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	Global wealth inequality threatens economic and social viability by ActionAid, Eurodad, Oakland Institute, agencies   May 2014   How the world is paving the way for corporate land grabs. (ActionAid)   "For millions of people living in the world’s poorest countries, access to land is a matter not of wealth, but of survival, identity and belonging. Most of the 1.4 billion people earning less than US$1.25 a day live in rural areas and depend largely on agriculture for their livelihoods, while an estimated 2.5 billion people are involved in full- or part-time smallholder agriculture. Smallholder farmers, pastoral societies, forest dwellers and fishermen and women all rely directly on land and natural resources for their livelihoods, as a primary source of food for their families, and for the innate value their environment often holds as the centre of their cultural identity."   Aid donors and international institutions including the World Bank and World Economic Forum (WEF) have been accused of promoting an environment that fuels land grabs through policies and initiatives that pave the way for large-scale private investment.   In a new report the NGO ActionAid says public money and policy incentives such as tax breaks and cut-price loans are facilitating land deals that threaten the lives and livelihoods of small-scale farmers in poor countries.   ActionAid warns that the consequences of such deals, which are too often happening behind closed doors and with little or no consultation with local communities, include "forced evictions, human rights violations, lost livelihoods, divided communities … rising food insecurity and, ultimately, increased poverty".   A spokesman for the World Bank said it was also concerned about the risks of large-scale land deals and stressed that it did not support investments that took advantage of weak institutions in developing countries.   ActionAid"s report says weak governance and regulation of land use and agricultural investments have left millions of smallholder farmers and indigenous people in vulnerable situations "lacking recognition over their land rights, even if they have resided in or used the area for generations".   ActionAid campaign manager, Antoine Bouhey, said a "nexus of different policies" at the global level, which encourage private investment as a route to development, were also to blame.   "Governments are turning to private capital to fill the massive shortfall in public spending but too often this blind rush for investment is leading to land grabs which are leaving communities landless, homeless and hungry. Growth cannot be achieved at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable," he said.   http://www.actionaid.org/publications/great-land-heist http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/may/21/world-bank-aid-donors-land-grabs   April 2014   Civil Society agencies question IMF, World Bank priorities. (Oxfam)   The World Bank and IMF must take action to back up their rhetoric about the dangers of skyrocketing inequality.   Global wealth inequality threatens economic and social viability. Following Oxfam’s January report revealing that just 85 people owned the same wealth as the bottom half the world’s population, Forbes has updated its “billionaires’ list”, showing that extreme inequality has worsened– just 67 people at the top now own half the wealth.   Max Lawson, Oxfam"s Head of Global Policy & Campaigns, said: “Bank president Jim Kim and IMF managing director Christine Lagarde have been outspoken about the dangers of skyrocketing inequality. We need to see real initiatives to back up their rhetoric.   “International financial institutions should change the policy advice they gives countries, and shift the balance towards investment in health, education and progressive fiscal policies.   “The IMF should acknowledge that corporate tax dodging is a key driver of inequality- companies must pay their fair share.”   Developing countries lose over $160 billion annually to corporate tax dodging.   “Austerity worsens inequality, as the IMF and World Bank know well. They advised aggressive cuts to health and education in developing countries in the 1980s and 90s, and some of these countries took two decades to climb back to square one. Gaps between rich and poor widened, economies were shattered, and the poor continued to get poorer even when growth improved.”   Oxfam is advocating for change during the IMF-World Bank spring meetings in Washington, including:   The IMF and World Bank putting inequality and poverty at the centre of discussions with their members.   Committing to measure the gap between the richest 10% and the poorest 40%.   Changing IMF and World Bank lending and advisory policies to bring them in line with new thinking on the economic, social and developmental damage done by extreme income inequality.   Pushing the World Bank to support of a goal on inequality in the new post-2015 global development framework.   April 2014   Harmful conditions increasingly attached to IMF loans, according to new research. (Eurodad)   As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prepares for its Spring meetings, new research reveals that the number of conditions it attaches to its loans are rising – and they continue to be linked to harsh austerity measures and interfere in sensitive policy areas.   Conditionally Yours: An analysis of the policy conditions attached to IMF loans is the latest in a series of reports on the IMF’s lending practices produced by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) over the past decade.   IMF loans come with conditions which are often highly controversial, for example influencing taxes and cutting spending; freezing or reducing public sector wages; and mandating cutbacks in welfare programmes, including pensions. There are also conditions on the restructuring and privatisation of public enterprises, and conditions that reduce minimum wage levels.   Although the IMF has said it has tried to “streamline” its conditional lending, Eurodad counted an average of 19.5 structural conditions per programme – a sharp increase since 2005-7 when Eurodad found an average of 13.7 conditions. The biggest loans had the heaviest conditions, with exceptionally high numbers in Cyprus, Greece and Jamaica – which totalled an average of 35 structural conditions per programme.   Almost all the countries were repeat borrowers from the IMF, suggesting that it is propping up governments with unsustainable debt levels, not lending for a temporary balance of payments problems – its true mandate. Developing countries have a limited voice and minority vote at the IMF, and so these developments are especially worrying for them.   The Ukraine is the latest country to have been in negotiations with the IMF, with conditions attached to their proposed loan reported to include a cut in energy subsidies for consumers and a rise in gas prices by 50 per cent.   Jesse Griffiths, co-author of the report and director of Eurodad, said: “It is clear that the IMF needs a major overhaul. It should stop using its power to interfere in highly sensitive and controversial economic reforms, and recognise that its current model often makes debt situations far worse. We recommend that the IMF focuses on its true mandate of providing emergency funding without harmful conditions, and that more permanent and just solutions are found for countries devastated by debt crises.”   The report makes three recommendations:   • The IMF should focus on its true mandate as a lender of last resort to countries that are facing temporary balance of payments crises. Such countries need rapid support to shore up their public finances, not lengthy programmes that require major policy changes. A far more sensible approach would be to extend the example of the IMF’s new but little used Flexible Credit Line to all IMF facilities – requiring no conditionality other than the repayment of the loans on the terms agreed.   • If countries are genuinely facing protracted and serious debt problems, then IMF lending only makes the situation worse. The development of fair and transparent debt work-out procedures should be prioritised by the international community, and at regional and national levels, to assess and cancel unpayable and illegitimate debt. However, the IMF should not be the venue for such debt work-out mechanisms: as a major creditor, they would face an impossible conflict of interest.   • The IMF must urgently address its crisis of legitimacy, and radically overhaul its governance structure to give developing countries a fair voice and vote, and to radically improve transparency and accountability. A vital first step would be to introduce double majority voting, so that approval is needed from a majority of IMF member countries, in addition to a majority of IMF voting shares.   To read the full report go to http://eurodad.org/conditionallyyours   * The European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) is a network of 48 non-governmental organisations from 19 European countries working on issues related to debt, development finance and poverty reduction.   Our Land, Our Business (The Oakland Institute, The Rules, agencies)   The World Bank says its mission is to, “End poverty within a generation and boost shared prosperity.” But the problem is, they’re doing the exact opposite when it comes to Land grabs.   Through a system called the Doing Business rankings, the World Bank uses its power to force developing countries to make it as easy as possible for land to be purchased by foreign corporations or local elites. They call it development, but in reality all we see is the rich getting richer, while smallholder farmers, pastoralists and Indigenous Peoples get kicked off their land.   The Bank like almost all governments and multilateral institutions, subscribes to the current economic orthodoxy in as much as all of its models for poverty reduction have economic growth as a prerequisite. For the purposes of this argument, whether they are right or not is not is a secondary, albeit not irrelevant point. The primary point is that it is such a given that almost any sort of growth is considered positive. If it can go on a country’s books as growth – in the form of GDP - it’s good.   The next pillar of belief is that for developing countries to develop, they must be connected to global markets. They must be able to sell what they have to the people who want it. Oil, grain, rare earth, cotton, diamonds . . . in fact practically any natural resource, preferably in its raw form. And these days, one of the things that developing countries have that others want is arable land. Rich and powerful people aren’t stupid; much as political leaders may prevaricate over climate change politically, the 1% know what’s coming. They know that land – especially land connected to water – is going to become increasingly rare, and therefore increasingly valuable. It is already in huge demand, both by those looking to build industrial, often monoculture operations, and those looking to turn a quick buck by playing the market.   The thing is, practically all of the land being traded is already owned, mostly by smallholder farmers, pastoralists and Indigenous People; exactly the sort of people “international development“ is supposed to be about.   Unfortunately, for millions of such people, from Cambodia to Ethiopia to Guatemala, however, they don’t have the right paperwork. The fact that they have been tending the same land for generations, or that they are already feeding 80% of the developing world, or that their methods are environmentally sustainable where industrial agriculture is toxic, is irrelevant. No paperwork, no claim. Or, more to the point, no paperwork, therefore their land must belong to the government, and therefore it becomes visible to the world as a tradeable asset.   Enter the World Bank. Through a system called the Doing Business (DB) rankings, the Bank uses its considerable financial and political power to make it as easy as possible for these now visible and tradeable assets to, well, be traded, in huge plots. And the only people with the capital to buy assets on that scale are the 1%, in the guise of foreign corporations or local elites. So the people the World Bank is helping are elite economic interests. But wait, you may well cry, investment brings jobs and tax revenue and expertise to a country; that is development. It would be if it did. In far to many cases, however, corporations are given tax breaks, and jobs and expertise are firstly often scant, because industrial farming is designed to operate with minimal human input, and secondly because even those few jobs that do exist are more often than not kept in a relatively closed loop of expat workers or a handful of local people.   It does do one critical thing, though. It brings more economic activity into the country than previously existed, which registers as growth. Never mind that little of it actually benefits the majority of people in the country, as it is too often whisked away through tax havens. It is, briefly, there. And so it seems perfectly logical to the World Bank because they are, in theory, helping developing countries connect to global markets, and thereby achieve economic – GDP – growth.   It works for economic technocrats in Washington awarding points to countries when they act in favor of the “ease of doing business” and then publishing an annual ranking in a report they are very proud to claim, “has served as an incomparable catalyst for business reform initiatives”. In other words, reforms that service the needs of intensive, large-scale international business are rewarded and ones judged to stand in its way are punished.   For example, the fewer regulations there are on the purchase land, the higher the rating, with maximum points being awarded to countries with total freedom of purchase. More modest corporate taxation gets some reward; most points are awarded for zero corporate taxation.   Countries are even punished for offering their workers minimum wages. It is a neo-liberal blueprint for economic development: low corporate taxation, low worker wages and protection, maximum privitization and minimal standards of environmental protection. Everything, in other words, to maximize wealth extraction and concentration.   The World Bank claims that the rankings are merely about minimizing bureaucracy, but even a brief look at what happens to countries as they move up and down the rankings clearly shows that they are little more than a bulldozer used to clear the path of smallholder farmers, and whatever local labour or environmental protections exist so that large multinational corporations or local elites can move in and start extracting the wealth of the country.   For example, in the 2012 rankings, Cameroon jumped four spots (from 165 to 161) because it made it easier to “start a business” by allowing company founders to produce only a sworn declaration instead of a hard copy of their criminal records.   Liberia was placed in the top ten DB reformers in 2008-2009 because of the measures it took (with the help of the doing Business reform advisory Team) in the areas of “starting a business,” “dealing with construction permits,” and “trading across borders.” an improvement in the DB ranking resulted in increased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) including investments from palm oil giants such as the British equatorial palm Oil in 2008, Malaysian Sime Darby in 2009, and Singaporean golden agri-resources in 2010, resulting in the corporate takeover of millions of acres of land and local populations’ loss of farms, resources, and livelihoods.   Sierra Leone has also been praised as a good reformer. Its DB ranking increased by 15 points between 2008 and 2010, with key steps taken in the area of “protecting investors” (up 22 points). Sierra Leone’s improvements in 2008 nonetheless mainly consisted of reducing companies’ tax burden and introducing flexible tax rates for investors, none of which helps Sierra Leone’s citizens.   Similar stories can be told about Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Nicaragua, Senegal, Honduras and the Philippines. In all cases, the needs of ordinary people have fallen under the tracks of the World Bank’s Doing Business bulldozer. Around the world, millions of people are being displaced, too many lives ruined, to help create wealth most of the populations will likely never see.   With farmers groups and civil society organizations from around the world, we’re launching Our Land, Our Business campaign, to focus attention on the lead up to the big World Bank Annual Meeting in October to get as many people, from as many countries as possible to hear about this and take a stand. With lots of signatures, press activity, off line protests and social media, we believe we can generate enough critical and public pressure to force them to abolish the Doing Business system. The Bank hates bad publicity and has changed its ways because of it in the past, so let’s give them some. The first step.   The Doing Business rankings service the needs of intensive, large-scale international business, public interest policies judged to stand in its way are punished. The fewer regulations there are on the purchase land, the higher the rating, with maximum points being awarded to countries with total freedom of purchase.   You might well ask why they do this. The reason is simple. The World Bank seems predominated by an economic belief that what’s good for large corporations is good for the world. It believes that their ability to maximize profit and shareholder value is more important than supporting the smallholder farmers who are currently feeding 80% of the world; more important than ensuring industrial activity doesn’t contribute to climate change; and more important than letting democratic countries set their own economic policy.   In a world where farmers, pastoralists and Indigenous Peoples are facing increasingly harsh conditions, and where the richest 85 individuals have the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people combined, it is unconscionable that an organisation that is supposed to help increase everyone’s well-being uses it’s power to support the already rich at the expense of the majority.   http://ourlandourbusiness.org/reports-and-info/ http://www.actionaid.org/2014/01/action-land-grabs-supporting-women http://media.oaklandinstitute.org/land-rights-issue http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/our-work/food-livelihoods/land-freeze http://www.fian.org/what-we-do/issues/land-grabbing/ http://www.landcoalition.org/ http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/74229/icode/ http://www.fao.org/nr/tenure/voluntary-guidelines/en/ http://www.fao.org/cfs/en/ http://www.grain.org/ http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/ESCR/Pages/Food.aspx http://blogs.oxfam.org/en/blogs/14-05-13-two-years-guidelines-responsible-governance-tenure-land-fisheries-and-forests http://www.irinnews.org/report/100116/laos-land-grabs-drive-subsistence-farmers-into-deeper-poverty http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/05/small-farmers-loss-land-increases-world-hunger/ http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4952-media-release-hungry-for-land http://www.landmatrix.org/en/ http://www.landcoalition.org/en/what-we-do/land-monitoring
	Human Rights Defenders urgently need a safe and enabling space by Margaret Sekaggya Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders   Defending human rights remains a dangerous activity in a number of countries where defenders continue to be threatened, charged with criminal offences, arbitrarily arrested, attacked, tortured, subject to enforced disappearances and even killed, according to Margaret Sekaggya, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders.   “I have seen the space for civil society and defenders visibly shrink in many parts of the world,” said Sekaggya during the presentation of her final report to the Human Rights Council’s 25th Session in Geneva, Switzerland. “Furthermore, I have observed the development of sophisticated forms of silencing the voices of defenders and impeding their work.”   These sophisticated forms include the application of legal and administrative provisions or the misuse of the judicial system to harass, criminalize and stigmatise their activities. State and non-state actors are involved in these acts, explained Sekaggya, and these acts not only endanger and undermine the work of human rights defenders, but also “impose a climate of fear and send an intimidating message to society at large.”   Non-state actors, including private companies, are also involved in abuses against defenders. For instance, security guards employed by private large-scale development corporations have harassed, threatened, and attacked defenders working on issues related to land.   In her report, Sekaggya highlighted the groups who are most at risk of violations including judges and lawyers, journalists and media workers; trade unionists; youth and student defenders; those working on sexual orientation and gender identity, and defenders who are working on environmental and land issues. Women human rights defenders, those working on women’s rights and gender issues are especially at risk.   In order to create a safe and enabling environment for defenders, the Special Rapporteur included a number of recommendations to States, the international community, non-state actors and human rights defenders in her report.   States should ensure that defenders can work in a conducive legal, institutional, financial and administrative framework by refraining from criminalizing defenders’ peaceful and legitimate activities, the report notes. Member States should also guarantee that violations by State and abuses by non-State actors against defenders are investigated and that perpetrators are brought to justice. It is also imperative that acts of intimidation and reprisals against defenders who interact with the United Nations, it representatives, and mechanisms in the field of human rights are condemned and investigated.   States should publicly recognize and support the legitimate work of human rights defenders and provide them with protection. The report also recommends that non-State actors should respect and recognize the work in accordance with the Declaration of Human Rights Defenders and familiarize themselves with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.   “The defence and promotion of human rights are legitimate and courageous activities necessary to ensure that communities can fully enjoy their entitlements and realize their potential,” says Sekaggya. “Moreover, defenders can play a key role in safeguarding democracy and ensuring that it remains open, pluralistic and participatory and in line with the principles of rule of law and good governance.”   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Defendersurgentlyneedasafeandenablingspace.aspx http://www.fidh.org/en/united-nations/human-rights-council/15041-mounting-attacks-against-ngos-the-human-rights-council-should-take-a-firm Visit the related web page
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