from IIED

G8 summit: A revolutionary agenda

Camilla Toulmin — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:07:37 +0000

The G8 leaders meet in Northern Ireland on June 17, with the UK in the chair, and trade, tax, and transparency as the text. It’s a revolutionary agenda, if seen through to the end.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron outlined his priorities and his vision for the G8 Presidency at Davos, saying that advancing trade, ensuring tax compliance and promoting greater transparency, would drive lasting global prosperity.

These are the key mainstays of what he refers to as his “golden threads” for development, which he outlined in this speech: “No conflict, access to markets, transparency, property rights, the rule of law, the absence of corruption, a free media, free and fair elections. Together these key enablers of growth make up the golden thread that runs through all stories of successful development across the world.”

Here, I look at tax and transparency, the latter of which IIED thinks is a critical step on the road to accountability.

Tax avoidance

Just as Cameron prepares to urge world leaders to come to an international agreement on ending tax avoidance at the G8, the Public Accounts Committee in the UK have released their report, which states that: “HM Treasury needs to take a leading role in driving international action to update tax laws and combat tax avoidance.” Margaret Hodge, the chairman of the committee has also said that HM Revenue and Customs should “fully investigate” Google.

The recession has forced governments to look not only at where the money is spent but also to examine closely who pays taxes (and who doesn’t but ought to). In the UK, the work of advocacy groups like UnCut, and the media stories of the last few weeks have shown the gap between the fine words of big corporate players and the size of contribution they make to public funds that most others must adhere to (unless they have some pretty clever legal advice).

The mismatch between the two has highlighted for many the way we allow private companies to side-step the rules. It’s very difficult to follow the detail between tax evasion and avoidance. And top quality lawyers and accountants allow clients to exploit whatever loopholes are left in the rules to maximum effect. The UK government’s top tax managers move from employment in the public service to a job that pays five times more in the private sector. The CEOs of these big corporates can say in all truthfulness that they have kept to the letter of the law, but somehow the spirit of the law has been well and truly traduced. It’s not a comfortable setting.

Transparency: the means to an end

Fukuyama famously told us in 2000 that history was dead. This hand on the pulse may have been over-quick in pronouncing death, but nevertheless, many of the big battles of the 21^st century may well be about the tools and tactics rather than any particular ideology. Amongst the tools and tactics we all need is transparency, which can be completely revolutionary.

The UK government has shown that transparency and fighting corruption are important by joining the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which IIED colleague Emma Wilson discusses in more detail here. Cameron’s also pushing for it at the G8: “We’re going to push for more transparency on who owns companies, on who’s buying up land and for what purpose.”

The report of the High Level Panel on the post-2015 Development Agenda, co-chaired by Cameron, also makes very valuable recommendations for progress on transparency and accountability. It recognises the revolutionary impact of access to data for monitoring gaps between what is promised and what gets delivered.

Transparency is needed at all levels. Legislation is now in place in both the US and the EU to require companies to disclose payments made to governments, project by project, and country by country. We urge the G8 meeting to take these recommendations further, whether it be on buy-in to the EITI, or opening up investment deals on land access.

Holding companies to account in their home countries needs a parallel process in the places where they operate. It is for this reason that IIED urges the G8 to see transparency as a critical step on the road to accountability and fair and sustainable development. Our research has made big contributions to policy debates about transparency and governance in land acquisitions and extractive industries.

“G8 leaders need to see transparency not as an end-goal, but as the means to an end,” says colleague and energy researcher Emma Wilson. A decade on from the founding of the EITI and Publish What You Pay (PWYP) questions remain on how to make transparency work for sustainable development. It’s clear that just implementing standards isn’t enough. People need to understand the data and use it to hold industry to account. As my colleague Lorenzo Cotula says, without greater accountability to local communities, transparency is not enough.

In many places, people have suspected that their leaders were hiding the truth but had no way of knowing the detail. Now, in many jurisdictions, it’s possible to interrogate tax records and track who pays what, as well as what payments have been made to political parties. It renders public the gap between what people say, and what they do. It also takes the glossy cover off much corporate sustainability reporting and shows the reality within.

In many countries elite groups are able to transform public assets into private wealth. Having just come back from a few days in Mali, a country I have followed for three decades, many of my friends are demanding a change in the constitution to force the presidency to be made accountable to the wider public. Two decades of “democratic” rule have allowed those in power in Mali to share out state power and assets amongst their circle of friends. Public access to information would throw a spotlight on how business is done within government and between government and powerful interests. It would render public the allocation of land to political supporters, and ensure mining concessions are made in ways that comply with the law.

The beginnings are being made in opening up budgetary processes to citizen scrutiny, but it takes well-informed people, sufficient resources, and a safe political space to ensure public access to information can be carried through to achieve real accountability. It’s a revolutionary agenda that has the potential to turn politics on its head and transform societies.

Green Growth and equity must go hand in hand

Steve Bass — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:42:31 +0000

In the last five years the concepts of green growth and green economy have moved from fringe debates to mainstream policy. However, a divide is opening up between some large international institutions focusing on growth through green investment, and developing countries emphasising poverty reduction and equity through green policy innovation. The latest report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) attempts to bridges the divide.

Putting Green Growth at the Heart of Development is a fascinating combination of developing country perspectives on inclusive governance for a green economy, with complementary lessons from the OECD’s recent experience of green growth through resource-efficient technology, incentives and investment.

The United Nations, several development banks, and the new Global Green Growth Institute, among others, are showing how ‘green growth’ can increase conventionally-measured GDP through investment in resource efficiency and greenhouse gas abatement. Their focus on growth through the green goods and services sector of the economy – and the promise of attracting international climate finance, and the returns to be gained – is attracting considerable political attention. Their new analytical frameworks have now been applied to several developing countries, often by major international consulting companies. The resulting analyses reveal which technologies are the most cost-effective – valuable information for kick-starting green economic activity, even if this is sometimes dressed up as full ‘national green growth plans’.

The OECD’s paper similarly emphasises the need for technology and investment, drawing on the OECD’s own experience. A large body of evidence on this has been built up following the OECD’s Secretary-General Angel Gurria’s promotion of green growth as a policy priority for the OECD.

But, crucially, the new OECD paper also introduces a complementary focus by many developing countries on equality and inclusion – aims which had understandably been taken for granted in OECD countries’ own Strategy for Green Growth. This makes the new report useful reading for the upcoming G8, which will need to get to grips with inequality.

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that growth alone is not enough to improve wellbeing and that inequality is rising. Several high-growth countries in Africa having slipped down the Human Development Index. There are also indications that non-inclusive green growth models are risky – external interests have been acquiring land and natural resources on the basis of the rapid gains in GDP they can generate, but at the expense of local people’s access to the environmental assets they need for their own prosperity.

IIED’s view is that, while the technical analyses done by the international institutions can really help to tackle one of the fundamental barriers to a green economy – misallocation of capital that perpetuates the brown economy, one other barrier is just as important – an asymmetry in power between stakeholders. Breaking this down demands an approach that is at once much more nuanced than green technology screening, and yet just as concrete.

It means a sharper focus on the potentials and needs of the poor: developing countries need to create green jobs and enterprises that are accessible to the poor – jobs that might cost $100 to create and require 1 KW to sustain, rather than $100,000 and 10 KW. And it means building inclusive green economic governance: stronger economic rights, capacities, policies and institutions to support equitable approaches to growth within ecological limits. The OECD report is helpful – although its continued use of the ‘green growth’ label, and its voluminous nature, may prove to be small barriers to its use in developing countries.

Developing countries’ visions for a green economy

That would be a shame, because the paper is the first among the OECD’s extensive green growth publication series to be prepared on the basis of evidence and perspectives from developing country stakeholders. The OECD held consultations at the 2012 Global Green Growth Summit in Seoul, at the Rio+20 summit, as well as in-country dialogues in Ethiopia and Cambodia. Read the Ethiopian case study, based on in-country dialogues facilitated by IIED. The OECD also commissioned new analyses from IIED of green economy policy foundations and activities which developing countries already have in place. Material included in the report is from 37 developing countries.

The consultations revealed that external ‘green growth’ frameworks have not encompassed the full ‘green economy’ needs expressed in many developing countries. Stakeholders give more prominence to environmental issues beyond climate change, along with the need to increase equity and to empower those who are being failed by the current economic system. Countries also need the space and capacity to explore the kinds of economy their societies need and want, and to produce their own country-tailored green economy plans. In producing its new paper, the OECD provided a space for stakeholders in a few countries to begin such a process.

It would be good if OECD members could support developing countries further – and accept the countries’ results. As a contribution, in the coming months IIED will issue guidance for self-directed national dialogue, analysis and planning processes based on lessons from the ten dialogues we have facilitated to date. We’ll share them when they’re available.

Bamako baroke – talking politics and drinking tea

Camilla Toulmin — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:46:52 +0000

In Bamako, Mali last week, I drank tea and caught up on politics and development challenges. After the French military intervention to push back jihadist rebels in the North early in 2013, the transitional government has agreed with donors to hold presidential elections at the end of July. This election and a military return to barracks have been a pre-condition of aid flows re-starting.

The constitutional court has yet to agree which candidates are eligible, but Bamakois are already feverishly debating politicians’ merits and who might win — will it be Mali’s old guard or fresh young blood?

All agree that the future must be different from the past. I asked a dozen people from national and local government, research, NGOs, politics, and donor agencies what they want a new president to deliver in the first term. Although they favoured different candidates, their views were remarkably similar.

Peace is the priority

First, urgent action is needed to build peace and reconciliation between different people and groups: in the north, in the south, and between north and south. Feelings are raw on all sides. Families have divided loyalties, and many people harbour deep resentment and loss of trust because of the killings, conflict and displacement of the past few years.

The newly established National Commission on Dialogue and Reconciliation, led by Mohamed Salia Sokona, one of Mali’s top officials, should start work soon. Many want it to speed up, and demonstrate its resolve, especially in the huge northern region, showing that it can operate with neutrality in this hotly contested area, with its mutual accusations of ethnic cleansing. Bringing customary leaders into the dialogue and listening to all sides are seen as vital, as well as including voices from neglected groups such as women and the Bella people, who were — and often still are — bonded slaves to the Tuareg, nomadic pastoralists who live in the Sahara from the North Africa interior to northern Mali and Burkina Faso.

A peace agreement between the government and the Tuareg rebel group, the Mouvement National de Libération de L'Azawad (MNLA), also looks very close, following talks in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. But it must allay serious concerns about Mali’s soldiers taking revenge on Tuareg civilians for the rebel Aguel’hoc massacre. Mali’s chief negotiator, Tiébilé Dramé, has demonstrated skill and patience, and is said to be quietly optimistic. And the French government has helpfully got off the fence and confirmed support for the Malian government, after months of suspicion that it had done some kind of deal with the rebels.

A political agreement would let rebel fighters disarm, and let a joint force, from Mali’s army and the UN, occupy and patrol Kidal, the main town in northern Mali still to come under Bamako’s control. Political agreement is key to running elections in the north in six weeks’ time, and in getting grassroots peace and reconciliation.

Army guarantee

The second task is to reconstitute and equip the army to guarantee democracy and rule of law. With more than 50 generals, poor morale and a weak rank and file, it has become ‘flabby’. And there are worrying reports of it carrying out summary executions and targeting northern civilians as it moved north behind the French forces. The EU is now helping train an effective and accountable fighting force that understands the importance of human rights, and can keep jihadist groups out of the north in future.

Revise the constitution

Third, the constitution needs revising before politicians and vested interests get firmly established. Neighbouring Senegal provides a good model — many Malian observers admire President Maky Sall’s early decision to shorten his term from seven to five years. Everyone agrees the Malian constitution grants far too much presidential power, with few checks and balances. Deposed President Ahmadou Toumani Touré is much criticised for getting almost all parties to share in the spoils of power. But people also have harsh words for former opposition politicians who were ‘bought off’ with minor government positions.

Accountability is key

Fourth, people see establishing a culture of accountability and transparency as key. Candidates will probably have to declare their own and their immediate family’s assets at the start and end of public office. Several potential candidates are talking about more open public reviews of budgets and spending, and a much stronger role for the Assemblée Nationale in challenging the executive.

National assets but decentralised power

Making more productive use of land and water is the fifth priority. Despite vast arid lands in the north, Mali has the River Niger flowing through much of the country. The irrigated Office du Niger could boost production, especially with investment and more secure land rights for farmers. Large land hand-outs to politicians, businessmen and foreign powers also need reviewing, for example the 100,000 ha given by the previous government to Libya on the basis of a three page contract.

And sixth (but by no means ending the list), people insist that decentralisation must go much further. Mali’s 1999 reforms never properly transferred resources or built local capacity. Yet most people relate to state structures through their communes. In urban areas, mayors have been more active and effective. In rural areas, the constraints are much tighter. Rural politicians need a commitment of support from the national government to ensure they can deliver on schools, health, and water.

Given the scale of political and economic collapse over the last 18 months, the stakes are high. It’ll take time and political skill to re-build an accountable state that delivers prosperity and services.

But judging by my tea-drinking companions, Malian’s agree on what they want to achieve.

Future world: addressing the contradictions of planet, people, power and profits

Camilla Toulmin — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:56:52 +0000

Where to begin with shaping a world view? Our new paper on global trends aims to provoke debate as part of the process of developing IIED’s new five-year strategy. Read it and tell us what you think.

In April 2014 IIED begins a new five-year strategy and we’re starting a discussion now on what our ‘world view’ should be. This view will inform how we operate and where, who we work with and what areas we focus on in the next strategic period.

IIED believes that change is more likely to happen when policies are informed by evidence-based research, coupled with grounded practice, targeted influence and effective partnerships. The new strategy is a great opportunity for us to build on what we know, collaborate with new organisations, take existing partnerships further, and create spaces for people to come up with ground-breaking ideas.

Challenges in a future world – tell us what you think

So, where to begin with shaping a world view? We’ve produced a paper to provoke debate, called Future World? Addressing the contradictions of planet, people, power and profits structured around six topics we think will be critical for the next 15-20 years.

The impact of growth in demand on the planet, people and resources. We look at the trends in economic growth and the factors affecting it, population changes, the globalisation of consumption and increasing demands on food, water and energy resources. What impact will all this have on marine and land environments?
Society, values and livelihoods. This sets out the need to shift from individual to collective good –from ‘me’ to ‘we’ and looks at the threat to political and social stability of low levels of employment and disillusionment with politics and politicians, and the persistence of a pro-market ideology.
Climate change. All nations now recognise the need to adapt to climate change and build resilient systems. But huge power is still held by national and corporate vested interests. How can we get the message across about cutting greenhouse gas emissions? Should we focus on getting a carbon price agreed and, if so, what governance mechanisms are there to implement it?
Urbanisation. Population growth is becoming largely an urban phenomenon. Getting city development ‘right’ will make a difference to equality, prosperity and greenhouse gas emissions. But will these cities be inclusive and take advantage of the potential environmental benefits of urban density?
Economics, markets, financial flows. With ‘rich’ economies in long-term recession and China’s growth slowing, what will the knock on effects be? We consider corporate power, the significance of the informal sector and alternative models of growth.
Technology and innovation. Recent events show how transformational new technologies can be. Equally some of the major problems we face require a marriage of local knowledge and ‘high-tech’ science. We ask whose knowledge and priorities count in research and development investment and who ‘owns’ research, so that all can benefit from technological advance.

We’ve also looked at how these topics play out at local levels through some examples of practical initiatives designed to combat negative trends and create positive solutions. These range from legal reforms in Mali to protect local land rights, and providing local government in Nepal with the funds to tackle climate change adaptation, to India’s biometric database designed to implement a social welfare system accessible to all, whether they have official paperwork or not.

Post-2015 agenda

IIED’s next strategic period will be framed by the post-2015 development agenda, and in particular the UN Sustainable Development Goals, currently being negotiated by the world’s governments. We gave the High Level Panel seven out of ten for their recent recommendations to replace the Millennium Development Goals but there’s still some way to go.

The goals have the potential to steer international collaboration in a better direction. But to meet this potential, at the same time as reducing poverty and the harmful impact of humans on the environment and resources, will require an enormous shift in attitudes, commitment and policies.

Working with partners remains central to our work

IIED partners are central to the way we work, and key to our work having impact. With our partners – rooted in communities, local organisations, and specialists in their field – we can make the connection between what people experience in their daily lives and the policies being formulated at the national, regional and international level. That’s why, whatever the shape of our 2014-19 strategy, it will involve working in partnership.

Stories to inspire

We know that the future world picture we’ve assembled may seem a little depressing. The problems galvanise us to take action. But that’s also a good reason to open up the discussion: if we’ve been too gloomy about the trends we’ve identified, then tell us where the story is different. If there’s an inspirational development project or a dynamic organisation that seems to be getting it right in terms of practical responses to these trends, then we’d like to hear about it in the comments below.

Tell us what you think

We’re consulting with staff, partners and other people who know us well on how they see the world and the challenges ahead, but we’d like to hear what you think of this world picture, which we’ve drawn from a variety of sources.

Read what we’ve said about the trends, the way they may develop and give us your response. Comments in the next few weeks will be considered in the beginnings of our strategy formulation.

Key questions

We’ve set out a picture of a world in crisis in the Future World paper: a story of resource scarcity and planetary boundaries within which humanity can continue to thrive. Do you agree with this perspective? If not, what other approaches would you suggest?

Should the debate instead be around who manages, distributes and controls resources?

Are you from a community-based organisation? What are the key issues you face and do you think they are addressed in the Future World paper?

If we considered the debate from a local or community-based perspective, how would it change the analyses and prospects?

Thanks very much for taking part in the discussion. Once finalised in early 2014, we will share our strategy with you.

Download Future world? Addressing the contradictions of planet, people, power and profits

How can business help boost access to energy for those who need it most?

Emma Wilson — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 09:34:24 +0000

From crowdfunding platforms to development banks, the private sector can have a big impact in low-income energy markets.

Dreams of an unlimited supply of clean, cheap electricity from nuclear fusion crept a step closer to coming true last month when the £13bn Iter project announced it had gained critical final approval for the design of a key component. If all goes well for this collaboration of 34 nations, a decade of building work will start, followed by a further decade of testing, and then the mega-reactor will be ready to roll.

Some people think that's too long to wait. While the Iter scientists attempt to solve the world's energy problems by emulating the nuclear fusion reactions of the sun, enterprises on the ground are capturing the actual sun's rays and changing peoples' lives right now.

One way such businesses can get off the ground is with crowdfunded investment, offered by platforms such as SunFunder. The crowdfunding organisation has just secured $20,000 (£13,000) from 146 individual investors around the world to invest in SunnyMoney's programme to provide 1,200 solar lights for people without electricity in Zambia's copper belt. To date, it has empowered 22,757 people in developing countries through its online platform, which can secure investment from multiple sources in a matter of days. And they are not alone – Kiva, Microplace and Mosaic are also demonstrating that crowdfunding can attract energy investment to the world's poorer communities.

Crowdfunding is just one way that private investment is helping to deliver access to energy for those who need it most. The challenge is immense. One in five people lack access to electricity; while about 40% have no access to clean cooking fuels, suffering potentially fatal respiratory problems as a result. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), nearly $1tn of investment is needed to achieve universal energy access by 2030. This is just 3% of estimated total investment required to maintain and expand energy infrastructure at current rates. Moreover, universal access would only increase global energy demand by 1% and CO2 emissions by 0.6% in 2030.

Donors and governments seek to stimulate private investment in low carbon development and universal energy access, through programmes such as the UN Sustainable Energy for All initiative. Yet most private sector energy investment in emerging markets is directed towards large-scale on-grid electricity infrastructure.

This is a welcome boost to energy access, but such investment rarely reaches the urban poor or rural communities. On a positive note, this presents a potentially huge market opportunity for investors willing to take the risk in decentralised energy access.

There are opportunities for the private sector to get involved though. For example, entrepreneurial development bank FMO leverages private sector investment in emerging markets. In larger-scale energy projects it takes on higher risk and partner with commercial investors and the bank uses government funds for projects 0.5 to 4 million euros such as small-scale rural electrification, solar lamps and solar cells. It offers a convertible grant, which can be converted into equity or a loan if a project is successful. FMO also supports micro-finance organisations, for example enabling farmers in Cambodia to buy bio-gas digesters.

Another source of funding for low-carbon projects is carbon finance – from public or private funds, the Clean Development Mechanism or Voluntary Carbon Markets. The IFC's medium term Green Bonds have raised $2.2bn to date for renewable energy projects and energy efficiency in emerging markets.

The impact investment landscape is evolving. Angel investors and high net worth individuals can respond to smaller, one-off deals and early-stage, high-risk investments. Loans can be managed through social enterprises such as Village Infrastructure. Angel investors often provide both money and support for their portfolio, which is crucial for early-stage investment. Angel networks such as TONIIC and Go Beyond allow angels to co-invest, while sharing due diligence and research into new deals. Innovation accelerators such as Embark and Ennovent are another way to link investors with investment opportunities and provide incubator services to local enterprises.

Risks are falling. Mobile phone technology has transformed payment systems, making revenue collection less risky. Eight19, for example, has a pay-as-you go model for solar home systems, based on a scratch card activated via mobile phone. Another challenge is distribution. SunnyMoney has been pioneering micro-franchising – selling solar lights in sub-Saharan Africa through networks of franchises.

Other energy companies have established charities to promote energy access in low-income markets, such as the Shell Foundation and Renewable World. Major energy companies themselves are also delivering energy access to the poor as community development projects. An example is the Bonny Utility Company, which uses gas generated by a liquefied natural gas project to power a community in the Niger Delta.

There are multiple ways that the private sector is supporting the development of low-income energy markets. As these markets mature, we trust that better energy access will ultimately lead to improvements in people's health, livelihoods and resilience.

This blog was first posted on Guardian Sustainable Business and was written in collaboration with Village Infrastructure.

Find out more: read this IIED briefing on innovative business models that are Stimulating quality investment in sustainable energy for all.

New international development goals: score or miss?

Emily Benson — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 11:28:56 +0000

The UN Secretary General's High-Level Panel has published their set of recommendations to replace the Millennium Development Goals. What is the verdict? How do the Panel’s goals ‘score’?

2015 will be a watershed year for international development, when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be adapted, extended or replaced. With less than 1000 days to go till the goals ‘expire’, the question that has been buzzing across media-wires, conference halls and the blogosphere is: what will replace them?

For many of us, international goals feel remote. There is still uncertain evidence on the impact that global goals have on national decision making.

But, they serve an important role. As well as directing international aid, aligning the cogs of the UN system and civil society action, global goals are a statement of our shared values and priorities as a global community. We measure what matters.

Last week, governments gave the first signal of where the agenda is moving when the High-Level Panel (HLP), established to advise the UN Secretary General on the ‘post-2015’ agenda, published their set of recommendations. What is the verdict? How do the Panel’s goals ‘score’?

Points awarded for…

Points go to the panel for backing a universal agenda with nationally defined targets. Their illustrative goals would be applicable to all countries, north and south, and to all people.

In a departure from the MDG approach – which merely tried to reduce the size of the problem – the HLP takes a "zero approach". For example, if the targets are met, by 2030, the number of people living on less than $1.25 will be zero; preventable infant and under-five deaths will have ended; and everyone will have access to modern energy services. Absolute and universal targets are a step forward that other IIED colleagues have shown as critical for tackling inequality.

The Panel gets points for recognising sustainable development as the key principle for moving forward. They argue for a single global development agenda and work hard to recognise, in equal measure, the dimensions of environment, economy and social in their illustrative goals. This is progress.

There are some welcome additions to the original MDGs. New goals are dedicated to sustainable energy, peace, job creation and long-term finance. The Panel targets major companies over tax evasion, corporate reporting and unfair trade conditions, and recognises small businesses and entrepreneurship as important drivers of local economies. The report would like to bring in metrics on progress made towards:

Reforming our financial systems “to encourage stable, long-term private foreign investment”
Publishing and using economic, social and environmental accounts in all governments and major companies
Including sustainability in government procurement - the purchasing by public sector bodies or utility organisations of contracts for public goods, works or services
Reducing fossil fuel subsidies.

The panel reiterates the commitment to hold the increase in global average temperatures below 2C. While some of the targets and metrics still need thinking through, this is all good stuff.

Points missed for...

But, there are also some important omissions, fluffs and fudges. In spite of mounting evidence from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank and the World Economic Forum on the detrimental impact that income inequality is having on our attempts to tackle poverty and protect our environment, the Panel does not include a self-standing goal on income inequality. The report says: “We recognized that every country is wrestling with how to address income inequality, but felt that national policy in each country, not global goal setting, must provide the answer”.

The Panel falls short of recognising all of our planetary boundaries, arguably one of the most important research developments in the last decade. It reiterates the commitment on CO2 levels and insists on the need for sustainable consumption and production. But most of the emphasis is on the role of efficiency gains from production and technological advances, rather than tackling issues of how we consume – particularly in rich countries. Taken together, their goals do not measure progress in staying within our ecological limits.

Finally, the Panel’s framework is based on a set of ‘transformational shifts’, such as ‘building peace and accountable institutions for all’ and ‘transforming economies for jobs and inclusive growth’, which sound sensible.

But, on closer inspection of the targets, we are left wondering how such objectives will be achieved. One rather vague target is to “safeguard ecosystems, species and genetic diversity”, another is to “increase the number of good and decent jobs and livelihoods by x” [the date has yet to be set], another is to “end hunger and protect the right of everyone to have access to sufficient, safe, affordable, and nutritious food”. The scatter-gun approach to the targets, coupled with a lack of detail on metrics, means that the Panel fails to acknowledge the trade-offs between different choices, or the tricky question of implementation. (See this Independent Research Forum paper, for a more practical approach).

The verdict

The Panel has navigated through a complex set of issues on an already over-crowded agenda. The report gets a solid 7 out of 10 for their efforts. They have 18 months to improve their scorecard. Given the scale and urgency of the problems facing our planet and our communities, surely it is time for 10 out of 10.

Read this paper on the Post-2015 International Development Goals, which captures the debates, describes the major propositions and casts a spotlight on emerging ‘fault lines’ that separate different approaches to setting new goals.

Food waste: can grassroots initiatives stop us throwing good food in the bin?

Khanh Tran-Thanh — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 12:40:40 +0000

Almost half the food the world produces is thrown away. Reducing food waste is an economic, ethical and environmental challenge which grassroots initiatives are starting to address.

The world produces 4 billion metric tonnes of food for human consumption each year. But according to figures published earlier this year 30% to 50% of it never reaches our stomachs. Poor practices when harvesting, storing and transporting the food, as well as market and consumer wastage, are to blame.

Major supermarkets in the UK often reject entire crops of edible fruit and vegetables at the farm because they do not meet consumer expectations for size and appearances. For example, four tonnes of mutant parsnips were not harvested because they failed to meet required commercial standards after they were hit by heavy rain last year.

Compare this attitude to the care taken by the Coopérative Alimentaire de Sélingué – a women’s cooperative which prepared food for an IIED-led meeting I attended in Mali. One lady I observed was bent over a basket full of green beans. At first glance they looked rotten. The beans were shrivelled and some were mouldy. If this lady had been using the standards of any western supermarket, these beans would’ve been thrown out. But she patiently picked out all the beans that were still suitable for cooking, meticulously cutting out any unwanted bits. She cracked open the pods to get the seeds for replanting from those that really were unsuitable to eat.

Consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes) every year. Broken down at the household level, in Europe and North America, per capita household waste by consumers is between 95-115 kg a year. In comparison consumers in sub-Saharan Africa, south and south-eastern Asia, each throw away only 6-11 kg a year.

This is why the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been promoting traditional methods by cultures around the world of preserving food. The 5 June is World Environment Day, an annual event that celebrates global environmental action. The theme this year is Think Eat Save – an anti-food waste campaign. Achim Steiner, Executive Director at UNEP, says that reducing food waste is an economic, ethical and environmental challenge that links to the greatest challenges today – from hunger and nutrition, to climate change, deforestation and land degradation.

Learning how less-wasteful cultures place value on every morsel of food could help us contribute to these challenges.

How food is wasted

According to a recent report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 40% of food losses in developing countries occur at the farmer-producer end of the supply chain. This is due to inefficient harvesting, inadequate local transportation and poor infrastructure.

In industrialized countries – because of better processing, transport and storage technology – a larger proportion of food reaches markets and consumers, where over 40% of losses happen.

Food loss at the consumer end is cultural. In developing countries, poverty and limited household income make it simply unacceptable to waste food.

In developed countries, the responsibility for planning family meals, and maintaining a stock of foodstuffs, fresh and preserved, has been appropriated by the industrialised food chain. A growing number of the world’s population is removed from the food supply system and has no understanding of it – becoming mere food consumers at the end of the supply chain. This creates a culture which places little value on food, making it ‘easier’ to throw it away and buy more from our overstocked supermarkets.

Initiatives reducing food waste

I visited Qechua communities living in the Parque de la Papa, or Potato Park near Cusco, Peru in the Andean mountains. In a bid to revive the cooking of traditional local food varieties, a cooperative of women have set up Papamanka, a sustainable restaurant. The women there demonstrated a deep respect for the ingredients and the land on which their food was grown. “Food waste here is practically nonexistent,” the cooperative’s director, Celia Montalvo Acurio explained to me. “To cut a potato without eating it would be an insult to Pachamama, Mother Earth, and would bring us bad luck.”

Such belief is part of the collective biocultural heritage in the region, much of which is based on a reciprocal relationship between the people and their environment.

In the UK, a growing number of initiatives put surplus food into productive recycling. FareShare redistributes surplus food to a network of community organisations that support vulnerable people. It acts as a waste management company handling a business’s waste.

Last Saturday 1 June, Feeding the 5000 held an event in Bristol, UK serving a free lunch to 5000 members of the public – all made from fresh food that would otherwise have gone to waste.

Foodcycle is a charity combining volunteers and surplus food to create meals for people affected by food poverty. It regularly teams up with eco-chef Tom Hunt’s Forgotten Feast to run a pop-up restaurant using ingredients donated by from suppliers with surplus stock.

And what about the wonky vegetables? At the People’s Supermarket – a sustainable and socially conscious alternative to a regular supermarket – you can buy misshapen fruit and vegetables, that other supermarkets reject, for half the going market price.

In an emerging economy like China household incomes and overall food consumption continue to rise. On a recent trip to the country I was stunned by the piles of half-finished dishes left on restaurant tables. And, at the same time, problems like increased food waste, natural resource scarcity and overflowing landfills soar.

But even here, in a country famed for its lavish banquets, a grassroots initiative called Operation Empty Plate has had a sweeping effect. The call for action started with a photo of an empty plate on weibo, the Chinese version of twitter. It became a nationwide campaign when the Communist Party's new leader, Xi Jinping, publicly endorsed it. An increasing number of citizens and organizations have joined in. More and more people are aware of the issue and are now willing to act.

The world will need to feed 9 billion people by 2050. Improving the sustainability of food production is central to meeting the future food demands of all those new people. But there is little benefit in increasing production when almost half of the food produced is simply thrown away.

Now is the time to redress the balance, recognise the value of food, and contribute to global efforts to reduce waste.

In Our World: 30 May (land, forests, cities and more)

Mike Shanahan — Thu, 30 May 2013 06:47:26 +0000

"In Our World" relates to IIED's world of environment and development. It connects us with what’s going on in both the real world and online worlds.

In the Cities

How can we make cities more sustainable in the face of rapid urbanization? "The Human City" by Parag Khanna.
Jakarta passes regulation to manage waste – and floods.
Slum Lab: Manila’s quest to build a better informal settlement, by Kate Hodal.

Carbon and Climate

Can we tackle climate change with a robust carbon price? Rachel Kyte of the World Bank says yes. Chris Lang of REDD-Monitor says no.
The odds of disaster. An economist’s warning on global warming.
Indigenous people in Panama say no to REDD.

Forests, Farms and Land

Three quarters of Ghana’s logging permits could break Europe’s new timber law.
Farmers need stronger incentives to preserve trees on farms in Africa: study
Cameroon orders foreign investors to halt 60,000 hectare oil palm plantation after local protests.
After 40 years, Brazil's 'lost report' surfaces. It covers decades of alleged crimes against indigenous tribes over land.
New US$120 million fund for research in drylands.
Gabon convicts Goldman Prize winner who accused government of corruption over a major agribusiness deal.

Who Owns What?

Brand Maasai: Why nomads might trademark their name.
Rich and poorest nations face off over TRIPS extension.
Latin America up in arms over domain name grab by Amazon and Patagonia

Conservation and Biodiversity

VIDEO – Andy Revkin speaks with Mark Turcek about his case for a profit motive in conserving the environment.
Founding Chair of new world biodiversity body offers first public remarks.
Eyes in the sky: Drones are changing the face of conservation
Budget cut bleeds African biodiversity research.

Voices from the Web

Michael Spence hopes for a Sino-American decade of cooperation on big issues like environment and development.
Too many developing-country NGOs follow foreign agendas, says Dipak Gyawali.
Calestous Juma says Africa’s army should build roads and decentralised power grids.
Rina Saeed Khan on solving Pakistan’s energy crisis with renewables.

Mike Shanahan is IIED’s press officer.

In Our World is a new blog series. Each week it will publish links to top content about environment and development that we have seen online in the past week. You can subscribe by email here or via the RSS feed using this link. As we develop this new feature its content and length will vary – so do let us know what you like and don’t like about it.

In Our World: 24 May (natural resources, climate, long reads and more)

Mike Shanahan — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:17:10 +0000

"In Our World" relates to IIED's world of environment and development. It connects us with what’s going on in both the real world and online worlds.

Climate Change and Energy

China agrees to impose carbon targets by 2016.
A second chance to keep average global warming below 2 degrees C? Michael Marshall reports.
European Parliament calls for 2030 binding renewable energy target [PDF].
Ecuador reveals plan for OPEC to save the Amazon.
Six distinct groups within the Indian public think about climate change in very different ways

Forests and Biodiversity

The future of Central Africa’s forests. CIFOR has a bilingual feature package of photos, stories and videos.
Crime and corruption threaten African forest carbon
Indonesia's indigenous people win right to millions of hectares of forest
Call to mainstream ethnobotany into development.

Mixed Bag

Tighter standards agreed on transparency in extractive industries.
Could a ‘Slum Technology Hub’ lead the way to Nairobi’s future?
How media saves lives. A diarised account of how BBC Media Action warned of a cyclone.
The Innovation Prize for Africa winner makes animal feed from food waste and flies.
Rina Saeed Khan reports on ways ancient knowledge systems matter again to Pakistan’s water future.
Here’s a new spreadsheet of major dams in China.
UK government publishes its Payments for Ecosystem Services Best Practice Guide.

Longer Reads

For Africa’s solar sisters, off-grid electricity is power. Diane Toomey interviews Katherine Lucey.
SciDev.Net has a package of articles on the challenge of getting scientists and development NGOs to align efforts.
Must world-class cities be bland and betray the poor? Atossa Araxia Abrahamian reviews and reflects on A History of Future Cities.

Mike Shanahan is IIED’s press officer.

Transparency: can it work for sustainable development?

Emma Wilson — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:26:50 +0000

The world is finally waking up to the need for transparency in business deals. New EU transparency legislation was announced earlier this month and next month transparency will be a major theme at the G8 summit. This week the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has its bi-annual conference, and the UK and France have just announced they will join the initiative. The big question is can greater transparency help sustainable development?

Natural resource companies cost Africa £25 billion each year through tax avoidance and opaque business deals, according to the Africa Progress Report 2013. This is twice as much as Africa receives in aid. The report also states that between 2010 and 2012, the Democratic Republic of Congo lost £850 million in revenues through corrupt mining deals, while Nigeria lost around $US 6.8 billion through corruption and mismanagement involving fuel subsidy transfers.

The story isn’t all bad: about one-third of African economies grew by more than 6 per cent in 2012 thanks to natural resource exports. Kofi Annan, head of the Africa Progress Panel, is calling for greater transparency so that African countries can manage their resource wealth for positive transformation rather than squandering it.

Transparency: major theme at the G8 summit

Transparency is a key theme of the next G8 summit, to be hosted by the UK Government on 17 and 18 June. Writing in the New York Times earlier this month, Annan called for the G8 to empower African governments through capacity building. “The region’s revenue authorities are hopelessly ill-equipped to tackle problems such as transfer pricing or to counter illicit transfers,” he wrote.

Annan is lending his voice to an ongoing call by civil society, notably the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) network of 650 member non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which has been campaigning tirelessly for the past decade for voluntary and legal transparency. These efforts helped to establish the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in 2002.

The EITI is a voluntary global standard for disclosing company payments and government revenues, overseen in-country by multi-stakeholder groups of government, companies and civil society. EITI has put transparency on the map in some unexpected places — Azerbaijan, Iraq, Liberia and Nigeria are all EITI compliant. One of EITI’s greatest strengths is its voluntary government sign-up and business buy-in, which provides legitimacy and high-profile support. But it is also a weakness, because the need to assure ongoing government and business commitment limits the potential for innovation.

A key achievement has been the empowerment of civil society, especially in countries such as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where civil society voices have been weak.

Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative bi-annual conference

The EITI is holding its bi-annual conference in Sydney, Australia, from 23 to 24 May. On the first day of the conference, David Cameron announced that the UK will be joining EITI, “because every country needs to play by the same rules”. “Open business is good business,” said Cameron.

A new EITI standard is being approved at the conference.

Proposals to simplify the EITI requirements and strengthen EITI as a platform for wider reforms include (among other things):

payments from national to local levels
transactions between state-owned companies and governments; and
disaggregated data by company and revenue stream (but not by project).

Co-author of a recent IIED report on EITI and sustainable development in the Caspian Region, Saule Ospanova, has high hopes for the conference and her native Kazakhstan. “I hope for productive discussions leading to a more advanced EITI agenda with practical applications across the globe, including my country,” she says. “EITI can push the boundaries of best accountability practice in co-ordination with other global initiatives. More localised applications of national and global dialogues should also be discussed.”

Another co-author of the IIED report, professor Ingilab Ahmadov, director of the Eurasia Knowledge Hub at Khazar University in Baku, hopes the new EITI rules will resolve ongoing debates in Azerbaijan over disaggregated reporting. “We hope to see company-by-company reporting in the new EITI rules,” he says. “It will be a clear signal to companies operating in Azerbaijan.”

Azerbaijan was the first country to become EITI compliant in 2009, yet civil society groups are disappointed at the lack of real change in the country in relation to poverty reduction and corruption. A leading transparency activist and opposition leader was recently arrested for “organising mass disorder”, accusations which are believed to be false and politically motivated.

Where next for the Transparency Initiative?

EITI is criticised for failing to achieve sustainable development goals or even any greater accountability. For instance, Azerbaijan and Nigeria remain joint 139th in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index and Nigeria remains 153rd in the Human Development Index.

While EITI is a relatively young international standard, it is also clear that revenue transparency alone is not enough to ensure good governance and poverty reduction. A new study by transparency expert Diarmid O’Sullivan asks What’s the point of transparency?

The theory is that transparency can help empower people to influence the actions of governments and business in the public interest, but all too often greater transparency fails to reduce corruption or poverty.

Nonetheless, EITI and Publish What You Pay (PWYP) have driven transparency up the global agenda. For instance, amendments to the European Union’s Accounting and Transparency Directives, which were announced in May, require companies listed on EU stock exchanges, as well as larger non-listed companies, to disclose payments to governments — project-by-project and country-by-country.

The EU amendments follow the US Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The extractive industries disclosure provision (Section 1504) in this Act requires all US-listed companies to disclose payments to governments when reporting annually to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Companies need to decide where they stand on transparency. Exxon, Chevron, BP, Statoil and ConocoPhilips, which sit on the Board of EITI, are also members of the American Petroleum Institute, which in October last year mounted a legal challenge to the Dodd-Frank Act. In February this year Statoil distanced itself from this lawsuit, a move approved by international NGO Oxfam.

A decade since EITI and PWYP were founded, the question remains how to make transparency work for sustainable development.

“Just implementing EITI does not guarantee pro-poor societal change,” says Dr James Van Alstine, deputy director of the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds. “More country-level analysis is needed to assess how we can trigger expansion of the transparency agenda and build synergies with other poverty reduction and sustainable development initiatives.”

The Revenue Watch Institute has just launched the Resource Governance Index, with an online set of data for citizens to analyse their country’s performance against 45 indicators of good governance. Yet ultimately, the people affected by major resource projects need to be able to understand the mass of data being generated by transparency initiatives and use it to hold governments and industry to account.

Read EITI and sustainable development: Lessons and new challenges for the Caspian region