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WTO and UNEP enhance dialogue on trade and environmental issues
A flagship event on trade and environment marking the 20th anniversary of the WTO was held at WTO headquarters on 28 April 2015 with the participation of Director-General Roberto Azevêdo and the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Mr Achim Steiner.
The event provided an opportunity to take stock of the increasing interconnections between trade and environment since the establishment of the WTO and to look ahead to what needs to be done to ensure these two areas continue to be mutually supportive in the years to come.
The event brought together leaders and renowned experts in the field of trade and environment, including the Executive Secretary of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions and the Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
DG Azevêdo highlighted the increasing importance of trade-related measures aimed at environmental goals and the role of WTO institutions and activities in ensuring such measures contribute efficiently to sustainable development.
Mr Steiner and Mr Azevêdo emphasized the need to redouble efforts at all levels to ensure that trade and environmental policies go hand in hand.
Director-General Azevêdo said:
“20 years ago the founders of the WTO saw clearly that the well-being of habitats, societies, and economies are not separate. Rather, they are inextricably linked. Their vision was of global cooperation in trade as a means to unleash growth, alleviate poverty, raise living standards and ensure full employment, while also protecting the environment.
“In the 20 years since then, the connections between trade and the environment have grown significantly. We must therefore do more to ensure that trade and environmental policies work better together, both at national and international levels. Today we have taken an important step forward to improve multilateral cooperation and dialogue on these issues.”
Executive Director Steiner said:
“Trade brings the world closer together – bringing with it many opportunities but also challenges. It will not drive sustainable development by itself, but only if the international community clearly commits itself to trade-related policies and other support measures that are conducive to environmental, social and economic sustainability.
“International trade governance is evolving quickly. We need to assure that new structures do not come at the cost of the environment, but are drivers of an inclusive Green Economy. UNEP looks forward to continuing collaboration with the WTO as it prepares for its Ministerial Conference in Nairobi and for the decades to come.”
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New report from UN Women unveils far-reaching alternative policy agenda to transform economies and make gender equality a reality
“Progress of the World’s Women 2015-2016: Transforming Economies, Realizing Rights” launches in seven cities
A major report from UN Women, released on 27 April 2015 in seven locations globally, brings together human rights and economic policymaking to call for far-reaching changes to the global policy agenda that will transform economies and make women’s rights, and equality, a reality. It takes an in-depth look at what the economy would look like if it truly worked for women, for the benefit of all.
Progress makes the case that the alternative economic agenda it outlines would not only create fairer societies, it would also create new sectors of employment, for instance in the care economy.
The report is being published as the international community comes together to define a transformative new agenda for sustainable development, 20 years after the landmark Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, which set out an ambitious agenda to advance gender equality.
Since the Beijing Conference, significant advances have been made by many societies, particularly in advancing women’s legal rights. However, as Progress shows, in an era of unprecedented global wealth, millions of women are still consigned to work in low paid, poor quality jobs, denied even basic levels of health care, without access to clean water and decent sanitation.
Globally, only half of women participate in the labour force, compared to three quarters of men. In developing regions, up to 95 per cent of women’s employment is informal, in jobs that are unprotected by labour laws and lack social protection.
Women still carry the burden of unpaid care work, which austerity policies and cutbacks have only intensified. To build fairer, more sustainable economies which work for women and men, a future comprising more of the same will no longer do.
“Our public resources are not flowing in the directions where they are most needed: for example, to provide safe water and sanitation, quality health care, and decent child- and elderly-care services. Where there are no public services, the deficit is borne by women and girls,” said UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
“This is a care penalty that unfairly punishes women for stepping in when the State does not provide resources and it affects billions of women the world over. We need policies that make it possible for both women and men to care for their loved ones without having to forego their own economic security and independence,” she added.
Through solid, in-depth analysis and data, this evidence-based report provides ten key recommendations for actions that governments and others can take in order to move towards an economy that truly works for women, to the benefit of all.
Progress sets out a vision of a global economy fit for women, where they have equal access to productive resources and social protection, which provides them with sufficient income to support an adequate standard of living. In such an economy, the work that women do would be respected and valued; stereotypes about what women and men can and should do would be eliminated; and women would be able to work and live their lives free from violence and sexual harassment.
The reality, however, is very different.
The report reveals that globally, on average, women are paid 24 per cent less than men. The gaps for women with children are even wider: In South Asia, for example, the gender pay gap is 35 per cent for women with children (compared to 14 per cent for those without). Lower rates of labour force participation, gender pay gaps and lower access to pensions add to a huge care penalty for women. In France and Sweden, over their lifetime, women can expect to earn 31 per cent less than men; in Germany 49 per cent less than men; and in Turkey, an average woman can expect to earn a staggering 75 per cent less than an average man over her lifetime.
Women are clustered into a limited set of under-valued occupations. For example, 83 per cent of domestic workers worldwide are women and almost half of them are not entitled to the minimum wage. Even when women succeed in the workplace, they encounter obstacles not generally faced by their male counterparts. For example, in the EU, 75 per cent of women in management and higher professional positions and 61 per cent of women in service sector occupations have experienced some form of sexual harassment in the workplace in their lifetimes.
An economy designed with women’s needs in mind would give them an equal voice in economic decision-making: from the way in which time and money are spent in their households, to the ways in which resources are raised and allocated at the national level, to how broader economic parameters are set by global institutions.
Women are still under-represented in economic leadership positions, from trade unions to corporate boards, from finance ministries to international financial institutions. Women’s membership in trade unions is growing in some countries, but they rarely reach top leadership positions. In 2014, across six of the most influential global economic institutions, women’s representation on their boards ranged from 4 to 20 per cent.
Through case studies and concrete examples of change from Bolivia to Botswana, Progress calls for a paradigm shift in the way governments, financial institutions, businesses and civil society approach economic policy thinking and human rights, to bring about an alternative economic agenda which places women and their rights at its centre.
“The new economic agenda that UN Women is advocating for is not a pipe dream. Many countries, including low-income developing countries, are already implementing elements of this agenda,” said Shahra Razavi, Chief of UN Women’s Research and Data Section and lead author of the report. “The kind of change we need is far-reaching, but it can be done.”
In its key recommendations, Progress underlines that with the right mix of economic and social policies, governments can generate decent jobs for women (and men) and ensure that the unpaid care work that goes into sustaining all economies is recognized and supported. Well-designed social services (e.g. health, care services) and social protection measures (e.g. pensions) can enhance women’s income security, from birth to old age, and enhance their capacity to seize economic opportunities and expand their life options.
Macroeconomic policies can and should support the realization of women’s rights, by creating dynamic and stable economies, by generating decent work and by mobilizing resources to finance vital public services. Governments need to go beyond the old metrics of GDP growth and low inflation, and instead measure success in terms of the realization of human rights.
Women’s economic and social rights – the right to a decent job, to health care and a life free from violence and discrimination – are guaranteed in human rights treaties, which almost all governments in the world have signed. Governments are ultimately responsible for delivering these rights, but they cannot do it alone. International financial institutions and the private sector are among the key players that shape the economy. They all need to be held accountable by civil society and the public, to play their part.
The changes proposed in the report will not only make the economy work for women, but also benefit the majority of men for whom the economy is not working either. The report argues that progress for women is progress for all.
» Download: Progress of the World’s Women 2015-2016: Transforming Economies, Realizing Rights
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Azevêdo reports progress on Doha work programme, asks members to focus on what is “doable”
Director-General Roberto Azevêdo told the Trade Negotiations Committee on 27 April that “we still have a long way to go” on concluding a work programme on the remaining Doha Round issues by July, “but we are making progress”. “After many years of deadlock we are genuinely breaking new ground,” he said. He added: “We have to maintain our focus on what is doable. We have to be prepared to leave our comfort zones. And we will all have to contribute”.
Good morning everyone.
Let me welcome you to the thirty-sixth formal meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee.
Before we start I would like to say two things.
First, I want to welcome Seychelles, who join us here as the 161st member of our organization. We will mark this occasion more formally at the General Council next week, but we are delighted to have you with us today.
Second, I would like to offer my most sincere condolences to Ambassador Dhital and to the people of Nepal after the terrible earthquake this weekend.
I think I speak for everyone here, and within the Secretariat, when I say that our thoughts and prayers are with you and everyone who has been affected by these tragic events.
Now, turning to the business before us today…
We will move straight onto the reports by Chairs of the bodies established by the TNC – to give an overview of the activity in their respective groups.
Download the oral reports by the Chairs of the Negotiating Groups below:
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Special Session of the Committee on Agriculture: Ambassador Adank
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Negotiating Group on Market Access: Ambassador Remigi Winzap
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Special Session of the Council for Trade in Services: Ambassador Gabriel Duque
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Special Session of the Committee on Trade and Development: DDG Agah on behalf of Ambassador Tan Yee Woan
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Special Session of the Council for TRIPS: Ambassador Dacio Castillo
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Negotiating Group on Rules: Ambassador Wayne McCook
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Special Session of the Committee on Trade and Environment: DDG Shark on behalf of Ambassador Wiboonlasana Ruamraksa
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Special Session of the Dispute Settlement Body: Ambassador Ronald Saborío Soto
Chair’s Statement
I will now make my statement as Chair of the TNC.
In my report to the General Council in February, I said that we had intensified our negotiating work.
I said that our aim was to have a deeper political discussion in a more interactive format, through a number of parallel but complementary tracks.
I think we have made a good start in that effort. And we have made good use of the momentum that we had coming into 2015.
I have been consulting with and listening to members.
We have met in Room W.
And the Chairs have been doing a terrific job in running their respective cycles of consultations.
I have met with all of the Chairs in recent days, and I want to take this opportunity again to thank them for their work.
Sometimes they are confronted by big gaps between positions, but they have not been discouraged. They continue to push members to engage. They continue to provoke new conversations, and to urge members to explore new ideas.
I am very grateful for their efforts.
We have all listened to the Chairs’ reports today. I draw three essential conclusions from these reports, and from my own consultations.
First, a lot of good work has been done, particularly in the three core areas of Agriculture, Non-Agricultural Market Access and Services.
I think it is clear that achieving outcomes in these areas will be essential to the success of these negotiations.
I should note here that we need to make sure we are advancing work in all areas, trying to avoid any kind of de facto sequencing. At the same time, of course, we all know that there are gateway issues that we need to focus on – and the reality is that these are predominantly in the Agriculture and NAMA pillars. And, in all this, we also need to make sure that we don’t leave Services behind.
My second conclusion is that it remains very clear that development and LDC issues remain central to everything we do here – and that we must continue working to move these issues forward.
The Global Review of Aid for Trade in June will provide an important additional focus to the development component of our work. In addition, I will remain closely engaged with broader efforts such as the UN’s work on Financing for Development and discussions on the post-2015 development agenda.
My third conclusion is that while it is clear we still have a long way to go, and that some areas are proving very problematic, there is no doubt in my mind that we are making progress.
There is a great amount of engagement on the core DDA issues – and I want to thank members for their efforts to date.
It is encouraging that participation has been at a high level. Ambassadors are getting involved. This suggests that you are invested in the process, that you have been doing your homework, and that you have been engaging your capitals in this work. I think this is a very positive sign.
And this engagement has been overwhelmingly constructive.
We have moved from a finger-pointing mode to a solution-finding mode. This is exactly where we need to be – but I don’t think we ever expected it to be easy.
Indeed, I think that this solution-finding mode is proving to be tough. We should not expect it to lead to immediate convergence, or to produce instant results. If it did, it would be truly amazing!
As we have heard from the Chairs, members are still at odds on some major issues, and some big gaps remain.
Some are still repeating their old positions, or taking more time to move to a solution-finding approach.
Again, this is to be expected, and I would urge you not to be discouraged by it.
I think this has been part of every negotiation that I have ever been involved with.
So we have to look at some of these signs, which could be perceived as negative, in the right context.
The fact that members are at odds on some issues now does not mean we’re not willing to talk and move forward.
On a similar point, I think there is some nervousness about exploring new ideas because it seems as if this requires moving away from positions of comfort.
Of course exploring options doesn’t mean giving up your position or fully committing to the ideas being tabled. However, sticking to such old and comfortable positions will prevent us from moving forward.
Whatever outcome we have, there’s no doubt that it will be uncomfortable for everyone.
We have all been through many cycles of negotiations. So I want to be honest in my perception of where we are.
Some will say that we’re not making progress, or that our work is not going to lead anywhere.
I disagree entirely.
It would be extremely surprising if, at this point in time, we already had solutions to the problems that we’ve been grappling with for so long.
Many voiced similar doubts in our lead up to Bali – and it did look very difficult at times. But, in the end, they were proved wrong.
Just as in Bali – if the political will is there, we will deliver.
And there are reasons to be upbeat.
While some members are still taking a cautious approach, others are being more proactive. Some are putting forward fresh thinking, making proposals and putting forward papers. Moreover, members are discussing these proposals. This is very positive.
And so the situation is very different from what we have experienced before. In the past, discussions had been limited to entrenched positions, with nothing new on the table. Now we have ideas and proposals to discuss. This is real progress.
In several areas we may have potential outcomes which are largely acceptable to everyone.
The question now is whether we can find balance overall – in a way that everyone can live with.
But we have another level of negotiations which has not yet been fully explored.
This is the horizontal discussion to identify inter-sectoral trade-offs.
We need to put more focus on identifying the trade-offs within pillars and between them.
By definition the Chairs’ work cannot explore some of these trade-offs. They work strictly within their respective ‘jurisdictions’. But it is their work that makes these trade-offs possible because they identify the potential options. This underlines again why it is important that we avoid sequencing our work. We have to keep moving forward in all of the different groups now, so that we can explore how they might interact.
These trade-offs are not clearly on the table yet. And I think that, once we begin to take a more careful look at them, things may change quite considerably.
In the coming weeks the Chairs will continue their work, but I will increasingly be looking at ways to facilitate discussion on those horizontal trade-offs.
My ongoing conversations with delegations are very useful in this context. Sometimes in these conversations I hear elements which do not feature in the bigger meetings.
Of course the overall positions expressed are the same, but I often hear the reasons behind positions, or additional elements which shed light on new avenues which could provide a way forward.
I think that this horizontal process, which we will take to the wider Room W meetings in due course, will be vital in fulfilling our mandate.
After-all, our instructions remain very clear. We are working to conclude a “clearly defined” work program on the remaining DDA issues by July this year.
I have said from the beginning that the best outcome would be a work programme that is specific and modalities-like, and which therefore allows us to finalise negotiations fairly quickly after the work programme has been agreed.
We are getting close to July now. And therefore we have to be realistic about just how specific and modalities-like it can be. That is a question which only you can answer. And the earlier we find conceptual solutions for the big, tough issues before us, the better the end product we will be able to deliver.
Whatever the nature of the work programme we get by July, clearly it will have to fulfill certain criteria:
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First, it will have to be substantive and meaningful.
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Second, it must give us guidance on how to conclude the negotiations.
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And third, it must be a springboard towards a successful 10th Ministerial Conference in Nairobi in December.
What we do now will dictate what is possible in Nairobi. So let’s keep this at the forefront of our minds in our current discussions.
Conclusion
We still have three months before the July deadline. That is enough time to advance this work and deliver a substantive outcome. But we must use that time to the fullest.
We will need to increase our efforts in all of the negotiating formats. And we will need to engage capitals to an even greater degree, as we are approaching the stage where political calls will need to be made.
As I have indicated, the Chairs process will continue. I will be increasing the intensity of my consultations. And of course the principles of transparency and inclusiveness which served us so well on the road to Bali will continue to be a hallmark of our work as we move forward.
We have a long way to go. But we are making progress. We are testing new ideas. After many years of deadlock we are genuinely breaking new ground.
There are a number of possibilities and avenues available to us. But it is down to us to explore them. This is not going to happen by itself. We have to be creative. And I think we are beginning to be creative. Again, testing new ideas does not commit you to those ideas.
We have to maintain our focus on what is doable. We have to be prepared to leave our comfort zones. And we will all have to contribute.
Thank you for listening.
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Trade and investment – New priorities for Asian-African ties
At a summit in Indonesia, leaders of Asia and Africa have pledged to cooperate more closely and called for a financial world order more open to their emerging economies. But is this a relationship between equal partners?
“The view which says that global economic problems can only be solved by the World Bank, the IMF, the ADB, is an obsolete view that needs discarding,” Joko Widodo told delegates on April 22 at the start of this year’s Asia-Africa summit in Jakarta to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the gathering between leaders from both regions. “There needs to be change,” Jokowi said, adding it was imperative that “we build a new international economic order that is open to new emerging economic powers.”
A similar comment was made by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who said that “a new type of international relations” was needed to encourage cooperation between Asian and African nations, according to China’s state-run news agency Xinhua.
While no mention was made of the new China-led financial institutions such as the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the Silk Road Fund, analysts agree that both Asia and Africa want a reform of the international financial architecture to reduce their reliance on the Bretton Woods multilateral financial institutions.
Created by the United States and Europe after World War II, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have been at the centre of the post-World War II monetary order. The Asian Development Bank or ADB is viewed by some as dominated by Japan.
In this context, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said in the conference that “African and Asian countries are a formidable force... yet that numerical strength counts for little when it comes to the running and control of the multilateral system.”
A new model?
While the China-led initiatives have been criticized by some as a way for Beijing to challenge Western-backed institutions, there are others who believe these new development banks may have a positive impact on emerging economies.
In fact, more than 40 countries have already announced their intention to join the AIIB – set to be launched by the end of 2015 – as founding members, including some of Europe’s largest economies, with the US and Japan being notable absentees.
“While the IMF, World Bank, and ADB have a vital role to play, they cannot meet the needs of the 21st century global economy by themselves, especially in light of the refusal of the US Congress to allow China and others a greater voice in them,” Gregory Poling, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) told DW.
At the same time, the statements made by Asian and African leaders at the two-day conference highlight just how much the relationship between the two regions has changed since 1955, when the first Asia-Africa Summit took place in the city of Bandung on Java island. At the time, several of the 30 participating countries had just gained independence from colonial rule and were seeking to forge a common identity. And other colonies were trying to rally international support to obtain independence.
From independence to investment
Six decades later, however, priorities have changed. First of all, there is no longer a Cold War and therefore no longer a Third World to which Asian and African non-aligned states belong – an aspect which fundamentally changed the politics of the states involved in this year’s summit. But perhaps most importantly, the summit has become a key as a platform for diplomacy and boosting ties among participating states, as the meeting between the leaders of Japan and China on the sidelines of this year’s summit shows.
“The Asia-Africa Summit has become a major chance for Asian leaders to send a message that we now live in a multi-polar world, in which Asia’s political and economic clout must be seen as at least as important as that of the US and Europe,” Poling told DW.
Some of the summit participants are even G-20 members such as Indonesia, China, India and South Africa. This is perhaps also a reason why Indonesian President Widodo has touted the forum as the place to realize the Bandung spirit by lowering trade barriers and thus strengthening trade and investment cooperation.
Analyst Poling is of the view that “whereas 1955 was an American- and European-driven global economy, 2015 is a world driven economically by Asia, with African states themselves of growing economic importance.” While participating states made up only a quarter of the world economic output 60 years ago, they are now responsible for more than half of global GDP.”
Strengthening ties
In light of this development, Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific Chief Economist at IHS, a global analytics firm, argues that the current focus of the Africa-Asia relationship is more about economic and investment ties. In fact, the analyst points out that trade ties between Asia and Africa have been completely transformed since 1955, notably led by China’s economic ascendancy to become the world’s second largest economy.
“The rise of China as an industrial power has generated tremendous growth in demand for imports of commodities, and Africa has become an increasingly important source,” he told DW.
According to IHS, bilateral trade between China and Africa has increased from $12 billion in 1955 to $200 billion by 2014. China’s bilateral trade with Africa is far greater than that of Asia’s second largest economy, Japan, which is in the order of $30 billion.
India has strong trade ties with Africa, with bilateral trade between having reached $70 billion in 2014, according to IHS. Indonesia’s bilateral trade with Africa has reached $11 billion. However, most investment flow in one direction – from Asia to Africa, a fact that highlights the nature of Asian-African ties for the time being.
Equal partners?
Although the math suggests that development gap between Asia and Africa will narrow as the century progresses, Asia clearly has a greater weight today than does Africa – a fact which is reflected to a large extent in the size and structure of their respective economies.
Moreover, Asia’s trade with Africa generally reflects the comparative advantage of each region, with Asia being the factory of the world for manufactures, and Africa being a major exporter of agricultural and mineral commodities, as economist Biswas pointed out.
“These strengths are reflected in the composition of bilateral trade, with Asian exports to Africa dominated by manufactures, while African exports to Asia are dominated by mineral and agricultural commodities. Also Asia is a major source of private sector investment as well as government development finance, so Asian countries such as China and Japan tend to be large sources of investment flows into African countries,” he said.
But while Asia expands its relations to other parts of the world on an institutional level – such as the Asia-Europe-Meeting (ASEM) or the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC) – there are few such institutions in place between Asia and Africa.
Ten years ago, on the 50th anniversary of the Bandung conference, leaders from both regions agreed to forge a “new Asian-African strategic partnership.” However, this has only resulted in technical cooperation, exchange programs and non-binding economic forum. This year the summit participants emphasized what they have in common, but it seems that the differences between the two regions are bigger than 60 years ago.
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WTO welcomes Seychelles as its 161st member
On 26 April 2015, Seychelles became the 161st WTO member, ending 20 years of negotiating its accession terms with WTO members. “I am delighted to welcome the Republic of Seychelles as the 161st member of the WTO,” said Director-General Roberto Azevêdo. “This is great news for Seychelles’ economy and, therefore, for the people of Seychelles. It is also a boost for the WTO and a vote of confidence in the Organization, as we redouble our efforts to complete the Doha Round of negotiations.”
On 25 March 2015, President James Michel signed the “Instrument of Acceptance” of Seychelles’ Accession Protocol, confirming its membership terms, at a plenary meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers in Mahé, Victoria, Seychelles. In this document, Seychelles’ government states that the Protocol of Accession was ratified by Seychelles’ National Assembly on 24 March. After the signing, President James Michel handed the Instrument of Acceptance to the Director of the WTO Accessions Division, who received it on behalf of WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo. According to WTO rules, the 30-day countdown to its WTO membership was activated on 27 March 2015 and Seychelles officially became a WTO member on 26 April 2015.
“I have just spoken with Jean Paul Adam, Minister of Finance, Trade and the Blue Economy of Seychelles, and congratulated the Government of Seychelles and particularly President James Michel on their leadership and commitment to WTO-consistent domestic reforms that have made Seychelles’ accession possible,” said WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo. “I am delighted to welcome the Republic of Seychelles as the 161st member of the WTO. This is great news for Seychelles’ economy and, therefore, for the people of Seychelles. It is also a boost for the WTO and a vote of confidence in the Organization, as we redouble our efforts to complete the Doha Round of negotiations. Ninety-eight per cent of the global economy now falls under the WTO’s rules-based multilateral trading system.”
“This is a major step forward in the trade integration of Seychelles into the rules-based multilateral trading system and the global economy,” said Seychelles Minister of Finance, Trade and the Blue Economy Jean Paul Adam. “Seychelles shall now have access to the markets of all 160 WTO members. WTO membership ensures that Seychelles will contribute to on-going multilateral negotiation processes to ensure that we can create more opportunities for wealth creation and prosperity while also defending the countries’ approach to development.”
His full speech is available here.
WTO members officially approved Seychelles’ accession on 10 December 2014. The Protocol of Accession was signed by H.E. Mr Pierre Laporte, former Minister of Trade, Finance and Investment, and DG Azevêdo.
The list of Seychelles’ commitments is available here.
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SADC road administrators meet in Namibia’s capital Windhoek
Thirty road fund administration managers from six countries in the southern African region are meeting in Namibia’s capital Windhoek on Monday where they are being hosted by Road Fund Authority.
The managers are representing the Southern Africa Focal Group within the African Road Maintenance Fund Association (ARMFA), which has a membership of 34 countries on the continent.
ARMFA Southern African Focal Group has Namibia, Lesotho, Comoros, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Malawi as members.
The two-day meeting is part of the association’s annual gathering in different member countries whose main purpose is to share information and experiences on the practices of financing road maintenance in Africa and operations of the funds themselves.
As part of this meeting, the members will also discuss relationship building, strengthening ties among road maintenance funds in Africa, in order to ensure sustainability and the harmonious development of the member Funds.
In addition, the participants will share country progress reports on road infrastructure in the different countries, focusing on best road maintenance financing practices and on the optimum allocation of funds to contribute towards national development.
Namibia’s Road Fund Authority chairperson Penda Ithindi the meeting would also look at how the region can use the road networks increase trade among the member states.
On Monday, the delegates held a closed meeting and are expected to be taken out on an excursion to the coast Tuesday where they will be shown Namibia’s road infrastructure.
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Africa to Set Common Roadmap to Combat Illegal Wildlife Trade
African heads of State and decision-makers will convene at the International Conference on Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora in Africa in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, on 27-30 April, where they will lay out a common plan to end illegal trade in wild fauna and flora on the continent.
The value of wildlife crime, comprising fauna and flora, and including logging, poaching and trafficking of a wide range of animals, amounts to between US$70 and US$213 billion a year, according to estimates of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and INTERPOL. Wildlife trafficking creates insecurity, fuelling conflicts and corruption. Together with poaching and illegal extraction, it deprives countries of their assets, weakens the rule of law and divides societies. Wildlife trafficking also destroys biodiversity and ecosystems, threatening the supply of food and freshwater and eroding livelihoods for millions of people in Africa.
Organised by the Government of the Republic of Congo and the African Union Commission (AUC), in partnership with UNEP and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Conference builds on the outcomes of the London and Kasane High Level Conferences on Illegal Wildlife Trade. It follows the 23rd African Union Summit which urged African nations to apply zero tolerance approaches, to take action to strengthen laws and policies, and to engage communities to combat illegal wildlife trafficking and related criminal activities. The Conference will seek to create an Africa-wide strategy and associated action plan on the illegal trade in wild fauna and flora, to be considered at the next AU Summit.
Background
The continuing loss of biodiversity resources is for African States a threat whose implications are felt on the social welfare, economic development and environmental sustainability. In the early 21st century, many animal and plant species are victims of unbridled pressure which seriously threatens global ecological balance. Among the most endangered species listed in the foreground, rhinoceros and the African elephant, emblematic species in danger of extinction. This threat is fueled by international trade in horns for the first and ivory for the second, two products for which demand is increasingly growing especially in some Asian countries.
The figures recorded during the last two years is sufficient to measure the severity of the danger facing the planet: 25,000 elephants were slaughtered and 23,000 tons of ivory seized in 2011. Since the beginning of 2013, 146 rhinos were shot in South Africa, while the ivory trade in the Far East, particularly to China, Burma and Thailand, among others, and is expanding at record levels. This smuggling also affects fishery resources, particularly tuna, whales, sharks, turtles, etc. and some species of African fauna, endangered or not, such as Afrormosia (Pericopsis elata), the Ebony (Diospyros crassiflora), the Pao Rosa (Swartzia fistuloides), the Wengue (Millettia lerentii), Wood Rose Madagascar (Dalbergia maritima), Gnetum (Gnetum spp.), Prunus (Prunus africana), etc.
On the other hand, and according to the press release joint IUCN, CITES, TRAFFIC, CSE, published in the Summit Gaborone on African Elephant, held December 2, 2013, trade routes have shifted ports West Africa and Central Africa to those of East Africa. At the same time, the trade routes used by traffickers seem to now refer to new countries in Africa and exit and transit in Africa, Asia and Europe.
It has been established that poaching networks have honed their techniques and methods allowing them to escape the border controls. They are now using heavy weapons, and thus constitute a threat not only to people and wildlife, but also for the peace and security of States, particularly those of countries of origin where the poverty level remains high.
African countries have acceded to several regional and international instruments on the conservation of biodiversity, the fight against illegal logging and illegal trade in species of wild flora and fauna, to ensure the conservation and sustainable management of their forest and wildlife resources. Despite this political will and actions of regional and international institutions, illegal logging and illegal trade reached alarming proportions. International mobilization that is in place, evidenced by the high-level conferences has generated significant results to be made consistent and complemented by a thorough analysis of needs, priorities, challenges and opportunities in a perspective and under African leadership.
On this backdrop, the 23th Summit of the African Union adopted Decision EX.CL/Dec.832(XXV) on the conservation of African wildlife and the illegal wildlife trade. This decision was endorsed Congolese government's proposal to hold an international conference on the illicit trade and exploitation of plants and wildlife in Africa and instructed the Commission to work with the Congo for organizing this conference. The decision of the AU has also asked the Commission, with the support of AMCEN, AfDB, UNEP, UNODC, the CITES Secretariat, INTERPOL, the Task Force of the Lusaka Agreement the Cooperative Enforcement Operations Directed at Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora, and other major partners to prepare a common African strategy on the fight against illegal trade in wild fauna and flora, to be submitted to the Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the AU in June 2015. This strategy should enable a coordinated response to regional, sub-regional and national, and the development of a regional common position that inform the debate and priority actions at regional and internationally.
Objectives
The Conference will build on the outcomes of the major previous meetings have produced significant results and whose implementation should be a concerted and coherent manner. It will also consider how to achieve a better conservation of the flora and fauna of Africa through specific joint projects, unified approaches and modalities uniting efforts among key stakeholders, with the support of partners and donors .
Therefore, the conference will:
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Make an inventory of past and ongoing initiatives and identify priorities resulting from the findings of major international meetings on illegal wildlife trade and major initiatives underway on the continent and the opportunities arising from the international mobilization;
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Develop an African strategy to curb illegal logging and illegal trade in African countries which will result in the regional and national strategies;
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Develop a joint program of action involving African countries and consumer countries with the support of partners and donors.
Expected Results
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An international roadmap to fight against the illegal trade in wild species of fauna and flora at all levels in Africa, involving African countries and the consumer countries.
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A program of concrete joint actions to fight against poaching, together with a sustainable funding mechanism for information exchange illicit traffic of wildlife products and flora and capacity building;
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A draft implementation of the African Common Strategy on the fight against illegal trade in wild fauna and flora;
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A joint statement on the theme of the conference.
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Reinvigorate Trade to Boost Global Economic Growth
Address by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF at the U.S. Ex-Im Bank Conference in Washington, DC, 23 April 2015
Good afternoon. I would like to thank Susan Axelrod for her kind introduction, and thank you to the U.S. Ex-Im Bank for giving me the opportunity to speak about the importance of expanding global trade – especially at this point in time.
Let me start by saying something that often gets lost in the nitty-gritty of trade discussions. If you care about growth and innovation; if you care about jobs and the real incomes of the middle-class; if you care about poverty reduction and greater economic fairness; if you do care about all these things, you need to be serious about fostering global trade.
The IMF cares deeply about these issues and has been committed to the idea of open trade that is – ideally – underpinned by multilateral agreements and institutions. More than 70 years ago, the founding fathers of the IMF created an institution that was designed to prevent a return to the self-defeating economic policies of the Great Depression – including trade protectionism and competitive currency devaluations.
Let me quote Article 1 of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement: “The purpose of the IMF is to facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade, and to contribute thereby to the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and real income.”
Fast-forward to the global financial crisis of 2008, which marked the latest turning point in global trade. When that crisis struck, trade protectionism became the dog that did not bark. Contrary to some expectations, the world did not see a rampant rise in old-style trade barriers. And trade volumes rebounded after a sharp initial drop. This was a reflection of the unprecedented level of international cooperation that prevented a global economic meltdown.
But the financial crisis has helped put a damper on growth in global trade. 2015 is likely to mark the fourth consecutive year of below-average trade growth, with at least one more year of disappointing growth to come, according to the latest WTO predictions.
In other words, one of the engines of global economic growth has slowed down, because of cyclical forces but also because of structural factors. This trend must be reversed.
Reinvigorating trade is not just a “nice-to-have”. It is an “essential-to-have” – to help prevent what I have called the “new mediocre” of low growth over a long period. This is why the international community, including the G-20, is pushing for trade reforms as part of a comprehensive policy package to lift growth and employment.
With this in mind, I would like to touch on three issues:
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Why do we need a better trade engine?
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How can we shift global trade into a higher gear?
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Which trade policies should economies pursue?
1. Why do we need a more powerful trade engine?
Let me start by briefly outlining the case for a better trade engine. This audience knows it well, but sometimes we get so involved in the details that the big picture gets lost. Trade is good for growth. How?
a. Reforms – including new trade agreements – encourage countries to further specialize in the goods and services in which they have a comparative advantage. By using their existing resources more efficiently, they can help lift world production and consumption.
In other words: specialize in what you do best, trade for the rest. The classic gains from this strategy include lower prices for consumers and companies – and therefore higher real incomes – and a greater variety of goods and services available for purchase.
b. Trade reforms can also have a powerful indirect effect on growth by igniting and amplifying other structural reforms. For example:
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Trade reforms can increase external competition in product and services markets.
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They can encourage key infrastructure investments – think of new ports and new roads.
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They can spur innovation through R&D and “learning by exporting”.
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And they can strengthen institutions by encouraging better governance and a better business environment.
c. All this would help policymakers to reverse the decline in productivity growth in advanced economies and boost productivity in emerging and developing economies. Recent IMF research shows that lower productivity is a key driver of declining potential growth rates in advanced economies and – perhaps even more so – in emerging market economies.
What this means is that we have reduced our estimate of the speed limit at which economies can currently drive. In advanced economies, for example, potential annual growth fell to 1.5 percent in the past two years, down from 2.2 percent in 2001-07. Reversing this trend is essential to lift global growth over the medium term.
d. In summary, open trade is an important contributor to job creation. As you, Fred [Hochberg] said yourself, “millions of American workers have jobs that depend on trade”. In 2014, for example, exports of goods and services directly and indirectly supported an estimated 11.7 million U.S. jobs. And by encouraging greater specialization, trade fosters industries that are more competitive and, therefore, more sustainable.
And let’s not forget the impact of trade on global poverty reduction. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty over the past three decades.
2. How can you shift global trade into a higher gear?
So, I think there is a compelling case for a better trade engine. But how can policymakers shift global trade into a higher gear – my second point.
For at least three decades before the 2008 financial crisis, global trade regularly grew at twice the rate of the global economy. It is now expanding at – or below – the rate of the global economy. This slowdown is largely because of two structural changes in global trade.
a. One is the maturing of existing global value chains – in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia – while new value chains are not being formed.
To reverse this trend, policymakers need to unlock the trade potential of other regions. South America, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa: these are the regions that would greatly benefit from being better integrated into global value chains. It would be good for them and good for the world.
b. The second factor holding back trade growth is the slowdown in trade liberalization in recent years. For example, multilateral negotiations have stalled, and regional trade initiatives have not matched the transformative effect of, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement.
This is why policymakers need to press ahead with negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP, as well as on its transatlantic cousin, the TTIP.
Research by the Peterson Institute finds that the TPP could boost world income by $295 billion per year over the next decade. It also finds that the TTP would raise U.S. incomes by 0.4 percent, or $77 billion, per year. The U.S. could gain a comparable amount from TTIP, according to estimates by the European Union.
We all know there are considerable discussions over the models that are being used to generate these hard numbers. But I think we get the point:
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Recent developments in the U.S. Senate suggest that these important trade deals can be areas of cooperation between the Congress and the President.
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On the other side of the Atlantic, progress on trade would be immensely helpful in lifting growth and confidence in the European Union.
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The Japanese government is also keen to use the TPP to inject greater competition into its low-growth economy.
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And emerging and developing economies would benefit from better integration into the global economy.
So, on all sides, there are good incentives to cut deals. Political leadership is now needed to push these deals over the finish line.
c. The same goes for the WTO deal struck in Bali at the end of 2013. This agreement, if fully implemented, would cut trade costs and deliver an economic boost of US$1 trillion annually. The Bali deal is particularly important for developing economies because of its focus on trade facilitation, which involves reducing red tape and streamlining customs.
Let me be clear: there are signs of progress on trade. But the global community can – and should – be much more ambitious.
3. Which trade policies should economies pursue?
Which brings me to my third point – what are the trade policies that economies should pursue?
The IMF has recently reviewed its own policy advice to make sure that trade remains an essential element of our operational work. This includes our technical assistance and our annual assessments of our members’ economies.
Of course, policy advice has to be country-specific. But let me give you our view on three broad categories:
First, most advanced economies will be largely focusing on the “21st century trade issues” such as opening services markets and making regulatory systems more coherent. The TPP is a good example because it seeks to address crucial issues such as intellectual property protection and treatment of state-owned enterprises.
Second, many emerging market economies, especially in South Asia and Latin America, can still benefit greatly from integrating into the global economy through traditional trade liberalization. This may include unilateral efforts to open up trade and encourage foreign direct investment, especially in infrastructure. In Asia, in this decade alone, overall national infrastructure investment needs are estimated to be $8 trillion.
Third, for developing economies, trade and integration into global value chains should be a central plank of their development and growth strategies. Again, trade facilitation will be key. The IMF stands ready to support this transition to a less protected environment. Think of the fiscal implications of lower tariffs and the challenges of sequencing reforms. On all this, the Fund can provide hands-on advice and training.
Conclusion
Let me conclude by quoting one of the sharpest thinkers of his generation. Two hundred years ago, the French philosopher Montesquieu said – and I will give you the French version first:
“Le commerce guérit des préjugés destructeurs: & c’est presque une règle générale que, partout où il y a des mœurs douces, il y a du commerce; & que, partout où il y a du commerce, il y a des mœurs douces.”
“Trade is the best cure for prejudice. It is an almost general rule that, wherever there is good citizenship, there is trade, and that, wherever there is trade, there is good citizenship.”
The most destructive economic prejudice is trade protectionism. Policymakers must remain vigilant about the old-style, in-your-face protectionism and about the new protectionism that is based on non-tariff measures.
Smart efforts to reduce and dismantle these barriers should be strongly supported. This is why the IMF welcomes preferential trade deals such as the TTP – which we believe should eventually be open to other countries that meet its requirements.
The key question is how to make preferential deals more coherent with multilateral efforts. How can we achieve eventual multilateralization – preferably in the context of the World Trade Organization? How can we avoid trade fragmentation – the “spaghetti bowl” of competing regimes and preferences?
I strongly believe that global deals deliver far more than any other approach. Rather than simply bolstering existing trade connections, multilateral deals allow new trading relationships to be formed. They are a global solution to a global challenge.
The last major global trade agreement is now 20 years old. The world can do better than that. As I said at the beginning, if you care about growth, you need to be serious about global trade. It is now time to get serious about trade.
Thank you.
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Planning Africa’s infrastructure in an uncertain climate future
A new report from the World Bank, “Enhancing the Climate Resilience of Africa’s Infrastructure,” examines climate change impacts on hydropower, irrigation and electricity expansion in Africa and finds that the continent’s economic growth prospects can be improved by fully integrating future climate changes into infrastructure planning. The report shows how governments and regional organizations can work with climate scientists and design engineers in today’s uncertain climate future.
Africa’s strong economic growth of 5% over the past decade has helped reduce extreme poverty and improved the lives of millions of families. To continue this trend, the continent’s heads of state and government are calling for an expansion of hydroelectric power generation capacity by over 54,000 MW, and of water storage capacity by 20,000 Km. Much of this investment will support the construction of long-lived infrastructure, such as dams, power stations, and irrigation canals, all being planned for construction and operation in a historically more constant climate. Yet scientists are predicting that the weather in the future is going to be very uncertain.
“Although climate change impacts in the mid 21st century may seem far away, they are going to be very real during the life span of the infrastructure that will be built in the coming decades,” says Raffaello Cervigni, a lead environmental economist with the Africa Region of the World Bank and the lead report editor. “While this report provides stakeholders with tools needed for tackling the challenge of planning under climate uncertainty, the specific way in which infrastructure plans should be modified are choices that countries and regional organizations will need to make themselves.”
The study team used for the first time a consistent approach, including a comprehensive, broad set of state-of-the-art climate projections, to examine impacts in Africa’s main river basins (Congo, Nile, Niger, Orange, Senegal, Volta and Zambezi) and across four electricity power pools (Western, Eastern, Central and the Southern Power Pool), to evaluate the economic impacts of an uncertain climate on hydropower and irrigation expansion plans when compared to a future with a constant climate. The team found that without fully integrating climate change considerations into plans, countries may face significant economic costs.
For example, in the driest climate scenario, the possible revenue losses across these basins from overbuilding hydro infrastructure range from 5% and 60%, with the Zambezi, Senegal and Nile basins identified as being the most affected. On the other hand, under wet climate scenarios, there is the potential for increased revenues of 20% to 140%, with the larger potential gains projected for the Volta, Niger and Eastern Nile basins. But this potential can only be seized it investment planning is modified to factor in the possibility more water may be available than in the baseline.
As there is no way to tell in advance if the climate will be drier or wetter, the report proposes an adaptation strategy suited for situation of deep uncertainty; and finds that it can cut in half (or more) the maximum climate change impact (loss of revenue or missed opportunity to increase it) that would be faced in the case of inaction.
Incorporating climate resilience into regular planning and project design processes will require time and a change in thinking. The report recommends several areas of interventions, including:
- Develop technical guidelines on the integration of climate change in the planning and design of infrastructure in climate-sensitive sectors
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Promote an open-data knowledge repository for climate resilient infrastructure development
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Establish an Africa climate resilience project preparation facility to support the needs of different sectors
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Launch climate-resilient training programs for infrastructure professionals
- Set up an observatory on climate-resilient infrastructure development in Africa to link technical work with policy development
The report was launched during the Africa Climate Resilient Infrastructure Summit in Addis Ababa today.
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Experts and guidelines needed for negotiating contracts for Africa’s resources
If Africa’s natural resources are to benefit its people, petroleum and mining contract negotiations can no longer be limited to technical experts but must be broadened to include specialists such as lawyers, tax specialists, economists, environmentalists, sociologists, or political scientists. To address some of the challenges related to benefits from natural resources, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is hosting a two-day Policy Dialogue on the Challenges Faced by African States in Mining and Petroleum Contract Negotiations in Addis Ababa on 5 and 6 May 2015.
In collaboration with the African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC) and the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), the ECA and the African Union experts on Africa’s Mining Vision and on contract law are to meet with delegations from mining and petroleum producing African states to establish, among other things, a network of African Experts for negotiations of mining and petroleum contracts.
The paradox that resource rich countries have produced resource-poor populations can be mitigated through the creation of a continental “multidisciplinary” framework for the exchange of experience. In addition to creating a network of experts, participants will leave the dialogue sessions with a better understanding on how to align the existing set of legal and regulatory instruments in Africa with the African Mining Vision.
Adopted by African Union (AU) Heads of State in 2009 and spearheaded by the AMDC since 2013, the African Mining Vision calls for a structural transformation of the minerals sector through enhanced linkages with the local economy, increased value addition, promotion of local content and empowerment, and a judicious and prudent use of mineral revenue to build up other forms of capital that can outlast the currency of mining. The session is therefore also meant to provide a platform for advocacy for gender equity in the extractive industries for better performance and provision of livelihoods.
Delegates plan to leave the Policy Dialogue with tangible ideas in the form of practical guidelines on fundamental rules to be followed in contract negotiations by negotiators in the field of petroleum and mining.
The participants aim to develop “model contracts” that may be used by member States in the process of mining and petroleum contract negotiations. These negotiations can culminate in “win-win” partnerships, taking into account both international legal rules and specific requirements established by the African Mining Vision.
Foreign investors and multinational corporations are often the main beneficiaries, with source countries receiving a very low share of revenue while the extraction may ultimately inflict long-term damage to the environment and eventually destabilize the national economies. Hence, African states recognize that the complexity of contract provisions and the applicable legal and fiscal regimes, business and technical require the participation of competent experts from other fields such as law, taxation, economy and humanities working in “multidisciplinary” teams.
Directors of mining, natural resources, high level officials of petroleum producing member States, regulators, environmentalist and beneficiation experts and practising lawyers will attend the Policy Dialogue. Countries interested in strategies for ensuring community beneficiation and reduction of illicit financial flows are urged to attend.
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Planned new SADC court ‘unconstitutional’ say lawyers
Lawyers say South Africa should not be supporting a planned new regional court that ‘disregards the human rights of individuals’.
In a move of crucial importance for human rights in southern Africa, lawyers are challenging Pretoria’s attempts to join with other governments in establishing a new regional court. They object to the court on the grounds that it will be barred from hearing disputes brought by individual citizens against their governments.
The Law Society of South Africa, LSSA, says such moves by Pretoria are unconstitutional and it has asked the high court to declare as invalid the actions by President Jacob Zuma and the ministers of justice and of international relations, to support, vote for and sign documents related to the planned new tribunal.
During the South African Development Community summit at Victoria Falls last year, Zuma was one of a number of heads of state who signed an agreement in terms of which the new regional tribunal will be established. This Protocol must now be ratified by Parliament or its equivalent in each country, but if the LSSA has its way there will be no ratification in South Africa and the planned new tribunal will not get off the ground.
This is because the LSSA is concerned that the new tribunal will effectively be an interstate court, adjudicating only matters between states.
Essentially the problem with the planned court, according to the LSSA, is that it replaces a tribunal which accepted matters from both states and individuals. By precluding citizens from accessing the new court, the Protocol reduces the rights of citizens as guaranteed in the constitution – and this without any public consultation.
Co-chairs of the LSSA, Busani Mabunda and Richard Scott, said the previous tribunal, set up under the SADC Treaty and based in Windhoek, received 30 matters, 24 of which were finalised before the tribunal was effectively shut down. All these matter were brought by individuals. This showed the need experienced by individuals for a forum to challenge governments on human rights issues, while it was highly unlikely that states would need to make use of the planned tribunal since they could deal with most issues via diplomatic channels.
The LSSA’s founding affidavit notes that its purpose is also to declare unconstitutional the ‘whole process of suspending the (previous) Tribunal’ in 2010, as well as the failure to appoint judges for that tribunal; and for everything done in an attempt to ratify the 2014 Protocol that would set up an alternative forum, to be held invalid.
These processes were unconstitutional, according to the LSSA, because their objective was ‘to infringe or deprive the vested rights of citizens to have access to the Tribunal as set out in the SADC treaty.’
The LSSA says Zuma has ‘acted in a manner which infringes the citizen’s right of access to justice’. While former Presidents Mandela and Mbeki supported the SADC treaty for the benefit of South Africa’s citizens and to promote South African’s constitutional values to the SADC region, those ‘decisions and actions’ have been ‘slowly inhibited by the actions of (Zuma)’.
The SADC tribunal was originally established as an integral part of the initial SADC treaty to be ‘the community’s judicial organ’. Under the 2000 Protocol that set up the initial tribunal, it was an important forum for citizens whose home country lacked a judicial system that would adequately deal with violations of their rights.
During August 2010 the SADC ministers of justice recommended to the SADC summit that the tribunal’s role, functions and terms of reference should be reviewed.
Although the LSSA’s papers do not say as much, this decision was taken at the insistence of Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, furious that the tribunal had repeatedly found in favour of Zimbabwe citizens who complained of human rights violations in that country.
World Trade Institute Advisors were commissioned to undertake the review after the SADC failed to appoint new judges to replace those whose terms of office had expired. Left with no quorum, the tribunal has been unable to continue its work.
Among other recommendations the WTI advisors said the tribunal should continue to have jurisdiction over disputes between states and individuals. In 2012 however, the SADC summit resolved that a new protocol should be negotiated for a tribunal whose mandate should be confined to disputes between member states.
This protocol ‘adversely reduces the jurisdiction of the SADC tribunal’, says the LSSA. Yet discussions about the decision, which significantly affects the human rights of individuals, were conducted ‘solely by the heads of state and governments of the SADC’, and its organs and officials, ‘to the exclusion of citizens’ of member countries.
The LSSA has written a number of letters to Zuma and the ministers asking them to clarify their position on the issue, and then telling them of the pending litigation, all without significant response.
According to the Constitution, the president must ‘respect, protect, promote and fulfil’ the guarantees in the Bill of Rights when entering into international agreements. Any action in conflict with these principles is unconstitutional and thus unlawful.
The SADC’s member countries include about 240-million citizens whose human rights would be affected by changes in the way the tribunal operates. In addition human rights protections were linked to economic development.
The jurisdiction of the proposed tribunal ‘inhibits the right of access to justice as well as the advancement and protection of human rights in general’, says the LSSA.
The right of access to justice was infringed with the suspension of the original tribunal and that infringement continues with the planned new forum. According to the LSSA, Zuma was not entitled to reduce the existing rights of South African citizens without first consulting them and obtaining their agreement. To reduce their rights without that prior consultation was a contravention of the constitution.
The LSSA says that the president and the ministers ought, in an open and democratic society, to have responded with answers that had been sought by the law society. Failure to make any meaningful response ‘demonstrates a disregard of the constitution’, of the constitutional duties owed by Zuma and the ministers – and of the rights of South Africans. It was conduct that ‘should be frowned on’ by the court.
In particular there had been no response to the question whether there was any public participation on the planned changes to the tribunal, and the LSSA specifically challenged the president and the ministers ‘to fully disclose’ to the court ‘any such public participation prior to taking action in voting in favour of a proposal resulting in the deprivation of existing rights of (South African) citizens’.
Commenting on the court action, the LSSA’s Scott said that from the perspective of his organisation, it was ‘necessary to stand up and say these things’. ‘We owe it to every citizen to protect their rights,’ he told the RDM.
The association’s attorney in the matter, Thipe Mothle, said that Zuma and the ministers had noted their intention to oppose the application. A meeting would be held between the opposing legal teams next week to work out dates for filing further affidavits.
The LSSA is a member of the Southern African Development Community Lawyers Association, which has resolved to bring similar applications in all member countries so that the new tribunal will not go ahead.
Executive director of the SADC Lawyers Association, Makanatsa Makonese, told the RDM that so far South Africa and Tanzania had gone furthest with a challenge to the Tribunal, but that members in other countries were working on similar action.
‘We are not trying to fight the governments of the region,’ she said, ‘but we want to emphasise that a tribunal should deal with the needs of the people as well of states.’
Among countries experiencing delays in getting challenges off the ground are Mocambique, where a minimum 2 000 signatures are required before any constitutional application will be accepted, and Zimbabwe, where the highest court has already expressed itself strongly against the previous tribunal which permitted individual access.
» Download: LSSA Founding Affidavit by Max Boqwana re SADC Tribunal
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U.S. companies failed to report Africa conflict minerals – report
Nearly 80 percent of American companies surveyed by two human rights groups failed to meet a U.S. rule requiring they monitor whether their products contain minerals from war-torn Africa.
The joint report by Amnesty International and Global Witness is the first by outside groups to analyze so-called “conflict mineral” disclosures by U.S. public companies complying with the Securities and Exchange Commission rule.
“The conflict minerals law is an opportunity to clean up global mineral supply chains. But our analysis shows that most companies seem to prefer business-as-usual,” Carly Oboth of Global Witness said in a statement.
The survey of 100 companies found that 79 percent of them failed to meet all the minimum requirements, and 41 percent to show they had policies to identify risks in their supply chain.
The report did not cite which companies fell short of all the requirements, but it gave credit to those that met the standards such as 3M Co, Tiffany & Co, General Electric Co, Tesla Motors Inc and Hewlett Packard Co, among others.
The 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform required manufacturers to determine whether any tin, tungsten, tantalum or gold in their products came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The region is known for using the proceeds from mining to fund rebel groups who kill and rape civilians.
The SEC rule took effect in 2014 after a U.S. appeals court upheld most of its provisions following a legal challenge by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other trade groups.
To comply, companies must conduct a country of origin inquiry, file a public report for investors and carry out due diligence on their supply chains.
The human rights groups looked at how well the companies complied with 12 core requirements.
None of the companies disclosed any examples of supply chain risks, although some of them reported possibly having some gold from North Korea.
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Agriculture sector unites against attacks on foreign nationals
The agriculture sector has shown its support for efforts to combat attacks on foreign nationals.
Stakeholders on Wednesday met with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to share ideas on what can be done to address the recent attacks on foreign nationals.
The meeting, chaired by Deputy Minister Bheki Cele, was part of the outreach programme currently taking place countrywide. Ministers and their deputies are meeting with communities to find ways to put an urgent stop to the violence and also to discuss the country’s migration policy.
At Wednesday’s meeting, stakeholders in the agriculture sector sought to find ways to prevent the violent attacks from spreading to farming communities, where foreign nationals are also employed.
The meeting highlighted the root causes of the attacks, some of which are based on the perception that immigrants take jobs and do not contribute to the economy of the country.
Phile van Zyl of ZZ2 farms disputed the perception that farmers employ foreign nationals for cheap labour. He said the farm employs a diverse group of workers and promotes the attitude of consideration of all groups of people.
Deputy Minister Cele condemned the attacks on foreign nationals.
“It’s embarrassing, it’s dehumanising and it’s humiliating. It doesn’t matter how much pain we feel as South Africans but we can’t act this way [towards other humans]. We can’t do what our people did to foreign nationals ...”
Deputy Minister Cele commended the deployment of the South African National Defence Force to the affected areas. He said the courts must do all they can to ensure that justice is served.
Stakeholders and the department agreed on resolutions to be implemented jointly.
The resolutions include the organisation of a summit, which will gather other government departments and stakeholders to further discuss issues related to labour, working conditions, the employment of foreign nationals and other issues in the farming sector.
It was also resolved that the department must deliver on the Agricultural Policy Action Plan (APAP) and the National Development Plan (NDP) to fast track job creation and help prevent bad perceptions about foreign nationals.
The meeting also resolved that Rural Development Programme must be revitalised to stimulate employment in the sector.
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Mali’s farmers count on national fund to expand climate insurance
A lack of rain in the middle of last season caused Seydou Diarassouba’s sorghum crop to fail.
Now the emaciated 43-year old farmer must wait for the next rains, due in late June, to start growing a new crop in his impoverished village of Dialakoroba in southern Mali.
Climate-linked agriculture risks like these should be covered by a national fund being set up by Mali’s government and due to start operating this year, according to Ibrahima Coulibaly of the CNOP, a federation of Malian farmers' organisations.
The fund was first mooted under Mali’s 2005 Agriculture Orientation Law, aimed at improving production and helping small-scale farmers modernise.
Farmers’ associations are pushing the government hard to finance disaster risk insurance from the upcoming fund, which will draw on public and private money.
Farmers have yet to receive anything, as the fund is not yet up and running. A ministerial decree in 2010 aimed to speed up its creation, but a military coup in 2012 and an uprising by Tuareg and Islamist insurgents interrupted official reforms.
Experts hope the initiative will expand small-scale insurance programmes now run by regional chambers of agriculture and aid agencies to the rest the country, helping break the cycle of harvest failure caused by extreme weather common across the Sahel region of West Africa.
Coulibaly said the delay in setting up the national insurance programme was partly intentional.
Defining clear responsibilities would improve the chances of success for a concept that is new to Mali's mostly uneducated farmers, amid concerns the resources transferred could be misused, he added.
HUNGER DESPITE CEREAL BANKS
Diarassouba never went to school, nor did most of his 11-member family, made up largely of women and children.
Household farming depends on Diarassouba and his two younger brothers who must feed the others with their labour.
“My wife isn't here as I divorced, but my paralysed brother and his wife and children are. All these people rely on (us),” Diarassouba said.
In a region that regularly faces inadequate rainfall and related hunger problems, there are local strategies aimed at preserving food security.
But in Dialakoroba, the cereal bank – a government-subsidised community warehouse that supplies grain – doesn't keep people fed, according to blacksmith Banze Coulibaly, 54.
Cereal banks are a popular response to food insecurity in West Africa where farmers often run out of grain each year before the next harvest.
The blacksmith said that even if cheap grain is available from the cereal bank, his family still goes hungry. “We just have to put up with it when I can’t borrow the money to buy cereals,” he said with a hollow laugh.
Although Mali’s last rainy season was not too bad, except for a dry spell in the middle, some of Dialakoroba’s poor farmers are wondering where they will find seeds to plant.
INSURANCE GAINING GROUND
Insurance programmes could provide a solution, according to Youssouf Traore, a seed expert at the CNOP.
After a catastrophic rainy season in 2010, many farmers who borrowed money to buy seeds got a poor harvest. But a micro-insurance scheme, funded by the U.S.-backed West African Seed Alliance, helped some of them repay their credit, Traore said.
Mali is located in a region that is expanding disaster risk insurance. The African Union announced in January that a pan-African insurance scheme would pay out $25 million in drought insurance claims to three countries in the Sahel.
The money went to Mauritania, Niger and Senegal, which paid a combined premium of $8 million. Mali has yet to purchase insurance under the programme, which will also offer coverage for tropical cyclones and floods from 2016.
Besides implementing Mali's agriculture law, farmers hope to expand micro-insurance programmes funded by international donors and private finance.
Traore is working with NGOs and local banks on how they might share the cost of insurance with farmers, enabling them to afford it.
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United Nations agencies strengthen cooperation for trade facilitation implementation
Three key United Nations agencies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen their support for developing countries as they implement the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (WTO TFA), also known as the Bali Agreement.
Under the terms of the MoU, UNCTAD, the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) will leverage their unique strengths, products and services to provide a coordinated and integrated programme of support to developing countries implementing the WTO TFA.
“The WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement presents a great opportunity for developing and least developed countries to enhance their participation in the global economy, expand trade and create employment at the local level,” said Mukhisa Kituyi, UNCTAD Secretary-General. “By strengthening our collaboration, we are better positioned to help developing countries realise these potential gains. This is at the core of the work of the United Nations and the WTO TFA is an excellent catalyst to help achieve this goal.”
The three agencies emphasized their longstanding work in the simplification and harmonization of international trade procedures, and the opportunity to enhance trade facilitation implementation in developing countries and least developed countries.
“Our wide range of UN recommendations, standards and tools in trade facilitation are freely available to all UN Member States,” UNECE Executive Secretary Christian Friis Bach said. “Through this strengthened cooperation, we will enhance the capacity of countries to cut red tape, remove regulatory and procedural barriers to trade, and significantly reduce their cost of doing business.”
“Effective trade facilitation is a win-win scenario for both trade and governments,” ITC Executive Director Arancha González said. “This integrated approach will greatly strengthen our capacity to support the business community to benefit from the WTO Agreement. Ensuring that small and medium-sized enterprises benefit fully from the WTO TFA is crucial to ensuring that the potential gains from the Agreement are realized on the ground, and that they have a real impact on the cost of doing business in developing and least developed countries.”
Cooperation between the agencies will concentrate on helping countries identify, categorise and implement the measures that they committed to under the WTO TFA.
Actions will focus initially on assisting countries to establish the necessary institutional arrangements for implementing the agreement – such as setting up national trade facilitation committees – and ensuring that countries are trained in using the various UN recommendations and tools available for implementing the measures in the agreement.
These include ensuring better and easier access to information for traders; facilitating greater predictability and reliability of procedures through simplified formalities, documentation and information flows using international standards; and the adoption of facilities such as single windows for trade – all of this in close collaboration with the WTO and the donor community.
Specific areas of collaboration include:
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Joint missions to assist countries identify trade facilitation needs and approach to implementing the WTO TFA
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Joint development and maintenance of the UN Trade Facilitation Implementation Guide
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Joint publications related to trade facilitation implementation
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Joint maintenance of repositories of Trade Facilitation Committees and related matters
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Collaboration in the development and maintenance of UN Trade Facilitation Recommendations and Standards on Trade Facilitation
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EU-AU Joint Session on Infrastructure for the Minerals Sector
The EU-AU Joint Session on Infrastructure for the Minerals Sector took place on the 19th and 20th of March 2015 within the framework of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) and follows up from the 4th EU-Africa Summit.
The aim of this workshop was to discuss the infrastructure needs of the minerals sector in Africa and identify ways in which those can find support in the broader context of existing and planned infrastructure projects and networks. These include transport, ICT, water and energy as well as all other types of infrastructure necessary for the sector to play its transformative role.
The session provided a link between the joint work of the African and European Unions within the JAES on infrastructure and energy on the one hand and raw materials on the other to ensure coherence between the two. It also looked into existing support programs for infrastructure and industrial development in Africa such as the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) as well as the on-going regional programmes and Development Corridors across Africa. In this perspective, it looked for possibilities of benefitting the raw materials sector. The workshop allowed to map the needs of the different African countries in terms of infrastructure for the sector and explore innovative approaches to stimulate investment in the sector.
This Joint Session was organized in 8 panels, each consisting of 3 to 5 speakers from public sector, private sector or NGOs, who presented experiences, lessons learnt, case studies and policies.
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Global Findex 2014 unveils world’s most comprehensive set of data on financial inclusion
How did a Kenyan dreadlock designer obtain the start-up capital to go from street vendor to store owner? As Leora Klapper, Lead Economist in the Research Department, explained, this young entrepreneur found that he had trouble saving: “the cash burned his pocket”. But then he signed up for a mobile money account through M-Pesa, and when he started receiving payment for services to this account he was able to accumulate enough money to put a down payment on a storefront.
This story set the stage for an April 9 event unveiling new data from the 2014 Global Findex and accompanying report, co-authored by Klapper, Research Director Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Dorothe Singer, and Peter Van Oudheusden. The Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) database is a product of the Research Department, in collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Gallup World Poll. First launched in 2011, the database provides comparable indicators showing how people around the world save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk.
Demirguc-Kunt, who opened the event, emphasized the importance of financial access to the reduction of poverty. “Financial inclusion is not an end in itself, but a contributor to achieving development outcomes. Without access to financial services, poor people cannot save, pull themselves out of poverty, be entrepreneurs, invest in their education, manage risk, or absorb financial shocks,” she said. “For the first time we are able to measure progress on financial inclusion by surveying almost 150,000 individuals ages 15 and above from 143 countries, representing 98 percent of the world’s population.”
In 2011, when Findex was first launched, only about half of the world’s population had a bank account. The new data point to significant progress in financial inclusion, with 62 percent of the world’s population having a bank account, up from 51 percent. Between 2011 and 2014, the number of unbanked adults was slashed by 20 percent to 2 billion.
Klapper, who oversaw the Research Department team that compiled the data and produced the report, highlighted a few key findings. The report found that account penetration has grown 13 percentage points in developing countries, and that the gap in account penetration between the poorest 40 percent and richest 60 percent of households narrowed by 6 percentage points.
In addition, technological advances like mobile money are helping to expand access, especially in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. “Thirteen countries across Sub-Saharan Africa have mobile account penetration of 10 percent or more – no other continent has numbers approaching that level,” Klapper said. However, more than half of the poorest 40 percent in developing countries are still without accounts.
Women remain another underserved demographic, and no progress has been made in decreasing that inequality. “We have not seen any improvement in the gender gap since 2011 – we found exactly the same persistent 9 percentage point gap in account ownership in developing countries,” Klapper said.
During her presentation, Klapper also discussed many of the over 100 indicators contained in the Global Findex, including frequency of account usage, how people save, and how governments, businesses, and individuals make payments.
Klapper highlighted several policy measures that could expand access to accounts and support greater usage. For instance, governments and the private sector can support a shift away from cash to digital transfers and payments of wages. According to the report, digitization of wage payment could increase the number of adults with an account by more than 300 million. Klapper also encouraged the private sector to create innovative products that support the digital payment of fees and transfer of remittances, particularly on the side of the recipient.
Countries such as Brazil and Kenya that are making significant progress share common features. “They offer low-fee bank accounts, they try to minimize documentation requirements, they allow correspondent and agent banking, there is an effort to digitize government and wage payments, and mobile technology is available,” Demirguc-Kunt added.
Researchers, policy makers, and other stakeholders discussed the policy implications of the report’s findings. Henriette Kolb, Head of the Gender Secretariat at IFC, asked, “What needs to happen next on gender?” Drawing from the data, Klapper responded that “although women are less likely to receive a wage than men, they are equally likely to receive that wage to an account. There is not an inherent bias in the type of wages that women are paid compared to men.” Consequently, a move to digitizing payments would have an equal impact on women who are in the workforce.
The wealth of data collected by the report will continue to inform the path to universal financial inclusion. “Improvement is not going to be linear, however: achieving full access will be more difficult towards the end,” Demirguc-Kunt cautioned.
» Press Release: Massive Drop in Number of Unbanked, says New Report
Infographic: Global Findex 2014 - Sub-Saharan Africa
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Offer “no strings” aid to developing world: Xi to rich nations
At the opening of the Africa-Asia Summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday urged rich countries to help the developing world with no political strings attached and fulfill their aid commitments.
In Jakarta, Xi said the “South-North cooperation should be based on mutual respect and equality”.
“Developed countries have a binding responsibility to help the developing world and bridge the gap between the South and the North,” read a translated version of Xi’s speech at the Summit. Xi urged for a “new type of international relations” to usher in African-Asian solidarity.
The Summit host Indonesian President Joko Widodo echoed the Chinese President saying those pinning hopes on the World Bank, IMF and Asian Development Bank were harbouring “obsolete ideas”.
“There needs to be change,” Widodo said. “It’s imperative that we build a new international economic order that is open to new emerging economic powers.”
China, with $4 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, is pushing for the growth of its own multilateral bodies, including the AIIB, the BRICS Bank and a bank for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but also seeking to strengthen its voice at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
In a landmark achievement, 21 Asian nations including China and India in October last year signed on the creation of a new infrastructure investment bank, the AIIB, which would rival the World Bank. The new Bank has a capital target of more than $100 billion.
Also this year, China’s yuan may win the IMF’s backing as an official reserve currency, a recognition of its rising use in global trade and finance.
Beijing’s relations with Africa have flourished in the past decade with massive Chinese investment across the continent.
China has announced it is increasing its loans for African countries by $10 billion, bringing the total to $30 billion, and will also expand the China-Africa development fund by $2 billion to $5 billion.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang outlined China’s Africa policy in an address at the African Union headquarters in May last year.
China-Africa trade totaled more than $200 billion in 2013, and Chinese direct investment in Africa grew 44 per cent. The number has doubled from $100 billion in 2008.
Even before Beijing’s economic boom, China’s Communist leaders supported national liberation movements and newly independent states across the African continent forging historical ties.
Through its BRICS partner, South Africa, Beijing is already consolidating ties with African countries, where China is increasingly turning for resources, markets and diplomatic influence.
South Africa is hosting the regional African center of the newly announced BRICS Bank.
Critics of Chinese investment in Africa have, however, alleged the Asian giant harbours neo-colonial intentions.
“We welcome foreign direct investment (FDI), we are not discriminating…We’ve taken money from Germany, the U.K. the United States – why was it not a story, why is it a story when the Chinese do so?” South African President Jacob Zuma said earlier.
The Asian-African Summit is underway in Indonesia from April 22-24.
The conveners of the first Asia-Africa Summit held in 1955 were India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka which was attended by representatives from 29 Asian and African nations.
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Uganda will not meet oil deadline – BOU
It is unlikely that Uganda will produce oil by 2018, Bank of Uganda has indicated.
In the monetary policy report for April 2015, the central bank says “the global oil price outlook places severe question marks over the speed with which Uganda’s oil resources can now be developed, especially given that the country’s proven oil reserves are waxy, which increases the cost of moving them to the coast.”
The report then goes on to state: “Whereas oil production had been projected to start in 2018, this date could now be pushed out even further, given that the profitability of oil investments could remain depressed in the foreseeable future.”
This is the first time that a top government institution has come out to raise doubt over Uganda’s target of producing its first barrel of oil by 2018. For a long time, the ministry of Energy has set 2018 as the production year for oil even as the process to award production licenses and create the institutions to regulate the industry drags on.
In the budget framework paper for 2015/16, the revenue forecast for the next five years don’t include money from oil. The paper says this is because “the industry is only starting to put in place the infrastructure needed for production.”
Industry watchers had long set the production year anywhere between 2020 and 2022. The year of production is not a mere date. Financiers such as banks, investors targeting the value chain of Uganda’s oil industry, are usually keen on this particular date as it guides their investment decisions.
That a top institution such as Bank of Uganda, where a petroleum fund will be kept, can question the country’s plan to beat the 2018 target could tilt the investment decisions of a number of investors.
Uganda discovered commercial crude reserves in 2006, which government estimates at 6.5bn barrels. About 1.4 billion barrels of this oil is said to be recoverable. The BOU report warns that the failure of Uganda to produce oil by 2018 “has implications on sentiments on the Ugandan economy, with potential effects on depressing economic outlook.”
Global oil prices fell to under $63 a barrel on Monday, according to Reuters. At the beginning of this year, a barrel traded at a five-year low of $50. The drop in global oil prices has forced oil companies such as Tullow Oil and Total to cut back on their expenditures.
At the start of this year, Razia Khan, the head of research for Africa at Standard Chartered bank, said Uganda’s progress in the oil sector could be negatively affected if global oil prices continued to fall.
“In the very near term, Uganda should benefit from a lower import bill… However, with Uganda developing its crude, the country is also likely to experience the negative of a weaker oil price environment,” said Khan, in the Stanchart’s Uganda country briefing report.
BOU says the recent announcement that the Russian group, RT Global Resources, had been chosen as the preferred partner to build Uganda’s $4bn oil refinery means that this part of the project is likely to move ahead along with some of the associated infrastructure.
Toyota Tsusho, a Japenese firm, is already undertaking a study for an oil export pipeline to the Kenyan port of Lamu. The report is expected in June.
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Despite the end of the commodity boom, African countries can sustain their economic rise
The World Bank Group forecasts that economic growth for African countries will slow in 2015 to 4.0 percent from 4.5 percent in 2014, a downturn which largely reflects the sharp fall in global prices for oil and other key commodities.
At a seminar with African finance ministers, central bankers and their delegations during the World Bank Group Spring Meetings, the Bank’s Africa Chief Economist Francisco Ferreira explained that his 2015 forecast was below the 4.4 percent average annual growth rate of the past two decades, and well short of Africa’s peak growth rates of 6.4 percent in 2002-08.
Africa he said was coming to the end of its long commodities super cycle with steadily shrinking revenues for the continent’s major producers of oil, gold and natural gas.
The 50% fall in oil prices since June 2014 will worsen terms of trade for more countries than the 18 for whom oil (12% of Africa’s GDP) is the leading export revenue earner, according to data shared Saturday by the World Bank Group. The prices of 36 other commodities – among them, gas, gold, iron ore but also coffee, cocoa, and rubber - are more closely correlated to the tumbling price of oil.
Thirty-eight of Sub-Saharan Africa’s 49 countries, home to 90% of the continent’s population and accounting for 90% of the region’s GDP, are expected to post negative trade balances. They include oil producers like Angola, Nigeria, Chad and Congo-Brazzaville but also non-oil dependent economies. Mauritania and Sierra Leone, for example, could face terms of trade losses 30 % higher due to lower iron ore prices. Agriculture reliant countries, like Cote d’Ivoire, are not spared and a number of countries, like Nigeria, have had to devalue their currencies to stay competitive.
“The boom is over”, World Bank Group officials put it bluntly Saturday. They insisted, however, that the “Africa Rising” phenomenon predated the boom and should be able to outlive it. “Africa can successfully find its own path to economic development”, Ferreira said, citing the fact 47 of 48 Sub-Saharan African countries continued to grow, despite the Great Depression, with four of them growing above 8%.
Top Priority: Preserve Gains Made by the Poor
Africa’s remarkable average 4.5% GDP over the past two decades has only reduced poverty by 13 percentage points – from 60% to 47%. This is not as fast as in other regions. East Asia’s poverty rate has declined 44% over the last 20 years.
Africa’s high population growth (2.5 to 2.6%) is partly to blame. For example, while Tanzania grew at 2.2% higher than Seychelles, living standards in Tanzania rose slower than in Seychelles.
Warning Saturday against any reforms that would repeat the errors of the structural adjustment programs of the 1980s, the World Bank Group urged governments to take action on three priority areas: (i) harness Africa’s rapid urbanization and fast-growing population to ensure that the latter yields a demographic dividend, not a disaster; (ii) invest on the productivity agenda, by improving the quality of learning and boosting output per worker; and (iii) promote more inclusive, pro-poor growth.
The World Bank Group Vice President for the Africa Region, Makhtar Diop, called for action to ensure that Africa does not remain the region with the most expensive food, the most expensive energy, the most expensive housing, and the highest costs for healthcare.
“Africa must pay attention, so that the gains made by the poor (during the boom) are protected,” Ferreira said, urging African governments to seize the opportunity of falling global oil prices to end inefficient programs such as fuel subsidies that benefit the rich more than the poor.
View from Angola and Cote d’Ivoire
Also speaking at the seminar, Cote d’Ivoire’s Finance Minister, Nialé Kaba, said her country illustrates how conflict destroys or reverses development gains, but also how a return to peace, supported by donors and renewed investor interest, can bring about a quick turnaround. She was less enthusiastic about one proposal by the seminar that African countries expand domestic revenue collection. She felt that more diversification and trade which favors value addition locally to raw materials before export would serve Africa better.
Angola’s Finance Minister, Armando Manuel, challenged some of the data on which reform proposals are based, citing the absence of data on Africa’s huge informal sector. He wondered aloud what is needed to ensure that excessive liquidity in African economies is a blessing, rather than a curse. He suggested that Africa’s high labor costs, especially in extractives, should be blamed on expatriate fees. He encouraged African experts to share more of their development experiences among themselves and praised “new” development partners like China for venturing to invest where “old” donors fear to tread.
The seminar also urged action to address two emergencies: the rising incidence of violent deaths, refugee movement and internally displaced persons caused by political militia such as Boko Haram, and the need for Africa to strengthen its healthcare and disease surveillance systems. It called for action to curb waste, improve efficiencies, build more capable institutions, improve governance, maintain macroeconomic discipline, improve security, and prioritize pro-poor development programs.
Not all of Africa’s problem is lack of financing, seminar attendees were told. Borrowing from an unnamed colleague of his, Ferreira said “Africa needs more health for its money than it needs money for its health.”
» Read more in Africa’s Pulse, Volume 11 | April 2015