When Mara Siana Conservancy came into operation in 2016, there was a single zebra and a topi (antelope) in the valley just outside the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. The valley was also host to fewer than 150 elephants and 200 buffalos. The elephant population is now well over 300 individuals, and buffalos number […]

By Stefan Löfven and Christoph Heusgen
STOCKHOLM / MUNICH, Nov 1 2022 – Peace is precious. The past few months have offered daily reminders of this simple fact. War in Ukraine. Russian and North Korean nuclear threats. Growing tensions over Taiwan. Huge population displacements. Energy crisis. Economic turmoil. Rising global hunger and inequality.

To prevent this from becoming the new normal, world leaders need to take radical, courageous action, together. The upcoming climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, COP27, is one of the places where this needs to happen.

Climate change threatens peace and security

Scratch beneath the surface of the disparate set of crises that confront us in 2022, and the links to climate change, and to climate action, are plain to see.

Europe’s continued reliance on fossil energy has complicated its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and pushed the continent into an unprecedented energy crisis, threatening to spiral into an economic recession. It has also left Europe’s political leaders struggling to mitigate the impacts on their populations.

European countries’ race to secure new sources of fossil energy poses new geopolitical risks and can lock countries into new supply contracts and commitments that will make net zero targets even harder to achieve.

Climate change and conflict are the chief reasons why global hunger is rising. This year some 345 million people today face acute food insecurity, almost three times as many as in 2019—a shocking increase exacerbated by extreme weather events, the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Put simply, the state of security and the state of the environment are today intimately linked. Harm one, harm the other; heal one, heal the other.

This is a truth world leaders should take with them to the COP27 climate summit.

Keep peace and security in focus at COP27

All of the possible paths back to peace and environmental sustainability depend on cooperation. Negotiations at Sharm El-Sheikh must therefore focus on seeking common ground, removing roadblocks and enabling progress in international climate cooperation; ramping up ambition rather than watering it down.

In the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, ‘We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide.’

Peace and security should be in every discussion at COP27. This should motivate faster and deeper cuts in carbon emissions. States should recognize that phasing out fossil fuels can increase both energy security and human security overall.

At the same time, they must discuss how to avoid creating new security risks in the process: how to ease the transition for developing countries highly dependent on fossil fuel revenues.

How to make sure that the surging demand for renewable energy as well as for metals and minerals needed for green technologies does not lead to new conflicts, or increase inequality and corruption.

How to manage new critical dependencies emerging around minerals that are needed for the green energy transition.

At COP27, there will also be a focus on climate change adaptation: measures taken to adjust to new climatic conditions. Well-adapted communities and economies are more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

They are less likely to be destabilized by shortages, displacement and destitution. When communities are involved in adaptation planning and resource management, it can even help to resolve long-standing conflicts and increase trust in government authorities.

Boost climate finance

Climate finance—the funds richer countries provide to help vulnerable countries to respond to climate change—will also be a priority topic at COP27. This will be setting out how to ensure that rich countries’ governments deliver on their 2009 commitment of US$100 billion in climate finance per year, a goal which they should have already reached by 2020.

There will also be talks on a new climate finance target for post-2025. Seeing climate finance as an investment in peace and security should help persuade them to offer more, far beyond the original pledge, even during these hard economic times.

In particular, finance for adaptation projects needs to rise sharply. The amounts available fall far behind what the most vulnerable countries need, creating wholly avoidable risks to peace and security. But any increase should not come at the expense of mitigation or development assistance.

There is also the difficult question of loss and damage compensation—finance to help countries deal with the impacts of climate change that cannot be adapted to. States must try to resolve the strong differences that have blocked progress to date, so that funds can start flowing.

The damage countries and communities are suffering is real, and every delay increases the chance that it will erode peace, security and trust.

Finally, ways need to be found to get climate finance to countries that are fragile because of an active or recent armed conflict. These countries today receive only a fraction of what others do, even though these are precisely the countries where climate change has the greatest potential to undermine peace.

Exceed expectations

There are limits to how much of this can be achieved in Sharm El-Sheikh. States will need to carry on the work after the summit, individually and collaboratively, drawing in the private sector, civil society and communities.

Significant progress can be made at COP27, if governments show commitment. Besides the action it enables, a COP that exceeds expectations would send important signals to states, publics and markets that world leaders are serious about safeguarding the future.

Stefan Löfven was Prime Minister of Sweden from 2014 to 2019. Since June 2022 he has been Chair of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). He also co-leads the United Nations High-level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism.

Ambassador Christoph Heusgen has been Chairman of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) since 2022 and was Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations between 2017 and 2021. Prior to this appointment and since 2005, Heusgen was the Foreign Policy and Security Adviser to Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Footnote: The 27th Conference (COP27) of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) will take place from 6 to 18 November 2022. Heads of State, ministers and negotiators, along with climate activists, mayors, civil society representatives and CEOs will meet in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh for the largest annual gathering on climate action.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and DAKAR, Nov 1 2022 – Developing countries have long been told to avoid borrowing from central banks (CBs) to finance government spending. Many have even legislated against CB financing of fiscal expenditure.

Central bank fiscal financing
Such laws are supposedly needed to curb inflation – below 5%, if not 2% – to accelerate growth. These arrangements have also constrained a potential CB developmental role and government ability to respond better to crises.

Anis Chowdhury

Improved monetary-fiscal policy coordination is also needed to achieve desired structural transformation, especially in decarbonizing economies. But too many developing countries have tied their own hands with restrictive legislation.

A few have pragmatically suspended or otherwise circumvented such self-imposed prohibitions. This allowed them to borrow from CBs to finance pandemic relief and recovery packages.

Such recent changes have re-opened debates over the urgent need for counter-cyclical and developmental fiscal-monetary policy coordination.

Monetary financing rubbished
But financial interests claim this enables national CBs to finance government deficits, i.e., monetary financing (MF). MF is often blamed for enabling public debt, balance of payments deficits, and runaway inflation.

As William Easterly noted, “Fiscal deficits received much of the blame for the assorted economic ills that beset developing countries in the 1980s: over indebtedness and the debt crisis, high inflation, and poor investment performance and growth”.

Hence, calls for MF are typically met with scepticism, if not outright opposition. MF undermines central bank independence (CBI) – hence, the strict segregation of monetary from fiscal authorities – supposedly needed to prevent runaway inflation.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) research insists MF “involves considerable risks”. But it acknowledges MF to cope with the pandemic did not jeopardize price stability. A Bank of International Settlements paper also found MF enabled developing countries to respond countercyclically to the pandemic.

Cases of MF leading to runaway inflation have been very exceptional, e.g., Bolivia in the 1980s or Zimbabwe in 2007-08. These were often associated with the breakdown of political and economic systems, as when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Bolivia suffered major external shocks. These included Volcker’s interest rate spikes in the early 1980s, much reduced access to international capital markets, and commodity price collapses. Political and economic conflicts in Bolivian society hardly helped.

Similarly, Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation was partly due to conflicts over land rights, worsened by government mismanagement of the economy and British-led Western efforts to undermine the Mugabe government.

Indian lessons
Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Y.V. Reddy noted fiscal-monetary coordination had “provided funds for development of industry, agriculture, housing, etc. through development financial institutions” besides enabling borrowing by state owned enterprises (SOEs) in the early decades.

For him, less satisfactory outcomes – e.g., continued “macro imbalances” and “automatic monetization of deficits” – were not due to “fiscal activism per se but the soft-budget constraint” of SOEs, and “persistent inadequate returns” on public investments.

Monetary policy is constrained by large and persistent fiscal deficits. For Reddy, “undoubtedly the nature of interaction between [fiscal and monetary policies] depends on country-specific situation”.

Reddy urged addressing monetary-fiscal policy coordination issues within a broad common macroeconomic framework. Several lessons can be drawn from Indian experience.

First, “there is no ideal level of fiscal deficit, and critical factors are: How is it financed and what is it used for?” There is no alternative to SOE efficiency and public investment project financial viability.

Second, “the management of public debt, in countries like India, plays a critical role in development of domestic financial markets and thus on conduct of monetary policy, especially for effective transmission”.

Third, “harmonious implementation of policies may require that one policy is not unduly burdening the other for too long”.

Lessons from China?
Zhou Xiaochuan, then People’s Bank of China (PBoC) Governor, emphasized CBs’ multiple responsibilities – including financial sector development and stability – in transition and developing economies.

China’s CB head noted, “monetary policy will undoubtedly be affected by balance of international payments and capital flows”. Hence, “macro-prudential and financial regulation are sensitive mandates” for CBs.

PBoC objectives – long mandated by the Chinese government – include maintaining price stability, boosting economic growth, promoting employment, and addressing balance of payments problems.

Multiple objectives have required more coordination and joint efforts with other government agencies and regulators. Therefore, “the PBoC … works closely with other government agencies”.

Zhou acknowledged, “striking the right balance between multiple objectives and the effectiveness of monetary policy is tricky”. By maintaining close ties with the government, the PBoC has facilitated needed reforms.

He also emphasized the need for policy flexibility as appropriate. “If the central bank only emphasized keeping inflation low and did not tolerate price changes during price reforms, it could have blocked the overall reform and transition”.

During the pandemic, the PBoC developed “structural monetary” policy tools, targeted to help Covid-hit sectors. Structural tools helped keep inter-bank liquidity ample, and supportive of credit growth.

More importantly, its targeted monetary policy tools were increasingly aligned with the government’s long-term strategic goals. These include supporting desired investments, e.g., in renewable energy, while preventing asset price bubbles and ‘overheating’.

In other words, the PBoC coordinates monetary policy with fiscal and industrial policies to achieve desired stable growth, thus boosting market confidence. As a result, inflation in China has remained subdued.

Consumer price inflation has averaged only 2.3% over the past 20 years, according to The Economist. Unlike global trends, China’s consumer price inflation fell to 2.5% in August, and rose to only 2.8% in September, despite its ‘zero-Covid’ policy and measures such as lockdowns.

Needed reforms
Effective fiscal-monetary policy coordination needs appropriate arrangements. An IMF working paper showed, “neither legal independence of central bank nor a balanced budget clause or a rule-based monetary policy framework … are enough to ensure effective monetary and fiscal policy coordination”.

Appropriate institutional and operational arrangements will depend on country-specific circumstances, e.g., level of development and depth of the financial sector, as noted by both Reddy and Zhou.

When the financial sector is shallow and countries need dynamic structural transformation, setting up independent fiscal and monetary authorities is likely to hinder, not improve stability and sustainable development.

Understanding each other’s objectives and operational procedures is crucial for setting up effective coordination mechanisms – at both policy formulation and implementation levels. Such an approach should better achieve the coordination and complementarity needed to mutually reinforce fiscal and monetary policies.

Coherent macroeconomic policies must support needed structural transformation. Without effective coordination between macroeconomic policies and sectoral strategies, MF may worsen payments imbalances and inflation. Macro-prudential regulations should also avoid adverse MF impacts on exchange rates and capital flows.

Poorly accountable governments often take advantage of real, exaggerated and imagined crises to pursue macroeconomic policies for regime survival, and to benefit cronies and financial supporters.

Undoubtedly, much better governance, transparency and accountability are needed to minimize both immediate and longer-term harm due to ‘leakages’ and abuses associated with increased government borrowing and spending.

Citizens and their political representatives must develop more effective means for ‘disciplining’ policy making and implementation. This is needed to ensure public support to create fiscal space for responsible counter-cyclical and development spending.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Nov 1 2022 – The decision to cut oil production by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies as of Nov. 1 comes in response to the need to face a shrinking market, although it also forms part of the current clash between Russia and the West.

The OPEC+ alliance (the 13 members of the organization and 10 allied exporters) decided to remove two million barrels per day from the market, in a world that consumes 100 million barrels per day. The decision was driven by the two largest producers, Saudi Arabia – OPEC’s de facto leader – and Russia.

The cutback “is due to economic reasons, because Saudi Arabia depends on relatively high oil prices to keep its budget balanced, so it is important for Riyadh that the price of the barrel does not fall below 80 dollars,” Daniela Stevens, director of energy at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, told IPS.

The benchmark prices at the end of October were 94.14 dollars per barrel for Brent North Sea crude in the London market and 88.38 dollars for West Texas Intermediate in New York.”Notwithstanding Mohammed bin Salman’s sympathy for Putin, the cut was due to his concern about the balance of the world oil market, and not to support Russia.” — Elie Habalián

“At the time of the cutback decision (Oct. 5) oil prices had fallen 40 percent since March, and the OPEC+ countries feared that the projected slowdown in the global economy – and with it demand for oil – would drastically reduce their revenues,” Stevens said.

With the cut, “OPEC+ hopes to keep Brent prices above 90 dollars per barrel,” which remains to be seen “since due to the lack of investment the real cuts will be between 0.6 and 1.1 million barrels per day and not the more striking two million,” added Stevens from her institution’s headquarters in Washington.

A month ago, the alliance set a joint production ceiling of 43.85 million barrels per day, not including Venezuela, Iran and Libya (OPEC partners exempted due to their respective crises), which would allow them to deliver 48.23 million barrels per day to the market.

But market operators estimate that they are currently producing between 3.5 and five million barrels per day below the maximum level considered.

The alliance is made up of the 13 OPEC partners: Algeria, Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, plus Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan and South Sudan.

The giants of the alliance are Saudi Arabia and Russia, which produce 11 million barrels per day each, followed at a distance by Iraq (4.65 million), United Arab Emirates (3.18), Kuwait (2.80) and Iran (2.56 million).

In July, U.S. President Joe Biden met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom he discussed human rights and abundant oil supplies for the global market. A few months later Riyadh led the decision for an oil cut that has been seen as a betrayal by Washington. CREDIT: Bandar Algaloud/SRP

United States takes the hit

U.S. President Joe Biden was “disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” a White House statement said.

The price of gasoline in the United States has soared from 2.40 dollars a gallon in early 2021 to the current average of 3.83 dollars – after peaking at five dollars in June – a heavy burden for Biden and his Democratic Party in the face of the Nov. 8 mid-term elections for Congress.

Biden visited Saudi Arabia in July, while the press reminded the public that during his 2020 election campaign he talked about making the Arab country “a pariah” because of its leaders’ responsibility for the October 2018 murder in Istanbul of prominent opposition journalist in exile Jamal Khashoggi.

The U.S. president said he made clear to the powerful Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman his conviction that he was responsible for the crime. But the thrust of his visit was to urge the kingdom to keep the taps wide open to contain crude oil and gasoline prices.

Hence the U.S. disappointment with the production cut promoted by Riyadh – double the million barrels per day predicted by market analysts – which, by propping up prices, favors Russia’s revenues, which has had to place in Asia, at a discount, the oil that Europe is no longer buying from it.

Biden then announced the release of 15 million barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve – which totaled more than 600 million barrels in 2021 and just 405 million this October – completing the release of 180 million barrels authorized by Biden in March, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that was initially supposed to occur over six months.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Vladimir Putin chat cordially during a visit by the Russian leader to Riyadh in October 2019. The two major oil exporters lead the 23-state alliance that upholds production cuts to prop up prices. CREDIT: SPA

Shift in Washington-Riyadh relations

Karen Young, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University in New York, wrote that “oil politics are entering a new phase as the U.S.-Saudi relationship descends.”

“Both countries are now directly involved in each other’s domestic politics, which has not been the case in most of the 80-year bilateral relationship,” she wrote.

“….(M)arkets had anticipated a cut of about half that much. Whether the decision to announce a larger cut was hasty or politically motivated by Saudi political leadership (rather than technical advice) is not clear,” she added.

Saudi leaders could apparently see Biden as pandering to Iran, its archenemy in the Gulf area, with positions adverse to Riyadh’s in the conflict in neighboring Yemen, and would resent the accusation against the crown prince for the murder of Khashoggi.

Young argued that “the accusation that Saudi Arabia has weaponized oil to aid Russian President Vladimir Putin is extreme,” and said “The Saudi leadership may assume that keeping Putin in the OPEC+ tent is more valuable than trying to influence oil markets without him.”

Gasoline prices in the United States, while down from their June level of five dollars per gallon, are still at a high level for many consumers ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

More market, less war

OPEC’s secretary general since August, Haitham Al Ghais of Kuwait, said on Oct. 7 that “Russia’s membership in OPEC+ is vital for the success of the agreement…Russia is a big, main and highly influential player in the world energy map.”

Writing for the specialized financial magazine Barron’s, Young stated that “What is certainly true is that energy markets are now highly politicized.”

“The United States is now an advocate of market manipulation, asking for favors from the world’s essential swing producer, advocating price caps on Russian crude exports and embargoes in Europe,” Young wrote.

For its part, the Saudi Foreign Ministry rejected as “not based on facts” the criticism of the OPEC+ decision, and said that Washington’s request to delay the cut by one month (until after the November elections, as the Biden administration supposedly requested) “would have had negative economic consequences.”

In its most recent monthly market analysis, OPEC noted that “The world economy has entered into a time of heightened uncertainty and rising challenges, amid ongoing high inflation levels, monetary tightening by major central banks, high sovereign debt levels in many regions as well as ongoing supply issues.”

It also mentioned geopolitical risks and the resurgence of China’s COVID-19 containment measures.

The two million barrel cut was decided “In light of the uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks, and the need to enhance the long-term guidance for the oil market,” said the OPEC+ alliance’s statement following its Oct. 5 meeting.

Oil analyst Elie Habalian, who was Venezuela’s governor to OPEC, also opined that “notwithstanding Mohammed bin Salman’s sympathy for Putin, the cut was due to his concern about the balance of the world oil market, and not to support Russia.”

Latin America, pros and cons

Stevens said the oil outlook that opens up this November will mean, for importers in the region, that their fuels will be more expensive but probably not by a significant amount, and net importers in Central America and the Caribbean will be the hardest hit.

Exporters will benefit from higher prices. Brazil and Mexico have already increased their exports of fuel oil, and Argentina and Colombia have hiked their exports of crude oil. And higher prices would particularly benefit Brazil and Guyana, which are boosting their production capacity.

Argentina could have benefited if it had begun to invest in production years ago, but its financial instability left it with little capacity to take advantage of this moment. And Venezuela not only faces sanctions, but upgrading its worn-out oil infrastructure would require investments and time that it does not have.

By Alfred Ntumba
Kinshasa, Nov 1 2022 – The Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), Yasmine Sherif, launched a strong call for public and private donors to step up funding, asking them to “show the same courage” she saw in the children she met during her week-long visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Years of conflict, the impact of climate change, epidemics – including outbreaks of Ebola, Cholera, and COVID-19 – and other crises, have taken a heavy toll on DRC’s young generation.  The country hosts the largest population of internally displaced persons in Africa. Nationwide, more than 3 million children between the ages of 6 and 11 are out of school, and less than one in ten children can read a simple sentence.

Sherif visited an ECW-funded programme in Tanganyika in the country’s southeast.  UNICEF implements the programme with the Congolese government, provincial authorities, and other key international and local implementing partners. While the programme launched at the end of June, it is already showing promise in a province where 62% of children are out-of-school and 60% of girls are married before the age of 18.

“We have seen the progress on the ground. This programme demonstrates how we can transform lives with the power of education through an integrated approach that brings together UN agencies, international and local NGOs, the government, local authorities, and the engagement of the communities themselves, the parent-teacher association, the local village chiefs, women groups and of course the children! ” Sherif said.

Together with the Governor of the Tanganyika province, UNICEF officials, and officials from the British Embassy in DRC, Sherif inaugurated the Lubile 1 primary school in the village of Mpungwe; a school built with funding from ECW, which is the United Nations’ global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. The school has high-quality infrastructure, curricula and provides students with a daily meal. There are also psychological services to assist children with trauma, including support to reintegrate children associated with armed groups  The programme also offers vocational training for youth. According to the delegation, this school is a first – indicating that anything is possible if the means are available.

The delegation also visited a temporary learning space set up in the Kikumbe village internally displaced camp – which provides much-needed learning opportunities to displaced children. The programme also offers psychosocial/mental health services and re-integration support to young mothers and survivors of sexual violence.

“Thanks to ECW support, we can provide and enhance access to quality education and alternative learning opportunities for all children, especially girls who have suffered so much,” said UNICEF DRC Representative Grant Leaity. “It is heart-warming that we have been able to respond to their specific needs.”

Leaity added that although the challenges are significant, important progress in relation to the provision of education in Tanganyika is being made.

ECW has already invested 22 million US dollars to support similar schools across Tanganyika, targeting a total of  67,000 children, of whom 32,000 have been reached to date. ECW and partners need to mobilize another 44 million US dollars to expand the three-year programme to other crisis-affected provinces where the needs are high.

Education is the basis of all human rights, says Sherif adding that investing in children’s education guarantees the achievement of sustainable development objectives. Because she believes education is at the center of human rights. Without it, little can be achieved.

“Most of the children we met come from displaced families and have never been to school before. Education is their only hope. Their courage and the efforts by the community and local partners to ensure all children go to school inspire us all to do more. We call on public and private donors to urgently step up their support for all crisis-affected girls and boys in DRC and worldwide to have the opportunity to enjoy their right to a safe, protective, inclusive quality education,” she said.

According to Laura Mazal, the Development Director at the British Embassy in DRC, access to quality education in times of humanitarian crisis is vital for children. It offers protection, a sense of normalcy, and hope. The UK is the second largest contributor to ECW’s multi-stakeholder fund at the global level. “ECW’s work is crucial in providing support to the most marginalized children. We have seen first-hand the work being delivered on the ground in Tanganyika, from meeting girl survivors of sexual violence to children formerly associated with armed groups. These children are now receiving a quality education, with huge thanks to ECW, ” said Mazal.

Schools are essential in reducing tensions between community groups, which often spill over into armed conflicts.

“We must step up to help the next generation to heal from the wounds of violence,” Sherif said. “It is crucial to jointly expand holistic education programmes that integrate psychosocial support, gender transformative approaches, and a focus on safety and the well-being of children and adolescents. At the same time, more must be done to stop this cycle of unspeakable violence and systematic violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law. The pervasive impunity must end; perpetrators must be brought to justice.”

During her visit to the DRC, Sherif also announced 2 million US dollars in new funding to continue to support life-saving educational services for refugees and host-community children and adolescents in the Nord Ubangi province in the DRC, building on a previous investment in the region.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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