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July 31, 2007

The Case for Limiting Development Aid

Filed under: Africa, Development, Economics, General, Theory — Joseph Luna @ 11:10 pm

Would development assistance be more effective if the UN recommended a maximum level of official development assistance rather than a minimum amount (0.7%)?

Many organizations and economists—most notably Jeffrey Sachs—have repeatedly chastised the developed world, in particular, the United States, for not contributing a large enough proportion of their GDP (in their eyes, 0.7%) to official development assistance. Lately, and this has become apparent in rhetoric ranging from the G8 to the Millennium Development Goals to youthful protesters, many have become obsessed with the fashionable idea of doubling aid to foster economic development.

I argue that the fault centers on the fact that there is too much monetary aid and that it is not being distributed according to “market” mechanisms. Why should an NGO streamline its operations if no one will hold it accountable, and it can always count on the EU or the UN to throw more money at some obscure facility or plan of action? Ironically, the development assistance “market” suffers from a curse not unlike the resource curse: with continuous monetary pledges, many NGOs (and developing governments, for that matter) are not constrained by perceived scarcity. Even if they have meager resources to begin with, agencies are still not accountable to donors, who care more about promises and public relations.

As economists like NYU’s William Easterly have argued, governments and aid agencies suffer from the principal-agent dilemma—governments can pledge all they want, but without an effective means to monitor the agents (NGOs), progress will not happen. Reducing the amount of aid can keep these NGOs accountable and force them to produce results to attract future aid. Both sides would certainly benefit. Donors would be better able to monitor agencies, and could provide financial assistance to agencies who have proven themselves well. Agencies, on the other hand, could better identify their ultimate, specific goals (as opposed to having broad goals like everyone else), and, should they prove efficient, receive funding in a more direct manner.

Streamlining operations is not the only major benefit of setting a maximum level of aid. Many argue that without a minimum amount of aid most development agencies would not have enough funding. But this assumes that only the public sector is capable of providing the necessary funding. Is it not possible that recent calls for increasing public-funded development assistance have crowded out private-funded development assistance? Why should private donors be discouraged from providing development assistance? For instance, religious organizations and private donors would have further incentive to provide aid if public development assistance were seen as scarce, and they could identify more specific programs that they identify with as opposed to relatively untargeted aid that often comes from governments.

However, the curtailing of development assistance should not become an excuse for Western complacency. In terms of foreign policy, international development, particularly in Africa, is of utmost importance to the West. Africa’s resources are both the key to and curse of development, and many factors, such as poor public health and governance, restrain potential growth. Reducing aid should be a way of producing results; as Easterly points out, governments and international organizations are often awarded for “setting goals” rather than actually meeting them. In the end, what matters is if the development agencies are helping the poor—rather than just themselves.

July 26, 2007

Iraq: What’s Next?

Filed under: Defense/Military, General, Middle East, Terrorism — Eric Lee @ 1:19 am

With General David Petraeus set to deliver a September update and Congress needing to reauthorize defense spending for fiscal year 2008, the Iraq debate will only get more complicated and intense.

There already exist half a dozen proposals in Congress to deal with Iraq. One plan toys with troop readiness requirements to limit the surge. Another mandates an end date for pull out, while some Democrats plan to unveil a new plan that sets a clear beginning date for redeployment but leaves it up to president to decide when to complete the withdrawal.

Americans, who supported the invasion of Iraq by large numbers, have now turned decisively against it. A majority of Americans now trust congressional Democrats more than Bush on the war, and even more stunning, the Washington Post reports that by 2 to 1, Americans say “Congress, rather than the president, should make the final decision about when to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.”

But lost in the details of which phased redeployment plan is better is what our long-term responsibility in Iraq should be. We need to redeploy our troops in a manner that assists, rather than fails to clarify, our long-term goals.

Even as leading Democratic candidates for president have pledged that they will end the war, many are less willing to mention that they intend to lead a “residual force” behind in Iraq. In other words, American troops will remain in Iraq even after redeployment is completed. These politicians argue that such a force is needed to train Iraqi troops, mediate severe fighting between Iraqi factions, and fight al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq.

But if those are the goals of the residual force, would a smaller number of troops be able to accomplish these goals? In fact, as noted in the Financial Times, would our continued efforts to train Iraqi forces actually worsen the situation since we’ll be arming Iraqi factions while they fail to achieve a political solution that can provide the stability? If the worst does happen in Iraq and civil war escalates, are we willing to commit the US troops necessary to prevent genocide? If not, why are some US politicians willing to commit troops to end genocide in Darfur?

The Republicans are worse on this issue. They continue to pledge they are “in it to win it,” yet the Bush administration has engaged in a risky strategy of trusting former enemies of ours to fight our other enemies. The surge may or may not stabilize the country, but even that will only be temporary. Permanent peace will require diplomacy and a political solution by the Iraqi themselves. The push to escalate the war also fails to see that redeployment can be a means to change the political calculus in Iraq and that even a set timeline can send a message the United States intends to end the mission on our terms and conditions.

The status quo isn’t working. Our military is stretched thin, and our country has lost focus on other foreign policy threats, such as the belligerence of Russia, the rise of China, and the regrouping of other al-Qaeda networks in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Our national leaders need to reassess realistically our strategic interests in Iraq and decide what our commitment to Iraq is.

Are we there to prevent regional instability? Or are we there to prevent genocide?

Are we there to end the civil war? Keep Iraq from being a safe haven for new al-Qaeda terrorists? Protect the Iraqi civilians?

Defeat only certain factions of Iraqis? Keep the Iranians at bay?

Each of these questions require a different strategy, different tactics, and different troop levels.

So let’s not forget the big picture here: spelling out what our commitment in Iraq is before we wrangle over the details. Five years after the invasion, the American people deserve an honest answer as to why we’re still there and how we intend to make the current situation better.

July 12, 2007

There’s Hope Yet for Renewable Energy

Filed under: Development, East Asia/Pacific, Environment, General, Latin America — Linda Li @ 10:19 pm

After the celebrated release of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” last year, climate change experts, business leaders, and government officials alike held high hopes for progress to be made in 2007. This global warming thing is real after all, and the world’s energy demand is accelerating, not abating it. Aside from Gore’s entertaining lesson on climate change, the International Energy Agency’s 2006 World Energy Outlook as well as Sir Nicholas Stern’s Review on the Economics of Climate Change, among other publications, expressed serious concerns over the security of energy supply and environmental deterioration. As fellow HIR editor Killian Clarke accurately predicted in his February post, the entire world is indeed taking this issue seriously now, putting environmental policies at the top of political agendas. So what have countries around the world accomplished thus far?

Formulating updated and effective policies has been an important first step. Australia recognized the need for privatization and reform in the electricity market years before the global attention on energy efficiency. The establishment of the National Electricity Market (NEM) in 1991 heralded a competitive market for the supply and purchase of electricity. Almost a decade after the implementation of NEM in 1998, benefits of the reform can be clearly seen in the lower prices, increased labor and operational efficiency in the entire industry, and a dramatic rise in private investment in renewable energy sources.

Brazil’s PROINFA program (Program to Foster Alternative Sources of Electric Power), implemented in 2003, called for the construction of 3,300 megawatts of capacity in renewable sources (wind, small hydropower, and biomass) by 2006. This policy was designed to provide incentives for private energy suppliers to invest in wind, small hydropower, and biomass technologies. While the goal for PROINFA 1 has yet to be realized—its deadline was extended to 2008—PROINFA 2 aims to ensure that the renewable energy sources mentioned above would supply 10 percent of Brazil’s annual consumption in 20 years.

Having recently overtaken the United States as the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases, China is pressured and pulled in multiple directions to fight pollution and environmental degradation while promoting development. Its Renewable Energy Law, issued within the government’s Eleventh Five-Year Plan in 2006, set an ambitious target to double the use of renewable energy sources to 16 percent of total consumption by 2020. In close cooperation with multilateral organizations and adhering closely to the Montreal Protocol and the Stockholm Convention, China is learning quickly from its partners about alternative technologies. The government’s bet on renewable sources, however, does not equate to a significant decrease on energy consumption. As the state invests billions of dollars (almost 20 percent of the global share) on renewables, energy efficiency is improving too slowly (i.e. energy consumption continues to rise) to meet the mid-term targets of the policy.

Developing countries all share the struggle to improve energy efficiency. For a country such as Brazil, which already has a solid foundation for the renewable energy industry, the struggle is one to initiate healthy competition among private businesses as Australia has done. For heavily coal-dependent countries such as China and India, sustainable development requires sufficient state funds to push industries away from cheap sources of energy and proactive state development of technological improvements. The financial and infrastructural assistance of international institutions and the developed world would obviously be welcome. Efficient and renewable energy consumption is, and will continue to grow as, the primary factor in the amelioration of global warming and environmental deterioration.

July 9, 2007

Seeking Freedom, Darfuris find Imprisonment

Filed under: Africa, Human Rights, Immigration, Middle East — Killian Clarke @ 2:56 am

Over the past three years, the genocidal conflict plaguing the Darfur region of Sudan, in which between 200,000 and 400,000 people have died, has motivated many of the world’s nations to reach out to the Darfur’s suffering people. Such help has often taken the form of direct assistance to the conflict’s refugees who have been offered new homes in places from N’Djamena, Chad to Portland, Maine.

And yet, some refugees are not so lucky as to be offered homes in foreign states, and are forced to take matters into their own hands, fleeing to whatever country they imagine would be most likely to welcome them. In the past two months approximately 500 of these fleeing refugees have attempted to start their lives anew in Israel, which, given the recent deterioration of conditions for Darfuris living in Egypt, has become a prime destination for those seeking to escape the genocide.

And yet their reception in Israel has been far from welcoming. Indeed, instead of being met with sympathy and assistance, as they expect, these refugees are quickly hunted down and sent to Maasiyahu Prison in central Israel, where some of them have been living for over a year and a half. Most have already survived harrowing journeys before they arrive in the country, suffering the loss of many family members, waiting for days at the Egyptian-Israeli border fearing that they might be shot by Egyptian police, then finally slithering under the fence only to be immediately captured by the waiting Israeli authorities. They are then brought to the Israeli prison where they have no right to appeal against detainment due to their official status under Israeli law as ‘enemy nationals.’

According to the enemy infiltrators law of 1957, under which the Sudanese refugees are being arrested, Israel can arrest and detain any members of an ‘enemy state’ indefinitely and without judicial review. Sudan, with which Israel has no official relations, has long been considered one of these ‘enemy states’ and the Israeli government has thus far refused to differentiate between the official Sudanese government (which is believed to be supporting the violent campaign against the people of Darfur) and the fleeing Sudanese refugees. And yet, it is interesting to note that, in 1949, the fledgling Israeli state insisted on a clause in the Geneva Conventions mandating that countries treat refugees from enemy countries differently from true enemy nationals, citing the experience of Jews fleeing the holocaust to Great Britain.

The hypocrisy of Israel’s current policy is admirably highlighted by these two pieces of legislation. Israel was founded by a group of people who had just suffered a devastating genocidal massacre and who fled to a new home in the hope of starting a fresh, better life. Now, sixty years later, another group of suffering individuals are seeking the same new life—but rather than being met with sympathy and understanding by a people who once underwent similar hardships, they are being thrown in prison to await deportation. Israeli citizens and human rights organizations have recognized the inhumanity of these policies and are pressuring the Israeli government to relent and begin granting the refugees at least temporary resident status. But so far, there has been no softening on the part of Olmert’s administration (which has announced that it will send all Sudanese refugees back to Egypt, from where most of them have just fled, and begin construction of a 132-mile fence along the border of Israel and Egypt). Let us hope that as internal opposition increases and the stream of refugees continues, the administration will realize the profound inhumanity and hypocrisy of such policies and will begin to welcome these suffering refugees into a new life in Israel.

July 5, 2007

Why the Red Mosque siege matters

Filed under: South Asia — Kiran Bhat @ 6:36 pm

Just as both western and domestic support for his absolute rule waned, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pulled off a political coup by sending his military into Islamabad’s Red Mosque to crack down on Taliban-linked militias. Mosque leader Maulana Abdul Aziz was arrested yesterday as he attempted to escape, following a raging shootout that left twelve dead. Aziz’s brother Ghazi Abdul Rashid, currently in control of the mosque, has offered to surrender to authorities.

The militants’ apparent capitulation marks a huge victory for Musharraf, who had been weakened by domestic tensions and a perception that he could not eradicate fundamentalists. The siege of the rebel mosque clearly burnishes Musharraf’s anti-terrorist credentials and once more sets him on solid footing in Washington. Less obvious but no less important is the positive impact of the raid on Musharraf’s image at home. While the siege was neither decisive nor timely – Musharraf had withheld the attack for weeks for fear of an Islamist backlash – it proved his authority to a skeptical public and genuinely helped many Islamabad residents. Prior to the raid, fighters following edicts from Aziz had become increasingly audacious in their moral policing of the capital’s streets, vandalizing music stores and kidnapping suspected violators of Islamic Law. Reports even indicated that the militia engaged in the torture and murder of some targets. Much of Islamabad must feel understandably vindicated by the siege, which liberated them from a group that had violently attempted to quash the relative freedom which prevails in one of Pakistan’s largest urban areas. And for this liberation, Musharraf can take credit.

What remains to be seen is whether Musharraf will use his newfound political capital to retain his grip on both the military and political structures in Pakistan. With (largely staged) elections approaching later this year, Musharraf has the option to either retain total control or to soothe an angry populace by giving up his control of the military while staying on as president. He has discussed the option publicly, but the decision remains to be made. After the Red Mosque siege, Musharraf will be tempted to stay on as top general. However, counterintuitive as it may be, it is actually in Musharraf’s best interest that he relinquish military command.

If Musharraf kept command, his subjects, accustomed to a free press and not afraid to protest, would grow increasingly tired of one-man absolute rule. As the street protests earlier in the year demonstrated, lack of domestic confidence in Musharraf leads to American discomfort and unwillingness to lend support. It also leads to increased chances of fundamentalist rule in Pakistan – an unpopular leader coupled with an overwhelmingly devout Muslim population was the formula for the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s. This outcome is unfavorable for both the battle-tested self-preserver and those that preserve him. Giving up military rule does dissolve Musharraf’s absolute power, but it also assuages his harshest critics and buys him and his allies time to plan how they will remain in control of his restless nation.

UPDATE: 7/7/07

The standoff has increased in intensity since Tuesday, as Musharraf has informed the Red Mosque militants that they must surrender or risk death. Meanwhile, cleric Ghazi Abdul Rashid has reversed course and declared that he and his followers will martyr themselves before surrendering. Unless the military succeeds in forcing out the remaining fighters by blocking supplies from entering the mosque, the conflict appears headed towards a violent end. According to the Washington Post, hundreds of women, children and noncombatants remain inside the Red Mosque, held against their will by dozens of radicals. How Musharraf handles the situation will go a long way towards determining whether the Pakistani people retain trust in his ability to command the military effectively – a bloody conclusion to this situation would likely erase the respect he had gained by sending the troops in.

July 2, 2007

Congratulations Hong Kong

Filed under: East Asia/Pacific — Kelly Diep @ 8:32 pm

Hong Kong just celebrated its tenth year of joining The People’s Republic of China. It was on June 30, 1997 that Prince Charles literally handed over the city to China’s president, Jiang Zemin with one simple handshake and smile. The lively 10-year anniversary was celebrated with singers, dancers, brilliant performances, and all of China’s prominent leaders. I was sitting quietly in my room when my father called me over to watch the celebration on television with him. It was quite a sight. Many magazines have published special reports on this ten-year anniversary. Many of them analyze how Hong Kong has changed for better and for worse. In fact Hong Kong’s political, legal, and economic arenas are all very multidimensional and have grown to be both unruly and promising.

Politically, China likes to believe that it has held up its promise by allowing Hong Kong to genuinely be a part of the “one country, two systems” concept. The current Chief Executive of Hong Kong is Donald Tsang who was elected by with a 70% approval rating over his competitor, Alan Leong. However, despite this popularity, Tsang was still only elected by an 800 member committee that guaranteed his victory. This is because China, as expected, continues to play a significant role in Hong Kong’s political arena. One of the biggest promises that Mr. Tsang made during his debates with Mr. Leong was that of universal suffrage in elections for both the Legislative Council (LegCo) and the Chief Executive. Since the Joint Declaration between China and Great Britain was in place, Hong Kong’s government leaders have promoted democracy to China’s dismay. Despite China’s disapproval, election results have consistently leaned more towards the “pro-democracy” rather than the “pro-Beijing” side. However, a full representative democracy in Hong Kong has been developing slowly. This is especially detrimental because as the Economist puts it, “A representative government in Hong Kong would be the best monitor and guarantor of continued autonomy.”

Hong Kong’s judicial system continues to preserve its autonomy through its continued practice of common law. The court system allows judges and lawyers to refer to past court case decisions used in other countries with the common law system. The Court of Final Appeal (CFA) is the final deciding power in court cases. It was set up to replace Brtiain’s Privy Council. The solicitor general, Ian Wingfield, is a Briton, who clearly represents Britain’s judicial system’s continued influence in Hong Kong. The only worry with the current judicial system is that the government, especially that in Beijing, will assert more control over the legal system, suppressing the autonomy that judges and lawyers used to have when Great Britain was in control of the colony.

Hong Kong’s economy perhaps is the field in which Hong Kong seems to have maintained the most autonomy. Hong Kong continues to be a capitalist society and in 2005, the World Bank estimated that Hong Kong was the world’s 10th most affluent country based on GDP calculations. The GDP per capita of Hong Kong exceeds that of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Moreover, Hong Kong has been the first place in China where Western corporations have sought great investment. For example, no one can doubt that Hong Kong Disneyland has drawn tourists from all over the world since its opening in 2005. However, according to the Gini coefficient, which measures inequality within a nation, has risen in Hong Kong since 1981. In addition, Hong Kong’s economy has become increasingly linked to that of China’s. Over the years, since 1997, Hong Kong’s economy has been rocky. There have been periods of decline and prosperity. At the same time, China has maintained a stable increase over the years and the world is beginning to see China as the next economic superpower.

Some of the most pressing questions about Hong Kong’s fate are surprisingly not completely about Hong Kong anymore. Many question whether Taiwan will see Hong Kong as a good experiment as an autonomous Chinese colony and follow in its footsteps. Right now, there is no indication that Taiwan is anywhere near joining the People’s Republic. Other questions revolve around whether Hong Kong can influence China’s government and economy to be more free. Whatever the answers to these questions are, it will be interesting to see if they can be answered in the next ten years.

July 1, 2007

Afghanistan: Suicide Bombings on the Rise

Filed under: Central Asia, Defense/Military, General, Middle East, Terrorism — Owen Barron @ 3:40 pm

The news from Afghanistan these days, for those who’ve noticed, tends to be largely concerned with reporting the latest suicide bombings. The BBC, for example, reports today that three British soldiers and three civilians have died in an attack in Helmand province—typical of the Taliban, who tend to target foreign militaries but whose bombings inevitably kill civilians as well. The news will hardly shock an American audience, accustomed as we are to the daily reports of suicide bombings in Iraq, which are even more frequent and deadly. But the fact that suicide bombings have become a part of daily life in Afghanistan is troubling—and it sheds a lot of light on the problems that the country now faces.

Some background, perhaps, is needed to explain the significance of this trend. Suicide, which is already regarded as an abomination within Islam, is especially condemned within Afghan culture. And indeed, while suicide bombing has been used in Israel for years, and rather immediately became a tactic in the Iraq insurgency, it remained strikingly absent from the Taliban’s arsenal throughout 2001 and 2002. Kabul’s Center for Conflict and Peace Studies reports that there was just one suicide bombing in 2002, and just two such attacks in 2003, six in 2004, and 21 in 2005. The situation, of course, is now entirely different. The CCPS noted as early as August 6, 2006 that there had already been more terrorist attacks in 2006 than in the entire previous history of the country. 2007 promises to be even worse, according to an Associated Press article which claims that suicide bombing has roughly tripled, with deaths estimated at 94 coalition troops and 279 civilians.

So why the astronomical increase in suicide bombings? A number of explanations prove useful here. First is the natural shift in Taliban tactics from large-scale rural warfare against coalition forces to more random acts of terrorism. The Taliban, faced with the military superiority of US, international and Afghan army forces, have transitioned from open resistance to the more guerrilla-style tactics favored by Iraqi insurgents. It seems only natural that they should embrace a method of resistance that promises an ideal proportion of insurgent to infidel casualties.

But the real explanation for the increase in suicide bombings is clearly Al Qaeda—both the terrorists still in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and, crucially, the growing Qaeda presence in Iraq. We’ve seen reports that major Taliban leaders have been training in Iraq, and that Afghans have been sent to Iraq for so-called “on-the-job” training. Al Qaeda’s sophisticated propaganda corps, who even have their own video production company, Al-Sahab, have been successfully in arguing for an Islamic legitimization of suicide, on the basis of “martyrdom.” The Taliban have even developed their own video production arm, mirroring Al Qaeda’s, which is especially interesting given that under their tyrannical rule, they banned all television as un-Islamic. Only one conclusion is possible: that the Taliban, forced to adapt by American pressure, have essentially merged with Al Qaeda in both ideology and tactics.

Is their strategy working? The US military reports that some 84% of the victims of Taliban attacks are civilians, and for a movement which seeks to win the “hearts and minds” of Afghans, this is a devastating statistic. Apparently the Taliban were initially quite concerned about civilian casualties, occasionally apologizing for attacks in which civilians died. But recent events, including a June 17 attack on a police headquarters that killed 35 Afghans, 22 of them policemen, indicate that this cautiousness may have fallen by the wayside. Considerable resistance also remains to the notion of using suicide attacks within Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai’s government has tried to capitalize on this, running ads that show a mullah refusing to say prayers at a suicide bomber’s funeral, and saying, “We are Muslims, and Islam does not allow anyone to shed either his own blood or that of his brothers.”

But the Al Qaeda merger is troubling nonetheless. Increased ISAF patrolling can do much to crack down on the lawlessness of the southern regions, where Talibs run amok, and border enforcement can limit weapons trafficking from Iran and Pakistan. But little can be done, militarily, to discourage angry young Afghans from strapping on bombs and blowing themselves up. Afghan clerics need to do more to emphasize the evil of these actions, and NATO forces can be more careful about civilian casualties, which would make it clear that international forces are fighting for the Afghans, not against them. There are no real answers to a terrorist insurgency, though. It will take the combined will of international governments, Afghan forces, and ordinary citizens to defeat what is clearly a growing menace to national stability.