Emilia Pires, finance minister of Timor Leste. Credit: Suvendrini Kakuchi/IPS

BUSAN, South Korea, Dec 2, 2011 (IPS) – The new deal for the ‘fragile states,’ from the G7+ – a group of 19 countries that struggle with poverty, instability and violent conflict – has been hailed as a major breakthrough at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness here, earlier this week.

‘The 1.5 billion people who live in the fragile states need significant aid for basic governance and economic transformation. Most of them have seen conflict since 1989 and 30 percent of official development assistance (ODA) is spent in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.

Despite the aid commitments, the fragile states are moving further from achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs).

The new deal builds on the base of five new goals – legitimate politics, justice, security, economic foundations and revenue and services – that are tailored to individual situations. Fragile states include Afghanistan, South Sudan, Kenya and Timor Leste.

Emilia Pires, Timor Leste’s finance minister has worked tirelessly to changetraditional development assistance to accommodate the particular vulnerabilities of the fragile states.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

Q. The endorsement of the new deal in Busan is viewed as a major achievement in development. What does it signify?

A. For fragile states, the realisation of the new deal symbolises a bold change in the way aid has been disbursed and affected us. For a start, Busan has clearly accepted that these countries will lead the way in their development.

The message from us is that the target of reaching the MDGs by 2015 cannot be applied to fragile states that have experienced or are already dealing with conflicts and crisis. There is clearly the need for new conditions to be applied to aid for fragile states. This is what we were agitating for and realised finally.

Q: What are the new ways that will be implemented following the new deal?

A: Obviously, the breakthrough in Busan is just the beginning. Now comes the hard part of implementation and I expect a lot of fighting with our donor partners as we go ahead. For example, developing clear indicators to monitor results. The traditional practice has been that donors monitor the progress.

The new deal that endorses country ownership would pave the way for fragile governments to expect donors to support our own monitoring through experts.

What is important is that the experts would be working with us to develop the results instead of being dispatched by lending institutions to do their own monitoring. This change would enable the local partner to be able to participate and learn about monitoring results and contribute to development effectiveness.

Q: Why has development assistance failed in fragile states?

A: The above example is apt to illustrate why traditional aid patterns have not worked – simply because the aid modality in the world has not strengthened community capacity on the ground. Our dialogue with G7 partners stressed the need for changing the pattern of aid focusing narrowly on the MDGs for fragile states.

For example, aid extended to improve education access for the poor – an MDG goal – could not be used effectively in fragile states because a crisis would mean children cannot attend school. As a result, funds have to be returned.

With the new deal, however, indicators that take in the problems due to crisis will be taken into consideration. Developing such new structures based on individual country systems is the key way forward.

Q: The new deal has specifically identified engaging youth and women as important actors in peace and state building. How will this be done?

A: Fostering capacity building in youth in Timor Leste is hugely important. I would describe this as extending opportunities for them to learn and look ahead. They deserve to be exposed to the same opportunities as their counterparts in countries that have not experienced conflict and violence.

It must be noted that generations of youth who have experienced long conflicts including in Timor have only experienced violence. A strong symbol of this is the fact that children in Timor have not played on swings that represent such joy to other children.

To change the mindset, governments must invest in capacity building and projects that give hope and support safe family systems. We need swings, concerts for youth as much as we need hospitals and schools. This is why I say let’s build roads that, for example, may lead to nowhere but will still be effective because youth will learn the skills of road building.

Q: What has changed in Busan in aid effectiveness?

A: The Paris Declaration set the road to country ownership but in Busan we see this becoming a reality. The dismal statistics in aid effectiveness have proved to the world the need to change current behaviour. The new deal offers them a new way by proving that aid for them involves money but for us it is life.

The basic principles are not different. I believe in the importance of transparency, democratic processes and accountability. For instance, the national budget in Timor is available online. Therefore, it is the attitude that we need to change. The donor countries must realise poor countries can make their own decisions and many are making the effort to do this.

(END)

Jean-Louis Sarbib. Credit: Miriam Gathigah

BUSAN, Dec 1, 2011 (IPS) – Representatives of nations and organisations committed to development wrapped up on Thursday the Fourth High Level Forum (HLF 4) on Aid Effectiveness with an ambitious plan to eradicate global poverty.

One cross-cutting issue through HLF 4 was the importance of transparency and accountability between donors and recipients of development assistance. Transparent practices are a strong foundation for enhanced accountability.

Towards this end, Development Gateway, an international non-profit,   works in the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D).

A number of African countries are reaping the benefits of working in an environment where information about donor funding is easily accessible.

Q: What is the mandate of Development Gateway towards effective aid?                                                                                                               

A: We work with governments that receive aid to improve aid transparency and governance. This is achieved through information management solutions and consulting services for development organisations and developing country governments.

Q: Tell us more about your work in Africa.

A: We are now working with 16 African countries and are still working to expand this network. The idea is to provide these countries with instruments that really put them in charge of development assistance.

After the Accra HLF, we developed a system owned and managed by these countries to ensure that up to date information on which donor is funding which initiative is made available.

Q: What does your transparency and accountability tools entail?

A: One of the our tools to enhance transparency and accountability – The Aid Management Platform – is an opportunity to give people a chance to balance power between themselves and the donors, it’s about placing people in the driver’s seat of development assistance.

Q: How does Aid Management Platform work?

A: We begin by identifying a target country. Our information technology system does an analysis of how the government gets information. They then proceed to work with the government and respective donors to come into an agreement on how to make information on funding available.

Q: What are some of the benefits of this initiative?

A: It is a sustainable way of ensuring that people are involved in development assistance. It provides information that can help avoid duplication of funding and initiatives for development and growth.

We also realised that government and development officials spend a lot of time trying to get information, so this gives them more time to actually get the work done.

It also allows governments to better manage donors and hold them accountable towards development effectiveness.

Q: To what extent are donors willing to be transparent and accountable?

A: There is a donor willingness to be accountable. About 60 percent of aid is covered under the International Aid Transparent Initiative and this is a good indication that donors are willing to allow their grantees to hold them accountable.

Q: Are there any outstanding models of success?

A: In Malawi, for example, the people have been able to gather donors in one room and hold them accountable for what they are not doing, for instance, not making information on initiatives they are funding available on time.

We are also working towards integrating Uganda into this initiative. One of the projects in the pipeline has identified that there is a significantly high number of mobile phone users, we want to enable these people to send data from the provinces into the central database using this gadgets.

For instance, a person somewhere in a village will be able to communicate that the donor-funded clinic has stock outs, or the water project has stalled, among other life transforming stories.

Q: What has been the greatest challenge?

A: The major challenge in Africa is Internet connectivity. Our initiative comprises web-paged tools. In DRC Congo for instance, we have experienced major challenges because the Internet connectivity is extremely low.

Q: In what ways will Busan impact this initiative?

A: I hope Busan has convinced donors to provide information in a better manner, on time, and also use friendly format. It is important that donors take stock of the fact that the world of development assistance has really changed. There are now more actors. For the first time the HLF has acknowledged civil society organisations, the new actors.

I am pleased to say that this conference has acknowledged the South-South cooperation. (END)

Lorena Barba, specialist in gender-responsive budgeting. Credit: Courtesy of the interviewee

Estrella Gutiérrez interviews LORENA BARBA of U.N. Women’s Andean regional office

CARACAS, Nov 29  (IPS)  – Gender responsive budgeting (GRB), a U.N. Women tool to curb inequality, “helps you think about people.and to use resources in a more effective manner,” says Lorena Barba.

Barba, who is responsible for GRB at the U.N. Women Andean regional office based in Quito, Ecuador, discussed in this interview with IPS the gender-focused budgeting and planning processes established by three countries in the area – Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, which are considered a model for different ways of reaching the same objective.

Peru has focused on incorporating a gender perspective in major investment projects that are a top priority for the government and that receive international development aid, in order to extend a gender focus to all public policies and to international cooperation.

Bolivia’s approach is based on grassroots, local experiences in which women have played a key role.

And Ecuador has a new constitution that requires that planning and budgeting focus on reducing inequality, partly with the help of a classification system to identify and promote gender spending.

Q: Can you explain why U.N. Women’s Andean regional office puts a high priority on GRB to promote equality, development and international cooperation?

A: GRB is an extremely useful tool for the region, for states, and for public policies, because it helps you see clearly the results of development and what kind of development is being pursued. It also helps you identify the biggest inequalities, in order to find effective ways to combat them.

Gender-responsive budgeting and planning helps you think about people, because public policies, when they are analysed only from a macro viewpoint, have visions and methodologies that lead you, for example, to see all families as the same, without perceiving the differences in terms of access to work, income, and social programmes between family members.

A gender perspective makes it possible to visualise the deep inequalities between men and women, and between different people, and to gain a deeper understanding of the causes.

That helps identify the gaps and the best strategies to combat them. Gender-responsive budgeting and planning helps use resources in a more effective manner; it does not necessarily mean increasing funds but using them more efficiently.

Q: So it’s about redirecting resources to promote equality, principally gender equality?

A: Yes. Many experiences around the world have shown that programmes with a gender focus bring about better results – not just social programmes, but programmes involving infrastructure like roads, or water supplies, where the impacts and results improve a great deal when a gender perspective is incorporated.

GRB requires involving women in designing programmes, in access to funding, in decision-making – or in simple questions like keeping in mind where and when meetings are held and the need for places for children to be taken care of while their parents are busy in these activities.

This is the main reason women don’t participate: because they can’t be somewhere at a specific time, or, if they can make it, they have to take their children along.

Q: What is special about the process in Peru?

A: What Peru is doing is interesting in terms of effectiveness of development aid. They investigated which projects receive the largest amounts of international cooperation funds and which ones have the greatest influence on gender rights.

The programme, which has the support of the European Union, looks at how key national policies and programmes are established while strengthening national planning and budgeting systems and mechanisms, in line with international aid.

A very interesting job is being done with the Finance Ministry, Congress, the International Cooperation Agency (APCI) and the Defensoría del Pueblo (ombudsman’s office) to identify how to reform processes so that gender issues are prioritised.

Peru has a law requiring that public institutions invest in gender equality and report on how they are doing this. And the Defensoría del Pueblo monitors compliance with this, while the Finance Ministry is heading up a process with different ministries to strengthen the incorporation of a gender focus in strategic programmes and key inter-sectoral plans.

This process is aimed at getting major investment projects that are a top priority for the government and which will receive the largest share of national funds and international cooperation to adopt a gender focus so that spending on these projects will contribute to closing the gender gap.

Q: What stands out about the model followed in Ecuador?

A: In Ecuador, earlier moves to incorporate gender in planning and funding were strengthened by the 2008 constitution, which stipulates that planning and budgeting must focus on closing gaps and fomenting equality.

The constitution thus strengthened the work that was being done, by requiring public institutions to make an effort to reach these national development objectives.

Q: Even the Finance Ministry established a gender equity office.

A: Yes, and now that the office exists, budgeting is approached differently.

The office strengthened a budget monitoring financial tool that stipulates that all public institutions must assign resources to gender equality policies, and that the Finance Ministry is to follow up on the use and implementation of these funds.

These steps helped get other institutions to use and strengthen this tool, such as Congress, which has to study and approve the budget. The gender classification system is extremely useful for that task, because it makes it possible to carry out a specific analysis of where expenditure is going and helps lawmakers in their role of overseeing other institutions.

In addition, since this process involves public information, it helps women’s groups carry out their social oversight work.

Q: And what is the trademark of the Bolivian model?

A: The process went from the local to the national levels in that country, and with a major effort by women’s organisations, the result of which was a national taskforce on GRB that includes women’s groups and women delegates of local governments.

This is an inter-institutional experience where it is mainly women who participate at the grassroots level directly in their local areas. They have taken part in training and awareness-raising processes, and have managed to influence planning by their local governments, to get them to address their demands. Grassroots-level work is the outstanding factor in the case of Bolivia.

Q: What has especially moved you about these processes?

A: One of the things that really affects you is how people’s lives are changed, at a personal level. GRB really raises people’s awareness, and also provides a great deal of training.

It’s amazing how the training and GRB work make people aware of conceptions about roles and stereotypes that we all carry with us, and bring about change in people. You see it in public employees, how the way they work changes and how their relationships with their partners, their kids and their colleagues change.

It’s not an overnight change. But at least they start thinking about what they do, how they treat the people around them on a daily basis, and about discriminatory attitudes that they didn’t even notice before, due to a lack of knowledge and sensibility.

It also happens with local women, who at the beginning of the process could hardly speak in public and express what they thought, but now have no problem asking the mayor why he didn’t do what he promised.

Now they value their own knowledge, because helping to empower them on the basis of what they already know and do is more important than filling them up with new knowledge. (END)

CARACAS, nov (IPS) – Los presupuestos sensibles al género (PSG), la herramienta de ONU Mujeres para reducir la desigualdad, “ayudan a pensar desde las personas” y a “usar los recursos de manera más eficiente”, destacó a IPS Lorena Barba.

Barba, responsable de los PSG de ONU Mujeres Región Andina, con sede en Quito, analizó en entrevista con IPS los procesos de planificación y presupuesto con enfoque de género que establecieron tres países del área: Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú, considerados un modelo de maneras diferentes para alcanzar el objetivo.

Lorena Barba, especialista en presupuestos sensibles al género. Crédito: cortesia de la entrevistada.

Perú vinculó la eficacia de la cooperación internacional con los grandes proyectos, los prioritarios para el Estado, para que sean sus ejes para irradiar el enfoque de género a todas las políticas públicas y subordinar a ello la ayuda al desarrollo.

Bolivia partió de procesos muy locales y con gran fuerza de las mujeres de base. En tanto, Ecuador cuenta con una Constitución que obliga a que la planificación y el presupuesto reduzcan las desigualdades, y el presupuesto tiene un clasificador para identificar y promover el gasto de género.

IPS: ¿Por qué ONU Mujeres Andina privilegia los PSG para impulsar la equidad, el desarrollo y la cooperación internacional?

LORENA BARBA: Los PSG son una herramienta súper útil para la región, para los Estados, para las políticas públicas, porque te ayuda a ver con claridad cuáles son los resultados del desarrollo y qué tipo de desarrollo se construye. Además, identificas las desigualdades mayores para así ver la forma efectiva para combatirlas.

En ese sentido, el presupuesto y la planificación con enfoque de género te ayuda a pensar desde las personas, porque las políticas públicas, cuando se analizan solo desde lo macro, tienen visiones y metodologías que te llevan, por ejemplo, a ver a las familias de manera igualitaria. No registran los diferentes accesos al trabajo, ingresos y programas sociales de sus miembros.

La perspectiva de género permite ver las desigualdades profundas entre hombres y mujeres, entre personas, y ahondar en sus razones.

Desde ahí se facilita identificar las brechas y las mejores estrategias para combatirlas. Los PSG ayudan a usar los recursos de manera más efectiva, hablar de planificación y presupuestos con enfoque de género no es necesariamente aumentar recursos sino usarlos de manera más eficiente.

IPS: ¿Se trata entonces de redirigir los recursos para promover equidades, principalmente la de género?

LB: Claro, muchas experiencias mundiales muestran que programas con enfoque de género arrojan mejores resultados, no solo en programas sociales, sino programas de infraestructura, caminos, agua, donde mejoraron mucho los impactos y resultados al sumar ese enfoque.

Requiere involucrar a las mujeres en el diseño de estos programas, en el acceso a los recursos generados, en las tomas de decisión o en temas sencillos cómo el del cuidado, para tener en cuenta dónde y cuándo se realizan las reuniones, espacios donde los niños sean cuidados mientras sus padres están en esa actividad.

Esta es la causa más común porque las mujeres no participan, porque no pueden estar en un lugar a la hora convenida y si lo están deben estar a cargo de sus hijos.

IPS: ¿Por qué se dice que el proceso de Perú es tan especial?

LB: Es muy interesante lo que está haciendo Perú en el marco de la eficacia de la ayuda al desarrollo. Se investigó que proyectos reciben mayores fondos de cooperación internacional y cuáles son los que tienen mayor incidencia en los derechos de género.

El programa tiene el apoyo de la Unión Europea y busca hacer un ejercicio real de cómo, con el fortalecimiento de los sistemas y mecanismos de nacionales de planificación y presupuesto, se establecen políticas o programas claves nacionales, a los que se alinea y prioriza también la cooperación internacional.

Se hace un trabajo muy interesante con el Ministerio de Finanzas, el Congreso, la Agencia de Cooperación Internacional y la Defensoría del Pueblo para identificar como reformar los procesos para que los temas de género se vayan priorizando.

Allí hay una ley que pide a las instituciones públicas que inviertan en igualdad de género y rindan cuentas sobre ello, y la Defensoría del Pueblo realiza un seguimiento del cumplimiento, mientras el Ministerio de Finanzas lidera un proceso con carteras sectoriales para fortalecer la incorporación del enfoque de género en los programas estratégicos, planes intersectoriales claves a los que el Estado le apuesta prioritariamente.

Con este proceso se busca que estos grandes proyectos de inversión, prioritarios para el Estado, que son los que van a recibir la mayor cantidad de recursos nacionales y de la cooperación internacional, tengan enfoque de género para que a partir de la inversión en ellos se generen procesos que reduzcan la brecha de género.

IPS: ¿Al modelo de Ecuador qué lo distingue?

LB: Allí, el impulso inicial del mecanismo nacional de la mujer de incorporar el género a la planificación y las finanzas se fortaleció con la Constitución de 2008 que pide que la planificación y el presupuesto se orienten a reducir las brechas y a conseguir como resultado último la igualdad.

Esa Constitución fortalece el trabajo y demanda a todas las instituciones públicas a que hagan esfuerzos para conseguir esos objetivos últimos de desarrollo nacional.

IPS: Incluso el Ministerio de Finanzas estableció una dirección de Equidad de Género…

LB: Sí, y con esta dirección existe una dinámica diferente en cómo se ve el presupuesto.

Fortalece una herramienta financiera de seguimiento presupuestario donde se demanda a todas las instituciones públicas que asignen recursos para políticas de igualdad de género y, además, el Ministerio de Finanzas en base a sus competencias hace un seguimiento de la ejecución de esos recursos.

Esos pasos ayudaron a que otras instituciones usen y potencien la herramienta, como la Asamblea Nacional que tiene que analizar y aprobar el presupuesto y para ello el clasificador de género les es utilísimo porque permite un análisis específico de donde están invirtiendo y les ayuda en su rol de fiscalización a las instituciones.

Además, al ser información pública ayuda al trabajo de veeduría social que hacen las organizaciones de mujeres.

IPS: ¿Y cuál es la marca del modelo boliviano?

LB: Allí el proceso se dio desde lo local a lo nacional. Y con mucha fuerza de las organizaciones de mujeres, cuyo fruto es una mesa nacional de trabajo en PSG donde participan organizaciones de mujeres y delegadas de gobiernos locales.

Es una experiencia interinstitucional que protagonizan principalmente las mujeres de base que participan directamente en sus territorios. Ellas han tenido procesos de capacitación y sensibilización y han logrado incidir en la planificación de sus gobiernos locales para que atiendan sus demandas. En el caso de Bolivia es distintivo el trabajo muy de base.

IPS: ¿Qué le ha conmovido especialmente en estos procesos?

LB: Una de las cosas que más te tocan es como le cambia la vida a la gente, desde su mirada más personal. Trabajar con los PSG otorga mucha sensibilización, además de capacitación técnica.

Hay temas de roles, de estereotipos presentes en todos y es impactante como con la capacitación y el trabajo se hacen conscientes de ello y cambian. Se ve en los funcionarios que cambian cómo realizan su trabajo y también la relación con sus parejas, sus hijos, sus colegas.

No es un cambio de un día para otro, pero al menos piensan en lo que hacen, en el trato cotidiano con las personas de su entorno, en actitudes discriminatorias que por falta de conocimiento y sensibilidad no percibían.

También pasa con las mujeres de base, que al inicio del proceso difícilmente podían hablar en público y expresar lo que pensaban, y ahora no tienen empacho en reclamar a su alcalde por qué no hizo lo que prometió.

Ahora, valoran sus propios conocimientos, porque más importante que llenarles de conocimientos es ayudarles a potenciar lo que ya saben y hacen. (FIN/2011)

LONDON, Nov 22, 2011 (IPS) – For a start, stop calling it “aid”, Brian Atwood, chair of the Development Assistance Committee at the OECD, tells IPS.

The aid effectiveness summit in Busan next week may move the dialogue further through the language of “development cooperation” instead, Atwood says. There could be a lot in a name here; it may signify the strengthening of a different way of partnering development.

OECD has a self-interest in bringing people out of poverty, says Brian Atwood. Credit: Sanjay Suri/IPS

Signs are that the Busan summit will take agreements on development cooperation forward substantially, Atwood says in an email interview. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which is leading the fourth high-level forum on aid effectiveness taking place in Busan, South Korea, Nov. 29-Dec. 1, says that at a time of particular economic difficulties, agreements reached at Busan would be vital.

Following is the text of the interview:

Q: What is the best-case scenario that can realistically emerge at Busan?

A: We will improve global cooperation and local coordination, reaffirm commitments made in Paris and Accra and rededicate the development community to achieving the MDGs. We will state that North-South and South-South cooperation are complementary and will commit to working together, including in triangular efforts.

Q: What might be the worst-case scenario, and what would be its implications?

A: That Busan becomes a finger pointing exercise rather than an effort to overcome political obstacles to progress. Thus far, there is no indication of that.

Q: What does the Paris sherpas meet tell us?

A: This represents a real negotiation over differences of interest and perspective, but it has been infected by a spirit of accommodation.

Q: Is language a problem: and so is the word ‘aid’ itself a problem, in that it suggests a giving that implies patronage and loss to the ‘donor’?

A: We hope that Busan will eliminate words like “aid” and “donor” and “recipient.” However, the forum is called “aid effectiveness.” The word is used in the outcome text as a synonym for Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) at a time when developing partners are increasingly concerned that ODA levels might go down. So “aid” remains for now, but is hopefully to be replaced by “development cooperation.”

Q: The idea that aid is not a loss but is for the greater good, including one’s national own, is becoming a bit more current. Are there signs that governments are buying the argument?

A: Never has the need for development been discussed at such high levels of government, including the G-20 and G-8. The attention being paid to Busan, versus Paris and Accra, is phenomenal. Attending will be the U.N. secretary-general, the U.S. secretary of state, 110 ministers, 30 foreign ministers and a half a dozen heads of state.

Q: Could such an idea be interpreted to take us back to the practice of heavily tied aid that some countries at least have been stepping away from?

A: Around 80 percent of tied aid has been eliminated and I see no effort to turn the clock back on previous commitments. The last 20 percent is the most difficult because it involves popular programmes like food aid, scholarships, civil society organisations from donor countries and technical cooperation. However, I believe we will continue to make progress.

Q: Is there a distinction to be made between ‘evolved’ self-interest and narrow self-interest? Can politicians be persuaded to see that difference?

A: We have a self-interest in bringing people out of poverty. That is a long-term endeavour and in that sense it is not ‘narrow,’ rather it requires an enlightened view. I believe that despite the economic pressures, we have acquired that view and I believe that Busan will demonstrate that.

Q: In the current economic squeeze, cutting aid might be more populist than sensible, and keeping up aid can potentially be unpopular. Are voters in Western Europe and North America showing any indication of resisting development aid?

A: Some politicians are resisting and advocating budget cuts, but I believe they are in the minority. There is little to be gained in cutting these programmes which represent a small part of budgets, but much to be lost.

Q: If aid must be channelled in harmony with national priorities set by governments, where does civil society stand? Can we go back to old classic patterns of non-government organisations (NGOs) carrying out pockets of aided development?

A: Civil society is a vital part of development and the development of a viable civil society is best carried out by NGOs with similar missions.

Q: In what way does the aid story change when it flows from South to South? Are those more instances of heavily tied aid? Is it more legitimate when the flow is South to South?

A: We don’t know enough about the details of South-South cooperation. There is an important affinity among these nations and that is an important attribute.

Q: It may take a book and more to really answer this, but broadly, in what ways has the Paris Declaration worked, and where and how has it not?

A: Yes, a book. Please take a look at our evaluation and survey. It is the evidence that demonstrates that ownership, alignment and mutual accountability produce results.

(End)

Heraldo Muñoz Credit:José Domingo Guariglia/IPS

Nevertheless, in a global context of persistent financial and economic crises, Latin America has made important advances in equality of access to education and health services, and many countries are nearing full enrollment at the primary and secondary education levels.

“People are unsatisfied that Latin America is growing economically but the distribution is unequal. People feel that the country is growing but that prosperity is not entering in their homes,” UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean Heraldo Muñoz told IPS.

UNDP’s annual report this year focuses on sustainability and equity in global development, and the next challenges for the 187 countries it covers, including 33 in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Chile and Argentina are the only Latin American nations in the list of countries with a “very high” Human Development Index in 2011, ranking 44th and 45th, respectively, while the countries with a “high” Human Development Index include Uruguay, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia and Belize.

IPS Correspondent José Domingo Guariglia spoke with Muñoz regarding the main challenges and opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean in a context of global recession, poverty and increasing violence.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Do you think it is possible to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Latin America by 2015, especially the eradication of poverty, and gender equality?

A: I think that many Latin American countries will achieve the MDGs, while others are far from the goal. What is very clear is that Latin American countries have made many efforts in reducing poverty. We have programmes of conditioned cash transfers like Bolsa Família in Brazil or Oportunidades in Mexico or Chile Solidario in Chile, and poverty has been reduced.

In addition, there has been growth in the region. Latin America is passing through one of its best moments in recent history.

As UNDP, we are making efforts to collaborate with governments to do an MDG acceleration framework, which is a strategy to try to bring the efforts of attending the MDGs from a national level to a local level.

In general, Latin America will fall rather behind in the attainment of some goals like maternal mortality, gender empowerment and equality.

Q: Latin America has experienced a long democratic period, characterised by a sense of frustration due to inequalities, corruption, crime and violence. Do you think a new institutional framework is needed?

A: For sure. One of the keys to strengthen democracy is working on strengthening institutions. Latin America is passing through a good moment in electoral democracy. This year there will be six presidential elections: Haiti, Peru, Argentina, the first round in Guatemala, and the pending elections in Nicaragua and Guyana by the end of the year.

However, there is a question on the quality of our democracies. There is frustration, there is apathy, institutions are weak and that is the key: working on strengthening the separation of the branches, strengthening the judiciary, collaborating with parliaments, organising the work of the executives.

People are unsatisfied that Latin America is growing economically but the distribution is unequal. People feel that the country is growing but that prosperity is not entering into their homes.

Latin America continues to be the most unequal region in the world. Out of the 15 most unequal countries in the world, 10 are from Latin America and that’s absolutely unacceptable. The first step would be to recognise that reducing inequality should be a political priority.

We have reduced inequality in the last decade thanks to the expansion of programmes in education and health, but we still have a long way to go.

Q: Can Latin American countries grow with high rates of criminality like the ones that exist in Honduras, Mexico or Venezuela right now?

A: Crime can be a threat. We live in the most violent region in the world. Latin America and the Caribbean represent nine percent of the world population but we concentrate 27 percent of world homicides.

There is a very important impact of crime in development. Central American countries spent last year four billion dollars in security- related investments, money that could have gone to education, health and social purposes.

This is a situation of epidemic proportions in Latin America. It should be placed as a priority and the key is how to address it. The strategy includes control and repression but also prevention, how to tackle the situation of youth, reform of the penal code, in the penitentiary system, justice, police, international cooperation.

Q: Do you think multilateral organisations in Latin America like Mercosur, Unasur or ALBA can contribute to South-South cooperation?

A: Latin American cooperation has been changing. Unasur is an expression of the combination of Mercosur and the Andean Community. It wants to be like the European Union to tackle military affairs, political coordination and cultural integration. It is quite an ambitious project and it can be the basis for South-South cooperation and to provide assistance for least developed countries.

As UNDP, we are trying to cooperate with countries of the region to give assistance to others. We are working to take the experience of democratic transitions to countries that have experienced the Arab Spring, particularly Egypt and Tunisia.

Q: How is the current financial crisis impacting developing nations?

A: The region has resisted the crisis better than Europe and the United States. Latin American countries have strong banking regulations because of the experience of the crisis of the 1980s. In addition to that, several countries have implemented policies that allow them to spend more during crisis and save in the moments of boom.

These are times for caution in the region. If the situation in Europe becomes more and more delicate and the United States does not get out of the moment of stagnation, it will be very difficult for Latin American countries to not feel the pinch of the crisis.

Q: Next year will be the International Year of Cooperatives. How do you evaluate the presence of cooperatives in Latin America?

A: Cooperatives have the people at the centre of development. In addition to that, cooperatives and small-medium enterprises have created jobs. They are always a significant part of the solution.

(END)

Health is the result of social equity, says Paulo Buss. Credit:Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 25, 2011 (Tierramérica) – For Brazilian pediatrician and public health expert Paulo Buss, the worst enemy of health is unemployment. And if unemployment continues to rise, the result will be a global “catastrophe”, he told Tierramérica.

Buss, coordinator of international relations at the state-run Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), believes that “the global economic crisis, caused by the financial meltdown in the industrialised countries, is deepening inequalities between and within countries.”

The main reason is “unemployment, one of the leading social causes of poor health,” Buss told Tierramérica in this interview conducted during the WHO (World Health Organisation) World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, which took place in Rio de Janeiro Oct. 19-21.

“We will be facing a social catastrophe if we don’t take care to protect employment in order to maintain a decent quality of life for everyone,” warned Buss.

The conference, attended by representatives of more than 100 countries, was organised with the support of Fiocruz and the Brazilian government. It served as a platform for dialogue on the recommendations made in the final report of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, created in 2005.

In the report, published in 2008, the Commission put forward three overarching recommendations: improve daily living conditions; tackle the inequitable distribution of power, money and resources; and measure and understand the problem and assess the impact of action.

Q: What are the social determinants of health, the subject of the WHO conference?

A: The conference was organised on the basis of an important report published in 2008, which alerted the global community to the absurdity of the inequalities in health, which are unjustified and preventable.

Infant mortality in Sweden, for example, is less than three deaths for every thousand live births, in Brazil it is 15, and in some countries in Africa it is over 100, in other words, 10 percent of the children born do not survive.

It is the same with life expectancy. In Sweden and Japan people live more than 80 years, in Brazil 72, and in Mozambique and Angola, less than 50 years.

There are global, national and local disparities, between countries and within countries. The conference gathered national and local experiences to combat these inequalities and address the social determinants of health, such as income distribution, educational levels, and access to resources and general public services: water, sanitation and waste collection. These are avoidable and preventable inequalities.

The conference sought to identify initiatives, policies, mechanisms and tools that countries, municipalities and communities are using to achieve more equitable results. Health is the result of social equity.

Q: Brazil presented its successful experiences…

A: Brazil presented many experiences, like the Bolsa Familia program (which provides an income for poor families, conditional on school attendance and health-care checkups for the children). It has been demonstrated that there has been a notable improvement in the health of beneficiary families. Infant mortality has decreased, and life expectancy has risen.

Another example is that of communities who have improved their access to clean water, sewage systems and waste collection, three dimensions of public services.

Brazil has achieved significant reductions in inequalities and improvements in health indicators, which is why it was chosen by WHO to host the world conference.

Q: Could the Unified Health System (SUS) be considered an example of progress?

A: Brazil began the universalisation of free immunisation 35 years ago and achieved an impressive impact. We did away with chicken pox, measles and polio, and drastically reduced tetanus, whooping cough and influenza. The SUS provides vaccinations for all, as well as treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria and all infectious diseases.

But we still have a lot of inequalities in the system. Among woman who have no formal education, only 25 percent have had a mammogram for early detection of breast cancer. Among women with 15 years of schooling, over 65 percent have been tested.

Q: What is the aim of the final declaration of the conference? Is it a binding agreement?

A: It is called the Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health and it contains a series of elements of a political nature.

We want to demonstrate that the global economic crisis, caused by the financial meltdown in the industrialised countries, is deepening inequalities between and within countries, primarily because of unemployment, which is one of the leading social causes of poor health.

We want to call on governments, academics and civil society to assume responsibility. We will be facing a social catastrophe if we don’t take care to protect employment in order to maintain a decent quality of life for everyone.

Q: Does it involve concrete proposals?

A: It involves respecting the policies of different sectors. We are going to collaborate so that governments create integrated action plans in the public sector. Brazil is a model for countercyclical policies and for having created the economic conditions for the maintenance of a dynamic domestic market that has fostered more effective redistribution of income.

The declaration will be the basis of a major platform for dialogue and the sharing of successful experiences. That means the conference gives continuity to the work that began in 2005 and has not ended. The idea is to plan for a new assessment, before 2015, of what has been done and the extent to which national plans have been fulfilled.

*The writer is an IPS correspondent. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank. (END)

Credit: Courtesy of Dilip Ratha

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 11, 2011 (IPS) – When the final aid figures for 2010 were tallied early this year, industrial nations claimed a record-high 129 billion dollars in official development assistance (ODA) to the world’s poorer nations.

Still, it fell far short of the average 325 billion dollars in remittances migrants send annually to their home countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.

“That figure,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon points out, “dwarfs international aid flows.”

Nearly two-thirds of the world’s 214 million migrants live in wealthy countries of the north and the global south. And if current trends continue, the figure will rise to 405 million by 2050, according to the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM).

But how much of the remittances from migrants are invested in savings and channeled into development?

Dilip Ratha, lead economist and manager of the Migration and Remittances Unit at the World Bank, is one of the strongest advocates of “diaspora bonds”.

In an interview with IPS U.N. Bureau Chief Thalif Deen, he said that diaspora savings are estimated to be in the range of 400 billion dollars annually – far more than the 325-billion-dollar figure.

He said significant amounts of development financing can be raised via diaspora bonds by developing countries.

“And most of this is currently invested in low-yield deposits or held as cash under the mattress,” said Ratha, a former assistant professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad.

If a diaspora bond offers four percent interest, that could be of significant interest to the diaspora investors.

A distinguishing feature of a diaspora bond, he pointed out, is that it is a retail bond. That also increases the cost of retailing the bonds.

However, the “patriotic discount” or discount on account of home bias can outweigh the higher retailing cost of diaspora bonds. Since migration is expected to increase in the coming years – due to falling travel and information costs, demographic trends and income disparities among countries – and since migrant incomes are likely to rise over the long-term, the potential for diaspora bonds will also increase correspondingly, Ratha said.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Besides Israel (which established State of Israel Bonds back in 1951), are there any other countries that have successfully set up diaspora bonds?

A: India is perhaps the only other example of successful launching of diaspora bonds. Between India and Israel, nearly 40 billion dollars have been raised since 1951 via diaspora bonds. Many countries – e.g., the Philippines, Lebanon, Sri Lanka – have raised diaspora savings via foreign currency deposits, but these are not the same as bonds.

Q: How different are diaspora bonds?

A: Diaspora bonds are similar to fixed-term deposits, and offer a degree of predictability on debt service and amortisation and thus, helpful to the borrower. Other countries – e.g., Ethiopia and Nepal – have issued diaspora bonds, but the past issuances have not been successful. The Philippines also issued an Overseas Filipino Workers’ Bond last year, but a large part of these bonds were purchased by local banks and only a small part was sold to diaspora members.

Q: Doesn’t the investment in such bonds depend on several factors, including the extent of savings by migrants – pretty poor in the Middle East, for example; the security of the bonds itself; and the economic and political stability of the home country, for example, Haiti, Somalia, Yemen or Egypt?

A: You are right. It is key for the issuing government to understand where the diaspora members are; how many; how much do they earn, save, invest; how do they feel about the government and about investing back home; and what particular types of projects would they like so that diaspora bond proceeds could be targeted accordingly.

Political risk perception by the diaspora members is an important factor that would affect investments in diaspora bonds. Yet, given the amount of political risk, it is often the case that the diaspora members have less of a risk perception and more risk tolerance than unattached foreign investors. On top, diaspora members often have a desire to give back that the diaspora bond could exploit, to raise a lower interest rate and longer maturity debt.

Q: What role does the World Bank play in diaspora bonds? Advising countries? If so, what are the countries you are working with?

A: The World Bank is currently working with Kenya, Nigeria, and the Philippines on diaspora bonds. The main role of the World Bank is that of an honest broker: between investment bankers and the government, between the government and the diasporas, between the government of the issuing country and the government regulators in the destination country for migrants.

The World Bank also hopes to offer technical assistance in the financial structuring of these bonds, such as pricing, currency denomination, risk assessment and rating, timing of issuance.

(END)

Tony Tujan, director of IBON International. Credit:CIVICUS

MONTREAL, Canada, Oct 4, 2011 (IPS) – Busan represents the possibility of an aid revolution – a time in history where an encompassing, inclusive aid framework may be possible. This is according to Tony Tujan, director of IBON International, a capacity development non- governmental organisation.

In late November international aid players will descend on Busan, South Korea to review past aid effectiveness commitments before writing the next chapter in the fight for better aid.

At the forum, delegates will assess the world’s progress against previous aid agreements, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action – before issuing yet another.

The 2005 Paris Declaration laid out targets to improve the quality of aid and its development impact, establishing monitoring systems to assess progress and accountability. Three years later, in an effort to accelerate progress on the declaration, the Accra Agenda was drafted in the Ghanaian capital. The document proposed increased national ownership of development process, more inclusive partnerships and measurable impacts.

These were a start but Busan’s outcome document must go further to ensure sustainable, equitable and inclusive aid, according to Tujan who also co-chairs the civil society platforms BetterAid and Reality of Aid.

While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) uses the global recession as a rationale for continued conditionality, rising powers such as China, India and Brazil involved in South-South development cooperation may be unwilling to permit the continuation of a Northern-dominated aid architecture, he cautions.

With the rise of South-South cooperation, now is the time to pen a more equitable future for aid, said Tujan.

Ahead of the high-level meeting, Tujan spoke to IPS about the state of aid effectiveness and the possibility of a new aid order at Busan.

Q: What are the three main issues within aid effectiveness at the moment?

A: One is that the aid effectiveness targets need to be strengthened, meaning that governments recommit to devising clear policies and programmes. An evaluation has shown that developing countries have better performance in aid effectiveness than the donors. It is the donors, who do not have incentives to implement their own commitments and targets, that have been very slow and weak in their performance.

The second issue is the question of human rights-based results. Donors and governments have accepted development effectiveness but not the human rights content. They have re-defined development effectiveness as a generic term in relation to development goals but these are not interpreted in the context of people achieving their rights, they are interpreted in terms of financial performance and institutional development.

We need a strong results agenda but this should be human rights- based. It is not so much how the programmes are implemented, what is more important is that the implementation of aid programmes clearly result in the poor and marginalised, and people in general, in claiming their human rights.

The third is the question of aid architecture. We need to come up with a new document and a new institution that is more equitable, which will accept shared leadership and not impose leadership by developed countries or even the G20 (group of major industrialised and emerging nations).

Q: What will you be hoping for in Busan?

Aid effectiveness as (defined by) the Paris and Accra commitments is not sufficient and will not deliver results. Busan is at an important point in history where … an encompassing framework for development cooperation is possible. (Aid) should be about the traditional donors but it should also include the so-called “new donors” … developing countries who, one way or the other, are engaged in South-South development cooperation. It should include the totality of civil society and other private actors. Within the last two years, many governments are actually talking to civil society platforms about their development programmes, policies, aid programmes and so on because of the aid effectiveness process. In some countries – Indonesia, Philippines, Senegal – civil society is not simply consulted (but) they have been made members of the bodies that oversee aid.

Q: How likely is it that we will come out of Busan with this new architecture?

A: In the full form? 50-50…Whether it will meet the overall definition of an equitable, inclusive aid architecture – that remains to be seen.

Q: What are the political challenges?

A: Politically, you can fit it down to one country, China – and the G77 (the largest single coalition of developing countries). Will these countries accept a Busan compact that is premised on South-South cooperation where China commits to the aid effectiveness of its support to other countries?

If we have a Busan outcome document that is such, it will radically change the future of the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) because now we will have a new animal that is not the OECD where aid can be mediated in a more equitable fashion.

China and the G77 are conscious that the leadership of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is very much premised on the political and economic interests of those countries. They will not subsume their efforts under that leadership.

In this case, it is an objective shared even by the DAC. The DAC wants China in, it wants everyone in and apparently they (the DAC) are aware of the consequences of that happening or where it will lead.

Q: How has the global economic downturn impacted aid effectiveness?

A: The IMF says that in the context of a recession, it should be given the full powers to impose conditionalities and fiscal restraints – conditionalities to handle sovereign debt, conditionalities to deal with fiscal policies and financial systems.

Civil society organisations have demanded that we should end policy conditionality – not fiduciary conditionality – that is intrusive and often goes against human rights and sovereignty.

You do not need conditionalities if you have the right processes (and) democratically negotiated compacts are made. If you have such democratic processes where citizens are not only consulted but involved in the process of creating the modalities for assistance then these do not become imposed conditionalities. Even then there could be mechanisms to reduce, let us say, the power of the conditions and yet be able to achieve policy reform.

IMF policies are premised on neoliberalist prescriptions and that is why we believe that conditionalities should be ended. We did not get that in Accra, chances are we will not get that at Busan because the IMF is moving heaven and earth to kill that demand. (END)

Lakshmi Puri. Credit: Courtesy of UN Women

Puri, who is responsible for the leadership and management of the bureau supporting inter-governmental bodies, U.N. coordination and external relations, said that Spain remains the largest donor for total resources (core and non-core), followed by Norway. The UK recently announced an increase from three to 10 million pounds and thus became the second largest core donor.

Other key donors who have significantly boosted their support include Canada (eight- fold increase), Sweden (which doubled its core contribution), Australia, Denmark, Netherland, Finland and the Republic of Korea.

“We likewise have been receiving strengthened support from non-OECD DAC donors such as India (one million dollars) and Nigeria (500,000 dollars). These are very encouraging trends which we hope to see replicated by many member states,” she said.

In an interview with IPS, Puri explained the budget, goals and progress of UN Women and the challenges it continues to face. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: UN Women currently has a presence in dozens of countries, and expects to continue growing. How quickly do you expect to expand into more countries, where aid is also needed?

A: UN Women— United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women—is an historic step forward for women. We are the largest single U.N. body ever charged with advancing gender equality. It is an entity with an ambitious agenda but also a practical agenda of building an organisation that can make a lasting difference in women’s lives.

The Field Capacity Assessment (FCA) that UN Women completed in February 2011 has identified our current presence, which varies in size, scale and complexity, in 75 countries and territories. The first Strategic Plan for the organisation was just approved by the Executive Board in June 2011. In the first few years, we propose a particular focus on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and middle income countries with high inequality as well as countries in conflict and post-conflict situations with particular insecurity for women.

Q: Women in developing countries will often risk their own lives to provide necessary care for their families, but this is after the occurrence of a crisis. How does UN Women hope to integrate women into disaster preparedness and prevention before a crisis hits?

A: Yes, gender inequalities often increase women’s vulnerability during natural disasters and environmental stress, for various reasons from literacy levels which often restrict women’s access to public information on forecasts of natural disasters and related relief services, to women’s clothing or lack of skills such as swimming and climbing trees which contributes to the death rate of women – especially when compared to men – in typhoons, tsunamis and floods.

Women’s overall empowerment is the primary prevention to women’s disproportionate risk during and after disasters. Women living and working as equals are at lower risk of mortality from disasters. They are more likely to be economically empowered which increases their resiliency; they are more politically empowered so their needs are heard in planning and decision-making processes; and they are socially empowered, educated, literate, and can mobilise to prepare and respond.

Q: What is the current UN Women budget, in addition to the minimum 500 million dollars recognised as an annual minimum? How does this limited budget manage to meet the needs of each of UN Women’s programs, considering the weight of its proposed tasks?

A: For UN Women, the financial target for annual voluntary contributions amounts are $300 million in 2011, 400 million dollars in 2012 and 500 million dollars in 2013. In terms of composition of resources, the target is that 50 percent of total contributions will be to unearmarked core and the other 50 percent will be to non-core (un-earmarked) resources, including the Fund for Gender Equality and the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women.

By establishing UN Women, countries have strongly committed to support gender equality and to invest in it, and we are hopeful that they will do so.

Q: The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for fifty- fifty gender parity on decision making jobs at the U.N. by the year 2000, with a final goal of fifty-fifty gender parity within the U.N. How much of this has been achieved?

A: Following U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s focus on the representation of women, the U.N. has experienced an unprecedented increase in women at the most senior levels. Over three years (2007- 2009), women at the under secretary-general level rose by 12 percent from 17 percent to 29 percent, and at assistant-secretary-general level by five percent from 20 percent to 25 percent in the U.N. Secretariat, where the vast majority of senior-most posts reside.

These figures are remarkable when we consider that this progress over a three-year period exceeds that of the entire decade. Across the U.N. system, this trend is further supported by evidence that 20 entities increased their representation of women between 2007 and 2009, and that 45.2 percent of all appointments were women.

In terms of decision-making posts, there has been an increase in the percentage of women at all levels (D-1 to ASG/USG) between 2007 and 2009, which have been 1.2 percent, one percent and 3.5 percent, respectively. However, none of these levels have yet achieved gender parity and all levels report less than 30 percent female staff.

Regarding the P-1 to P-5 levels, between 2000 and 2009 the U.N. achieved or exceeded parity at the P-1 and P-2 levels, and at the P-1 level it maintained gender balance throughout the decade. At the General Service and Field Service levels, the representation of women on all contract types at headquarters significantly exceeded the target of gender parity: 63.3 percent for General Service and 72.7 percent for Field Service, mirroring the traditional pattern of dominance of females at the lower ranks.

Therefore, while we see that there is an increase in women in decision-making roles at the U.N., much still remains to be done, and UN Women will continue to strongly advocate for it.

(END)