By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI , Apr 3 2024 – Agriculture in India need not ‘gamble’ with the monsoons if accurate weather and climate forecasts are proactively made available to farmers, according to the results of a new experimental study conducted by the University of Chicago.

Approximately 70–90 percent of total annual rainfall across most of India, a major agricultural producer, occurs during the June to September monsoon, which varies widely in onset timing and quantity, making predictions difficult for farmers, says the study published February 26, 2024, as a non-peer-reviewed working paper.

While the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has advanced monsoon forecasting systems, researchers from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago found that farmers in southern Telengana state, where the study was conducted, tended not to rely on IMD or other forecasts.

“For whatever reason, few of the farmers we talked with in Telengana were using a forecast about the timing of the local start of the monsoon to help guide their planting decisions,” says Amir Jina, senior fellow at the Energy Policy Institute, University of Chicago and author of the study.

While Indian farmers have traditionally depended on official forecasts issued by the IMD, first established in 1875, the Chicago team relied on forecast data generated by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

“The PIK model produces a probability distribution of potential onset dates, which can be summarized as a likely onset date range, making it easy for farmers to understand,” the study said.

“This particular study looks at a new approach to forecasting the onset of the Indian Summer Monsoon over southern India’s Telangana region that can predict the arrival of the monsoon across India four to six weeks in advance,” says Fiona Burlig, coauthor of the study and assistant professor at the Energy Policy Institute, University of Chicago.

PIK, under a climate capacity programme that covers East Africa, Peru, and India, focuses on staple crops in India, makes use of semi-empirical modeling frameworks, and combines them with satellite remote sensing earth observation data.

In the experimental study, PIK forecasts enabled farmers to make early decisions about key inputs such as the type of crops, labour supply, and fertilizer purchases, significantly improving profitability. “PIK forecasts were especially accurate over Telangana State, the site of our experiment,” says Burlig.

Burlig and her team studied how farmers across 250 villages in Telangana changed their planting strategies once they were convinced of the high accuracy of the monsoon forecasts. An early monsoon typically means a longer growing season, suited to cash crops like cotton, while later monsoons would help farmers decide to grow lower-value subsistence crops like paddy, the researchers said.

“This is measured proof for IMD how important the work of forecasting is for farmers in India and can help thinking about how to measure even more benefits of other types of forecasts from the IMD that the farmers use. All the progress IMD makes should be validated and encouraged by this basic fact,” Jina tells SciDev.Net.

“Farmers find that climate change is increasingly making predictions of the monsoon’s arrival and other weather patterns difficult,” says Burlig. “Our study, which was conducted in an area of low agricultural productivity, demonstrated how the new forecasts were able to deliver accurate monsoon predictions even in a changing climate.”

Because climate change increases weather variability, farmers are reluctant to take risks and typically tend to underinvest for the season ahead, Burlig said. A pre-season survey by the team in Telangana found wide variations in farmers’ estimations of when the monsoon would arrive.

The study experimentally evaluated monsoon onset forecasts in 250 villages, which were divided into a control group, a forecast group that received information well in advance of monsoon onset and a benchmark index insurance group.

Agricultural insurance lowers farmers’ risk exposure but does not improve their information, the study says. Overall, farmers who received insurance increased the land they cultivated and their investments in seeds, fertilizer, and other inputs by 12 percent compared to those who did not receive forecast information.

“The findings of the experimental study are well within what is expected,” said Arun Shanker, principal scientist at the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad. Studies like these, he said, are important because resilience to climate change will depend greatly on increasing agricultural productivity with available water resources.

However, Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, says the University of Chicago’s study is “severely outdated” as it is based on a pre-2016 prediction model. “Since then, IMD has moved to the dynamic, advanced, ‘Climate Forecast System’ that provides both regional and pan-India forecasts at a high resolution.”

“The Potsdam model and forecasts are not based on a full-fledged, dynamic system like the IMD climate forecast system and have limited application,” Koll, a lead author of the IPCC reports and former chair of the Indian Ocean Region Panel, tells SciDev.Net.

Soma Sen Roy, scientist at the IMD and India representative at the World Meteorological Organization, said the IMD issues forecasts at all time scales—nowcasting, medium range, extended range, seasonal, and long-range forecasting throughout the year.  “These forecasts are not specifically linked to the monsoons, for which special forecasts are issued.”

Said Jina, “Our research underscores that all the investments and improvements the IMD has made in recent years, and continues to make, are useful and important for farmers.”

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By Shizuka Kuramitsu and Daryl G. Kimball
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 3 2024 – Japan chaired a rare, high-level UN Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation on March 18.

Although the meeting underscored the urgency of addressing the growing threats posed by nuclear weapons, it also highlighted the chronic divisions among key states on disarmament and nonproliferation issues.

“The world now stands on the cusp of reversing decades of declines in nuclear stockpiles. We will not stop moving ahead to promote realistic and practical efforts to create a world without nuclear weapons. Japan cannot accept Russia’s threats to break the world’s 78-year record of the nonuse of nuclear weapons,” she added.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres; Robert Floyd, executive secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization; and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, director of the nonproliferation program at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, were invited to brief the meeting.

All Security Council members were represented, including the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Many stressed the urgency of addressing growing nuclear weapons threats.

But the exchange also underscored the extent to which rising geopolitical tensions and long-standing divisions among leading states impede tangible progress on disarmament and nonproliferation issues.

In his opening remarks, Guterres warned that “[h]umanity cannot survive a sequel to [the movie] Oppenheimer. Voice after voice, alarm after alarm, survivor after survivor are calling the world back from the brink.”

“And what is the response?” he asked. “States possessing nuclear weapons are absent from the table of dialogue. Investments in the tools of war are outstripping investments in the tools of peace. Arms budgets are growing, while diplomacy and development budgets are shrinking.”

Guterres said the nuclear-armed states in particular “must re-engage” to prevent any use of a nuclear weapon, including by securing a no-first-use agreement, stopping nuclear saber-rattling, and reaffirming moratoriums on nuclear testing.

He urged them to take action on prior disarmament commitments under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), including reductions in the number of nuclear weapons “led by the holders of the largest nuclear arsenals, the United States and the Russian Federation, who must find a way back to the negotiating table to fully implement the [New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty] and agree on its successor.”

To catalyze action, he reiterated his call for “reforms to disarmament bodies, including the Conference on Disarmament [CD]…that could lead to a long-overdue fourth special session of the General Assembly devoted to disarmament.”

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield criticized Russia’s “irresponsible…nuclear rhetoric” and said that “China has rapidly and opaquely built up and diversified” its nuclear arsenal. In addition, “Russia and China have remained unwilling to engage in substantive discussions around arms control and risk reduction,” she said.

Thomas-Greenfield reiterated the U.S. offer to “engage in bilateral arms control discussions with Russia and China, right now, without preconditions.”

Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, said that his country shares “the noble goal” of a nuclear-weapon-free world. Nevertheless, he described the possession of nuclear weapons as “an important factor in maintaining the strategic balance.”

Polyanskiy countered criticism of Russian nuclear threats by charging that it is the “clearly Russo-phobic line of the United States and its allies [that] creates risks of escalation that threaten to trigger a direct military confrontation among nuclear powers.”
He said the current situation is largely the result of the “years-long policy of the United States and its allies aimed at undermining the international architecture of arms control, disarmament, and [weapons of mass destruction] nonproliferation.”

Polyanskiy added, “As for the issues of strategic dialogue between Russia and the United States with a view to new agreements on nuclear arms control, they cannot be isolated from the general military-political context. We see no basis for such work in the context of Western countries’ attempts to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia and their refusal to respect our vital interests.”

Maltese Ambassador Vanessa Frazier called on the nuclear-weapon states to fulfill their disarmament obligations under the NPT. “Current tensions cannot be an excuse for the delay…. Rather they should be a reason to accelerate the implementation,” she said.

Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun acknowledged that “the risk of a nuclear arms race and a nuclear conflict is rising” and “[t]he road to nuclear disarmament remains long and arduous.”

He reiterated Beijing’s long-standing position that “nuclear weapons states should explore feasible measures to reduce strategic risks, negotiate and conclude a treaty on no first use of nuclear weapons against each other” and “provide legally binding negative security assurances to non-nuclear-weapon states.”

Apparently in response to U.S. criticism of a Chinese nuclear buildup and refusal to engage in substantive arms control and risk reduction talks, Zhang said these “allegations against China do not hold any water.”

“Demanding that countries with vastly different nuclear policies and number of nuclear weapons should assume the same level of nuclear disarmament and nuclear transparency obligations is not consistent with the logic of history and reality, nor is it in line with international consensus, and as such will only lead international nuclear disarmament to a dead end,” the Chinese envoy said.

Some states proposed new initiatives. In response to U.S. concerns that Russia may be pursuing an orbiting anti-satellite system involving a nuclear explosive device, Japan and the United States announced they will “put forward a Security Council resolution, reaffirming the fundamental obligations that parties have under this [Outer Space] Treaty,” which prohibits the deployment of weapons in space. (See ACT, March 2024.)

Japan also announced the establishment of a cross-regional group called Friends of FMCT “with the aim to maintain and enhance political attention” and to expand support for negotiating a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT) banning the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.

For decades, the 65-nation CD has failed to agree on a path to begin FMCT talks. Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Nigeria, the Philippines, the UK, and the United States will join the FMCT group, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

High-level Security Council debates focused on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation have been infrequent in the post-Cold War era, and few of them result in consensus statements or resolutions.

In 2009, the council held a summit-level meeting chaired by U.S. President Barack Obama on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. It adopted Resolution 1887, which reaffirmed a “commitment to the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons” and outlined a framework of measures for reducing global nuclear dangers.

In September 2016, the council adopted Resolution 2310, which reaffirmed support for the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It called on states to refrain from resuming nuclear testing and called on states that have not signed or ratified the treaty to do so without further delay.

More recently, the council has held briefings on nuclear disarmament issues but without tangible outcomes.

The last such meetings were in March 2023, when Mozambique chaired a discussion on threats to international peace and security, including nuclear dangers, and in August 2022, when China organized a meeting on promoting common security through dialogue in the context of escalating tensions among major nuclear powers.

Following the March 18 meeting, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said the session “provided an opportunity to accelerate substantive discussion between nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon states” ahead of the NPT review conference in 2026.

Source: Arms Control Association, Washington DC

Over the years, the Arms Control Association (ACA) has sought to advance and secure effective arms control, and nonproliferation, and disarmament initiatives to reduce and eliminate the dangers that nuclear, chemical, biological, and certain types of conventional weapons pose to humanity.

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By Paul Teng
SINGAPORE, Apr 3 2024 – Asia has about 60% of the World’s population but only about a third of the world’s arable land. This region additionally has some of the most economically active countries with increasing urbanisation and a growing middle class. Asia is also home to some of the most affected countries by climate change. For these and other reasons, food security in Asia affects global food security through many inter-links. A new book, “Food Security Issues in Asia”, edited by Paul Teng and with multiple authors, explicates many of the key issues continuing to cause food insecurity in Asia as well as discourses on exciting developments. Through its twenty-seven chapters, the book, published by World Scientific Publishers Singapore was launched on 27 March 2024 in Singapore by Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, former ASEAN Secretary General.

Paul Teng

Foremost among the issues is the future availability of food items important for Asian food security, such as rice, fish, vegetables and animal protein. The growth in demand for rice and animal protein in particular are expected to put pressure on the environment through demands on water use and increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The International Rice Research Institute has estimated that an additional 60 million tons of rice will be needed by 2050. Wild fisheries are being decimated by factors such as over-fishing and illegal fishing which reduce the stock of captured fish. The production of vegetables with high nutrient content will be further challenged by climate change and consumer demand for improved mineral nutrition while the demand for meat from livestock grown outdoors or in confined spaces will almost double by 2050.

How countries respond will be influenced by their state of agricultural transformation, their economic development status, as well as agrifood policies which balance farmer versus consumer needs. The performance of agriculture in the two Asian giantrs, China and India, can be expected to further affect food supply-demand dynamics in Asia and beyond. India has become the world’s largest exporter of rice and is an important exporter of pulses. China, although a large agricultural producer, is prone to severe unexpected weather events which force it to buy from world markets to assure its domestic demands are met. The amounts which India can export and China needs to import, greatly affects those countries which rely on food imported through trade.

A “silver lining” is provided by the potential offered through technologies such as digital, biotechnology, precision fermentation, urban agritechnology, novel food technologies, waste valorisation and alternative proteins. Digital agriculture is being considered by many Asian governments to provide a pathway to improve productivity, especially increase yield and reduce costs of production. A noteworthy example is that of the ASEAN Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry, which have endorsed the ASEAN Guidelines on Promoting the Utilization of Digital Technologies for ASEAN Food and Agricultural Sector. With biotechnology, while large exporters like the U,S.A., Canada, Argentina, etc have adopted biotechnology-crops, Asian countries have been slow in the uptake of this technology, often due to scientifically dubious reasons. But a sea change may be in the offing, as China has announced in 2023 its intention to leading the way in growing more genetically modified crops.

Controlled Environment Agriculture is expanding in use due to weather uncertainties and is best exemplified by indoor vegetable farms in urban areas grown under artificial lighting, and Indoor fish farms using high- tech Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS). The 2000’s have also seen a resurgence in using a biotechnology called Precision Fermentation to grow animal and plant cells in bioreactors for food or food extracts. Investments in novel food such as cultivated meat and plant-based or microbial protein reached billions of US$ in the early 2020’s. Regulatory systems although slow in becoming operational have gained traction since Singapore first approved cultivated chicken in 2020.

Asia has seen the emergence of a vibrant agrifood startup ecosystem mainly fueled by private financing. But enabling innovations to take hold is requiring more to be done to proactively prepare consumers and regulators to deal with novel food products and novel technologies. Increasingly, many public institutions and companies have come to realize that it is not enough to generate new technologies without accompanying action on technology transfer systems like public extension, consumer acceptance and appropriate communication programmes such as those using risk communication.

With the anticipated further increase in food demand in Asia accompanied by increased environmental awareness, Asian countries will need to accelerate their move into harnessing technologies and implementing policies which support sustainable food systems. These food systems will need to conserve natural resources and concurrently provide livelihoods for millions of small farmers and affordable food to consumers. But to ensure food security, governments should have in place a “preparedness-paradigm” based on “futuring” scenarios of food supply and demand, each with its own response plan. A change towards an inter-sectoral “whole of food system” approach involving many relevant government agencies is needed. Too often, agriculture has been the sole responsible sector for food security and this has to change.

Paul Teng is a food security expert with the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies at Nanyang Technological University Singapore and concurrently Managing Director of NIE International Pte. Ltd. Singapore. He has worked in the Asia Pacific region on agri-food issues for over thirty years, with international organizations, academia and the private sector.

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By Marianne Buenaventura Goldman and Reitumetse Nkoti Mabula
MASERU, Lesotho, Apr 3 2024 – In the journey towards gender equality and justice, recent decades have seen strides made, yet the road ahead remains treacherous. In the race to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, attention is turning to the role that over five hundred public development banks worldwide could play.

Public development banks are increasingly exploring how to promote financial inclusion more effectively, as an important vehicle for women’s economic empowerment. Financial inclusion transcends mere access to capital; it is a radical shift of social norms, addressing social issues that hinder women’s advancement.

However, in many projects funded by PDBs, women are not only excluded and left behind, but are put in a position of harm. One such case is the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) where there is growing evidence of a wide range of negative gender impacts within the affected communities.

The objective of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) is to provide water to the Gauteng region of South Africa and to generate hydroelectricity for Lesotho by harnessing the waters of the Senqu/Orange River in the Lesotho highlands through the construction of a series of dams.

Hailed as a remarkable engineering feat with anticipated economic benefits, it has instead garnered international notoriety for its severe socioeconomic and environmental repercussions on communities. Phase I of the project led to the displacement of thousands without fair compensation, submerging arable and grazing land, exacerbating erosion, creating impoverishment, “social disintegration”, and limiting access to water resources.

Despite long-standing concerns and documented impacts on communities, including increased HIV/AIDS risk, the project proceeds with Phase II without adequately addressing residual issues.

The project’s impacts disproportionately affect women, exacerbating vulnerabilities through increased risks of displacement, lack of access to water and healthcare, and heightened instances of sexual exploitation, contributing to a cycle of socio-economic marginalization and health disparities.

Gender inequality in Lesotho remains a problem despite progressive legal strides in recent years. Implementation and enforcement of laws, especially in rural communities, continues to be a problem. Outdated cultural practices and stereotypes continue to create barriers to ownership of land, denying women the resources needed to secure livelihoods and increasing their economic vulnerability and susceptibility to gender-based violence.

Seinoli Legal Centre (Seinoli) is a Lesotho based public interest law centre that has been working directly with the affected communities in the Mokhotlong district where LHWP Phase II is being implemented, since the signing of the Agreement on Phase II in 2011.

Increased incidents of gender-based violations have been reported within the project affected communities which should come as no surprise; projects of this nature and scale, including the resultant forced displacement often amplify the risks of gender-based violence.

Furthermore, there are thousands of migrant workers from Lesotho itself and South Africa, who have come to work on LHWP. Migrant workers should be accommodated in designated camps, in healthy accommodations and living conditions in accordance with best practices. The situation on the ground stands in complete contrast to this; there are contractors living and renting accommodation within the communities of Masakong, Ha Ramonakalali, and Tloha-re-Bue. In the case of Ha Ramonakalali, there is also a temporary camp belonging to one of the private companies contracted to work on LHWP which is located within the communities – having profound impacts.

Cases of transactional sex between migrant workers and young women and girls have increased, including cases of abortion and concealment of birth, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and high school drop-outs.

Seinoli was recently alerted to the predicament of the fifteen-year-old Lineo (name changed to protect the victim and her family) and her parents. This young girl was impregnated by one of the migrant laborers working for an LHWP contractor. Lineo decided to have an illegal abortion – as abortion is prohibited in the country -in fear of her parents. The abortion led to health complications, which necessitated informing her parents about the events. Lineo’s parents made a complaint to the police. Seinoli received a report that the police were not able to make charges against the perpetrator as they could not locate him after he was moved to another camp by his employers. Consequently, the young girl has been left with the scourge and stigma of having had an abortion and lives in shame within her community. She has also been forced to drop out of school, which will have severe repercussions on her future and ability to earn an income.

The LHWP receives substantial funds from PDBs such as the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), the New Development Bank (NDB) and the African Development Bank (AfDB). While these banks do indicate concern for gender equality, more needs to be done for the development and strengthening of their gender strategies to ensure that the projects they fund do not violate women’s safety or security.

Currently, the Lesotho Highlands Development (LHDA), the project’s implementing authority, does not have a safeguarding policy to protect communities against sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment risk to ensure accountability.

Communities need to be better informed about their rights and have access to reporting mechanisms which can lead to expedited support for victims whilst holding the perpetrator and their employers accountable.

It has been five years since LHWP Phase II commenced, with advanced infrastructure works since January 2019. However, there has not been any shift towards protecting the rights of vulnerable women and girls since the project begun.

The role of international financial institutions and PDBs in fostering gender equality has been discussed extensively in many quarters, including the academic and research communities. However, many questions remain on the commitment of PDBs to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.

In practice, concerning some of the public financiers of the LHWP, the NDB still does not have a gender strategy or policy in place despite having been fully operational for close to 10 years. The DBSA and the AfDB represent financiers of the LHWP with a gender policy or strategy, however, the effectiveness of their gender frameworks is questionable considering the challenges that women are now being exposed to in projects such as the LHWP Phase II.

Basotho women faced similar difficulties during the first phase of the LHWP when women, including female-headed households were excluded from families who received some limited minimal compensation for resettlement. Women were extremely vulnerable to gender-based violence, not only physical but also economic violence. During that time, the World Bank was a major financier involved in the construction of the Katse Dam.

The World Bank gender framework has evolved, providing finance to the LHWP Phase I. The World Bank has now integrated safeguard policies against sexual exploitation and abuse in its Environmental and Social Framework as well as Procurement Framework.

These frameworks ensure that development projects take measures to reduce the risk of sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment, especially within communities. After civil society groups raised complaints about gender-based violence associated with a World Bank-financed road project in Uganda, the World Bank took several measures to address this issue.

In 2020, the World Bank introduced a mechanism that can disqualify contractors for failing to comply with obligations related to the prevention of gender-based violence. The World Bank will also soon launch their World Bank Gender Strategy 2024 – 2030: Accelerate Gender Equality for a Sustainable, Resilient and Inclusive Future, which recognizes gender equality as central to sustainable development. The strategy emphasizes gender outcomes in project implementation, including eradication of gender-based violence.

All PDBs should ensure that such measures (policies and practice) are put in place to avoid the ongoing violations against women that put young girls such as Lineo at high risk.

There is a growing dialogue among PDBs and United Nations Agencies such as UN Women, including those engaging in the Finance in Common movement, on the importance of financial inclusion, which places emphasis on improving women’s access to finance. PDBs must take stronger leadership in ensuring that financial inclusion addresses social issues that are an obstacle to women’s advancement. This includes removing outdated cultural practices and stereotypes that continue to create barriers to land ownership. Women in as much as half the countries of the world are unable to assert equal land and property rights despite legal protections.

PDBs often provide substantial funds to mega-infrastructure projects such as the LHWP II in which communities are often exposed to high levels of vulnerability, including worsening levels of poverty, inequality and GBV. One way that PDBs can contribute to making real progress on the Agenda 2030, is through addressing the root causes of poverty and inequality and integrating SDG 5, “achieving gender equality” a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. There has been progress over the last decades, but the world is not on track to achieve gender equality by 2030.

In doing so, PDBs (national, regional and international) must have robust gender policies and practice in place that support projects centred on gender equality, justice and women’s empowerment.

All PDB funded projects should have gender equality imperatives at the onset of the project cycle through rigorous impact assessment processes that involve women and their communities.

The human rights costs are high in second phase of the LHWP with hundreds of families at risk of involuntarily resettlement and displacement from their homes and lands. Achieving the SDGs will require transformative action that can deliver real impact and change for women and young girls such as in Lesotho. The DBSA, AfDB, NDB and other PDBs involved in LHWP II can play an important role in ensuring that the second phase does not repeat the same mistakes made in LHWP I and in so many other development projects.

This article has been written as part of the Forus March With Us campaign for gender justice – a full month dedicated to the stories of activists and civil society organisations at the forefront of gender equality and justice.

Marianne Buenaventura Goldman is co-Chair, Civil Society Forum of the NDB (Africa) & Project Coordinator for Financing for Sustainable Development, Forus
Reitumetse Nkoti Mabula is Executive Director, Seinoli Legal Centre

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By Ndongo Samba Sylla and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
ACCRA, Ghana, Apr 3 2024 – Developing countries are being blamed for having borrowed and spent irresponsibly. But they have only been doing what foreign powers and financial interests have urged them to do.

Ndongo Samba Sylla

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, developing nations have been told to borrow massively from private finance, even at exorbitant interest rates, to scale funding up ‘from billions to trillions’.

With progress towards sustainable development often in reverse, servicing external debt now blocks progress. Many governments have cut back spending in line with conditions or advice from powerful foreign economic agencies.

Current account tales
Many still believe all national economies should have trade or current account surpluses with others – typically citing Germany’s and Japan’s post-war booms. But of course, not all countries can have surpluses simultaneously.

If a country’s trade and current account balances remain in deficit for long, its currency’s purchasing power will often be under pressure to fall. Such is the case for developing countries, at least. The situation differs for countries such as the US, UK and Japan.

The 1944 Bretton Woods agreement created an ‘exorbitant privilege’ for the US by making the dollar the world reserve currency. This privilege survived the US refusal from August 1971 to honour its Bretton Woods obligations.

The US sells Treasury dollar bonds to the world but does not face the pressures others face to repay debts denominated in other currencies. Dollar liquidity thus meets international demand for USD. Federal government expenditure supplements private spending, with both eventually finding their way into private bank accounts.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Central banks of creditor nations have long bought low-risk US Treasury bonds. Indeed, current account surpluses make them net exporters of capital: they pay off external liabilities and make other payments abroad without incurring foreign debt.

By contrast, developing nations with chronic current account deficits are often obliged to go into debt, bearing the higher costs of accessing foreign-denominated finance.

Hence, developing countries are seen as ‘creditors of safe assets’ (US Treasury bonds) offering low returns but ‘debtors of risky assets’ promising higher returns.

Foreign capital’s Pandora’s box
Foreign capital is usually seen as necessary to supplement inadequate domestic investments. For example, much higher interest rates in developing countries may encourage borrowing and investment from abroad. However, heavy reliance on foreign finance is more problematic.

Servicing external debt drains foreign exchange resources, eventually causing national currencies to depreciate. Meeting foreign liabilities – including returns to foreign investments and external debt servicing – may require more foreign borrowings.

Reducing external debt by selling domestic assets to foreigners further denationalises post-colonial economies and diminishes national wealth. External liabilities over the medium-to-long term are likely to increase, with the repatriation of returns to foreign investments, both direct and portfolio.

If exchange rates are undervalued but stable – which is rarely the case – they can discourage imports and promote exports if rapid economic transformation is feasible. But some imports – e.g., food and medicines – are necessities, not easily replaced by domestically-made substitutes.

Macroeconomic stabiliser?
Credit to households and government deficits increase purchasing power, enabling spending, at least temporarily. When domestic productive capacities respond to such demand, national economic output grows.

When private credit and spending fell during the 2008 global financial crisis, government deficits revived many rich economies – averting more rapid economic contraction and allowing output to recover. Thus, more government and private spending and investment – using debt and earnings – spur growth.

Recessions have become less frequent and deep as fiscal deficits have increased in recent decades. Consistently counter-cyclical fiscal policy can thus reduce business cycles and stabilise growth and employment in rich nations.

With public debt and expenditure, economies would flourish more often. Government debt is less of an issue in rich countries: unlike developing economies, government debt is typically in the national currency, while interest rates are under central bank control.

Interest rate yoyo
Interest rates for government securities issued by prosperous economies were lowered after 2008. ‘Unconventional monetary policies’ – especially ‘quantitative easing’ – were widely adopted, defying orthodox monetary theory.

Such rates remained low until early 2022, when the Fed acted against the tight US labour market after three consecutive presidents – Obama, Trump and Biden – sustained full employment after the 2008 global financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession.

For two years, the US Fed and the European Central Bank have pushed up interest rates, fully aware that developing country governments have to borrow heavily on much more onerous terms.

While the US Fed has stopped raising interest rates, it refuses to lower them, while the ECB remains adamant about not doing so. Meanwhile, developing countries’ central banks maintain high rates, fearing further haemorrhage abroad.

Fiscal austerity is increasingly demanded by developing countries close to government debt distress. Yet, fiscal austerity cannot possibly address external liabilities, debt or otherwise. In other words, there is no analytical basis for the typical policy prescriptions for developing country governments facing external debt stress.

Dr Ndongo Samba Sylla is Africa Research and Policy Director for IDEAS, which organised an international conference on the African debt crisis in Accra, Ghana, on 27-29 March 2024.

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By Ameenah Gurib-Fakim
PORT LOUIS, Mauritius, Apr 3 2024 – The title of this piece is not mine.

It’s from the President of Turkiye calling for a reform of the United Nations Security Council.

It has since become a motto in the UN reform campaign encapsulating the shared resentment at a global system that gives the five Permanent members – The P5 of the UN Security Council – the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia – unfair and often destructive veto powers that undermines the very ideals for which the UN was established.

The United Nations was founded after World War 2 and one of its main functions was to ensure that the world did not descend into the same level of inhumanity and cruelty. Dag Hammarskjöld rightly stated: “The UN wasn’t created to take Mankind into paradise, but rather, to save humanity from hell’.

But has the UN really fulfilled that role? Recent events are alluding to a failing global system, especially when a P5 member employs the veto to undermine peace and security.

The roots of the world body are deeply colonial. It was created for a different world to the one we live in right now. Its membership increased from 51 to 193 today. Over the same period, the global population grew from 2.5 to 8 billion.

In 1945 the P5 accounted for 10% of member states and over 50% of the world’s population, within their empires. Now, it accounts for 26% of the world’s population, and just 3% of the U.N. member states.

Even with the 10 additional nonpermanent members, the seats are distinctly Eurocentric. Within this group, the big countries almost always win – Japan has spent 22 years; Brazil 20, and within Africa only Nigeria, with 10 years, comes close.

This allocation, albeit poor, is also reflected, in the secretary-general position itself. Since 1945, 4 out of the 9 secretaries-general have been white European men with no woman in sight. U.N. leaders have sought to address this by diversifying heads of agencies or undersecretaries-general, but individuals are not the answer. Postcolonial and post-Cold War membership has been the U.N.’s only major shift in composition in 75 years.

Could the next shift be a great economic rebalancing?

In 1940, the P5’s share of global GDP was around 45%. Today, the P5 accounts for just 2 percentage points more of GDP—49 percent of the global total.

China’s rise has been remarkable, doubling in importance from accounting for 14% to 33% of the P5’s total wealth. So, in spite of the change in global economics and the wave of independence, the U.N. structure is still anchored in the power structures of 1945. It suffers from the structural inability to compel the P5 countries to act decisively for the greater good and this is often acknowledged as a key justification for change.

The P5 have also failed to, inter alia, distribute economic benefits to the rest of the world. Again, this harkens back to 1945 when the Security Council was conceived on a basis of responsibility and capacity of working collaboratively.

Even if the economics remain the same, the challenges that the potential member states might be deemed responsible for or capable to address now in 2024 are very different to those in 1945 or for another 75 years going forward.

The general sentiment expressed is that no country in the world deserves a permanent seat or veto-based decision-making on behalf of others. They have to be earned, and the criteria for responsibility and capability transparently demonstrated and rewarded.

A reimagined structure would see all 15 seats made temporary, for a set period to provide continuity, with wide, non-regional open competition for each seat, alongside clear, monitored restrictions on lobbying expenses and two-term limits within a set cycle of a couple of decades to reward excellence while avoiding domination.

They will need to be elected by others; prove their worth to others so as to have the moral high ground when tackling world issues transparently like entrenched poverty, pandemics, climate, financial crisis etc..

The P5 will not accept this and nor would they submit to decisions made by others especially as 3 out of the 5 – P5 members have remained out of certain U.N.-based mechanisms; such as the UN General Assembly endorsed International Criminal Court (ICC) decisions. Yet the ICC has contributed to justice for thousands, if not millions of people.

Globally, the U.N. is still regarded as being able to play a guardian role. This is because the world cannot afford another 75 years of unaccountability and inequality. The well-known saying that “power concedes nothing without a demand’ applies not only to domestic politics but also to the international stage.

The Institution needs a reimagined, with a fit-for-purpose structure ready to take head on future challenges in as much as the inequalities of the past can’t and should not set the rules of the present.

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, PhD, Former President of the Republic of Mauritius