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	Domestic food price inflation continues to remain high by UN News, agencies   June 2023   A food security update from the World Bank issued in June underlines that domestic food price inflation remains high around the world. Information from the latest month between January 2023 and April 2023 for which food price inflation data are available shows high inflation in most low- and middle-income countries, with inflation higher than 5% in in 70.6% of low-income countries, 81.4% of lower-middle-income countries, and 84% of upper-middle-income countries, with many experiencing double-digit inflation. In addition, 80.4% of high-income countries are experiencing high food price inflation.   The most-affected countries are in Africa, North America, Latin America, South Asia, Europe, and Central Asia. In real terms, food price inflation exceeded overall inflation in 84.5% from 161 countries where data is available.   Jan. 2023   Recognizing and tackling a global food crisis. (Reliefweb)   The world today is experiencing a major food crisis, with 350 million people facing emergency and famine conditions (WFP). We need to respond with immediate assistance and, at the same time, address the root causes of hunger and food insecurity to build resilience for the future.   This year, acute food insecurity is projected to reach a new peak, surpassing the food crisis experienced in 2007-2008. A combination of factors—including greater poverty and supply chain disruptions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, and high commodity prices—has increased food and nutrition insecurity. This is a multifaceted crisis, affecting access to and availability of food, with long-term consequences for health and productivity. Urgent action is needed across governments and multilateral partners to avert a severe and prolonged food crisis.   For most countries, domestic food prices have risen sharply in 2022, compromising access to food—particularly for low-income households, who spend the majority of their incomes on food and are especially vulnerable to food price increases. Higher food inflation followed a sharp spike in global food commodity prices, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. Average global wheat, maize, and rice prices were respectively 18 percent, 27 percent, and 10 percent higher in October 2022 relative to October 2021.   At the same time, food availability is declining. For the first time in a decade, global cereal production will fall in 2022 relative to 2021. More countries are relying on existing food stocks and reserves to fill the gap, raising the risk if the current crisis persists. And rising energy and fertilizer prices—key inputs to produce food—threaten production for the next season, especially in net fertilizer-importing countries and regions like East Africa.   These trends are already affecting health. Stunting and wasting in children, and anaemia in pregnant women, are increasing as households are less able to include sufficient nutrition in their diets. A recent World Bank survey indicated that 42 percent of households across all countries covered were unable to eat healthy or nutritious food in the previous 30 days. These health effects carry long-term consequences for the ability to learn and work, and therefore escape poverty.   Globally, food security is under threat beyond just the immediate crisis. Growing public debt burdens, currency depreciation, higher inflation, increasing interest rates, and the rising risk of a global recession may compound access to and availability of food, especially for importing countries.   At the same time, the agricultural food sector is both vulnerable and a contributor to climate change, responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. And agricultural productivity growth is not staying ahead of the impacts of climate change, contributing to more food-related shocks. For example, an unprecedented multi-season drought has worsened food insecurity in the Horn of Africa, with Somalia on the verge of famine.   http://www.wfp.org/emergencies/global-food-crisis   Dec. 2022   High food prices and strong US dollar are ‘double burden’ for developing countries, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) says.   Food prices have hit record levels in 2022, creating challenges for food security worldwide, especially for people in the developing countries that import most of their food.   An index published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) tracking the prices of the most traded food commodities remained at historically high levels in November (135.7 points) after reaching an all-time high in March (159.3 points).   Although the world has suffered food crises in the past, the current one, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, is different, a new UNCTAD report says, because of a stronger US dollar.   During past crises, the value of the US dollar fell as food prices climbed. Since the dollar is the main currency for international trade, its devaluation lowered the final price in local currency that people paid for imported food. This provided some relief. But the US dollar has gotten stronger this time, climbing 24% between May 2021 and October 2022 as the Federal Reserve increased interest rates to try to curb inflation in the United States.   The UNCTAD report says the combination of high food prices and a strong dollar is a “double burden” that many people in developing countries cannot bear, leaving them to face even harder choices to make ends meet – such as skipping meals or taking a child out of school.   “For net food-importing developing countries, the international market is a lifeline,” the report says. “As it becomes more expensive to buy US dollars, it also becomes harder for these countries to prevent millions of people from going hungry.”   Acute food insecurity has tripled in three years from 135 million before COVID-19 to almost 350 million today, according to FAO and the United Nations World Food Programme..   http://unctad.org/news/high-food-prices-and-strong-us-dollar-are-double-burden-developing-countries-unctad-says http://unctad.org/a-double-burden   15 Nov. 2022   UN Secretary-General's remarks to the G20 session on food and energy crises:   We are on the way to a raging food catastrophe. People in five separate places are facing famine.   Simultaneously, we are witnessing a crunch in the global fertilizer market. Without coordinated action, this year’s crisis of affordability may become next year’s global food shortage.   The Black Sea Grain Initiative, and the agreement to facilitate the supplies of Russian fertilizers, including ammonia, to global markets are essential.   Our contacts with the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and others have succeeded in removing many of the obstacles to the free flow of Russian food and fertilizers to global markets.   Today, a first shipment of Russian fertilizers donated by Uralkem and managed by the World Food Programme will start to be loaded in a Dutch harbour. Food and fertilizers are not subject to sanctions, but suffer indirect impacts. We are working nonstop to resolve all remaining issues, chiefly around payments, and to renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative. I count on all of your to support these efforts.   A second major cause of this food crisis is lack of financing. Many governments in the Global South, battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the inequality in resources available for the recovery, and the climate crisis, have no fiscal space to help their people deal with rising food and fertilizer prices accelerated by the war.   My call for an SDG Stimulus is aimed at providing these countries with adequate liquidity, through a wider reallocation of Special Drawing Rights, concessional financing to Middle Income Countries in distress, and effective mechanisms of debt relief and restructuring.   Transformational investments in agriculture, particularly in Africa, are essential to prevent future crises. But they need the resources, to be implemented.   The climate crisis is the third factor pushing people into hunger. Changing weather patterns, droughts and storms are disrupting crop cycles and fisheries.   Eighty percent of global emissions are sitting around this table. There is no way we can defeat climate change without a Climate Solidarity Pact between developed countries and large emerging economies. Developed countries must take the lead in reducing emissions.   They must also mobilize, together with international financial institutions and technology companies, to provide financial and technical support so that large emerging economies can accelerate their transition to renewables.   Which brings us to the energy crisis. Many developing countries cannot afford soaring energy prices. We must avoid an energy scramble in which developing countries will come off worst – as they did in the competition for COVID-19 vaccines.   Doubling down on fossil fuels is not the solution. If, in the last two decades, the world had massively invested in renewable energy, rather than its addiction to fossil fuels, we would not be facing the present crisis.   To summarize: we need unity, solidarity and multilateral solutions to address the food and energy crises, and to eliminate the trust deficit that is undermining global action across the board. Multilateral solutions can only be built on fairness and justice. I urge G20 countries to consider these fundamentals in your decisions.   http://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2022-11-15/secretary-generals-remarks-the-g20-session-food-and-energy-crises-delivered   Nov. 2022   The Global Humanitarian Impact of High Food, Fertilizer and Fuel Prices - Inter-Agency Standing Committee   The IASC is alarmed at the effects of a super-crisis driven by lack of accessible and available food and energy and coupled with economic shocks. As humanitarian agencies, our mission is to protect the lives and livelihoods of the poorest and most vulnerable people, including refugees and the internally displaced. These messages are about what the crisis means for these people, and our efforts to help and advocate for them.   High food, fertilizer and fuel prices contributed to intensifying a global crisis that is driving up global humanitarian needs and costs and erasing hard-won development gains, particularly in countries affected by climate shocks, conflict, and economic upheaval including as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is due in part to the ripple effects of the war in Ukraine. Millions of people are being pushed into extreme poverty and hunger by rising inflation and interest rates.   The increased cost of living disproportionality affects the most vulnerable, among them refugees, the displaced, and women and children.   The international community must act now and at scale to save lives and invest in solutions that safeguard human rights and humanitarian principles and stability and peace for all.   * The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) is the highest-level humanitarian coordination forum of the United Nations system.   http://interagencystandingcommittee.org/deputies-group/iasc-key-messages-global-humanitarian-impact-high-food-fertilizer-and-fuel-prices   * Food Security Update (World Bank 10/11)   Domestic food price inflation continues to remain high in almost all low- and middle-income countries and high-income countries. Uncertainty surrounding the Black Sea Grain Initiative continues to affect international grain prices. Despite minor decreases in global food prices since their peak in April, multiple risks threaten any downward trend in prices. Expanding the coverage of social protection schemes such as cash or in-kind transfers will allow more people to access diets sufficient in energy and nutrients.   http://reliefweb.int/report/world/food-security-update-november-10-2022 Visit the related web page
	Public infrastructure is about public benefits – not an “asset class” for investors by PSI, Blue Planet, University of London, agencies   The Water Justice Movement is committed to defend human rights, including by supporting public services, by David Boys - Deputy General Secretary PSI.   The United Nations has designated the 22nd of March as the day to celebrate water around the world. 2023 will see thousands of delegates gather at the UN headquarters for the first UN-wide water conference since the one in Argentina in 1977. Public Services International (PSI) will be there.   However, the UN Water Conference 2023 is a missed opportunity. It lasts only three days. It will not result in new policies based on a thorough review of past progress or failings. Instead, the UN wants to see governments, businesses and NGOs make voluntary, non-binding commitments of actions they will carry out in order to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goal on water and sanitation – SDG6.   For example, agri-business giants might commit to reduce the amount they pollute water, or to help some communities close to their factories have better access to water.   The main problem with SDG6 is the way to pay for improvements in water and sanitation infrastructure. Many billions of people on the planet don’t have access to safe drinking water or sanitation services. Existing water and sanitation infrastructure needs serious upgrading and improvements, both to extend services and ensure safety, but also to deal with the threats of the climate crisis.   More staff need to be hired, trained and retained, and their wages and working conditions improved. Sanitation workers require major improvements, first moving from informal to formal employment, then reducing their massive health and safety risks.   All of this needs reliable, predictable long-term finance. But the UN policies for most SDGs, including water, suggest that we use public subsidies to ‘attract’ private capital.   This implies that water services need to be made profitable enough to attract global finance capital. Projects need to be ‘bankable’. Countries must change their laws and regulations to provide the ‘enabling environment’ to protect private investors. This ensures that the rights of investors dominate human rights or the rights of nature, including in the courts and in arbitrations.   PSI is working with unions and allies to critique these dubious policies. Our Water Justice Movement is committed to defend human rights, including by supporting public services, as well as other community-based formats. There is a common will to fight privatisation, which has a long list of structural problems that won’t go away with new wording, such as innovative or blended finance.   Together, the Water Justice Movement published a Manifesto. The Manifesto contains a set of core principles and values that can guide our work for the decades to come.   The Movement is calling for reforms of the UN’s governance structures for the water sector. Amongst others, we insist that the UN meet more often to resolve issues on water; that more community activists, trade unions, public water operators and mayors are involved in these meetings, and that industry and agro-business are held accountable for their uses and misuses of our precious water resources – voluntary measures are not enough. http://bit.ly/3VdDXqX   http://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/22/un-water-conference-warns-worsening-scarcity http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/triple-threat-water-related-crises-endangering-lives-190-million-children-unicef http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/press-releases/action-against-hunger-analysis-finds-70-funding-gap-for-water-programs-across-41-countries/   The Water Justice Manifesto   The undersigned organizations, Indigenous Peoples, social movements and water defenders address the United Nations at the 2023 UN Water Conference to amplify the voices of the unheard and insist that the following fundamental issues be placed at the center of water policies at the global, regional, national and subnational levels:   Access to water and sanitation are fundamental human rights. Water is a common good, and must be accessible to all without discrimination, under public control and not a commodity. Personal and domestic uses of water, including for hygiene, should have the highest priority over productive uses, such as agri-business and industry.   Water policies must prioritize the sustainable management of rivers, lakes, wetlands, springs, and aquifers, guaranteeing their good ecological status, within the framework of the human right to a healthy environment and as key to confronting ongoing crises of pollution, deforestation, desertification, biodiversity loss, and climate change.   Governments must ensure that agri-business and industrial users are accountable and responsible for their use of and impact on all natural resources, including water, based on legislation, regulation and enforcement and not rely on voluntary measures.   Indigenous Peoples have distinct and inherent rights, as well as their own knowledge systems to relate to water in a harmonious way, and States must, therefore, recognize their status as collective subjects of rights and respect their territorial rights, their right to self-determination and their right to be consulted to obtain free, prior and informed consent to any project that affects them, and ensure that the management of their livelihoods, including water, is carried out in accordance with their own standards, in compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.   States should give due recognition and support to community water and sanitation management practices, as well as to the organizations promoted, among others, by rural communities and Indigenous Peoples, by developing public-community partnerships respectful of their knowledge and traditions.   In most countries, rural populations and those living in informal urban settlements are the most discriminated against in terms of access to water and sanitation services. It is the obligation of states to make access for these populations their highest priority. International cooperation must prioritize these groups in its actions.   The active, free, and meaningful participation of “rights holders” in all water policy issues should be recognized, supported and guaranteed, with an emphasis on the substantially equal participation of women, overcoming the marginalization they suffer, despite the fact that they bear the greatest responsibility for and the work of supplying water to their families.   Such participation must have the capacity to influence decision making, overcoming false participatory models, which only legitimize decisions taken by societal elites.   Water and sanitation services must always be guided by human rights, leaving no one behind, including those who, because they live in situations of vulnerability, marginalization or poverty, find it difficult to pay.   Privatization, commodification or financialization of water and sanitation services are a risk to the fulfillment of human rights, and should therefore not be considered as policies at the global, national or local level, as well as in international cooperation, which should instead promote public ownership and management, strengthened through public-public and public-community partnerships.   States must protect and guarantee the rights of workers, as well as decent, fair and equitable working conditions. Access to services in spheres of life outside the home must urgently receive a high level of priority in public policies, including access in public spaces, workplaces, detention centers, schools and health facilities, and marketplaces where traders sell food and other goods in the informal economy.   To solve the water crisis the current fragile UN multilateral framework must be overcome by moving toward governance that can meet the challenges presented above, establishing an intergovernmental mechanism for regular water and sanitation meetings, and concrete mechanisms for monitoring the commitments made, in which human rights subjects and holders participate fully, effectively and meaningfully.   As human rights holders and water defenders, often criminalized and persecuted for defending human rights, we demand that the UN prioritize dialogue and collaboration with frontline communities in the implementation of SDG 6 including Indigenous Peoples, peasant communities, those living in informal settlements, populations discriminated against on the basis of gender, descent and class, and all those who still do not have guaranteed access to safe drinking water and sanitation.   http://thepeopleswaterforum.org/2023/02/28/water-justice-manifesto/ http://peopleoverprof.it/campaigns/water-justice-manifesto?id=13789&lang=en http://www.blueplanetproject.net/index.php/home/water-movements/the-blue-communities-project/ http://www.blueplanetproject.net/index.php/the-water-justice-manifesto/ http://canadians.org/bluecommunities/ http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2021/04/28/the-blue-communities-movement/ http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2015/08/02/water-privatization-facts-and-figures/ http://canadians.org/analysis/increased-climate-impacts-require-action-not-privatization/ http://therevelator.org/barlow-water-privatization/ http://www.2030spotlight.org/en/book/1730/chapter/sdg-6-remunicipalization-water   http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2023/03/water-common-good-not-commodity-un-experts http://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Water/annual-reports/a-76-159-friendly-version.pdf http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-water-and-sanitation/annual-reports http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-water-and-sanitation http://reliefweb.int/report/world/human-rights-and-global-water-crisis-water-pollution-water-scarcity-and-water-related http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2021/10/joint-statement-independent-united-nations-human-rights-experts-warning-threat   Public infrastructure is about public benefits – not an “asset class” for investors - Trade Union Advisory Committee to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.   On 2 November 2020, the OECD launched its new Compendium on Infrastructure Governance. Together with the new OECD Recommendation on the Governance of infrastructure, this new instrument is intended to provide good practices to strengthen infrastructure planning, delivery and decision-making process. While the text aims at quality investment, unfortunately the overall narrative is one that still treats infrastructure as an “asset class” for investors with a heavy focus on the role of private sector, while leaving much aside the public good dimension as well as the centrality of public services and social dialogue in the design and implementation of projects.   The Covid-19 crisis is the deepest global crisis in modern history with an unprecedented fall in global GDP and a massive increase in unemployment. As also highlighted at the recent OECD Ministerial Council 2020, infrastructure investments and delivery will be an important part of the economic, environmental and social recovery. However, difficulties financing investments to extend public services, or to build new or rebuild existing infrastructure is not a new challenge for national and regional governments. In this regard, the current pandemic reveals more starkly the detrimental effects of the austerity measures implemented since the 2008 financial and economic crisis and the urgency to strengthen public infrastructure and services – including health care.   Regrettably, the new OECD instruments focusses too much on Private-Public-Partnerships (PPPs) and turning infrastructure into an asset class for investors as a quick fix to the lack of funding. Developing infrastructure as an asset class (i.e., “securitisation” of infrastructure to attract financiers and asset managers) rather than as a public good (public procurement, public service) is however counterproductive and can even exacerbate inequalities, decrease equitable access to essential services and jeopardize the fulfilment of human rights.   Quality public services, including infrastructure, are the foundations of a fair society and a strong economy. It is via public goods that our societies and economies become more equitable, resilient to downturns and disasters, and protect the vulnerable. However welcome the new instruments may be, the TUAC finds that there is an urgent need to remind the OECD and Member Governments that public infrastructure is about public benefits – not an “asset class” for investors.   http://tuac.org/news/new-oecd-recommendations-on-infrastructure-good-intentions-but-missing-the-point-about-public-goods-and-social-dialogue/   Apr. 2023   The potential of public banks to fund local quality public services, by Daria Cibrario.   Authored by Dr. Thomas Marois, Reader in Development Studies at SOAS (University of London), this briefing paper aims to build an understanding of what public banks are, how they operate (or should operate), where they can be found in their local communities, what good governance could look like (including workers and community participation), and how they can be mobilised in the public interest.   Accessing a regular stream of public resources to provide access to local quality public services remains a major challenge for most local and regional governments (LRGs) worldwide. Regular, adequate and appropriate funding for LRGs goes hand in hand with LRG workers’ employment and decent working conditions, as well as with equitable access to quality local public services in communities and territories. Covid has sharpened this LRG funding crisis. Within this context, the temptation for LRGs to resort to quick patches and short-sighted solutions to attract private capital is strong.   Public banks are among the policy levers that PSI has identified to explore to strengthen subnational financing systems to fund local quality public services and jobs. A 2020 estimate by the author counts 910 public banks worldwide with total combined assets of 48.71 USD trillion. This is an incredible amount of public resources that could be put to good use to work towards common goals, including boosting local public service provision, de-carbonisation, active employment policies, and inclusive socio-economic development.   This is why public banks - and their democratisation - should be a key concern for trade unions globally -but also for local authorities and progressive civil society groups.   The junction of multiple crises – pandemic, climate, social, economic, displacement and war - calls on LRG workers and their unions to review existing public funding options and explore new opportunities available to collectively strengthen public funding to boost the equitable provision of quality local public service for all.   http://publicservices.international/resources/news/the-potential-of-public-banks-to-fund-local-quality-public-services?id=13851&lang=en Visit the related web page
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