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	Why is a human rights approach needed in financial regulation? by International Network for Economic & Social Rights   Protests are rippling from Wall Street to all parts of the globe, and the ongoing effects of the financial and economic crisis have brought home to people worldwide the intrinsic connection between financial regulation policies and the social contract in any given society.   This is in stark contrast to the two particular myths prevailing before the financial crisis. The first was that private financial firms could be trusted to exercise self-regulation. By seeking out their own self-interest, it was argued, the firms would inevitably end up pursuing the behaviors that were optimal, ultimately, for society as a whole. Government regulation was seen as an intrusive attempt to second-guess the outcome that market forces in their free interplay would achieve. Another prevailing myth was that the framing and design of financial regulation must be reserved to certain trained experts, only ones qualified for the job because of their understanding of the technical complexity of financial markets. Technocracy was to rule the market, not the rest of democratic society.   The financial collapse and its aftermath represent a moment of awakening about the interdependence of financial regulatory choices with a broader set of public interests. In a resolution issued in 2009, the Human Rights Council -the world"s foremost human rights organ--recognized the "negative impact of the global economic and financial crises on economic and social development and on the full enjoyment of all human rights in all countries."   Three years after the crisis, indeed, basic human rights continue to be affected. The impacts on budgets due to lower revenues and the rescues of financial firms generated knock-on effects on sovereign debt that have become today sources of uncertainty and the sources of a looming new crisis.   After an initial period where governments were encouraged to increase social spending to counteract the crisis, a recent study reveals that 91 countries have either significantly reduced expenditures or on their way to reduce them next year-with social protection, old-age pensions, wages, education, healthcare and social security facing serious cutbacks, leaving deep, long-lasting scars upon people"s well-being and basic dignity.   It is estimated that more than 40 million people around the world were driven into hunger as a result of the 2008 food price crisis. While the food price inflation may be partly due to fundamentals of demand and supply, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food found evidence that such developments "were exacerbated by excessive and insufficiently regulated speculation in commodity derivatives."   Now more than ever there is a need to counter-balance the often myopic views of financial experts with a broad array of social groups (consumer, labor, women, environment, indigenous people, and other "human rights-holders") in the design of financial policy. Reciprocally, democracy in any meaningful sense rests upon a legitimate contribution of all people to the design of public policy, including related to financial regulation.   But if this is true, the human rights considerations cannot be addressed only at the apex of a crisis to mitigate or remedy the consequences. Forward-looking steps are needed if financial regulations are to prevent crises or ensure their effects do not unjustlly harm ordinary people. Human rights principles and standards-including participation, transparency, equality and non-discrimination and above all accountability-must form the cornerstone of financial regulatory efforts from the design to implementation to monitoring stages.   Fundamental human rights-as laid out in the International Bill of Rights--must be the primary consideration in decisions on the generation and the allocation of public resources, employment, the provision and access to essential reproductive services, and many other public policies. International human rights law requires governments to protect people from abusive behavior by the private sector-including financial actors-which leads to human rights harm.   Nonetheless, whatever role human rights considerations play, choices on whether to regulate or not to regulate the financial sector, and how, will have clear implications for the extent to which governments can ultimately fulfill their commitments in those areas. In extreme cases, an economic emergency situation might result, as we have seen, in democratic political processes being swiftly brushed aside to respond to a crisis.   Of course, this argument may make perfect logical sense but, for those working on the trenches of human rights advocacy and defense, getting involved in financial regulation matters is much more easily said than done. In fact, the second myth referred to above was more than a belief. It was consistent with the reality that, on account of their technical and complex nature, financial regulations have typically been hard to access but by a few experts. This made those regulations easy to capture by the lobbying of large and well-resourced financial firms and experts on their payrolls, while impairing access by, and accountability to, the broader public.   "A bottom-up approach to righting financial regulation" is an initiative that seeks to build the capacity of human rights organizations, grassroots and social movements to engage in the financial regulation debate, assess the human rights merits of alternative approaches and their trade-offs, and determine priorities, always taking as a starting point the interests of the constituencies they serve.   * Visit the link below for more details. Visit the related web page
	Adequate Food for All by Jay Naidoo Chair, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) South Africa   The Green Revolution remains one of the most successful drivers of economic development in the 20th century, enabling food production to keep pace with a doubling of global population from three billion in the 1960s to seven billion in 2011. Increases in staple food crop yields tripled during that period, reducing the percentage of malnourished people from 41 per cent in 1960 to 16 per cent in 2000 in Asia alone.   Although the Green Revolution is credited with keeping food prices historically low, the global food system is failing today in two major ways: it is unsustainable and consumes resources faster than can be naturally replenished, and it contributes to extreme poverty, suffering and disease.   ‘Adequate food for all’ must thus include the ability of the food system to nourish and fuel humanity equitably and sustainably. The future of humanity rests on being able to do more with less.   Nearly half the world’s population suffers from the effects of a food system that, in an effort to feed a growing population and meet some societies’ demands for a ‘richer diet’, is shifting global supply towards higher-end markets.   This results in an unprecedented new global paradigm. At one end of the spectrum, food insecurity is growing among the most vulnerable, in both low- and middle-income countries, resulting in one billion hungry people.   At the other end, one billion people are over-consuming, creating a new public health epidemic in chronic conditions such as type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Caught in the middle are more than two billion people who face the silent killer of ‘hidden hunger’ – malnutrition – from not getting enough critical micronutrients to support optimal health and productivity.   Altogether, hunger, malnutrition and over-consumption exact an enormous toll. Malnutrition alone is responsible for 11 per cent of the global disease burden, a third of all childhood deaths and losses of up to three per cent of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) per year.   Over-consumption and poor nutrition are an underlying cause of and a risk factor in non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which cause about two-thirds of the world’s deaths, with 80 per cent of them in low- and middleincome countries. Economic losses from NCDs are estimated to amount to $35 trillion between 2005 and 2030.   Achieving food security thus requires looking at the broader impact of the food system and pivoting the focus to improving nutritional outcomes to avert this tremendous public health and economic burden.   A Continent Seeking Self-Sufficiency   This need is most pressing in Africa. It is the only continent that does not grow enough food to nourish itself. Since the Green Revolution, Africa remains the only region where average yields are stagnant and food production per capita has seen a steady decline.   Much of this can be explained by changes in rainfall patterns, soil mismanagement, and insufficient investments in infrastructure and water management. Public investment in agricultural water development in sub-Saharan Africa has actually declined over the past two decades.   The lack of political will and inadequate investment in natural resource management is inhibiting Africa from not only becoming self-sufficient, but also burgeoning into the last remaining breadbasket of the world.   Addressing Africa’s food security challenge requires a paradigm shift from a narrow focus on increasing yields towards a more comprehensive global food system where the metrics of success are nutritional outcomes.   The focus should be on nutrition per acre or nutrition per unit of water (or any other variable that controls food production), rather than on tonnes per hectare or tonnes per litre of water. The goal must be to produce more affordable food of better nutritional quality while using less water per unit of nutrition.   Linking the drivers of sustainable agriculture directly to the critical goal of nutrition allows more comprehensive approaches to the big challenges. While improvements in yield contribute to this goal, higher nutritional content of food, a more balanced diet and reductions in waste and spoilage are all additional, often lower-cost, mechanisms to improve the outcome for the same unit of land or water.   Applying this metric to the food system will not only shape Africa’s response to food security, but could also address the looming health crisis caused by over- and undernutrition, climate change and natural-resource management.   In addition, by 2020, worsening water security could trigger another global food crisis, causing a shortfall of up to 30 per cent in cereal production. Today, more than a third of the world’s population is affected by water scarcity. Climate change is expected to worsen this by increasing the frequency and severity of floods and droughts.   The interdependencies among water, agriculture and health are well understood, but poorly integrated into comprehensive multi-sector approaches. Water scarcity is one of the biggest limiting factors in the world’s ability to feed and sustain its growing population. In Africa, more than 80 per cent of freshwater withdrawals go to agriculture, of which as much as 40 per cent is wasted due to inefficient agricultural practices.   It takes approximately one litre of water to produce one calorie of food energy. The basic diet of the poor, predominantly consisting of plant-based staple crops, would require approximately at least 2,000 litres a day.   However, diverse diets that include the regular consumption of meat could require as much as 5,000 or more litres per day since, on average, meat requires 10 times the water required per calorie from plants.   The Importance of Water Security   Factoring water security into the nutrition-food security paradigm creates a mechanism to redefine goals and metrics to measure sustainable progress towards establishing a food system capable of adequately nourishing a population of nine billion by 2030.   Integrating the sectoral goals of health, agriculture and sustainability will promote approaches that preserve that which is most scarce – water – and that which is of greatest public value – the ability of the food system to nourish, fuel and sustain society. In a similar way that the carbon credit system drives market mechanisms and commercial processes in the direction of low emissions, so the agriculture, health and sustainability communities can converge to design a credit system to encourage governments, industry, farmers and consumers to adopt new technologies that maximise yields of nutritional crops per unit of water and measure their success in the amount of nutrition delivered to those who need it.   This is a surefire way to ensure quality in the food system and to align investments from both the public and private sectors to maximise and preserve nutrient density, reduce food spoilage and waste, and improve the supply chain.   Over the next 1,000 days, 75 million African children will face the most critical development period of their life – from the womb to age two. Science has proven that a well-nourished child is more likely to complete her or his education, possess a higher IQ and earn up to 46 per cent more over his or her lifetime. In fact, a child’s attained height for age at two years is the single best predictor of human capital.   All solutions for Africa rest on the ability to ensure that today’s children have a chance to reach their full economic potential. Investing in the future of youth by ensuring they are adequately nourished will not only help break the cycle of poverty, but will also empower them with the potential to raise the continent of Africa.   As Nelson Mandela said: “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity; it is an act of justice. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom… There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” Visit the related web page
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