Unpacking Global Injustice: Searching for Fair Paths

1. Unpacking Global Injustice:Searching for Fair Paths Dr Celina Del Feliceand Dr Momodou Sallah

2. What we are going to do • What does global inequality look like? • What does development mean? • What are the challenges to mainstream development models? • What would a fair world look like in your dreams?

3. What does inequality mean? • Inequality has social, educational, political and health dimensions • Between-country and within-country inequality • “The largest income gap is in Brazil, where the per capita income of the most affluent 10 per cent of the population is 32 times that of the poorest 40 percent” (UN 2005: 49)

4. A picture of Europe • 50% of under 24 year olds are unemployed in Spain and Greece • 46% of young adults in the EU between 18-34 live with their parents – after the 2008 crisis • In 2011, 29% of French decided notto go to the doctor to get cured because of lack of money (11% in 2009) • In 2011 in Belgium, 425,000 were unemployed and only 60,000 (14%) jobs available (Dufour 2012) • 3 out of every 10 children in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Spain have been pushed to the brink of poverty (Caritas) • Mounting budget deficit, recession, debt, austerity

5. European Crisis? • 13 of the European Union's 27 member states have youth unemployment above 25 percent • In 2011, over 30 percent of those aged 17 years or under in Spain and Greece were at risk of poverty or exclusion, 4% rise since 2005, • 25.5 percent in 2006 in Portugal • - In 2010, 37.6 percent of children were at risk of poverty or exclusion in Ireland and 28.9 percent in Italy

6. Global Inequality - Economic • “Eighty per cent of the world’s gross domestic product belongs to the world’s 1 billion people living in the developed world; the remaining 20 per cent is shared by the 5 billion people living in developing countries” (UN 2005:1) • “....it took 17 years for the bottom billion to improve their share of world income by 0.18 percentage points, from 0.77 percent in 1990 to 0.95 percent in 2007. At this speed, it would take more than eight centuries (855 years to be exact) for the bottom billion to have ten percent of global income” (Ortiz and Cummins 2011:10)

7. Global Inequality - Health • The child mortality rate for under fives in Guinea in 1999 was 176.9 per 1000 births, 219.9 for Burkina Faso in 1998/1999 and 229.1 for Mali in 2001. contrasted to 3 per 1000 births in 2002 for Sweden, 4 for Denmark, 5 for Germany and 6 for Belgium in 2002. • “Of the 20 countries with the highest rates, 19 are in sub-Saharan Africa, the region that experienced the smallest decline (from 186 to 174 deaths per 1000 live births, or a reduction of only 2 percent) between 1990 and 2001” (UN 2005:65)

8. Reflection • What is your initial reaction on seeing these figures? • What do these figures mean to you professionally and personally? • What are the root causes of inequality?

9. A dysfunctional system propped up by structural violence • Within country and between country inequality • A Global Order premised on the Washington Consensus • Europe being hit harder by the forces of capital • Cuts, unemployment, poverty, suffering and hopelessness ....... • Challenging a toxic normality

10. Subverting the construction of oppressive normality • A dysfunctional economic system permeates the world, one that has seen the corporate manufacture of inequality; largely guided by the dictum of profit, regardless of the cost to others • Global Inequality: A revolting and grotesque picture • A defective logic and a defective normality • Structural violence

11. Power and Control G8 control 48.18% in IMF & 45.71% of the World Bank New Internationalist, Issue 365 March 2004 pp 1-7

12. Impact • In 2000, the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress found a failure rate of 55-60% for all World Bank-sponsored projects. In Africa, the failure rate reached 73%. • In 1999, the HIPC countries repaid $1,680 million more than they received in the form of new loans. • For every dollar in grant aid to developing countries, more than 13 comes back in debt repayments.5 • Between 1996 and 1999 the overall amount of debt-servicing payments from the HIPC increased by 25% (from $8,860 million in 1996 to $11,440 million in 1999).5

13. Destructive Bretton Woods Policies • Structural Adjustment Policies(SAP) • Programme for Sustained Development (PSD) • Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) • Revisiting Structural Adjustment Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Long-Lasting Impact on Child Health, World Medical & Health Policy

14. SAPs • Reduce role of government in the economy • Promote private sector operations • Eliminate restrictions in the economy • Ensure market determined prices Skosireva and Holaday 2010:75 Easterly, W. (2012) Was Development Assistance a Mistake? (2012)

15. Increased SAP • “From 3 per cent of total World Bank lending in 1981, structural adjustment credits rose to 19 per cent in 1986. Five years later, the figure was 25 per cent” • Chowdhury, A. (2012) Structural Adjustment and Crises – Which Way Now? Institutions and Economies, Vol. 4, No. 1, April 2012, pp. 85-118

16. A damaged orthodoxy? • “powerful transnational companies (TNCs) have been left free to engage in investment and employment practices which contribute to poverty and insecurity, unencumbered by anything other than weak voluntary guidelines.” (Oxfam 2002:4) • Intellectual property rights • SummaryRIGGED RULES AND DOUBLE STANDARDS: TRADE, GLOBALISATION, AND THE FIGHT AGAINST POVERTY

17. Trade as a key determinant • In 2000, more than 50 percent of Asia’s exports, 75 per cent of Latin America’s exports, and 70 per cent of Africa’s exports of merchandise goods were destined for Western Europe, North America, or Japan (WTO 2001a) (pg. 97) • CHAPTER 4 MARKET ACCESS AND AGRICULTURAL TRADE: THE DOUBLE STANDARDS OF RICH COUNTRIES

18. Unfair trade? • “If developing countries increased their share of world exports by just five per cent, this • would generate $350bn – seven times as much as they receive in aid. The $70bn that Africa would generate through a one per cent increase in its share of world exports is approximately five times the amount provided to the region through aid and debt relief.”

19. Trade barriers? • The 48 least-developed countries (LDCs) face tariffs on average 20 per cent higher than the rest of the world on their exports to industrialised countries. • This rises to 30 per cent higher for manufacturing exports (IMF and World Bank 2001a). • LDCs are losing an estimated $2.5bn a year in potential export earnings as a result of the high levels of tariff protection in Canada, the EU, Japan, and the United States. CHAPTER 4 MARKET ACCESS AND AGRICULTURAL TRADE: THE DOUBLE STANDARDS OF RICH COUNTRIES

20. Barriers to trade • Anti-dumping measures (WTO agreement was signed in 1995, the EU and USA have initiated 234 anti-dumping actions against developing countries) • Tariffs (The EU applies a 250 per cent tariff on imported meat products, and the USA and Canada impose import tariffs exceeding 120 per cent on groundnuts and meat products respectively.) • Non-tariff barriers (Import quotas, product standards – from 5.1 to 9%) (Oxfam 2002)

21. Development Theory Modernisation Structuralism/Dependency theory Neo-classical/Neo-liberal Human Development Post development

22. What is development? For the neo-liberal (mainstream) model... Development = Economic growth increase in the capacity of an economy to produce goods and services.

23. Aid for Economic growth Aid for infraestructure (e.g. roads) Aid for trade Aid for business environment Aid for good governance Aid for education – health

24. Premised on The Washington consensus • Global markets integration –liberalisation of trade • Survival of the best equipped to compete • Comparative advantage: e.g. specialisation in exporting one product. • Privatization and limited role of governments • Achievement of low inflation and balanced budget (core IMF conditionalities ) • Financial deregulation (World Bank)

25. Magic words • Competitiveness • Effectiveness • Austerity • Entrepreneurship ‘pensamientounico’ ‘homogenised orthodoxy’ (Brock and McGee, 2004:53)

26. “Countries should trade their way out of poverty” EU: PolicyPaper (2006)

27. What has this meant? • Those that can compete are better off • Those that are not equipped to compete are left out. Eg. Local producers who cannot compete with big multinationals. • Exploitationof natural resources –environmentally unsustainable • Economic migrations • Resources related conflicts. E.g. oil, minerals

28. Human Development “Human development is the expansion of people’s freedoms to live long, healthy and creative lives; (...) and to engage actively in shaping development equitably and sustainably on a shared planet.”(UNDP 2010:2). Shift development from the economy as primary to human beings as the centre of development intervention

29. Human Development Index UNDP 2011

30. Post development “cover up violent damage being done to the so-called ‘developing’ world and its people.”(Thomas 2000: 3). Elliot (2013:37) ‘holds of westernisation’, be it as organised by the aid industry or by the activities of western private capital. complete overhaul of current development paradigms and instead calls for the establishment of development alternatives (Escobar 1992; 1995; 2000; Rahnema 1997).

31. Sustainable Development “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” Articulated by the Brundtland Commission in its 1987 publication, Our Common Future

32. Alternative visions to shape the post 2015 agenda De-growth • downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions and equity on the planet. • ecological means, • with open, localized economies • and resources more equally distributed through new forms of democratic institutions.

33. “BuenVivir” (Bolivia, Ecuador, Andes region). Working towards community well-being - earth

34. Food sovereignty– climate change

35. From cradle to grave To cradle-to-cradle

36. What do you think should be in the post 2015 agenda?

37. Task • What is the present picture of inequality and development? • What picture of development and inequality would you envision for the future?