One proposal in a recent Center for Global Development (CGD) report focuses on restructuring multilateral institutions to better suit developmental needs. A new World Bank funding structure presented at the organization’s most recent replenishment conference aligns with CGD directives.
As more nations climb out of extreme poverty, the capacity in which foreign aid is needed evolves.
Experts stated in the Multilateral Development Banking for This Century’s Development Challenges report that “almost all developing countries now rely primarily on domestic resources to manage public investment.” This evolution renders the foundation of World Bank funding, which has historically relied on capital market failure, incongruous with the reality of global development.
Another issue is that major donor countries have most heavily funded health and education initiatives in the recent past. CGD scholars suggest that countries such as the U.S. redirect foreign aid funds to the development of strategic partnerships with recipient nations.
Such redirection is predicated on a donor country’s willingness to overhaul foreign aid policy.
Perhaps more complicated is the fact that the U.S., once a World Bank powerhouse, is now waning in its contributions to the International Development Association (IDA). This indicates that heavy foreign aid revision in the World Bank’s favor is unlikely. Still, the nation continues to play a monumental role in deciding where IDA funds are spent.
According to Scott Morris and Madeleine Gleave of the CGD, the U.S. is often defensive in its appropriation of aid funds. This strategy has global implications. Policymakers in the U.S. have a history of swaying World Bank investment, avoiding nations like Zimbabwe and Iran for its own interests.
As Morris said in his recent report, “Historically, the United States (and often the U.S. Congress) has exerted its will on issues like these by using the threat of withholding its IDA contributions in any given year.” Three years ago, IDA pledges from donor nations accounted for two-thirds of all World Bank resources. Today, it is estimated that they make up less than half. Threats to withhold become obsolete as such pledges hold less weight.
For that reason, a new World Bank funding structure that deemphasizes public-sector donation in favor of affordable lending and private-sector investment is significant. This new methodology took center stage at the World Bank’s most recent replenishment conference.
Reinvigorated partnerships with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) are key. Such partnerships would allow the World Bank to leverage IDA funds more holistically. The goal is to lend money to more worthwhile causes in a way that’s free from donor country allegiances.
The next step is to incentivize private investors to contribute to infrastructure ventures, which focus on areas like climate and energy. CGD scholars suggest using MDB resources to decrease risk by bridging gaps between sovereigns and investors. Bridging those gaps could get subsidies and grants to developing nations in a system that does not force borrowers to bear full costs.
Many of these recommendations played into the replenishment, which resulted in some of the most dramatic financial reforms in World Bank history. By combining existing resources with donor funds and the capital debt market, the World Bank hopes to respond to developmental needs with greater agility.
One side effect of this new World Bank funding structure is, as Morris points out, a decrease in influence from countries like the U.S. and U.K. that have dictated spending in the past.
While greater multilateral investment from the world’s wealthiest countries would be ideal, this plan addresses the new reality of global development. The unprecedented move could be just what the developing world needs in a time of transition.
– Madeline Distasio
Photo: Flickr
Food Crisis in Venezuela: Starvation, Corruption and Exodus
As the food crisis in Venezuela continues to worsen, the country is suffering from issues ranging from starvation to corruption and mass migration to surrounding countries.
Venezuelans lack access to common goods ranging from food to medicine. The country has triple-digit inflation and the currency collapsed nearly 80 percent last year, leading to millions of citizens suffering from food insecurity. Food riots caused violence and even death in several Venezuelan cities last year, and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has responded by attempting to control the increasingly black market distribution of food and goods within the country. The government hopes that by placing limits on how much individuals can buy at a time, it will be able to put an end to the black market operation of buying and reselling food for higher prices.
As children and families suffer from starvation in the country, many parents are attempting to give their children to families who will be able to provide food for them. Reuters reports that at a social services center in Carirubana more than a dozen parents seek help providing care for their children each day. This is a dramatic uptick from last year when the center averaged one parent per day.
A survey released by a children’s rights group reported that two-thirds of 1,099 households with children were not eating enough in the region of Caracas, Venezuela. The average wages in the country are the equivalent of $50 per month. This has created a desperate situation where parents fear that their children will be forced into prostitution or the drug trade in order to survive.
As the food crisis in Venezuela grows increasingly desperate, food trafficking has become one of the largest businesses in the country. The military controls the distribution of food, and documents and interviews reveal that corruption runs rampant at every level from generals to soldiers.
Tens of thousands of Venezuelans cross the borders into Brazil and Columbia each month, some to buy food and return home and others to find a permanent home in a country where food is more readily available. Along border towns, Venezuelans account for 60 percent of all hospital visits, and as more Venezuelan sex workers arrive, the rates of sexually transmitted diseases have skyrocketed in these regions.
As the food crisis in Venezuela continues, it is important that the international community condemns human rights violations and corruption in the country. It is important that global powers like the United States focus on helping partner countries in South America put pressure on the Venezuelan government to promote democracy and end corruption and food insecurity.
– Eva Kennedy
Photo: Flickr
Five Efforts to Fight Hunger in Spain
Shaken up by the global economic crisis and with one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe, Spain has many vulnerable people struggling with poverty and hunger. Fortunately, numerous efforts in the towns of Galdakao, El Prat and toward the nation as a whole have helped significantly in the fight against hunger in Spain.
Despite the recent financial struggles and the growing problem of hunger in Spain, the country has found various methods to improve conditions for health and nutrition for its citizens.
– Mikaela Frigillana
Photo: Flickr
New Insurgency in Myanmar: Examining What Is an Insurgency
There has been an uptick in an insurgent group activity in Myanmar the past few months. A new insurgency group within the Rohingya community named Harakah al-Yaqin has been carrying out attacks in the Rakhine state. This is a small yet important economic area within Myanmar that has a large Muslim population located within a country that is mainly Buddhist.
According to a Stratfor report, the Rohingya have long been a marginalized group in Myanmar society. They are not granted full citizenship and are accused of not being Myanmar at all, but rather recent Bengali immigrants.
The group demands are more ethnic-based rather than being steeped in political Islam. They are asking for government recognition as citizens and equal rights, but with no mention of Sharia law which differentiates them from other Islamist insurgencies. The scope of what is an insurgency depends on what the goal of that group ends up being.
With insurgencies varying from movement to movement, it is important to determine what is an insurgency. A recent paper by Aaron Young & David Gray seeking to define the term looks at likely causes and examines possible solutions. They believe that an insurgency is bound to political constraints. They define what is an insurgency by the challenging of these political aspects:
They believe that terrorism is only an option utilized by insurgencies if they fail on achieving their political goals. Over the years, though, the inclusion of guerilla warfare and terrorist tactics have served the purpose of demoralizing their opposition which can sometimes equate to an accelerated victory of their political goals.
Gray reports that “through proper management of social services and welfare programs, the needs of insurgent masses can be met. Only by the willingness of cooperation by the state and insurgent forces can a unified agreement be reached, considering that is a goal of the organization.”
Economic factors are important to squash an insurgency according to Mr. Gray. His research has led him to believe that by including indigenous and minority groups into economic development instead of complete control by the ruling party can be key to defeating the underlying current of an insurgency. And that the only way an insurgency can continue is if economic conditions remain the same or worsen. He states “by increasing regional utilization and production of viable resources, unemployment reductions, giving the masses both a sense of control of their own destinies and increases in the distribution of wealth has the effect of reducing strife and discontent.”
The Myanmar government reportedly has very little interest in including the Rohingya population into future economic growth. There are politically motivated fears that any softening towards the Muslim population may lead to a change in power facilitated by an angry Buddhist majority electorate. Young & Gray would argue the exact opposite approach to ending the unrest currently occurring in Myanmar.
– Brian Faust
Photo: Flickr
Mexico’s Oportunidades Program
Although parents in Mexico generally are aware of the long-term benefits of education, they sometimes pull their children out of school and send them to work. This is indicative of the vicious intergenerational cycle of poverty that afflicts many Mexican families.
The goal of the Oportunidades Program — Mexico’s primary anti-poverty program — is to put an end to this cycle by improving the health and education of the children. It represents 46.5% of the country’s federal annual anti-poverty budget and has so far benefitted 6 million people since its beginning in 1997.
The program conditionally supplements the families’ incomes and provides monetary educational grants so that parents can afford to send their children to school. Families are chosen by socio-economic evaluation and payments are given to the female head of the family.
The chief components of the program are as follows:
Up to a third of the decrease in poverty in rural areas can be attributed to the Oportunidades Program, according to a 2014 world bank report. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) also evaluated the program’s effectiveness and found that after three years, children in rural areas have increased their school enrollment, have improved diets and have received better medical attention.
Recently the Oportunidades Program, now called Prospera, has spread to urban areas and extended high school education grants. The program has also been successfully replicated in 52 countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa.
Oportunidades’ resounding success proves that conditional cash transfer programs, even on a large scale, do in fact reduce poverty and prepare the country for long-term economic growth. This investment in human capital — primarily the children’s well-being and education — is an exemplary way to not only reduce poverty but eliminate it.
– Liliana Rehorn
Photo: Flickr
New World Bank Funding: Implications for U.S. Influence
One proposal in a recent Center for Global Development (CGD) report focuses on restructuring multilateral institutions to better suit developmental needs. A new World Bank funding structure presented at the organization’s most recent replenishment conference aligns with CGD directives.
As more nations climb out of extreme poverty, the capacity in which foreign aid is needed evolves.
Experts stated in the Multilateral Development Banking for This Century’s Development Challenges report that “almost all developing countries now rely primarily on domestic resources to manage public investment.” This evolution renders the foundation of World Bank funding, which has historically relied on capital market failure, incongruous with the reality of global development.
Another issue is that major donor countries have most heavily funded health and education initiatives in the recent past. CGD scholars suggest that countries such as the U.S. redirect foreign aid funds to the development of strategic partnerships with recipient nations.
Such redirection is predicated on a donor country’s willingness to overhaul foreign aid policy.
Perhaps more complicated is the fact that the U.S., once a World Bank powerhouse, is now waning in its contributions to the International Development Association (IDA). This indicates that heavy foreign aid revision in the World Bank’s favor is unlikely. Still, the nation continues to play a monumental role in deciding where IDA funds are spent.
According to Scott Morris and Madeleine Gleave of the CGD, the U.S. is often defensive in its appropriation of aid funds. This strategy has global implications. Policymakers in the U.S. have a history of swaying World Bank investment, avoiding nations like Zimbabwe and Iran for its own interests.
As Morris said in his recent report, “Historically, the United States (and often the U.S. Congress) has exerted its will on issues like these by using the threat of withholding its IDA contributions in any given year.” Three years ago, IDA pledges from donor nations accounted for two-thirds of all World Bank resources. Today, it is estimated that they make up less than half. Threats to withhold become obsolete as such pledges hold less weight.
For that reason, a new World Bank funding structure that deemphasizes public-sector donation in favor of affordable lending and private-sector investment is significant. This new methodology took center stage at the World Bank’s most recent replenishment conference.
Reinvigorated partnerships with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) are key. Such partnerships would allow the World Bank to leverage IDA funds more holistically. The goal is to lend money to more worthwhile causes in a way that’s free from donor country allegiances.
The next step is to incentivize private investors to contribute to infrastructure ventures, which focus on areas like climate and energy. CGD scholars suggest using MDB resources to decrease risk by bridging gaps between sovereigns and investors. Bridging those gaps could get subsidies and grants to developing nations in a system that does not force borrowers to bear full costs.
Many of these recommendations played into the replenishment, which resulted in some of the most dramatic financial reforms in World Bank history. By combining existing resources with donor funds and the capital debt market, the World Bank hopes to respond to developmental needs with greater agility.
One side effect of this new World Bank funding structure is, as Morris points out, a decrease in influence from countries like the U.S. and U.K. that have dictated spending in the past.
While greater multilateral investment from the world’s wealthiest countries would be ideal, this plan addresses the new reality of global development. The unprecedented move could be just what the developing world needs in a time of transition.
– Madeline Distasio
Photo: Flickr
Syrian Mental Health
During a 2015 study, the German Federal Chamber of Psychotherapists found that half of Syrian refugees had mental issues, while nearly three-quarters of those affected have witnessed violence and 50 percent have been subjected to violence themselves. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cites that the most common clinical disorders regarding Syrian mental health are “depression, prolonged grief disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder and various forms of anxiety disorders.”
A Chinese study found that children who experience the deprivation of parental care are at higher risk of intellectual and emotional struggles. Larger volumes of gray matter, which indicates “insufficient pruning and maturity of the brain,” appeared in children subjected to substantial parental absence.
Essential rights including education and access to health services are often absent among displaced refugees and children are more likely to be exposed to human trafficking. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Syrian refugees total 4.8 million and almost half of that number are children.
The International Medical Corps (IMC) found that Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDP) have extremely limited access to mental health facilities and 54 percent suffer from severe emotional disorders like depression and anxiety.
Refugee policies in Syria’s neighboring countries such as in Lebanon are also harmful to fostering Syrian mental health for refugees, such as the inability for the establishment of permanent refugee camps and forbiddance of Syrians to work in the country. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) found that 41% of Syrian youth in Lebanon have experienced suicidal compulsions.
However, during the Obama administration in the summer of 2016, Secretary Kerry announced a rise of an additional $439 million in humanitarian assistance for Syrians including increased access to mental health services. Emergency relief funding aims to support non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international organizations and United Nations operations, especially those addressed in the eight billion dollars U.N. appeal of 2016 for Syrian aid. Included in the funding is $130 million to the UNHCR to provide mental health support and child protection for IDPs and refugees, while an additional $36 million to Turkey also provides mental health support through the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
– Amber Bailey
Photo: Flickr
Eight Facts About the Mongol Empire and Mongol Conquests
While not known as a major player on the global political stage, once upon a time, Mongolia was the largest contiguous land empire in the world. The Mongols originated their empire in the steppes of central Asia when Genghis Khan unified the nomadic clans of Mongolia and led a years-long campaign of conquest in the 13th century. At its prime, the borders of Genghis’ empire stretched from Central Europe and Siberia to the eastern Chinese coast and Arabia. Here are eight facts about the Mongols, their culture and their conquests:
These are just a handful of fascinating facts about the Mongol Empire, but the story of the Mongol people didn’t end with the fall of the empire. Today, Mongolia is a fast-growing economic frontier full of sprawling steppes and desert, rich with minerals. They’ve since abandoned their military campaigns of conquest and transitioned to democracy and a market economy. Though Mongolia is not known as the most outspoken state today, one wonders when and how Genghis’ people will next stun the world.
– Mary Grace Costa
Photo: Flickr
10 Facts About the Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion was a civil war fought in China between the Taiping rebels and the Qing Dynasty, beginning in 1851 and lasting until 1864. It was the second-deadliest war in human history after World War II.
Top 10 Facts about the Taiping Rebellion
Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the Taiping forces, was an educated man who failed the civil service examinations, the tests required to enter government service. His failure led to emotional trauma and a bout of delirium in which he dreamt of being instructed on how to exterminate demonic spirits. Following his conversion to Christianity, he understood these dreams to be a vision from God declaring him to be a brother of Jesus Christ and proceeded to rail against the opium use prevalent during that time. These experiences became the basis for the Taiping Rebellion.
Conditions in the Chinese countryside opened the people to the idea of rebellion due to a lack of food, land and jobs. As Dr. Stephen R. Platt, a scholar of Chinese history writes, “[o]ut-of-work miners, poor farmers, criminal gangs and all manner of other malcontents folded into the larger army, which by 1853 numbered half a million recruits and conscripts.” The economically downtrodden peasants were further burdened by the loss of the First Opium War and the subsequent proliferation of opium dens throughout the land.
One of the causes of the shortage in food was the rapidly growing population, which had grown to 430 million by 1850, a 300 percent increase from the population in 1500.
Some of the primary plans of the Taiping Revolution were the establishment of collective ownership of property, gender equality and an eternal reward based on Christian doctrine. The foundations of the collectivist governing structure came from The Rites of Zhou, an ancient text which prescribed rules for equitable distribution of resources to each family.
The full name of the kingdom once it was established was Taiping Tianguo, or Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. Hong Xiuqiang learned Christian principles from an American missionary and the movement found a home at Thistle Mountain, where its worshippers gathered. The religion drew from Chinese Confucianism, ideas from ancient Chinese texts, and Christian beliefs to create a unique religion.
The Taiping leaders’ populist message enabled them to raise a massive army of over one million soldiers. This force went forth to conquer Nanjing, which became the kingdom’s capital, in addition to about a third of the entire territory of China.
The Qing government could attain the support of foreign governments, Great Britain and France, to fight the rebels. Such support allowed the Qing forces to outmatch their opponents using foreign weaponry and warships. One of the reasons for foreign governments’ backing of the Qing Dynasty was to continue the open trade policies secured with China following the First Opium War.
It is estimated that some 20 million people died during the war, around three million more deaths than during World War I, some 64 years later. The fighting was brutal, including “beheadings, flayings, rapes, suicides, disembowelments, mass killings, and acts of cannibalism,” according to Dwight Garner in a book review of Dr. Platt’s Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War. In many cases, the entire population of cities was massacred.
Nanjing would be the site of the fatal battle of the war. Here, Hong Xiuquan would die of disease, according to his son, or suicide, according to one of his generals. The city was then breached by the Qing forces and the remaining forces either fled or were executed, with the last of the generals executed in 1868.
The Taiping Rebellion drained the already weakened Qing Dynasty, which would collapse less than 50 years later. The causes of the Taiping Rebellion were symptomatic of larger problems existent within China, problems such as lack of strong, central control over a large territory and poor economic prospects for a massive population. The endemic hardship of a massive population in the countryside, which enabled the rise of Hong Xiuquan, would later enable the rise of Mao Zedong and the government that evolved into the China we know today. Today, with the continued outlawing of Falun Gong practice as an insurrectionist movement, the State would appear to have learned from history to avoid letting such a movement reach levels to rival the Taiping movement.
– Lucas Woodling
Photo: Flickr
Ten Facts About the Afghanistan War
Following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington D.C., President George W. Bush vowed to “win the war against terrorism.” This included the launch of a U.S.-led operative in Afghanistan, with the goal of toppling the terrorist groups Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Today, going into its 16th year, the war is the longest conflict the U.S. has ever been involved in and continues to inhibit the lives of thousands of civilians. Here are 10 facts about the ongoing Afghanistan War.
Stability in Afghanistan has made significant strides in the past several decades. The country’s GDP grew an average of 9.4% per year from 2003 to 2012. Life expectancy in the country has increased by nearly 20 years in the past decade. In 2002, less than a million children were enrolled in school, while now the number surpasses eight million. When the U.S. first invaded the country, only six percent of citizens had access to reliable electricity, while the number now reaches more than 28 percent.
Despite the country’s advances, basic amenities such as infrastructure and access to healthcare and education are still severely lacking. The length of the Afghanistan War and U.S. airstrikes, drone presence and ground troops have devastated the country’s ability to develop independently, and the Taliban continues to terrorize much of the country, causing thousands of Afghan refugees to continue to flee persecution.
– Peyton Jacobsen
Photo: Flickr
Ten Facts About Hunger in Chad
Hunger in Chad is a huge issue – so huge that in 2016, the country had the second-highest Global Hunger Index, after the Central African Republic. Relative to the strides the world has taken to lower GHI levels, the hunger in Chad is all too prevalent and must be addressed – here are some things you should know:
Hunger in Chad is one of the biggest problems today, especially in the effort of reaching the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 2: to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.” Though the malnutrition and poverty are dire, much is being done to help those in need and help lift the region out of its slump.
– Mayan Derhy
Photo: Flickr