MILLENNIUM| Issue 1 | WInter 2014

Welcome to the WIDS M a g a z i n e ! We are

proud to be publishing the first edition of our bi-annual magazine se-ries. Millennium is the only published magazine on campus that solely focuses on development issues. Indeed, WIDS is the only development-fo-cused Society on cam-pus. We are therefore very excited to provide the Warwick community with an outlet to read and write about current events and trends in the field of development that are important to us stu-dents!

Whether you are reading this magazine as a member of the Socie-ty or just an interested student, remember that issues of development are relevant to us all. As citizens of the world we should all be concerned with the social and eco-nomic progress of de-veloping countries. As students at an ambitious university such as War-wick, these issues are es-pecially relevant to you, as whatever career you choose to pursue will no doubt place its work within a global context.

In this issue we have embraced this year ’s theme of appreciating development through the lens of diversity. We therefore have articles that focus on a variety of countries, and the magazine is split into the following geographi-cal regions: Africa, Asia, MENA, Latin America as well as the more devel-oped parts of the world.

We are also exploring diversity in terms of the different sectors that affect development, so look out for articles that focus on medicine, jus-tice, gender equality, governance and econom-ic inequality just to name a few.

As we’re fast ap-proaching the deadline of the eight Millennium Development Goals, we have a special section on how far we’ve come in terms of achieving these targets. Hence, alongside our Summit, we aim to look to the Post-2015 De-velopment Agenda and the future of develop-ment as a whole, to truly explore what more needs to be done.

We would like to thank all of our writers for putting in their time and research to write ar-ticles on issues that were important to them. We had contributions from people on courses from History and Literature to Politics and Econom-ics, and we feel this has given Millennium a real-ly broad relevance and appeal. Thanks also to my editing team, Luksha Wickramarachchi, Daisy Sibun and Iris Karaman, as well as our Creative Director, Hiran Adhia who single-handedly de-signed the entire maga-zine, and the rest of the Executive Committee for supporting us in the Mil-lennium’s production.

We hope you enjoy the magazine and that it inspires you to engage with issues of develop-ment in the future. Hap-py reading!

Editor’s Letter

Alexandra Karlsson Editor-in-Chief

Alexandra KarlssonEditor-in-Chief

Hiran adhiaCreative Director

Luksha WickramarachchiEditor

iris karamanEditor

daisy sibunEditor

MILLENNIUM’S PRODUCTION TEAM

THE WIDS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 2014/15

Co-coordinators & PresidentsStephanie IfayemiRiko Yamada

SecretaryJason Tran

TreasurerRahima Chairi

EventsCindy Asokan (Head)Adeorike Oshinyemi (Deputy)

DesignHiran Adhia (Head)

MarketingZara Yaqoob (Head)David Henning (External)

Balzs Vincze (Internal)

MediaLuksha Wickramarachchi (Head)Alexandra Karlsson (Magazine)Daisy Sibun (Deputy)

OperationsAtif Jeelani (Head)Lubna Al Ariqi (Hospitality)Bhavin Ashra (Hospitality)Nahal Darvia (Logisitcs)

SponsorshipKaran Thakrar (Head)Kulani McCartan-Demie (Deputy)Yulu Wu (Deputy)

TalksIbtehal Atta-Elmanan (Head)Aashna Jaggi (Deputy)Iris Karaman (Deputy)

PartnershipsOluwatito Olaniyan (Head)Yeong Lee (Deputy)Anushay Neeshat (Deputy)Noshin Suleman (Deputy)

Fresher’s RepresentativeChristina Stuart

Postgraduate RepresentativeSelin KoksalJonathan Menary

“ Our human compassion binds us the one to the other - not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the

future.” NelsoN MaNdela

The Summit sees dis-t i n g u i s h e d leaders in

the field of develop-ment speaking on current issues around a specific theme.

This year ’s theme is Development Through the Lens of Diversity, so we will be welcoming speak-

ers from a variety of backgrounds, includ-ing medicine, archi-tecture, transparency, NGOs and the United Nations.

Our goal is to en-gage as many stu-dents as possible in the world of develop-ment. As such, the So-ciety also hosts a Lec-ture Series that runs

throughout the year following the sum-mit, as well as various exclusive internship opportunities. More details will be made available in the weeks following the Sum-mit.

We will also be publishing another magazine in the sec-ond term, so look out

for more writing op-portunities and other ways to get involved in our dynamic Soci-ety?

Make sure to con-nect with us through our social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

@WIDS_2014

The Warwick International Development Society is the University of Warwick’s forum for discussing issues of development. We hold an annual three-day Summit that is the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom!

4 5

C O N T E N T SEDITOR’S LETTER 3

WARWICK INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT - Development Through the Lens of Diversity 4

LATIN AMERICA - Is the Chilean Education System a Success Story? 7 - Latin America: The Miracle of the Millenium Generation? 8-9 - Alianza del Pacífico vs. Mercosur: which is the best model for development? 10

ASIA - Building From The Ground Up in Asia 13 - The Fruits of Prosperity are spread unevenly 14 - The Chinese Contradiction 15 - An Unclean Bill of Health in India 16-17

CENTRESPREAD - Millennium Goals: Less than 500 Days to Go 18-19 - A Time For Change...a new BRICS Development Bank 20-21

AFRICA - On Rough Seas: Why Somalian Fisherman Turn to Piracy 23 - Why is Africa poor? Looking Back in History 24-25 - My Phone Fuels a War 26 - Biofuel in Best Practce: The Makeni Project, Sierra Leone 27

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA - Transitional Justice and its Role in Development 29 - The Two State Solution with One State Economy 30 - Why Middle Eastern Women do not need White, Western Feminists 32

DEVELOPED WORLD - Profile of An African King 34 - Celebrity Feminism: A Fashion for Inaction or Glamourizing Change? 36

PARTNERSHIPS & INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES 38

SPONSORS 39

On paper, Chile has been one of the great development suc-cess stories in Latin

America, appearing on course to become the continent’s first de-veloped country.

Statistically, poverty rates have been slashed dramatically over the past few decades, GDP per capita growth has averaged over 3% a year, infant mortality rates have plummeted and life ex-pectancy has soared. The country has seen itself catapulted into the World Bank’s league of “high-in-come countries”. Education sta-tistics are especially encouraging, with the gross primary enrolment rate at virtually 100% and the gross secondary enrolment rate close to 90%. Impressively, ab-solute poverty is close to being eradicated; according to the most recent Casen survey just 2.8% of Chileans now live in absolute poverty.

This success story is the re-sult of sensible macroeconomic policies, the first of which was the promotion of free trade: Chile has signed more free trade agree-ments than any other nation, and is also a founding member of the Alianza del Pacífico (Pacific Alli-ance) trading bloc. The country has embarked on the privatisation of many formerly government owned companies and the liber-alisation of financial and prod-uct markets, allowing the private sector to play a large role in the economy. The central bank enjoys complete independence and the government has been prudent with regards to spending. Dur-ing the commodities boom of the early 2000s for example, the government used the extra reve-nue from increasing exports to set up two sovereign wealth funds, the Pension Reserve Fund and the Economic and Social Stability Fund. It was then able to engage in counter-cyclical fiscal spending and call on these reserves during the recent recession. The Chile-an experience could suggest that the policy mix for development is deceptively simple; allowing free trade, embarking on privatisation and liberalisation of markets, con-ducting prudent fiscal policy and independent monetary policy will cause growth to occur and pover-ty rates to fall.

Yet a crucial point can be overlooked by studying macroe-conomic figures alone: Chile is afflicted with one of the worst

degrees of economic inequality in the world. The country ’s Gini coefficient, a measure of inequal-ity, was 0.52 in 2009 (the average rate in contrast is just over 0.3), and has remained stubbornly high over recent decades. In the rank-ing of HDI by country, Chile falls a staggering 16 places once ine-quality is taken into account. One particularly startling figure which demonstrates the inequality gap is that the richest 10% of the Chil-ean population account for more than 40% of the country ’s wealth. The poorest 10% in contrast are responsible for a mere 1.7%. The divide between rich and poor is stark. It is clear to see that a small group at the top have reaped most of the benefits of Chile’s econom-ic growth, while the majority of the population has been left be-hind.

One key factor driving the di-vide between rich and poor is the Chilean education system, which according to UNESCO has caused “segmentation, exclusion and dis-crimination”. The system is mar-ket-orientated and decentralised. Although the figures of enrolment rates are impressive, they do not reflect the poor quality of the ed-ucation being provided. Although getting more students into class-rooms is a worthy achievement it is also vitally important that they are taught well. There is a large gap between the educational at-tainment of students attending municipal schools and those who go to private schools. In the most recent SIMCE, a test which meas-ures proficiency in English, 81% of private school students passed the test compared to only 7% of municipal school students. This huge disparity can be explained by multiple factors, including the fact that municipal schools have larger class sizes than their pri-vate counterparts. Furthermore municipal schools are poorly funded and crucially have worse teaching standards, as many of the best teachers tend to flock to private schools where they are offered higher wages. Too many universities also suffer from poor quality teaching and offer cours-es with little value in the labour market.

Another aspect of the Chil-ean education system which has perpetuated inequality is its cost. For primary and secondary schools a system of co-payment exists, whereby private schools can top-up the vouchers they re-

ceive by charging tuition fees to students. This has the effect of ex-cluding some students from poor families from the best schools. Higher education is also exceed-ingly expensive; tuition fees rela-tive to GDP per capita in Chile are among the highest in the world according to the OECD, making it difficult for poor families to afford to send their children to university.

The combination of the poor quality and high cost of education in Chile stunts social mobility and shackles the country ’s econom-ic potential. The country has a small, well-educated and highly productive elite who study at the top private schools and universi-ties, consequently enabling them to secure well-paid jobs and enjoy a high quality of life. Conversely, a larger proportion of the popula-tion, one that is poorly educated and have fewer skills, languish in an economically precarious sit-uation. Even if Chile eventually catches up with developed coun-tries in terms of GDP per capita, it must achieve a more equitable distribution of its wealth in order for its citizens to enjoy the living standards of a developed country.

Thankfully, there are signs of change. The number of grants of-fered by universities has increased dramatically in the last few years, allowing more students from poor backgrounds to access higher education. Perhaps more impor-tantly, current president Michelle Bachelet, has recently announced a reform package which amounts to the biggest shakeup of the ed-ucation system in decades. One of the key elements of these ed-ucational reforms is that primary and secondary education will be made free for everyone. Although this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction and will reduce the socioeconomic segregation in the education system, the reform does little to tackle the problem of poor quality education. Passing reforms to make education free will not improve the standard of teaching in classrooms. The prob-lem of inequality can only truly be solved when Chileans from right across the socioeconomic spectrum are all able to enjoy the same quality of education. If the government is able to make ad-vances on this front, then Chile will finally be able to combat its deep-seated economic inequal-ities and become the first devel-oped country in Latin America.

is the CHILEAN education system a success story?

By OlIver reynOlds

Credit: Flickr / perropatata

LATINAMERICA

Credit: Flickr / mmwhortgroup

“The region of Latin America and the Caribbean has achieved parity in primary education between boys and girls, and it is the only develop-ing region in which gender disparity favours girls in both secondary and tertiary education.”

latIn amerIca | 7

With the Millennium Development Goals deadline approach-ing, we become

more and more interested in the results. Who has succeeded? Which countries managed to in-crease living standards, develop and prosper?

China, India and Brazil are commonly listed as examples with very impressive economic growth. If we address these questions not to countries but to regions, South America is often mentioned as a territory with relatively equal lev-els of decent economic growth while most attention is paid to the “failed states” of East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. However, in this article, the focus will be on the Latin America, the region that has managed to make noteworthy progress but still has a long way to go.

The average growth rate of the region during the last decade was 4%, which gives a period of 18 years needed to more than double the economy. New urban areas were built with better living conditions for families. Countries like Brazil, Chile, Columbia and

Venezuela are currently classified as upper-middle countries, while all other countries with the excep-tion of Haiti are middle-income. Referring back to the develop-ment goals, the first one is to end extreme poverty. Latin America seems to succeed in this too. The World Bank in 2011 announced that for the first time, more peo-ple were classified as middle-in-come in this region rather than in poverty. This is a commendable achievement.

However, there is anoth-er important fact that is not so broadly discussed. The Econom-ic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) an-nounced in 2011 that Latin Amer-ica is the region with highest ine-quality in the world. For instance, Carlos Slim Helu, who according to Forbes was the richest man in the world for four years, lives in Mexico; where 52.3% of the popu-lation live below the poverty line. UNICEF (2008) published GINI coefficients of 0.48 for the region in comparison with the world’s average of 0.397. What is even more striking that the GINI In-dex in Haiti was 0.59, Colombia:

0.58 and Brazil: 0.55, while the countries with the lowest inequal-ity in the region were Venezuela: 0.43 and Uruguay: 0.46. All of the figures are well above the world average with the majority of their local populations facing even higher levels of inequality. There-fore, the crucial question is how inclusive is economic growth? Is there equal development across all levels: across the countries in the region, both in rural and ur-ban areas, and between genders?

First, let us address the un-even development across coun-tries. The region is considered middle-income by the UN. How-ever, it also groups countries by poverty levels: very high, high, middle and low extreme pover-ty. Unfortunately, Latin America is represented in every class. In the ‘very high’ category there is Guatemala, Honduras, Nicara-gua, Paraguay and Bolivia, where 30% of the population is trapped in extreme poverty. In the ‘high’ group, which includes Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and El Salvador, it is 14.5%. That gives us precisely half of the coun-tries with very high and high ex-

treme poverty in a middle-income region.

A similar situation may be observed on a domestic level. Lat-in America is one of the most ur-banised regions in the world, with 80% of population living in cities (in comparison with Europe’s average of 73%). Both rural and urban areas experienced poverty reduction and extreme poverty numbers dropped. Yet, Brazil has about 20 million poor people in rural areas out of about 28 mil-lion whilst three out of four rural people in the Andes live under the poverty line. On a domestic level the poverty in the villages did de-crease, but not as much as can be thought at first sight.

Moreover, even in the cities the inequality is striking. Over 111 million Latin Americans live in shanty towns. In most coun-tries, formal housing is unaf-fordable for the majority of the population with this figure at 70% in Brazil and Mexico. Such vast inequality also increases crime rates and violence in urban areas which imposes a huge extra cost on to the government, such as in Colombia, where crime costs

account for around 25% of the country ’s GDP. Therefore, despite the level of urbanisation the pov-erty is still there. It seems like it has just moved from the villages to the cities.

What about gender equality? This aspect might seem odd to even discuss in the region consid-ering the three female presidents of Brazil, Argentina and Costa Rica. Moreover, between 1990 and 2008, the average female partici-pation rate in Latin America grew by more than 10% in non-agri-cultural sector. However, if these numbers are looked at more care-fully, the women who join the work force have lower education levels and are paid less. Although in labour-intensive work, wag-es are equally low for men and women, for women with higher education, the wage gap remains significant. Moreover, despite the empowerment of women in Latin America, 34.4% of women do not have their own income compared with 13.3% of men. It appears that gender inequality still persists, just more covertly.

It is important however to state that these problems do not

undermine significant progress made by collective efforts of governments and international organisations in the region. For instance, countries like Mexico, Brazil, Panama and Chile have im-plemented so-called conditional cash transfers. The idea is to give financial aid to poor families on the provision that the money will be used as an investment in the health and education of their chil-dren. In the ECLAC report on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, the first goal was also to reduce inequality gaps in the region. The issue of exclusive economic growth seems to be addressed on all levels starting from regional (equal economic growth across all countries), domestic (equal living standards in urban and rural are-as) and up to the individual (eth-nic and gender equality).

Hence, it is clear that it takes time and effort to become a mid-dle-income region, but this ‘title’ does not eliminate problems; it is just an opportunity to overcome new challenges.

Latin america: the miracle of By POlIna skladneva

the millennium generation?

Credit: Flickr / worldbank + IICD

|latIn amerIca 8 9

Latin America as a whole has experienced impres-sive development over the last decade, with pov-

erty rates falling substantially and growth accelerating. Two of the continent’s largest trading blocs pushing this development are Alianza del Pacífico (Pacific Alli-ance) and Mercosur.

The Pacific Alliance, current-ly made up of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, was formed as late as 2011. It has stated its aim as simply to promote trade and economic integration among its members. Mercosur on the other hand, founded back in 1991, has declared a much grander aim; it intends for its members to form a union that is not just economic but also political, similar to the European Union (EU).

The two alliances are radical-ly different in their approach. The economies of the Pacific Alliance are far more outward-looking and export-orientated. Merchan-dise exports for all of the bloc’s members apart from Colombia are over 45% of GDP, a rate of exportation that is significantly higher than that in the countries of Mercosur. The Pacific Alliance has moved rapidly to remove trade barriers between member countries; over 90% of tariffs have already been abolished. All of the bloc’s members have signed trade agreements with important trad-ing partners such as the US and the EU. In addition, three of the four members of the Pacific Alli-ance (Chile, Mexico and Peru) are in talks with other countries in the Americas and Asia to create the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed free trade zone which would be the largest of its kind in the world. Mercosur on the oth-er hand has signed only two free trade agreements in the last ten years, one with Israel and the oth-er with the Palestinian Authority. Talks with the EU to attempt to sign a free trade agreement have dragged on for over a decade. In recent years, far from reduc-ing tariffs, Mercosur has instead turned to protectionism. The maximum common external tariff to be imposed on goods imported from outside the union was in-creased to 35% in 2012.

A clear distinction between the two blocs is that the Pacif-ic Alliance economies are far more liberal than their Mercosur counterparts. Industry in these

countries is largely privatised and governments play a much smaller role in the economy preferring to allow market forces to dictate growth. The Mercosur economies in contrast are heavily regulated with a high level of economic in-terference from the government, something that has only tended to increase in recent years. A prime example of this is the Argentini-an government’s expropriation of YPF, the Spanish-owned oil com-pany. In the last few years Vene-zuela has also nationalised its oil industry as well as other sectors of the economy such as telecoms.

The two blocs have enjoyed varying levels of success in reduc-ing poverty over the past decade. Data from Cepal (a branch of the United Nations) shows that on average the proportion of people living below the poverty line in the Mercosur countries fell from 35.9% to 20.6% between 2005 and 2012. The corresponding fall in Pacific Alliance countries was from 36.2% to 32.4%. This far more modest reduction in the poverty rate is due to the fact that pov-erty actually rose in Mexico over the period, negating a large part of the gains made in Peru, Chile and Colombia. Mercosur’s recent success at reducing poverty, as well as the Pacific Alliance’s rel-ative lack of it, can be explained to a large extent by the commodi-ties boom experienced in the first decade of the twenty-first centu-ry. Mercosur countries benefited hugely from this boom due mainly to their nature as large export-ers of commodities; growth rates remained consistently above 6% per annum during this period. High rates of growth filled their governments’ coffers, providing money to spend on redistributive social policies and resulting in the steep decline of poverty rates (the Bolsa Familia program in Brazil is a famous example). Mexico on the other hand, with closer economic ties to the United States and less dependence on primary products, was unable to benefit as much from the boom. The country expe-rienced slower growth as a result, largely cancelling out the fall in poverty experienced in the other three Pacific Alliance countries.

By looking solely at past per-formance it could be assumed that Mercosur will continue to outper-form the Pacific Alliance in years to come. However, the commodi-ties boom that caused impressive

rates of growth in Mercosur ap-pears to have ended with no sign of returning any time soon. More-over, the Pacific Alliance countries possess more business-friendly environments and stronger links with fast growing regions like East Asia. A combination of these factors has led to hugely differing growth forecasts for the two blocs over the coming years.

The predictions for Mercosur are pessimistic; the IMF foresees that growth in Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela will be low or even negative for the next two years. Conversely, growth in the Pacific Alliance countries has recently stormed ahead with a growth rate of more than 3.5% forecast for 2015. This pattern of lethargic growth in Mercosur countries and the contrasting dynamism of the Pacific Alliance looks set to con-tinue for the foreseeable future. If Mercosur countries are unable to grow then they will find it increas-ingly difficult to finance the social redistribution programs currently in place. Unemployment is also likely to rise, causing workers to lose income. Thus although Mer-cosur has achieved commendable progress in reducing poverty and promoting development in the last decade, it seems likely that there will now be a stagnation in terms of its economic devel-opment.

Comparatively, the Pacific Alliance countries seem to be going from strength to strength. With their export-orientated, outward-looking economic mod-el they are well placed to ben-efit from continued growth in fast-growing regions such as East Asia. In addition, the possibility of signing the Trans-Pacific Part-nership could bring even more growth to its member countries. With higher growth should come greater employment opportuni-ties and more money to spend on social redistribution policies. This in turn is likely to cause a decline in poverty and begin to promote the broader economic develop-ment of Latin America. Although Mercosur has undoubtedly proved more successful than its counter-part in achieving economic devel-opment thus far, the future looks like it well and truly belongs to the Pacific Alliance.

Alianza del Pacífico vs. Mercosur

By OlIver reynOlds

which is the best model for development?

Credit: Flickr / CimmyT

Credit: Flickr / rockandrollfreak + DFID

2015 MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

ERADICATE extremepoverty AND HUNGER1.

achieve universalprimary education

2.latIn amerIca | 10 11

High rates of devel-opment are strongly correlated with high rates of urbanisation.

In the regions with the most im-pressive economic growth, such as large parts of Asia, the num-ber of people living in cities has grown dramatically.

Consequently, there has been an increase in the number of cities along with a rise in the respective populations and sizes of these cities. On the one hand, it is a positive sign that society is making progress by developing new industries (or creating them from scratch), improving trade and supporting small business-es. On the other hand, cities can cause environmental hazard and degradation. Rising rates of urban poverty have also been known to increase the rate of violence and crime in such cities. To solve this problem supporters of sustaina-ble development believe in the importance of small town devel-opment.

Firstly, small town devel-opment will supply people with work at the places of their resi-dence so it is likely to solve the problem of overpopulated cities. Secondly, population growth in urban areas has been so fast and rapid that infrastructure has not managed to grow and adapt at the same rate. Inadequate infrastruc-ture is irrefutably linked with higher pollution and lower stand-ards of sanitation. Thirdly, it will support community development. In particular it might be benefi-cial to increase the quality and accessibility of education, thereby helping to provide more equal opportunities. Development will lead to the increase of living standards in an area and that in return will attract better teachers.

The continent that is deal-ing with this issue the most is Asia. The specific problems that towns face depend on the coun-try. According to World Bank, for instance, the most urgent issues in Nepal’s small towns are sanita-tion and access to a clean water supply. According to Water Aid estimations (2010) only 5% of the population that live outside cities had access to piped water and sanitation coverage was only 36%. For China the issue is poor infrastructure. The country is very export-orientated so key factories were built on the eastern coasts and the majority of the workforce simply relocated there. This led to

the almost complete isolation of some small towns as it meant that the development of a transpor-tation system within the country was not deemed a necessity. For Russia the main problem is un-employment. Unemployment has affected a rise in the average age of small town populations, with young people being forced to mi-grate to cities in search of employ-ment. This trend of urbanisation falls especially hard on families leaving seniors with children without support.

Fortunately, the problem has already been addressed. The Asian Development Bank is currently fi-nancing a project aiming to sup-ply clean water to distant areas of Nepal. The project was rated as effective with over 570,000 people gaining access to piped water. One-third of all the bene-ficiaries were women who would previously spend two hours a day transporting water during the dry season. Nepalese communities supported these changes and are currently sustaining those water pipes independently. In China the World Bank launched a scheme called The Integrated Economic Development of Small Towns Pro-ject at the end of 2012. It aims to construct and rehabilitate road networks, water supply and waste management. The project is cur-rently in progress and although it is too early to approximate its successes, the fact that the gov-ernment have recognized and addressed China’s infrastructure problem gives hope that eventual-ly it will be overcome. Moreover, in 2011 the World Bank complet-ed a successful project in the po-lar regions of Russia. They helped people to migrate from distant villages to the local centres. Re-markably, parents, husbands, wives and children were helped with the move as well.

Development is not only a challenge in itself; new challeng-es often arise as a consequence of developmental efforts. Iden-tifying and dealing with these challenges is essential for max-imising sustainable development. Fortunately, governments and international organisations are appearing increasingly capable in facing and overcoming them. The main challenge appears to lie in departing from orthodox patterns and sourcing new solutions for unfamiliar problems.

building from the ground up in asia

By POlIna skladneva

Credit: Flickr / monkeylikemind + nateluzod

ASIA

Credit: Flickr / lain32

“Extreme poverty rates of people living on less than $1.25 per day halved in Eastern Asia and South-Eastern Asia, but Southern Asia needs more time. China leads the way in global poverty reduction, although it is still home to about 13 per cent of the world’s extreme poor.”

asIa | 13

Since Deng Xiaoping lib-eralised China’s economy and opened it up to world trade in 1976, the Chinese

Economic Miracle has made head-lines around the world. Averaging a remarkable 10% GDP growth and 6.6% income per capita growth for over three decades, China’s swift economic growth has undoubted-ly been extraordinary. However, these impressive figures mask a worrying trend. Development, not only on an individual but also increasingly a regional basis, is starkly unequal.

China’s eastern regions, par-ticularly along the coast, are the main beneficiaries of growth. On the other hand, western China remains largely poor and undevel-oped. The Western Regions com-prise 71.4% of China’s land area but contribute merely 18.6% of its economic output. In compari-son, just eight of China’s eastern cities – Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Qingdao – make up 20.2% of China’s GDP.

According to The Economist, wealthy regions in China like Jiangsu and Zhejiang have econ-omies comparable to Switzerland and Austria respectively; mean-while, south-western Tibet has a smaller economy than Malta, de-spite being almost 8000 times its size. From 1990 to 2000, the GDP per capita of the Western Regions declined from 73% of the national average to 61%, with the province

of Hotan in far western Xinjiang having a GDP per capita of just $1134 – below that of Zimba-bwe, which is widely considered a failed state.

Clearly, the fruits of eco-nomic development since 1976 have been distributed very un-evenly in regional terms. The reasons for this can be broadly classified into geographical and political categories.

From a geographical per-spective, eastern regions in China are much more fertile than their western counterparts. Agriculture has historically been concentrat-ed in the temperate Zhejiang and Jiangsu regions, through which runs the fertile Yangtze River Del-ta. As a result, these two regions have tended to contribute a larger portion to China’s economy. In contrast, western China contains vast stretches of desert wasteland, like the infamous Taklamakan, as well as the southwest which is arid and mountainous: the Qing-hai-Tibet Plateau lies 4000 metres above sea level and receives less than 200 millilitres of rainfall a year, a fifth of the world average. Such conditions necessarily ren-der China’s west and southwest less economically productive than the flatter and more fertile east.

From a political perspec-tive, eastern regions in China have long been integrated within the country, while the western regions have historically been regarded as peripheral. This is in

part because some of them were only incorporated into China dur-ing the Qing Dynasty. Moreover, their Uighur and Tibetan pop-ulations are ethnically distinct from the Han Chinese majority and resent Han rule, with the Ui-ghurs in particular being prone to rebellion. Economists generally agree that “peace, order and good government” is vital for economic development through trade and investment. Xinjiang has been the site of multiple genocides and ethnic cleansing attempts by both Han and Uighur, and, more recently, is plagued by sporadic outbursts of violence. Some Ti-betan inhabitants have taken to self-immolation to register their displeasure at being ruled from Beijing. In these two regions sta-bility and order are not easy to come by. Businesses have a much lower incentive and willingness to make long-term investments here. As a result, economic develop-ment is slower.

The implications of une-ven economic development are deeply worrying. For the ethnic minorities in the Western Re-gions, poverty compounded with feelings of economic marginalisa-tion by the government fuel sep-aratist tendencies that threaten the territorial integrity of China. This is especially true for the mostly-Muslim Uighurs, who may increasingly turn to Islamic fun-damentalism. An Uighur separatist group, the East Turkestan Islamic

Movement, is recorded to have committed over 200 acts of terror-ism between 1990 and 2001, and is included in the United States’ Terrorist Exclusion List. Unless ethnic minorities in the Western Regions see a prosperous future for their people inside China rath-er than outside it, separatism and terrorism will likely remain prob-lems for a long time.

Furthermore, China’s east-ern regions are already overpop-ulated and polluted. Three of the world’s ten largest cities, Guang-dong, Beijing and Shanghai, are located in eastern China, and all three experienced a growth in population of 20% over the past 15 years. Large and densely pop-ulated areas tend to be prone to pollution: a Greenpeace report finds that in some parts of east China inhabitants suffer from air quality that is “very unhealthy or hazardous” for as much as a third of a year. Estimates by the Chinese government project that over the next 15 years a further 300 mil-lion rural inhabitants would move into cities. If economic growth and the jobs it brings continue to be concentrated in the eastern cities it will likely significantly de-teriorate the already-substandard quality of life and safety of the urban environment.

Recognising these problems, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has begun to pay closer attention to the development of the western half of the country.

The China Western Development Programme was launched in 2000 to increase economic growth in western China. Through a combi-nation of preferential tax policies for businesses, as well as direct fiscal interventions, the western regions saw investments in infra-structure and public utilities to-talling over £130 billion between 2000 and 2007. The programme achieved some signs of success: GDP per capita achieved an annu-al 13% growth rate and climbed back to 71% of the national aver-age this year. However, economic development in China typically brings environmental degradation and rising tensions due to social dislocation; this will be further complicated by problems of eth-nic unrest that aren’t as present in eastern China. The road to eco-nomic development in western China will likely be a winding and rocky one.

In the long run, the question of whether the Western Regions can experience sustained growth depends on the CCP’s ability to balance economic development with not only environmental and social concerns, but also sensitive ethnic and religious tensions. With the Western Development Programme, the CCP has taken the first steps onto the right path. It remains to be seen, however, if it has the will and ability to con-tinue on this journey.

the fruits of prosperity are spread unevenlyBy Wang yIhua

Credit: Flickr / ramnaganat

I t is widely accepted that an important goal of any state is to achieve economic growth, with the underlying

assumption that economic growth enables the state to fulfil one of its core functions: to maintain and improve the quality of life of its citizens. However, the recent experience of China represents an interesting case study where eco-nomic growth and welfare have, in certain ways, stood in contra-diction with one another.

In achieving high levels of growth, China has focused on its ever-expanding manufacturing sector, which has led to various environmental problems, most notably the creation of hazardous levels of air pollution. The pur-suit of growth can in this sense be considered detrimental to welfare as it engenders adverse conse-quences, such as negative health and social effects, which stand in direct violation of the wellbeing of Chinese citizens. This uncovers an important trade-off between economic growth and welfare which is increasingly relevant given the rise to prominence of climate change and other environ-mental and sustainability issues.

From 1990 to 2012, Chinese GDP grew by over 7%, with its manufacturing sector accounting for 59% of this increase. General-ly speaking, as standards of living are positively correlated to eco-nomic growth, this would suggest an improvement in wellbeing. Yet, as the Brundtland Commis-sion defined sustainable growth as “development that meets the needs of the present without com-promising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, the Chinese pattern may not fit this trend, as coal accounts for about 70% of energy consump-tion – which as a non-renewable source, is unsustainable.

Furthermore, this exploita-tion of coal has created hazardous levels of air pollution, so that 71 out of 74 cities monitored in China over 2013 did not meet the state environmental standards. This meant that a rare alert of “Or-ange” – the second highest in the four levels of urgency – was used in February 2014, triggering pan-ic buying of air purifiers and face masks, with many retailers in Bei-jing reporting that they had sold out stock during the city ’s most recent bout of smog. In February, the PM 2.5 pollutant (those small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the blood-stream) reached 505 micrograms

per cubic meter, which is 20 times higher than the level recommend-ed by the World Health Organ-isation. Thus, Beijing performs second worst in terms of living environment among 40 major cit-ies around the world, and is also, according to the Annual Report on World Cities, technically “un-inhabitable for human beings”.

Hence, it is not surprising that a survey using the Personal Well-Being Index (PWI) and the Job Satisfaction Survey ( JSS) – which had shown to have good psychometric properties in pre-vious psychological research – found that cities with higher levels of atmospheric pollution tends to report lower levels of personal wellbeing. This result suggests that the personal wellbe-ing of China’s urban population can be enhanced if China were to pursue a more balanced growth path which curtailed atmospher-ic pollution. Therefore, although there is already a 35 Article Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of At-mospheric Pollution in place, this may not be enough to battle the Chinese pollution. Hence, there needs to be recognition that the pursuit of rapid economic growth may not be the best way forward.

However, Chinese represent-atives have highlighted on numer-ous occasions that the criticism raised by Western countries with regards to pollution in China is hypocritical because they have all gone through their own similar industrial revolutions in the pre-vious century. As these countries also created similar externalities before reaching their economic dominance as developed nations, it seems unfair that China is una-ble to do the same. Furthermore, some argue that the unprecedent-ed economic growth of China will ultimately make the country richer, so that they can tackle the side effects of this growth at a later stage. However, the growth of the Chinese middle class can still be considered a hindrance to environmental-friendliness, as in-creases in disposable income has led to monumental rises in energy consumption as well as purchas-es of automobiles, which further affect the pollution levels. Hence, it is clear that China sacrificed the environment in order to achieve breakneck economic growth, in such a way that the costs of this development may outweigh the benefits.

THE CHINESE CONTRADICTION

By luksha WIckr amar achchI

Credit: Flickr / dshack |asIa14 15

A year ago, my knowledge of India was cursory: it was the up and coming developing nation, the

country where I trace my roots. Through the Internation-

al Citizen Service (ICS), a UK youth initiative funded by DfiD, I worked with Raleigh Internation-al (one of five respected partner charities focused on youth-led sustainable development) for two and half months of grassroots de-velopment in a small tribal village named Soolebavi in Karnataka, South India. Now, I understand that India is the land of contra-dictions, where tourist laden rick-shaws groan past cattle herders as rockets fire into space, where the blight of ancestral caste, patriar-chal gender violence and vast ur-ban and rural inequality still mire the advances in disease preven-tion, access to primary education and burgeoning high tech and cul-tural centres of the second largest democracy in the world.

Post development theory argues that development and aid are problems, not solutions. It posits that our ideas are Eurocen-tric and imposed and that they supposedly increase underde-velopment by hindering natural growth. In a post-colonial era it is important to remember that the rise of the Western youth’s interest in volunteering coincided perfectly with the change enacted by global neoliberal reform from the 80’s onwards. With large scale macroeconomic adjustment, heav-ily indebted countries became increasingly reliant on the global north through private, free mar-ket loans of loaded petrodollars. As the IMF and World Bank bailed out countries with concessional loans, with strings attached, it resulted in devalued currencies and further reduced governmen-tal intervention and spending in the education, healthcare and in-frastructure sectors. Living stand-ards deteriorated dramatically throughout the developing world,

with its citizens bearing the brunt of the impact. Local NGOs and non-profits leapt at the promise of donated labour and resources, foreign volunteers were eager to ‘help’ and start up ‘alternative’ tourist companies were equally eager to capitalise by bridging both – resulting in the explosion of the volun-tourism industry and development capitalism.

It is easy then to disregard my experience as just that, a self-aggrandising holiday of ad-venture and I certainly adhere to the stereotype. I would argue, however, ICS is different, an intel-lectually stimulating pilot of gov-ernment funded, youth focused, sustainable development, with enough oversight, infrastructure, resources and independent eval-uation to ensure it does not fall into the trap of being there for the sake of being there. Through my experience with Raleigh, with its laser focus on the MDGs, commit-ment to bespoke projects based on ground feedback and use of a diverse mix of six international and six national country volun-teers, I aim to provide a unique perspective on the latest results of India’s struggle to enact uni-versal reforms.

Putting aside the obvious health implications, diseases are a major barrier to social and eco-nomic development. According to the annual evaluation report from the Ministry of Statistics, In-dia, the country is moderately on track in relation to the MDGs as trend reversal has been achieved for annual parasite incidence of malaria, prevalence of TB and HIV prevalence despite it increasing in certain states. My experience was initially not so optimistic. After the results of a Participatory Rural Appraisals where we interviewed individual households we found little to no knowledge of symp-toms and disease prevention and we set about creating practical, interactive information sessions, utilising drama, infographics,

symbols and Q&As using the ba-sic information packs supplied by Raleigh. These took place at twilight on straw mats under the splayed light of a lone light bulb and torches outside the village leader ’s house while refreshments – consisting of fruit/rations and our poor imitation of Indian black coffee (less sugar!) – were served.

Additionally we introduced the concept of tippy taps – a sim-ple, hands free method of wash-ing one’s hands with soap using a jerry can/bottle, rope, soap and rock. I remember vividly the next day when we woke up to find a two children had built their own version. After a brief political struggle we also demonstrated to the youth committee how to fix their unfinished toilets and held dedicated sessions explain-ing their health and sanitation benefits. The in-village sessions climaxed in two large scale free health camps, dental and medical, held outside the village, both of which I co-organised to revolve around prevention techniques. Villagers visited interactive health stations, designed by volunteers and subsequently run by the vil-lage youth committee which we facilitated, before visiting the dentists or nurses for a check-up and/or basic treatment.

Our short term objective were for attendees to fix loom-ing issues through treatment and begin to implement prevention knowledge. In the long term, we hoped the community would develop good practice in their daily routine and, like bacteria, pass knowledge both vertical-ly and horizontally, to children and peers respectively. Overall, the effectiveness and impact of our efforts is mainly anecdotal with issues legion. The results of pre and post surveys after health events show an increase in specif-ic knowledge about most diseases and ideas of good and bad food where cemented. We assumed the use of practical sessions to

be more effective and the utili-sation of respected members of the community and mobilising the youth to deliver health mes-sages increased the likelihood of the future propagation of health prevention advice. For me, I dis-tinctly remember a moment while on a homestay with my favourite villager, Rangama, and elderly yet fierce and passionate individ-ual. After our meal by fire I can picture her washing it down with boiled water (repressing a slight cringe at the taste), taking the lid off a vat of water, pouring it into another in order to wash her hands, replacing the lid, removing the excess water and proceeding to brush her teeth away from sight with a toothbrush provided at the Dental camp. That night I slept well under the stars.

Our impact on Soolebavi and their impact on us as individuals is impossible to truly measure. For me, our greatest benefit was providing the impetus to increase community integration and foster-ing a thirst for knowledge beyond what they already knew. These concepts aren’t on the post 2015 agenda or the new Rio 20 SDGs, they aren’t even measurable, but for me knowledge is power and social cohesiveness enables you to act on the information which you find useful.

Despite its pitfalls, India has a bright future, its problems are not unsolvable. In a similar way, international development can be done wrong, especially when uti-lising youth who have no specific areas of expertise, but for me, in this case, despite issues – it was beneficial in different ways than expected. If we had any sustain-able impact on my brothers and sisters cultivating paddy in the summer sun, it was the cyclical and powerful widening of per-spectives that inspires myself and hopefully them to be more than they are. Perhaps that is a Euro-centric view, but I like it.

An unclean bill of health in indiaBy hasan suIda

Credit: Flickr / wethesolution + gofootloose + indianwaterportal

asIa | 1716

MILLENnIUM GOALS

LEss than 500 days to go

tion, and hardly any progress has been made to reduce this trend, except in Southern Asia. India has seen a reduction from 600 women dying for every 100,000 births in 1990, to 200 by 2012.

MDG #6 – combating HIV/Aids, malaria, and other diseas-es – has been achieved. New HIV infections declined by 44% from 2001-2012, and 230,000 fewer children under 15 were infected

with HIV in 2011 than in 2001. The success of the glob-

al battle against HIV/Aids is

due to the d r a -

mat -i c

i n -c rease

in access to antiretro-

viral therapy for HIV-infected people,

which has saved 6.6 million lives since 1995. As a result of this treatment, an increasing number of people are able to live with HIV. For instance in South Afri-ca in 1990, only 0.5% of people aged 15-49 were living with HIV and Aids. By 2003, that figure hit 17%, and has remained around this level. Moreover, there has been a 42% decline in the malaria mortality rate, due to a substan-tial expansion of malaria inter-ventions and funding. However, there is still progress to be made

as 50 young women are newly in-fected with HIV every hour, and in 2012, malaria killed an estimated 627,000 people. This can be com-bated through increased access to treatment, and in increased education on preventing trans-mission.

The world has met its targets of halving the population without access to safe drinking water and improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers. However, there remain other sanitation and environmental targets to achieve, leaving MDG #7 un-completed. For instance, 2.5 billion people do not have ac-cess to sanitation such as toilets or latrines, and 1 billion people still resort to open defecation despite increasing access to im-proved sanitation. Moreover, global emissions of carbon diox-ide have increased by over 46% since 1990, and nearly one third of marine fish stocks have been overexploited. Thus there remain steps to be taken in order to fulfil MDG #7, though the achievement of the water target is a large step towards ensuring environmental sustainability. In Afghanistan, for example, only about 5% of peo-ple had access to improved water sources in 1990; by 2011 this fig-ure reached over 60%.

The eighth MDG is to cre-ate a global partnership for development; this goal is aimed at developed and developing countries. The achievement of this goal is fundamental as a platform for the other goals, and it highlights that developed countries are not doing what they could, and promised, to do at the Millennium Declaration. For instance, although official devel-opment assistance hit a record high of $134.8 billion in 2013, aid has shifted away from the poor-est countries, where attainment of the MDGs is the lowest. This indicates that motives for aid are often not based on the greatest need but on political, economic

or strategic concerns. Since 1970 the international target for official development assistance is 0.7% of the donor country ’s gross nation-al income. Although this was orig-inally conceived of as a minimum commitment only six countries have ever met the target. Britain first met the target in 2013, and the only other countries that have met it, in order of highest ODA/GNI, are Norway, Sweden, Luxem-bourg, and Denmark, with Britain giving the lowest percentage out of the five countries.

As the end date for the MDGs approaches, the UN is giving people a voice on the post-2015 agenda through a platform called “World we want 2015”, which en-courages global engagement with the future of international devel-opment. So far over five million people have voted on what issues matter most to them on: http://vote.myworld2015.org/. The new set of goals that is currently be-ing developed and decided on will be called the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and 17 goals have been announced, though not finalised. They will in-clude the MDGs’ themes of ending poverty and hunger and improv-ing health, education and gender equality, as well as specific goals to reduce inequality, make cities safe, address climate change and promote peaceful societies. Cru-cially, the next set of goals will be universal, meaning all countries will be required to consider them when crafting their national pol-icies. Officially, the eight MDGs were applicable to all but they have been marketed as anti-pov-erty goals for poor countries that are funded by more developed nations. The whole world will be involved in the attainment of the SDGs, making it all the more necessary for everyone to engage in the global conversation on the post-2015 development agenda.

A t we entered into the new millennium, every member state of the United Nations com-

mitted to the set of eight goals by signing the Millennium Declara-tion. These Millennium Develop-ment Goals (MDG) had an ambi-tious, yet achievable, deadline for the end of 2015. Having passed the 500 days-to-go mark, it is time to start critically evaluating what has been achieved and where, and what the future of the global de-velopment agenda will be.

Ban Ki Moon described the MDGs as “The most successful global anti-poverty push in histo-ry”. The MDGs have indeed suc-ceeded in unifying states in the quest for their achievement, and creating a culture of purpose in the fight against extreme poverty and other developmental goals. Through the 21 targets and 60 indicators within the eight goals, the MDGs have focused policy on broader measures of develop-ment, yet also made abstract ide-as quantifiable. There have been numerous positive achievements, with four MDGs already achieved. However, the glass is also half empty considering four have re-mained unachieved, and success varies dramatically across the de-veloping world.

The first MDG was to halve extreme poverty and hunger; this goal was met 5 years before the 2015 target. In 1990 an esti-mated 47% of people in develop-ing countries were living on less than $1.25 a day, and by 2010 this fell to 22%. Although the target has been met, it is still unaccept-able that 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty, and more than 99 million children under five are still undernourished and underweight. The rate of progress is also slowing; for example, in Bangladesh from 1994 to 2002 the proportion of undernourished people fell from 38% to 16.4%, whereas from 2002 to 2011 it has only fallen to 16.8%. Moreover,

the early success of this MDG is partly due to China’s dramatic progress, rather than a collective reduction in absolute poverty across the developing world.

The second goal, achieving universal primary education, has not yet been reached, although enrolment has reached 90% in de-veloping regions. High dropout rates remain a major impedi-ment to MDG #2, as one in four children in developing regions who enter primary school are likely to drop out. Moreover, half of the 58-million primary school-aged children that do not attend school live in conflict-af-fected areas. Although Asian countries have been especially successful at increasing school attendance (the enrolment rate in Laos increased from 59.4% in 1992 to 97.4% in 2011), the goal is unlikely to be met.

The world has achieved gender equality in primary ed-ucation; meaning MDG #3 has officially met its target. Howev-er, this equality does not continue through all levels of education. Most regions have gender-par-ity index scores of 0.97 to 1.03. For example, in Southern Asia in 1990, only 74 girls were enrolled in primary school for every 100 boys, and by 2012, the enrolment ratios were the same. However, women still face discrimination in access to higher education levels, secure employment, and partic-ipation in decision-making. The average share of female members in parliaments worldwide was just over 20 per cent in 2013. Global-ly, women hold on average 40 out of 100 wage-earning jobs in the non-agricultural sector; and the jobs they do hold are less secure and with fewer social benefits.

The child mortality rate has almost halved since 1990; however, we still have not reached the MDG #4’s target to reduce child mortality by two thirds. 17,000 fewer children are dying each day since 1990, and

measles vaccinations have helped to prevent nearly 14 million deaths from 2000 to 2012. In Ni-ger, for example, nearly a third of children under five died in 1990, this ratio had fallen to one in eight in 2011. However, prevent-able diseases are the main cause of under-five deaths, and further action needs to be taken to tackle this unnecessary loss of life. De-spite progress towards the goal, four out of every five deaths of children under the age of five continue to occur in sub-Saha-ran Af-r i ca

a n d South-ern Asia.

P r o -gress towards MDG #5, to improve maternal health, is falling far short of its targets. The maternal mortality ratio has fallen by 45% from 1990 to 2013, but this is not close to the target reduction of 75%. Currently only half of wom-en in developing regions receive the recommended minimum of four antenatal care visits. A ma-jor failure in the commitments to this goal is the lack of funding for family planning and reproductive health care. Moreover, high ado-lescent birth rates are perpetuat-ed by poverty and lack of educa-

By chrIstIna stuart

Credit: Flickr / usaid_images + minoritenplatz8 + unamid_photo + Un_PHOTO + cgiarclimate + DFID + flixel |centresPread18 19

The BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have as much to gain politically as they do economically from the es-tablishment of their own financial institution. Whatever the agenda, it signals a step in the right direc-tion for the cause of development.

Plans for a New Develop-ment Bank (NDB) to be created by the emerging powers were ad-vanced at the sixth annual BRICS summit held in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza on 14-16th July 2014; not a moment too soon. The move to establish the financial might and independence of the emerging powers’ economies will endeavour to provide a healthy challenge to the conventional Eu-ro-American financial institutions that already monopolise the glob-al economy.

The move is ambitious for a coalition of relatively dispa-rate countries and it is certainly likely that the scope of progress it can achieve in the field of development may be limited. Nonetheless, it is about time that emerging smaller economies are empowered to leave their own mark on the global economy and, ultimately, any united develop-ment effort should be celebrated.

The initial start-up capital of $50 billion, an amount that is hoped will eventually reach $100 billion, will be split between the five participating countries. Fol-lowing a decision at the recent summit, the NBD will be based in China with its headquarters located in Shanghai. It was also announced that the institution will have an Indian president, a Russian Board of Governors Chair and a Brazilian Board of Directors Chair for the first six years. Hav-ing such senior positions filled by a broad array of executives with such diverse national interests and styles is sure to confront the bank with its fair share of diffi-culties. The important aspect to focus on, however, is the crucial attempt that the NDB represents

in providing an alternative future for the global financial order.

The creation of a NDB is in-tensely symbolic for the role of emerging powers on the global financial arena. The Internation-al Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have dominated the financial stage for the past sev-en decades since their formation by the allied nations after World War Two. They were created to cater to the exponential increase in globalised trading relation-ships and to construct a stable and open global economy in the aftermath of another internation-al war. While these institutions were not founded only by Western countries, Europe and the United States have nonetheless held a sustained and significant influ-ence over negotiations and deci-sion-making ever since. The IMF is traditionally led by a European whilst the World Bank is led by an American executive. Of course, it is undeniable that these two lead-ing institutions are an impres-sively influential and expansive embodiment of the globalisation process. The fact remains, how-ever, that as long as a few ‘great’ powers hold the reigns over the most powerful institutions, eco-nomic inequalities will.

A new and fresh financial institution is long overdue – not least because the devastating impact of the 2008 financial cri-sis has crucially undermined the post-war international financial order. The 2008 crisis was aggra-vated by the fact that internation-al financial institutions (IFIs) had ensured that developing countries were almost entirely invested in the economies of developed coun-tries, creating a situation where the world had all its eggs in one very vulnerable financial basket. If nothing else, the NDB will mean a healthier distribution of power over our globalised economy.

The success of an institu-tion is often partly determined by the degree to which its mem-

bers are cohesive and united in reaching decisions. But this begs the question – what is it exactly that unites the BRICS countries? Quite simply, the countries have been brought together to form the bank by a shared feeling of ex-clusion from the existing financial system. Labelled the ‘BRIC’ coun-tries by economist Jim O’Neill in 2005, before the inclusion of South Africa in 2010, the acronym was first coined merely to dis-cuss emerging economic powers. What has led these countries to embrace this label and actively pursue a collaborative agenda, however, is that they continue to be overlooked when it comes to decision-making within the IMF and World Bank, despite display-ing impressive growth rates.

Nonetheless, the cross-conti-nent coalition remains an unlikely grouping and it is impossible to say whether a shared desire to be recognised on the global fi-nancial stage will be enough to coordinate the five members. The BRICS countries differ widely, not least because their respective economies range hugely in size. And it’s not just geographical and economic differences that could cause potential problems, but political discrepancies too; some members are democracies while others are authoritarian regimes. The Bretton Woods institutions experience enough difficulties in reaching executive decisions whilst being constituted by like-minded liberal democracies.

The high rate of corruption in each of the five member coun-tries also signals a red flag, exac-erbated by the prospect of com-peting political agendas. And the sustained track record of human rights abuses held by each coun-try indicates yet another potential threat to the success of the NDB – most notably in Russia, India and China. The leaders of coun-tries with a history of top-level discriminatory violence against minorities like homosexuals and

women should not be lauded, but that should not stop us from recognising their progress. The participating countries may be far from perfect in terms of corrup-tion and human rights abuses, but the NDB vision should be taken plainly for what it is – a positive effort towards tackling issues of development and inequalities. Nonetheless, there are three fun-damental things needed to bal-ance this vision against any inter-nal threats: sufficient regulation, leadership and accountability.

Nobel Prize winning econo-mist Joseph Stiglitz is exception-ally positive about the future of the BRICS development bank, claiming that the existing insti-tutions have not evolved suffi-ciently enough and insisting that the member countries are un-derestimated in their capabilities in overcoming their differences. Stiglitz argues “in spite of all of the differences, the emerging markets can work together, in a way more effectively than some of the advanced countries can”. The BRICS countries really do have a strong role to play in rebalancing the global economy and the fact remains that there are simply not enough resources being provided by the IMF and the World Bank that allow them to do so.

Whether we truly believe in the potential of a New Develop-ment Bank or just support the principle of breaking away from the IFIs that monopolise the global economy, it is important that we remain positive about the creation of a BRICS development bank. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa may have a lot of difficulties ahead of them, but the encouragement and empow-erment of emerging economies to set up development institutions is no doubt positive. In working to-gether with a common cause, the BRICS countries have everything to prove as a new force: that their whole may be greater than the sum of their diverse parts.

A TIME FOR CHANGE...By daIsy sIBun

...A NEW BRICS DEVELOPMENT BANK

Credit: Flickr / worldbank

|centresPread20 21

I t may be on the doorstep of one of the world’s most vital trade routes and been home to some of the most exotic

and affluent Kingdoms and Em-pires of the past, but the modern nation of Somalia has been faced with political turmoil, anarchy and famine.

Caught up in the Scramble for Africa, the World Wars and the Cold War, Somalia’s history has made a defining impression on the relentless civil war that has suffocated the country for the last 23 years. Britain and Italy granted independence to their protector-ates and territories on the Afri-can Horn and these formed the Republic of Somalia in the early 1960s. In 1969, following the as-sassination of the President, Siad Barre staged a coup that led to a socialist state. The underlying problem, however, is that in many ways Somalian cultural norms fundamentally clashes with the very concept of the state. Barre suffered an inevitable backlash and was overthrown by opposing clans. Disagreements about who had the right to govern led to a power vacuum and, consequently, a bloody civil war.

The UN Monitoring Report and analysts such as Martin N Murphy have highlighted how un-regulated fishing by foreign ves-sels after the fall of Barre resulted in the rise in piracy; a develop-ment that cost the world economy around $7bn in 2011. Figures put resulting losses at around $300 million a year with significant depletion of the ocean’s tuna and shrimp. With no effective government to police its waters many turned to ‘defensive piracy’, an act in which local fisherman defended their grounds against these illegal trawlers. It wasn’t un-til 2005 that a sharp rise in ‘pred-

atory piracy’ was noted, in which commercial vessels were directly and actively targeted. According to the Wall Street Journal, pirates earned around $150 million in 2008. Moreover, pirates seized a Ukrainian freighter stocked with weapons that same year, demand-ing a ransom of $25 million.

Yet, in recent years, the inci-dences of piracy in Somalia have dropped drastically. In 2013 the US Office of Naval Intelligence highlighted that only nine vessels were attacked with no successful hijackings. One reason for this could be the increased military presence and rising numbers of security teams that have protect-ed maritime traders from these at-tacks. Roughly $6bn has been paid in for security equipment, coun-ter-piracy and military operations. The measures have proven to be effective, as figures show that in 2010 $176m was paid in ransoms while in 2012 this had dropped to $31.8m. With armed guards, sound guns, lasers, water canons, electric fences and boat traps, this arsenal has been designed to pro-tect these vessels.

However, it does not provide a solution to the problem. Pira-cy is the result of a poverty that stems from an ineffective govern-ment unable to govern its terri-tory. The European Union and development banks have pledged around $8 billion to help devel-op the Horn of Africa recently, yet the challenges facing Somalia appear to overwhelm this pledge. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon reports that currently fam-ine in Somalia will affect around 3 million people. It is clear that more must be done to help de-velop Somalia if it is to truly be-come a functioning and thriving nation.

on rough seas

By rayha an IqBal

w h y s o m a l i a n f i s h e r m a n t u r n t o p i r a cy

Credit: Fl ickr / defenceimages

AFRICA

Credit: Flickr / gbaku

“Between 2000 and 2012, the lives of an estimated three million chil-dren under age five were saved from malaria due to coordinated inter-ventions in sub-Saharan Africa. The estimated number of new tubercu-losis cases fell from 321 per 100,000 people in 2002 to 255 in 2012. The incidence of new HIV cases in the region fell by more than half between 2001 and 2012.”

afrIca | 23

In 1500, global income in-equalities already existed between Africa and the rest of the world. The average in-

come per capita in Africa was half of the world average. Although the continent has experienced steady growth in the past 5 centu-ries, which has led to a three-fold increase in income per capita, this has been significantly slower than in other parts of the world. The average income per capita in Af-rica is now seven times less than the world average. Africa’s under-development is represented in al-most all indices of development, such as child mortality, literacy and life expectancy rates. How can we make sense of this histori-cally robust and persistent trend?

Explaining why some re-gions are richer than others is a complicated task – the present socio-economic situation of a re-gion is the result of an inherently complex and dynamic interplay of economic, political, sociological, cultural, institutional and geo-graphical forces. In this article, I introduce three broad “funda-mental causes” of development: culture, institutions and geogra-phy. I take an approach that merg-es global economic history and development economics in order to consider internal and external reasons for relative underdevel-opment in Africa. For each funda-mental cause, I begin by introduc-ing some factors that can explain why Africa was the poorest conti-nent in 1500, then consider the periods of colonialism and the slave trade and finish by looking at their effects on African develop-ment in the modern era and other relevant factors that explain the region’s current situation.

From the 1500s onwards, economically successful coun-tries started engaging in global trade and were starting to devel-op systems of private property ownership and rights, which set the foundations for what would later become market economies. This was not the case in African countries. In addition, low lev-els of transport infrastructures meant that few markets could emerge and develop. Economic interactions were very limited and restricted to narrow areas such as small villages. As a result, people were self-sufficient: they grew and collected the amount of food nec-essary to survive, and nothing or little more.

Some influential develop-

ment economists like Robinson, Acemoglu and Dell point to po-litical and economic institutions that were implemented in the co-lonial period in their explanations for why Africa is currently poorer than the rest of the world. Some traits that characterise these in-stitutions are poorly defined and poorly protected property rights, political monopoly and centrali-sation of power and inadequate contract enforceability; all of which contribute to the hamper-ing down of economic growth and development. Their perception is that colonisers used extractive colonisation strategies on the Afri-can continent that translated into these kinds of “extractive institu-tions”; many elements of which have remained until today.

Weak and extractive property rights and contracting institutions have persisted in many parts of Africa and financial institutions are usually basic and inaccessible to large proportions of the pop-ulation. Markets remain relatively underdeveloped and unregulated. The informal sector, which is al-most completely unharnessed, contributes to about 55% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP and compromises 80% of its labour force. Lastly, weak public institu-tions and low levels of public in-vestments have led to inadequate and insufficient infrastructure, low capital accumulation, low ed-ucational attainment and human capital. For example, merely 29% of roads in Africa are paved and only a quarter of the population has access to electricity, with enrolment in secondary school standing at a mere 34%. All these contribute to lower productivity and slower growth.

Bairoch argues that we should also consider the period of the slave trade, which extend-ed from 1400 to 1900, as slavery “may be seen as one source of pre-colonial origins for modern corruption”. Nunn upholds this argument and finds a robust neg-ative relationship between the number of slaves exported from each African country and subse-quent economic performance.

Perhaps the most significant negative impact of colonialism and the slave trade on the Afri-can continent is that some of the structures they have bred have paved way for recurrent state fail-ure. In the aftermath of the colo-nial era, the “development state” in many African countries took an

unfortunate form, which Cooper calls the “gatekeeper states”. It refers to regimes that prioritised tightening political control and developing personal networks rather than building well-func-tioning public institutions, and acquired most of their revenue from concessions to foreign com-panies, visas, foreign exchange control, foreign aid and custom duties. This trend was reflected in the emergence and proliferation of authoritarian regimes operat-ing under “patrimonial rule” in the end of 1960s.

The legacy of extraction and corruption that arose from the pe-riods of Colonialism and the slave trades is visible in much of African political and corporate leader-ship. According to the Corrup-tion Perception Index released by Transparency International, many of the world’s most corrupt coun-tries are located in Africa, with Somalia and Sudan being prime examples. According to a study by Bratton, the image held by most Africans of their politicians is that of a corrupt leader pursuing his own interest at the expense of his citizens’ and country ’s interests.

In addition, many scholars have argued that “colonial-esque” benefiters have re-emerged within the frameworks of global insti-tutions and global orders which affect development in Africa. The global economy and global finan-cial regulation agencies are key areas where this kind of institu-tional inequality is rooted. Take, for example, the world trading order, managed by the World Trade Organisation ( WTO). WTO agreements has been detrimen-tal to development in sub-Saha-ran countries, with the Uruguay round making the region worse off by $1.2 billion. In addition, the TRIPS agreement, which sets a minimum standard for many forms of intellectual property regulation, has reduced access to essential medicines in the region, exemplifying the way in which Af-rica has been one of the “losers of globalisation”, an important issue to remember given the significant current and future effects globali-sation has had and will have on development of all regions of the world.

Another factor that explains why Africa was poor in 1500 was the lack of a strong and pragmatic notion of private property in Af-rican culture. For instance, if you worked on a piece of land, it was

why is africa poor?

By IrIs kar aman

accepted to be yours. This meant that there were no or little land-less labourers and no private mar-ket for land. In addition, African culture tended not to be based on commercial values of self-interest, and thus agents were generally not motivated by the pursuit of self interest in their behaviour and choices, which are the moti-vational forces that guide individ-ual agent behaviour in a market economy.

Some of these characteristics have retained some relevance and can be used to partly explain the persisting and increasing gap in income between Africa and the rest of the world. Furthermore, vi-olent conflict is rife on the African continent. Half of the continent’s countries are home to an active conflict or a recently ended one. The culture of warfare that has persevered in various areas across the continent is a result of ethnic, political and cultural divides in the various groups that make up each country. This has been and continues to be one of the biggest barriers to development in Africa. Moreover, the ethnic and cultur-al divides themselves impede growth as ethnic fractionalisation undermines trust, state stability and the strength of the state.

In another one of his pa-pers, Nunn links this back to the slave trades. He argues that the slave trades have been a factor of current ethnic fractionalisation because they have strengthened and given substance to a popular mindset based on a sense of inse-curity through what Lovejoy calls the “iron-slave cycle”.

The legacy of colonialism has also had a destructive impact on cultural factors of development. Ms Zubair, senior advisor to the Nigerian president, rightly em-phasised that colonialism “was all about take, not about build” and that this attitude “transferred itself into a lot of [the African] mindset”.

The biggest impact of the slave trade and colonialism was through population density and demographics. Indeed, it is es-timated that if it weren’t for the slave trade, the African population in 1850 would have been double what it was. An interesting trend, which may seem counter-intuitive at first, is that many of the world’s richest regions in terms of natural resources make up the world’s poorest regions in economic terms. Acemoglu pushed forth a controversial argument to explain this trend: high levels of natural resources incentivised colonis-ers to use extractive colonising strategies and thus to implement extractive institutions, which have persisted to this day. Natural en-dowments, for example of miner-als, can in such work to the detri-ment of growth and development because they foster expropriation

from external actors.The demographics explana-

tion for underdevelopment has maintained its relevance. Africa is still the continent in which there is the most migration and, that could form the basis for enduring states.

Other demographic and ge-ographical factors of underdevel-opment have persisted through-out history and in the modern era. Malaria, for example, kills 700 000 Africans a year, of which the majority are children. Accord-ing to a research program carried out by the University of Harvard, the London School of Economics and the WHO, the economic cost of malaria for Africa is 100 billion dollars a year. Bhattacharyya in fact attributes most of current African underdevelopment to the high malaria incidence that per-vades most of the continent, both through its impact on mortality and on morbidity. He emphasises that malaria induces households to increase current consump-tion, save less for the future and adversely affects labour produc-tivity. Another key example is AIDS, which has had a devastating impact on development in Africa over the past few decades.

The demographics explana-tion for underdevelopment has maintained its relevance. Africa is still the continent in which there is the most migration and, despite current and former exceptions like the Ethiopian Empire, there have been few tightly-knit, stable settlements with established so-cial structure that could form the basis for enduring states.

Assuming a historical per-spective in our understanding of the current economic situation in Africa inevitably emphasises the legacy of colonialism and the slave trade, but this is not to go as far as to say, as Walter Rodney put it, that “Europe underdeveloped Africa”. Looking back in history is useful to the extent that it widens our knowledge of current causes and barriers to development, the underlying motive being that if we know what is hampering develop-ment in a region, we are better equipped to promote the right measures to fix it. For example, we learn that current institutions are extractive and that one way to enhance development is by introducing better contracting and property rights institutions. Importantly, the current econom-ic situation of a region should not be understood as a result of a long historical process over which we have no, or little, agen-cy. As Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, the Nigerian Minister of Finance, puts it: “the world needs to look towards the growth and develop-ment of the continent and not to-wards the statistics of the past”.

L O O K I N G B A C K I N H I S T O RY

Credit: Fl ickr / enoughprojecT + Gatesfoundtion + jonwiley

|afrIca24 25

In my pocket I carry an object. Essentially, the majority of my day-to-day functioning is dependent in

some way upon this little object. The object is my wake-up call, my communication, my source of time, my diary, my Sat-Nav, my music player.

If you haven’t guessed yet, the object I carry in my pocket is my mobile phone. And as much as I like to believe that if my phone was taken away from me I would comfortably survive, the reality is that my life would not function in quite the same way without it.

But what else can I tell you about my phone? Where was it made? Who was it made by? What is it made from? It comes along with me in my pocket most plac-es I go, so you would think that I would be able to tell you plen-ty about it. Yet in our globalised world we have become both si-multaneously connected and de-tached from one another. We have been left unaware of the impact that our day-to-day actions have upon others in the ‘global village’ in which we live.

The tragic truth behind the mobile phones that we own is that they are part of a story of brutal conflict and forced labour.

In order to function, mobile phones are dependent on metals – gold, tungsten, tin and tanta-lum. These metals are mined in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 2014 marked two decades of complex regional conflict in the DRC, the most fatal conflict since World War Two. The United Nations Refugee Agency estimated that by mid-2013 the conflict in eastern DRC had produced over 2.6 million in-ternally displaced people.

Decades of conflict have re-sulted in a war economy fuelled by the demand for the country ’s vast supply of natural resources. Armed groups such as Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwan-da and rogue branches of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo have gained control of the mines and make hundreds of millions of dollars each year through the trading of metals. These metals have been termed ‘conflict minerals’, with their demand fed by our desire for mobile phones and other cheap, disposable electronics. With the money made, the armed groups can buy more weapons to continue inflicting violence upon civilians.

Much of these materials are supplied through forced labour. Forced labour according to the

ILO Forced Labour Convention is defined as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”. Forced labourers are recruited by armed groups through various methods; some work to pay off debts (yet many of these work-ers are trapped and have in fact paid off their debts many times over), some are forced into slav-ery through violence, others are kidnapped. The ILO estimate that there are 20.9 million forced la-bourers worldwide – that’s 3 out of every 1000 people.

This situation is known as forced labour in supply chains. A supply chain is the series of procedures involved in the man-ufacture and distribution of a product. Forced labour can occur at different stages in the supply chain from the extraction of raw materials (as is the case with the metals used in mobile phones) to the manufacturing process, right the way through to when the item reaches its market. By the time our mobile phone gets to us it has passed through a long and complex chain of designers, manufacturers, suppliers and retailers which makes it difficult to track all those involved in its production and therefore to know whether or not it was produced using forced labour.

So what can be done? Whilst there are UN Resolutions, inter-national certification mechanisms and national initiatives in place to help monitor and prevent such human rights abuses, there is a long way to go before forced labour is eradicated from supply chains. Transnational corpora-tions have a significant amount of control over their suppliers; they can influence the way in which they operate and the prices that they pay for raw materials. All of these factors have an impact upon whether or not forced labour is likely to be used in the produc-tion of the product.

As a consumer you can have more impact on changing trends of forced labour than you think. You could consider writing to your mobile phone provider and asking them to ensure that they do not use forced labour in their supply chains. Or next time your mobile phone is due for an up-grade, how about purchasing a refurbished mobile phone or a Fairphone, which aims to use con-flict-free minerals from the DRC in its devices?

Credit: Flickr / johanl + ILO + themepap

MY PHONE FUELS A WARBy reBecca Isa ac

The first commer-cial-scale production of African biofuels, in Sierra Leone no less,

was eclipsed by the on-going Eb-ola crisis in West Africa. While it remains to be seen what impact the outbreak of Ebola will have on the region – though it’s certain to be significant and potential-ly catastrophic – the impact of export-orientated biofuel pro-duction is, and has been, fiercely debated. But the Makeni Project doesn’t only raise questions about biofuels, not least because of its credentials; Makeni is a case study par excellence in the complexity of, and competing views on, de-velopment.

Undoubtedly one of the most heavily scrutinised development projects in West Africa, the Mak-eni Project forces us to consider problems in development from the bottom (local consultation and collaborative planning) to the top (multinational organisational decision making) and ‘everything in between’: environmental is-sues, global and local, food secu-rity, so-called land-grabbing, cer-tification and education schemes.

The Makeni Project is an ex-port-orientated biofuel scheme in central Sierra Leone run by Addax Bioenergy, a subsidiary of compa-ny AOG (based in Malta). Some 10,000 ha of land are currently used to cultivate sugar, and a dedicated refinery has been built nearby that process the sugar to produce ethanol. It is not only promoted as a biofuel project, however: “real development” is a core pillar of Addax’s ‘sustainable investment model’ and the com-pany stresses its desire to become a “benchmark” for sustainable investment in Africa. The Project has been promoted directly and indirectly by the European Union and the United Nations; it has cer-tification from the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB), and is the largest agricultural project in Sierra Leone’s history. It became the first UNFCCC ‘Clean Develop-ment Mechanism’ (CDM) in Sierra Leone in October 2013. Partners of the project include the Afri-can Development Bank (AfDB), UK Emerging Africa Infrastruc-ture Fund (EAIF) and German Development Finance Institution (DEG), among others.

The company adopted what they claim are the “highest social and environmental standards” from the start, including consulta-tions with local people before de-

velopment began in an extensive feasibility study involving stake-holder dialogue and environmen-tal impact assessment (EIA). The Project also includes provision for a farmer development program (FDP) for local farmers. It may sound too good to be true – some have sought to prove that it is – not least because of current views on the impacts of biofuels.

The impetus for export-ori-entated biofuel development came from on-high; the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED), in its in-itial form, stipulated that 10% of Europe’s transport fuel should come from renewable sources by 2020. Now notorious, this pro-vision of the RED began to be re-negotiated in 2013 along with the related Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) in response to the per-ceived harm biofuels were causing to forests and to food security in the developing world. Reports be-gan emerging at least as far back as 2007 regarding the damage biofuels-for-export were causing in tropical countries. The most damaging claim, from an envi-ronmental point of view, was that biofuels-farmed regions in which forest-cover was cut to grow corn, sugarcane or palm-oil may actu-ally be causing more greenhouse gas emissions than certain types of fossil fuels (known as indirect land-use change, or ILUC); a more damaging claim still was that bio-fuel production had caused world food prices to rise as a result of agricultural products being di-verted away from food markets and into biofuels markets. Such price increases have been tied to not only hunger and food insecu-rity, but also violence. Before any sugar had been planted, then, the Project’s environmental and so-cial credentials could be called in to question.

In September 2013, only a few days before the bill amending the RED was to be voted on in the European Parliament, UK-based rights group ActionAid released a damning report accusing Addax of failing to meet the targets that they themselves had set for the project and exacerbating food in-security. Entitled “Broken promis-es: the impacts of Addax Bioener-gy in Sierra Leone on hunger and livelihoods”, ActionAid and Sierra Leone-based NGOs gathered ac-counts from local people in 10 nearby villages, especially wom-en, about the impacts of the pro-ject: 90% of respondents claimed that hunger, prevalent in the area,

was due to the loss of land caused by the Project and, despite Add-ax’s pride in its feasibility studies and consultations, 78% of re-spondents said that they had nev-er seen a land lease agreement. The report documents many more problems associated with Addax’s development. These claims feed into a growing concern over land grabs in Africa by private interests and even nation states.

Addax, it should be noted, responded soon after with an equally robust open letter, ques-tioning ActionAid’s methodology and findings, and taking particu-lar issue with accusations that consultations with local people had been lacking; ActionAid did not, at the time of these consul-tations, choose to scrutinise the Project. Addax maintains that their operations have improved local livelihoods (a scenario tantamount to ‘my word against yours’). Other institutions have independently inspected the Pro-ject and have reported better con-ditions than ActionAid.

During the past several years a large number of people will no doubt have ‘written-off ’ biofuels wholesale, and many more will have come to mistrust develop-ment projects undertaken by large businesses (if they didn’t before). Yet the Makeni Project tests our understanding of development. If what ActionAid have claimed about the Makeni Project can be substantiated then it leaves many aspects of (mainly European) developmental best practice in doubt.

If, however, we trust that the numerous development banks and funds have invested their money wisely in Makeni, we are still left questioning both export-orien-tated development and top-down development projects; what if the political apparatus supporting a scheme – a renewable energy policy, for instance – is suddenly taken away? An entire project can be undercut by political develop-ments elsewhere, and, in the case of biofuels, for arguably sound reasons. ActionAid is fiercely op-posed to biofuel production from food crops, and this may explain why they targeted the Makeni pro-ject, and whilst biofuels may be bad, biofuels projects may not be entirely. No further response has been made by the organisation since Addax released their open letter.

BIOFUEL IN BEST PRACTICET H E M A K E N I P R O J E C T, S I E R R A L E O N E

By JOnathan menary

Credit: Fl ickr / murfomurf |afrIca26 27

In the aftermath of massive human right abuses, which are often prominent in periods of violent regime change and ethnic conflict, efforts to achieve tran-sitional justice are crucial to the development process. Transition-al justice measures serve to en-shrine the rule of law, recognize the rights of victims and enhance the citizens’ trust in political institutions. The international community ’s acknowledgement of this is reflected in the birth of international criminal tribunals such as the International Criminal Tribunal and in the convergence of development and transitional justice practices by organizations like the UNDP. This is unsurpris-ing as transitional justice is inte-gral to the process of peace and state building in regions that have recently undergone significant levels of conflict, and adequate resolutions must be implemented to ensure the satisfaction of its in-stitutional and judicial mandate.

Transitional justice is not a substantial theory of a justice; rather, it is an approach to ensur-ing justice in periods of transition from conflict or authoritarianism to stability and democracy where human rights abuses have become a recurrent and persistent state of affairs. Some real life example of transitional contexts were the post-authoritarian societies of Latin America like Chile and Ar-gentina, and post-conflict socie-ties of Eastern Europe like Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia in the end of the 20th century. There

has been a geographical shift dur-ing the 21st century in the locus of transitional contexts to Africa and Asia, in states like Cambodia and Uganda, and more recently in states that were involved in the Arab Spring like Egypt.

Transitional justice has a core normative function: to re-dress legacies of human right abuses. Its normative function is thereby based on two pillars: the rights of individuals inherent by virtue of their humanity and the duties of states to their citizens to recognize, respect and protect these rights. It also serves a prac-tical function: it establishes some of the necessary conditions for a society to flourish and develop out of a period of conflict-prone transition by targeting root causes of conflict and placing respect for human rights and accountability at the core of political and legal activity. In such, it is essential to processes of peace and state building as it sets a framework for reinforcing the possibilities for peace, democracy and recon-ciliation.

Achieving transitional justice calls for a holistic approach that consists of judicial and non-judi-cial measures. There are broadly five categories of measures. Some, namely criminal prosecutions and reparations (such as monetary compensation and public apol-ogies), directly target victims of conflict and respond to their rights to see their perpetrators punished and receive reparation. The others: institutional reform,

memorialization and truth com-missions, apply to society as a whole and their objective is to allow society to move forward as well as to prevent massive hu-man rights abuses from occurring again. Institutional reform, for example, seeks to deconstruct the structural machinery of abuses of human rights and prevent further violations.

Post conflict societies are often characterized by past and current gross human rights vio-lations, impunity, lack of the rule of law and economic devastation; all of which contribute to a ham-pering down of the development process. Failure to address issues of transitional justice is likely to be socially divisive and to gen-erate mistrust between societal groups and in state institutions, raising doubt about the govern-ment’s commitment to the rule of law. This, in turn, increases the potential for conflict and cy-clical violence and undermines the economy, public institutions and the general wellbeing of the population.

Iraq is a good contemporary example of a transitional state that has not implemented the necessary conditions for transi-tional justice. Following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, adequate measures to pur-sue transitional justice were not set in place. Despite efforts to carry out trial and punishment measures, they have tended to be arbitrary, whilst other measures of transitional justice have been

ignored. For example, no inves-tigations have been undertaken to determine who was responsi-ble for the killing of more than 300 journalists, who bombed the Shiite’s holy shrine in Samarra in 2006 and who was in charge of the dozens of mass graves. More generally, the judicial and execu-tive systems are still corrupt and infective, whilst acts of revenge and retribution have bred other violations that have deepened and intensified waves of violence in the country. Iraq is now con-sidered one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, the Deputy Di-rector of Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa, captures the core of the problem: “Iraq remains caught in a cycle of torture and impunity that should long ago have been broken”.

On the other hand, adequate efforts to implement measures of transitional justice are conductive to sustainable development. The most important social and politi-cal impact of measures like inter-national criminal prosecution and security sector reform are: the strengthening of the democratic Rule of Law, promotion of civic and social trust, enhancement of accountability in political affairs and the repair of corrupt and inef-ficient judicial and executive sys-tems. These serve to build peace, stability and a culture of respect for human right, in addition to enhancing relationships between the state and society, which un-derpin sustained development

and are essential for accelerating human development.

Poverty is a consequence of violence, and conversely, violence can be a consequence of pov-erty. Economists agree that the central role of the state consists at least of providing its citizens with physical security, enforcing contracts and protecting property rights. Most economists will also agree that there are fundamental requirements for an economy to flourish. One such requirement is civic trust. Insecurity, animosity and lack of trust in other social groups and/or in public institu-tions are thus some of the main barriers to economic growth as they deter individuals and firms from engaging in trade and pro-duction. In addition, lack of social and civic trust is likely to deter domestic entities from investing and will detract foreign invest-ment, which will further impede growth.

Recent years have seen the convergence in academia, legal and political practice between the disciplines and discourses of tran-sitional justice and development. This is testimony to the recogni-tion that transitional justice is in-tegral to the development process in zones of post-conflict recon-struction. Establishing justice in this sense sets the stepping-stones for the society to prosper socially, economically and politically. It must take central stage on the current and future development agenda of states like Iraq, Afghan-istan and Syria.

TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND ITS ROLE IN DEVELOPMENTBy IrIs kar aman

Credit: Flickr / soldiersmediacentreMIDDLE EAST AND

NORTH AFRICA

Credit: Flickr / manojvasanth

“Northern Africa has achieved near universal access to primary edu-cation and has made significant strides increasing its literacy rate. The region has also successfully halved extreme poverty rates, reduced the proportion of undernourished children and improved access to sanitation.”

mena | 29

When Ehud Barak and Yas-ser Arafat shook hands in the White House’s Rose Garden in 2000, the world held its breath in anticipation of a lasting peace in the seemingly intractable Isra-el-Palestine conflict. Yet the Camp David Summit, like so many meet-ings before it, ultimately failed. 14 years later, following a brutal Second Intifada in the meeting’s aftermath, several Gaza conflicts and the entrenchment of tension, peace seems as distant a concept as ever.

However, no matter how many stalls in the peace process politicians have had to contend with, the idea of the ‘two state solution’- encapsulated by the pithy slogan ‘’two states for two peoples’’ - still retains signifi-cant rhetorical currency in the diplomatic world. It is the mast to which leading countries have consistently nailed their colours, believing that only this approach can truly resolve the now 68 year old conflict. Issues of local devel-opment in Israel-Palestine, from economic advancement to respect for human rights, conventionally play second fiddle to these occa-sional highfalutin peace summits or diplomatic sound bites. In re-ality, such issues affect real lives every day in the Occupied Pales-tinian Territories (OPTs).

For instance, undermining any argument that rests on the premise of two separate states is the continuation of Israeli occu-pation and control of the OPTs (which include the West Bank and Gaza regions). The dynamics inherent in Israel’s occupation re-volve around economic inequality between the two nations and the dependency of a fledgling and cur-rently unviable Palestinian econo-my on that of its dominant Israeli neighbours. The cultivation of an autonomous Palestinian economy that could match the rhetorical aspirations for an independent Palestinian state therefore seems to be a fundamental starting point for sustainable peace.

However, prospects of de-veloping the Palestinian economy continue to face substantial chal-lenges not least derivative of Isra-el’s occupation of the West Bank in particular (Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but notable entry/exit and trade restrictions continue). In an attempt to rec-oncile the realities of Israeli oc-cupation with attempts at a future peace, the Oslo Accords designat-ed areas of the West Bank in to A, B and C categories in 1993. This

was intended only as a temporary precursor to a full and final peace settlement, but still remains a sig-nificant barrier to development today.

Areas designated ‘A’ refer to those under exclusive Palestini-an Authority (PA) administration, accounting for only 2-3% of West Bank land, while Area ‘C’ which denotes exclusive Israeli control constitutes as much as 70% (de-pending on fluctuating definitions of designation). Area ‘B’, making up around a quarter of West Bank territory is jointly controlled. The vast swathes of previously Pales-tinian territory now designated as Area ‘C’ thus remain the most controversial areas in the saga of Israeli occupation, not least due to their rich endowment of natu-ral resources. Indeed, the Jordan Valley, often referred to as the ‘bread basket’ of Palestine, is one of the most fertile yet bitterly con-tested areas.

In many ways then, those locations designated as Area ‘C’ represent the frontier of the bat-tle - yet the politics of the occupa-tion have consistently obstructed economic opportunity for Pales-tinians. Oxfam has reported that of 1,640 applications submitted by Palestinians to build in Israeli controlled Area ‘C’, between 2009 and 2012 as little as 37 propos-als were approved. If Palestini-an business or farmers attempt to build without a permit, their structures or crops are routinely destroyed, often contrary to inter-national law. To take but two ex-amples, youth unemployment and stagnation of the private sector are both severely compounded by the occupation, with a World Bank report stating in October 2013 that the inaccessibility of Area ‘C’ to Palestinians sets their economy at a loss of $3.4 billion.

To return to the case of the Jordan Valley, 86% of this vital area falls under the jurisdiction of the Regional Councils of vari-ous agricultural settlements. The construction of settlements has often deprived Palestinians of the productive land they previously cultivated, while settlers enjoy disproportionate access to natu-ral resources. Furthermore, Israe-li settlement farmers are heavily subsidised by the Israeli govern-ment and enjoy the monopoly of the Israeli market to sell their pro-duce, leaving Palestinian growers undercut and arable farming unprofitable. Unsurprisingly, Pal-estinian agricultural employment has declined from 44% in 1966 to

22% in 1993, an obvious tragedy for a hopeful economy.

What the examples of Area ‘C’ restrictions and settlements fundamentally show is that the power dynamics involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory decimate even the slight-est contemplation of a credible two state solution. If such a for-mula is founded on the notion of two independent and viable states, surely it must rest on the equality of economic opportunity for the parties involved?

Yet the often overlooked is-sue of the lack of development in the OPTs, involving the failure to harness an autonomous Palestin-ian economy, necessarily stymies the peace process. Without a self-sustaining Palestinian econo-my, all hope of an equally healthy Palestinian state that can make the two-state model consistent is critically undermined. Yet the in-hibiting effects of Israeli occupa-tion on Palestinian development need not be seen as irresolvable or politically undesirable to ap-proach. The World Bank report aforementioned suggests that if Palestinian business and farmers were allowed to develop in Area ‘C’, freeing economic activity in this high-yielding region, as much as 35% would be added to the Pal-estinian GDP.

The lobbying of the Israeli government by the international community to provide more con-struction permits thus seems a tangible diplomatic target. With regards to the issue of Israeli set-tlements, if actions are allowed to match their frequent international condemnation, the damaging po-tential of land-grabbing could be reversed.

This October, the British Parliament voted to recognise the state of Palestine, a symbol-ic move presented as a stepping stone to an eventual two-state solution. Yet it now seems as good a time as ever, in the aftermath of yet another devastating Gaza con-flict, to match symbolism with efficacious diplomacy. As we have seen, so long as the Israeli gov-ernment remains intransigent in sustaining its counter-productive occupation, the region remains dominated by one state’s econ-omy which in turn precludes all logic of a fair peace for two states. The development of the Palestin-ian economy hence remains the pivot of peace on which a secure future for all ultimately turns.

THE TWO STATE SOLUTION WITH ONE STATE ECONOMY

By leWIs hOlden

Credit: Flickr / coreyoakley

Credit: Flickr / ronnashore + friendly_TERRORIST

2015 MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Promote gender equality AND EMPOWER women

3.

Reduce child MORTALITY4.mena | 30 31

The debate about the role of women in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) is by no

means a new one. The periods of colonialism

and imperialism have left lasting legacies, forcing Arab women into a conflicting, paradoxical dichot-omy of existence. Arab women are exoticised, fetishised and hyper-sexualised whilst simultaneously being painted as subordinate, oppressed and servile. Their iden-tity is portrayed as somewhere between the glamourised Harem girl and the fully veiled, house-bound mother of five – and in-definitely in need of saving by the superior moral values of Western Feminism. This pharisaical and orientalist attitude towards Arab women does nothing but erase and insult the agency, autonomy and long history of resilience and feminism of Arab women. It taints the discussion about the fight that Middle Eastern women are al-ready very much engaged in.

We are lying to ourselves if we believe that the concern of Western feminists for the women of the Middle East is born out of sheer compassion. Instead, it has morphed into something more sinister: a mental and cultural col-onising of the mind of the Middle Eastern woman, the assumption that if she is veiled, she must be oppressed. She must be a house-wife, living under the wrath of an autocratic husband. Or she must be uneducated, and as such a submissive victim of a patriarchal system. These women – Western Feminist discourse dictates – do not fit into the arbitrary ideals of feminism, and therefore need saving. Western intervention in the region, it seems, doesn’t stop at invading land, but also seeks to invade the mind of Middle Eastern woman; reductively and blindly painting her with the brush of victimhood.

It is imperative that be-fore partaking in such attempts, Western feminists engage with, recognise, and tackle their own privilege and the ingrained impe-rialist mind-set that exists within Western discourse surrounding the situation of non-Western women. Whether or not you con-sider yourself progressive, liberal,

or even a feminist ( perhaps the most loaded term of them all), when you sit in your comfortable newsrooms, lecture halls and be-hind your laptops you are work-ing from a structural privilege and an irrevocably western, Eurocen-tric framework. This does nothing to help the situation of women in the region – indeed, it silences, destabilises and undermines their struggle and strife.

Of course, it is an undeni-able fact that many countries in the Middle East are far from sanc-tuaries of safety and equality for women. It would be dishonest and frankly counterproductive to deny that Egyptian women were exposed to horrendous sexual harassment during the revolution-ary protests in Tahrir Square, or that Saudi women not being able to drive is nothing but misogynis-tic discrimination. It is often the case that there are fewer women in work and education than men across the region and that the law of many Middle Eastern countries is often inherently patriarchal.

These are issues that obvi-ously need addressing. However, Arab women must do this them-selves – not Western feminists, whose engagement is detrimental to such causes. Western contri-butions fail to incorporate the centrality of intersectionality into these issues; painting over the cracks of individual experience of women through the nuances of religion, culture and politics. As such, attempts to morph the ‘woman’ into this monolith sim-ply does not work because misog-yny is inextricably linked to, and affected by, class, race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.

The women of the Middle East (and for that matter, all non-Western women) do not need the Suffragettes as their feminist icon. This ignores the rich tapes-try of feminist struggles held by women of colour. It silences and eradicates the voices of Nawal Al-Saadawi and Gayatri Spivaks, of Arundhati Roy and Ahdaf Soueif, of Angela Walker and Angela Da-vis. Arab women cannot be ‘saved’ by a feminism that concentrates on tackling cat-calling, lad cul-ture, and the gender pay gap (all, of course, undoubtedly noble causes to confront) when there

are women in the Middle East who have to give birth at military checkpoints, who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, whose children have been killed by US drone strikes and husbands by a dictatorial regime.

An exclusively White western movement that holds feminism synonymous with secularism, thus eradicating the countless voices of women of faith in the region, that shouts oppression to the Muslim veil, even over the voices of Muslim women who plead to the contrary, and that trivialises and undermines nuances in cul-ture, tradition and belief because they oppose Western attitudes is not what the women of the MENA region need.

It is patronising and reeks of old colonialist ideas to assume a ‘White-Saviour Complex’ in re-gards to Middle Eastern women. Arab women continue to make great strides in improving their own situation – without the help, it must be said, of the likes of FEMEN or rich white celebrities wearing ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ shirts made by (ironi-cally) impoverished women under diabolical working conditions. Is-lam illegalised female infanticide 1400 years ago whilst the West was still debating whether women even had souls. In Morocco, in the year 859, the world’s oldest university, the University of al-Qa-rawiyyin was set up by an Arab woman. Centuries later, Western women were still being burnt at the stake as witches, for simply daring to involve themselves in science and mathematics. Iraq, Al-geria and Tunisia all have a high-er proportion of women in their parliaments than the UK does. In Tunisia, Libya and Iran, there are more female university students than male. Women across North Africa and the Middle East led and inspired the Arab Spring protests that saw the back of countless dictators.

So, Western feminists, please give the women of the Middle East the space to establish themselves. The West does not need to save Middle Eastern women. Their success lies in their ability to save themselves.

Why Middle Eastern Women Do

Not Need White, Western FeministsBy nadeIne asBalI

Credit: Flickr / clotho98

Developed world

Credit: Flickr / deepblue66

“The trade climate continues to improve for developing and least de-veloped countries. The developing country share of world trade rose to 44.4 per cent in 2012. Average tariffs levied by developed countries con-tinued to decline for developing countries in 2011.”

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Peggielene Bartels has been an office-worker at the Embassy of Ghana in Washington D.C. for over

thirty years. In 2008, after a call from relatives in her hometown in Ghana, she became King Peggy.

Her uncle had died, leaving her next in line to the kingdom of the town of Otuam. I had the good fortune to be sitting next to her on the plane from Washington, D.C. to London on my way back to university; King Peggy was travel-ling back to Otuam. Her kingdom is a town of about 7000 people and lies on the coast, two hours from the capital of Accra. Today King Peggy still lives and works in the U.S. but travels back to Ghana for one month of the year to over-see her kingdom and the projects she is running there.

King Peggy’s life seems a curious twist of fate, but it offers us an interesting glimpse into the realities that a local leader faces in developing countries. For the majority of the year King Peggy relies on a few regents to lead her kingdom. She begins her day at 1AM every morning with a phone call to them in which she is de-briefed on the state of affairs in Otuam and she relays her wishes.

Why does King Peggy choose to spend the majority of her time working as a secretary in the United States when she could be assuming her role as sovereign in her hometown? Is it a result of the still stark difference in the quality of life between these two

countries? When I spoke to her on the plane, King Peggy talked of plans to move back to Ghana permanently within the next five years. She also pointed out, however, her unique position in Washington to spread awareness and fundraise for the economic development of her hometown. Indeed, it is something about the way she bridges these two places that makes her such an interesting leader to speak to.

In the past six years King Peggy has made several efforts to improve the lives of her people. She has moved the town’s school-children into the area’s main in-ternational school to try and guar-antee a better quality of education and opportunities for learning. She has also established the Bank of Otuam to regulate the revenue from the town’s main industry: fishing. As King she owns a ma-jority of the fishing stock, and is concerned about the proper and safe use of the funds it generates.

King Peggy must manage these projects from across the Atlantic, but there are other con-straints she must deal with too. King Peggy is one of only three female Kings in the world – they are all Ghanaian. Her daily rule and governing includes a battle for an obviously male-dominated title. To many ears it is inconceiva-ble to think of a woman as a King, but King Peggy insists this is her town’s tradition. It has several consequences for her as a leader. King Peggy says it strengthens her

resolve for gender equality in her community. As she explains in a CNN interview, the men in the Royal Family have witnessed her leading several successful pro-jects over the past few years. This has convinced them of her compe-tence as a leader and is changing traditional attitudes about female leaders in general. In this way her struggle as a female King reinforc-es her agenda for gender equality; something she believes is central to the economic and social devel-opment of her region.

King Peggy is an interesting figure from a development per-spective because she works on the local level, meaning her work is steeped in the social and cultural traditions of her people. This has both its upsides and its down-sides. She is certainly faced with a cultural prejudice against female leaders. Sometimes her efforts are blocked by customs that pro-mote sexist gender stereotypes; customs antithetical to what she is trying to accomplish. But this is where King Peggy’s choice to remain in Washington, D.C. seems cleverest. By removing herself from her traditional environment, King Peggy can use her cultural legitimacy to market funding from the developed world in a more enlightened way. For now, she seems to be benefitting from the best of both worlds: a deep-root-ed respect in Ghana that stems from her lineage, and a foot in the fast-paced political world of Washington.

Profile of an African KingBy alex andr a karlssOn

Credit: Flickr / mdgovpics

Credit: Flickr / pedrosz + gatesfoundation

2015 MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

improve maternal HEALTH5.

combat HIV/AIDS, malariaand other diseases6.

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From Oprah Winfrey to Ange-lina Jolie, the celebrity patronage of women’s issues is by no means a new phenomenon. Pivotal or-ganisations such as the UN have long been aware of the power of fame as an international lobbying tool. However, as more and more celebrities enter the political scene specifically to talk about feminism, it is time to evaluate what celebrity culture offers to international social development and what this reveals about soci-ety itself.

When Beyoncé performed at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards, the word ‘feminism’ loomed be-hind her on giant screens and the concept was launched into the celebrity lexicon. Emma Watson’s passionate speech deconstruct-ing the negative connotations surrounding feminism as the UN Women Global Goodwill Ambas-sador made the front page of The Times. Celebrities from Jennifer Lawrence to Joseph Gordon-Levitt have entered the debate and even individuals such as Katy Perry who rejected the term as recently as 2012 are now identifying with it. Feminism has become a media buzz word and the controversial interview question of the mo-ment. Yet what implication does this hold for the future progres-sion of feminism?

It is easy to dismiss any po-litical act by a celebrity as super-ficial and self-motivated without any real analysis of the nature of his or her engagement. Clear-ly, celebrities have as much of a right to engage in feminist issues as the public does. However, the question remains whether media celebrities are the right symbols for promoting feminist values in mainstream culture. The problem with hailing celebrities as feminist role models seems to stem from the fact that most of them are not able to separate themselves from the blatant discrimination and sexualisation of women that is so rife in the modern media.

Beyoncé is a mixed race working mother and a highly successful businesswoman with a solo career. She seems to have reached the pinnacle of success that so many women strive to

achieve. Does this make her a story of aspirational female in-dependence, or, does Beyoncé embody the limits of female suc-cess in a patriarchal society? The word ‘feminism’ may have been literally plastered over Beyoncé’s VMA performance, but minutes later she was surrounded by al-most naked pole dancers covered in gold paint. Whether this was an ironic statement or not, most female celebrities are obliged to market sexuality as part of their performance in order to achieve ratings and profits in a way that men simply do not.

Celebrities hold immense influence over the media and the public as a whole. The power to sell music and start trends gives the famous far more power to gain immense multi-channelled media exposure than feminist ac-ademics and campaigners. Emma Watson’s speech at the UN may not have said anything that fem-inist theorists haven’t argued for the past forty years, but she did successfully highlight the nega-tive associations that many have with feminism that put feminism in complete opposition to the male sex. However, it needs to be considered whether it is patri-archal in itself that feminism has only become socially acceptable and even fashionable when it is justified by privileged, glamorous young women deemed attractive by our society.

The central issue with popu-list, celebrity feminism is the dan-ger that it will become simplistic, reductive and eventually inaccu-rate and ineffective. For example, Emma Watson’s well meaning ‘He-ForShe’ campaign is designed to promote gender unity. However, in reality it aggressively enforc-es a gender binary between the female and male, perpetuating performative gender roles and entirely excluding transgender groups. This is the antithesis of the work of so many theorists such as Hélène Cixous, Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler to destroy the ‘Eternal Feminine’ and create a fluid gender spec-trum. The media power wielded by the most philanthropic celebri-ties still harbours a dark capacity

to misinform millions of people. This simplified feminism silences all the great intricacies and dif-ferent schools of thought within the work of feminist theorists that have brought feminism to where it is today. It is acceptable to allow glamour to eclipse academia in order to popularise a movement and create a real social change among attitudes?

It is inevitable that the me-dia coverage of any celebrity who publicly supports feminism will always be more focused upon the celebrity herself. The famous are asked if they classify themselves as a feminist as if this is a contro-versial act in itself. They are never asked why they think feminism is important or about any specific issues that concern them or about how they are creating positive ac-tion. Celebrity feminism usually encompasses a highly Eurocen-tric outlook and entirely ignores current women’s issues interna-tionally, such as the rape crisis in the Congo and the refugee crises throughout the Middle East.

From this perspective it ap-pears that when Beyoncé danced in front of glittering letters spell-ing out the word ‘feminism’, there was little meaning beyond the use of the word itself. Feminism has only been allowed to enter main-stream media as a central social debate due to the glamorous women who are delivering it. It seems unimportant why famous women are identifying as femi-nists and celebrities are not given the space to address internation-al economic, social and racial feminist issues. The focus of this feminism is not on the goals of the movement, but upon the con-troversy of the word, which ulti-mately breeds a superficial, Euro-centric feminism of inaction. Most worrying of all is the fact that it is unclear whether this celebrity ‘support’ of feminism is just an-other transitory trend. As Emma Watson stated in her speech, “it is not the word that is important, it’s the idea and the ambition be-hind it.”

CELEBRITY FEMINISM

By demelza grIff Iths

Credit: Flickr / unwomen

A Fa s h i o n f o r I n a c t i o n o r G l a m o u r i z i n g c h a n g e ?

Credit: Flickr / asiandevelopmentbank + usnavy

2015 MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

ensure environmental sustainability7.

global partnershipfor development

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PrOudly sPOnsOred By:

PArTNERSHIPSThis year we are proud to announce partnerships with the International Rice Research Institute, IMC-World-wide, United World Schools, Latitude and The Boar.

We have established a partnership with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which provides members with an in-ternship opportunity at their facility in the Philippines. IRRI is a non-profit independent research and training organisation that works towards eradicating poverty and hunger and improving environmen-tal sustainability. Our partnership with IRRI enables our members to partake first-hand in upcoming research which may be used as a solution in tackling world hunger.

IMC-Worldwide is an International develop-ment consultancy that works in the planning, design and manage-ment of infrastructure projects around the world. Their work cov-ers social, environmen-tal and institutional as-pects of development. For over 50 years IMC has been engaged by national governments, international organisa-tions and private sector corporations and has worked in more than 80 countries around the world.

United World Schools is an independent charity based in the UK. Their Motto is to ‘Teach the Unreached’. United World Schools works towards creating educational opportu-nity for children living in the world’s poorest regions. They current-ly programs running in Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Nepal. UWS has a very strong sense of social pur-pose combined with a balanced sustainable model that focuses on educating children in post-conflict develop-ing countries whilst stimulating global cul-tural exchange and un-derstanding.

Lattitude is an interna-tional youth develop-ment charity offering oversees volunteering placement to 17 to 25 year olds. Their mis-sion is to educate and develop young people worldwide by providing inclusive opportunities for them to make a pos-itive difference to the lives of others through a distinctive, challeng-ing, structured and supported internation-al volunteering expe-rience in a culture and community different from their own.

The Boar, the Univer-sity of Warwick’s stu-dent newspaper, is our official media partner for this year. Published fortnightly on Wednes-day, the paper is run by students, for students and all editorial board positions are voluntary. It reaches approximate-ly 6,000 students and the website, theboar.org, has more than 40,000 hits per month.Although a society of the Students’ Union, the paper is editorially independent. It holds Union and University officials to account, providing a voice for all University of Warwick students.

We are proud to announce that our annual internship with IRRI will continue.

This is an all expenses paid internship in the Philippines where successful applicants undergo a project with those at the institute. This internship is open to any degree backgrounds. There are a variety of jobs which you can undertake during this internship. Applications are open now and will close on the 9th of January. Applicants must write an essay about a topic they find interesting. The essay should be 1500 words max and sent to partnerships.wids@warwick.ac.uk.

Other internships with Lattitude, IJDH and UWS will be announced in January next year on the WIDS website (www.wids.org.uk) and the Facebook page.

INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNiTIES

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warwick international development summit | November 2014