBR 2021!

Over a year later, on 16 September, the Bank cleverly killed two birds with one stone. Terminating its long controversial DBR, it secured a public relations victory with civil society organisations without acknowledging their longstanding criticisms.

New China syndrome
Influential US economist Jeffrey Sachs has suggested that growing US anti-China hysteria is behind the campaign. Three Republican Congressmen want Georgieva sacked for not being anti-Beijing enough. They blame China for the US$650bn SDR issue besides making other allegations reflecting rising US paranoia about China.

The trio claim that her alleged bias shows “how the Chinese Communist party, in pursuing its self-interest, undermines multilateral institutions such as the fund, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations”.

US political influence in the Bank is widely presumed, with Washington’s approval believed to be decisive. Hence, it surprises no one that US$5.3bn went to the last Afghan regime led by a former Bank employee.

The charges against Georgieva are seen by much of the rest of the world as hypocritical. Firing Georgieva as IMF MD would thus further set back multilateralism, already undermined for decades, ironically, especially since the end of the Cold War.

Washington rules
For many since the end of the Cold War, the US either dominates or opposes multilateralism. For ‘sovereigntists’, the US must either control multilateral organizations or undermine them. Thus, under Trump, the US left the Paris climate agreement, World Health Organization, UNESCO and UN Human Rights Council.

Prioritising its domestic political agenda in a divided and partisan US Congress, the White House prefers to avoid unnecessary conflicts with Republicans and anti-China Democrats. Thus, the anti-Georgieva forces still hope to force her ouster.

If the White House sacrifices Georgieva in a cynical gambit to secure political support for its domestic agenda, it will also lose the chance of regaining ‘soft power’, international trust and multilateral leadership.

 

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