5 Somalis Convicted of Piracy in U.S.court
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Category Archives: Poverty
“Why 300 million more people are suddenly poor”–release of “Multidimensional Poverty Index” and Ethiopia
Why 300 million more people are suddenly poor, by Jina Moore at the Christian Science Monitor:
Kigali, Rwanda In November, 300 million more people around the world were suddenly poor – on paper, at least. The latest numbers on poverty from the United Nations, released Nov. 4, include a new measurement for poverty and reveal some surprises.
The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) raises the number of poor by 21 percent, to more than 1.7 billion. According to the MPI, sub-Saharan Africa is still home to the greatest proportion of the world’s poor, but more than half of the total number of poor lives in South Asia.
These numbers, and the new index that produced them, are part of the UN’s annual Human Development Index (HDI), a statistical touchstone. It covers everything from the number of women who die in childbirth to how many people have Internet access and can sway decisions on US policy, influence where nonprofits spend money, and help determine where donors give.
For years, the HDI has set the standard for just how little a person has to live on to be considered poor. The answer? $1.25. But some researchers have long said income alone doesn’t define poverty.
“There are some things money can’t buy,” says Sabina Alkire, cocreator of the index and director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, which launched the index in collaboration with the UN. “It might not buy electricity; it might not buy a public health system, or an education system.”
Ms. Alkire’s index looks at poverty more experientially. It uses existing survey data and categorizes households as poor if they lack three or more of the 10 poverty indicators, which are spread across health, education, and basic standards of living. “For the first time ever, it measures poverty by looking at the disadvantages poor people experience at the same time,” she says.
Examining more than income changes the equation. It doubles the poor in Ethiopia, where 39 percent of people live on less than $1.25 a day. But 90 percent are “multidimensionally poor,” or lacking at least three of the 10 indicators.
. . . .
Some specialists have raised objections to the new index, including the director of research at the World Bank, which publishes its own income measure for poverty. Among the criticisms is that the measure is still a single standard, even if it looks at many factors.
“If my bosses were to ask for my recommendation on using the MPI as a factor in allocating USAID resources among countries or programs, I would recommend against doing so,” says Don Stillers, an economist for the US Agency for International Development, in an e-mail message. “Rather, I would emphasize the ongoing need to pay attention to evidence on each major dimension of poverty in each country we work in.”
. . . .
Indeed, Alkire of HDI admits her index isn’t perfect. She acknowledges that good data are hard to come by, and not all types of data that researchers want even exist. “These are messy numbers, and comparisons are fraught with danger,” she says. But she also thinks her approach gives existing information more context and helps correct misperceptions.
This seems to me to represent incremental progress in understanding actual living conditions at the type of “overview” level that inevitably influences political decisionmaking and overall public awareness. While the USAID economist is right about the need to look at specifics country-by-country, comparisons are necessary and inevitable. The Ethiopia example seems especially useful in evaluating the performance of the Meles regime which claims credit for a significant level of “growth” and seems to use that as political capital with donors to excuse or divert attention from political repression.
Speaking of Ethiopian governance, Meles has attacked the EU Election Observation Mission for its report issued this week on the May election, which he called “trash“. Thijs Berman, the Chief Observer, responded as reported by VOA:
“If we say 27 percent of the results in the cases we observed had changed between the polling station and the final aggregation, then this is something that warrants a serious investigation about what went wrong and is this something that can be corroborated by other investigations in the rest of the country,” Berman adds.
Tensions about the EU mission have been building, even before the election. The government had laid down strict rules for conduct of the observers, arguing that a previous EU mission observing the disputed 2005 election had violated its mandate. The government has also criticized the long delay between the May 23 election and the release of the final mission report.
But Berman tells VOA the report was ready months ago. He says the release was delayed and the report eventually released in Brussels after it became clear he would not be allowed to present it officially to Prime Minister Meles. “In more than 80 missions in more than 50 countries, it has never happened that the inviting government refuses the presentation of the final report before the first, who are entitled to get this information, namely the Ethiopian citizens. Which is bad for the long-term future of Ethiopia because real stability can only be brought about by improving the democracy in Ethiopia,” he said.
World Bank–current circumstance “calls for a new approach–Africa as an investment proposition . . .”
Apparently the World Bank has noticed the same shifting environment that private investors and the rest of us have and has released a draft of a revised Africa stategy this week at least in part to help position itself “in front of the parade”. Claire Provost has a good discussion at the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters blog: “What role does the World Bank have in Africa’s future?”
Millennium Challenge Corporation releases country scores for FY 2011 eligibility determinations
The MCC Board is to make decisions on eligibility of individual countries for Compact or Threshold status on December 15. The MCC uses 17 indicators in three categories to rate the performance of eligible countries against their peers as a key input in the selection process. Here are links to the scorecards for East Africa and the overall "Scorebook" with more information.
“The President’s New Development Policy”–It’s Anti-Socialist, so can Republicans Find Common Ground?
I’m overdue to write more about President Obama’s “new development policy”, following my participation in a “bloggers’ roundtable” on the subject at the Millennium Challenge Corporation.
There are lots of people with much more knowledge and experience writing well about this, including especially at the Center for Global Development on my blogroll. “Value added” from me here might be to emphasize that the President has embraced notions of aid effectiveness, prioritization and bi-lateral relationships, as well as focus on private sector growth as THE way to reduce poverty, as reflected in the operating model of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. In other words, Obama has taken an experimental innovation from the G.W. Bush administration and sought to apply this as a policy framework across the broader scope of foreign aid in general.
This leads us to an interesting insight from a piece in The Root last week, “How Barack Obama became a Republican”: Obama can best be understood as an old fashioned establishment Republican–a “Mastodon” if you will–with policies largely what one would have seen from a Gerald Ford confronted with similar circumstances. This is a more conservative era, and Obama’s new development approach is more narrowly market focused presumably than what you would expect from a Nixon or Ford, but I think in broad terms this observation makes sense. Granted that the President doesn’t LOOK that much like Gerald Ford, but policy-wise I do think this is a better template than the Dinesh D’Souza “Luo tribesman”.
Of course, many in the right within the GOP have always hated moderate or liberal Republicans with a special passion–and post-midterms many in the “Tea Party” are itching to carry on the fight after eclipsing dealmaking “Reagan Republicans” like Trent Lott and other more center-right figures. I am not sure why we should assume that these are not people who are fully serious about “ending not mending” foreign assistance.
The conventional discourse has been about how, not whether to address poverty. Perhaps this is now a question that is no longer a given. At some level, poverty is just an extreme case of inequality. Perhaps we now embrace inequality as reflected in Nicholas Kristof’s latest: “Our Banana Republic”. Are there “Reagan Republicans” left who will deal with the Democrats and Obama for a more “conservative” or “right looking” foreign assistance program, or will they be cowed by the fear of primary challenges to come?
New IMF Survey Predicts 5%+ Average Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa
IMF Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa
The IMF identifies the biggest risk to a return to record pre-financial crisis growth levels in the region as an overall global slowdown, and also notes risk to the pace of policy reforms from the large number of elections scheduled for 2011.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s trading patterns have shown some dramatic shifts during the last few years toward China and other parts of developing Asia, the report said. These shifts were so marked that, by 2009, China’s share in the sub-Saharan Africa’s total exports and imports exceeded that between China and most other regions in the world.
Exports of goods and services make relatively small contributions to aggregate demand in most sub-Saharan African countries. Europe and other advanced countries remain the region’s dominant trading partners. However, in a minority of countries— including the major natural resource exporters— the impact of developing Asia on global export demand and commodity prices is expected to be significant in both the short and long term.Overall, trade with Asia is therefore likely to be an increasingly important factor in maintaining growth for the region on its current trajectory. But the key drivers of African growth are likely to remain: political stability; the business climate, including the prudent exploitation of natural resources; and the quality of economic management.
Millennium Challenge Corporation roundtable
The Millennium Challenge Corporation was kind enough to include me this morning in a roundtable discussion on the President’s new global development policy with around a dozen bloggers and Sheila Herrling, Vice President of Policy and Evaluation and Charles Cooper, Vice President of Congressional and Public Affairs.
It was fun for me as someone outside of Washington blogging as a matter of personal interest in the issues I write about to have a place at this table and I certainly learned a good bit about what the administration is getting at with their approach, as well as getting some insight into what some of the “thought leaders” and groups are interested in. Hopefully I contributed to the overall dialogue.
Well worth a vacation morning in Washington. I’ll hope to follow up with some of the other participants and read up a bit and have more on this event over the weekend, but in the meantime, I wanted to make sure to post a public thanks to everyone at MCC who made this available.
Kenyatta reports frustration with US on aid, but new reports show more corruption problems
From an AP report today, in the Boston Globe:
Kenya’s deputy prime minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, said he also would like to see more cooperation from the United States on stabilizing Somalia and fighting piracy off the Horn of Africa.
Kenyatta said U.S. officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, had said that Kenya could expect more aid through an agreement with the Millennium Challenge Corp. after it pushed through a new constitution.
The constitution was signed in August, but Kenyatta says U.S. development agencies are insisting on evidence of progress in taming corruption.
Kenyatta asked, in his words, “Why do they keep changing the goal posts?”
At the same time, however, the Daily Nation ran a story headlined “Revealed: Fraud and waste of tax billions”:
The government lost billions of shillings from the tax kitty during the 2008/2009, according to the latest Controller and Auditor-General’s report.
Discipline was so poor that ministries spent fortunes and then pushed the bills to the following financial year in the so-called pending bills.
But the biggest scandal is in imprests where government officials are given money for travel, accommodation and other official expenses, which they fail to account for. In the period under review, public officials failed to provide proof of how they spent Sh3.4 billion in imprests.
Paid to fake IDPs
In some cases, the officers could not explain how they spent public money. Some of it was paid to fake internally displaced persons (IDPs) in apparent widespread fraud.
A total of Sh7 billion was poured into funny imprests or nobody can explain how the money was spent.
So prevalent is the imprest abuse and fraud that some of the civil servants have left the service holding the money, meaning that it will never be recovered. The auditor questions why officials were allowed to pile up unaccounted for imprests, even though there were rules on accounting for such funds.
I attended a discussion at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) back in the summer of 2009 with key Kenyan parliamentary leaders–this was the key theme then when I asked a panel what message they would have to Americans interested in being helpful to Kenya: more aid dollars, through the Millennium Challenge Corporation particularly. It seems to me that good governance and limiting corruption have always been understood to be key MCC criteria. Kenya has a lot going for it–a lot of advantages over other poor countries–so why the special pleading? As long as new scandals continue to accrue while the old ones fester unaddressed, it does not seem to me that Kenyan politicians are entitled to be frustrated with the US for not ramping up government-to-government aid expenditures.
Puntland and Piracy
The VOA reports on risks from U.S. engagement in Puntland:
The United States says it is planning to boost ties with Somalia’s two autonomous regions – Somaliland and Puntland – in an effort to restore stability in the south and to curb the spread of Islamic extremism. Some analysts say the move, however, may end up increasing violence and instability in Puntland.
In late July, Puntland government forces began fighting with militants loyal to an Islamist factional leader based in the remote and mountainous Sanaag and western Bari regions of northern Somalia.
Puntland President Abdirahman Mohamed Farole said the assault was a counter-terrorism operation, targeting the terrorist leader of the Puntland cell of al-Qaida, Mohamed Siad Atom. The Puntland government has linked Atom to numerous kidnappings, bombings, and assassinations in the region since 2008.
. . . .But the leaders of the Warsangeli, a sub-clan of the larger Somali Darod tribe, say the conflict in the north is not about entirely about terrorism. They say it also is about long-held political and economic grievances the Warsangeli have had against the Puntland government since the region declared autonomy in 1998.
. . .The leadership of the Puntland government is dominated by members of the Majeerten sub-clan of the Darod, and there has long been a simmering power struggle between the two sub-clans for control of Puntland’s lucrative commercial hub, Bosasso.
In the meantime, Jeffrey Gettleman writes that “The Pirates Are Winning!” in the New York Review of Books”:
There’s very little hope, in the near future, of the transitional government in Mogadishu becoming strong enough to wipe out the pirates’ bases. The government is simply trying to stay alive. The hard-line Islamist insurgents who control much of Somalia have flirted with dismantling the piracy business, but the money is too good. One group, Hizbul Islam, recently moved into Xarardheere and now gets $40,000 from each ransom. The more powerful insurgent group al-Shabab made a deal with the pirates in which they will not interfere with the pirates’ business in exchange for 5 percent of the ransoms. This seems to be the beginning of the West’s worst Somali nightmare. The country’s two top exports—piracy and Islamist radicalism—are at last joining hands.
Yesterday, however, the BBC reported that a Puntland court in Bossaso had sentenced a pirate leader to death for murder of a ship captain following a raid by Puntland soldiers.
Obama’s “US Global Development Policy”–what part of this is 60s “anti-colonial” radicalism?
Obama’s speech to UN Development Summit, announcing “US Global Development Policy” (from NBC; h/t Aid Watch)
So let’s put to rest the old myth that development is mere charity that does not serve our interests. And let’s reject the cynicism that says certain countries are condemned to perpetual poverty. For the past half century has witnessed more gains in human development than at any time in history. A disease that had ravaged the generations, smallpox, was eradicated. Health care has reached the far corners of the world, saving the lives of millions. From Latin America to Africa to Asia, developing nations have transformed into leaders in the global economy.
. . . .
As President, I have made it clear that the United States will do our part. My national security strategy recognizes development as not only a moral imperative, but a strategic and economic imperative. Secretary of State Clinton is leading a review to strengthen and better coordinate our diplomacy and development efforts. We’ve reengaged with multilateral development institutions. And we’re rebuilding the United States Agency for International Development as the world’s premier development agency. In short, we’re making sure that the United States will be a global leader in international development in the 21st century.
. . . .We also recognize that the old ways will not suffice. That is why in Ghana last year I called for a new approach to development that unleashes transformational change and allows more people to take control of their own destiny. After all, no country wants to be dependent on another. No proud leader in this room wants to ask for aid. And no family wants to be beholden to the assistance of others.
To pursue this vision, my administration conducted a comprehensive review of America’s development programs. We listened to leaders in government, NGOs and civil society, the private sector and philanthropy, Congress and our many international partners.Today, I am announcing our new U.S. Global Development Policy-the first of its kind by an American administration. It’s rooted in America’s enduring commitment to the dignity and potential of every human being. And it outlines our new approach and the new thinking that will guide our overall development efforts, including the plan that I promised last year and that my administration has delivered to pursue the Millennium Development Goals.
Put simply, the United States is changing the way we do business.
. . . .
First, we’re changing how we define development. For too long, we’ve measured our efforts by the dollars we spent and the food and medicines we delivered. But aid alone is not development. Development is helping nations to actually develop-moving from poverty to prosperity. And we need more than just aid to unleash that change. We need to harness all the tools at our disposal-from our diplomacy to our trade and investment policies.
Second, we’re changing how we view the ultimate goal of development. Our focus on assistance has saved lives in the short term, but it hasn’t always improved those societies over the long term. Consider the millions of people who have relied on food assistance for decades. That’s not development, that’s dependence, and it’s a cycle we need to break. Instead of just managing poverty, we have to offer nations and peoples a path out of poverty.