Beware Climate Finance Charade Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Finance has increased, not reduced, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Meanwhile, funding for mitigation, and especially adaptation, is grossly inadequate, with little for climate losses and damages. Global Warming Accelerating Rich countries are mainly responsible for the fast-worsening global warming as developing nations suffer more of its adverse effects. Worse, they are much more financially constrained, e.g., due to the higher costs of and poorer access to credit. Before the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (CoP) in Copenhagen, rich countries promised to provide $100 billion yearly to developing nations until 2020 for climate finance, after which such assistance would…
Debt-Pushing as Financial Inclusion Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Ajay Banga was anointed World Bank president for promoting financial inclusion. Thanks to its success and interest rate hikes, more poor people are drowning in debt as consumer prices rise. Meritocratic leadership? Since the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank were set up by the United Nations Conference at Bretton Woods in 1944, the US president’s nominee has been automatically appointed Bank president. By convention then, the Bank president is a US citizen, while the IMF head is European. The official IMF historian noted US authorities believed “the Bank would have to be headed by a US citizen in order to…
Don’t count on PPP solutions Jomo Kwame Sundaram
In recent years, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have spread rapidly. While usually profitable for the private partners, PPPs have generally not served the longer-term public interest. PPPs as miracle all-purpose solution As Eurodad has shown, PPP financing has grown in recent years, particularly in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) funding discourses. Adopted by the UN in September 2015, the SDGs endorsed PPP financing. Earlier, the mid-2015 Third UN Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa had failed to ensure adequate financing. This was mainly due to rich nations opposing a UN-led international tax cooperation initiative. Instead, PPPs were strongly endorsed…
Dangerous Scramble for Renewable Energy Resources Jomo Kwame Sundaram
The growing and changing material requirements for new technologies have triggered natural resource scrambles for strategic minerals, generating dangerous rivalries fought out in the global South. Scrambles for resources Jayati Ghosh, Shouvik Chakraborty and Debamanyu Das have analyzed these new scrambles for mineral resources in developing countries triggered by major new innovations since the electronics boom. Natural resources here refer to naturally occurring solid, liquid or gaseous materials in or on the Earth’s crust. When extracted and exported commercially, they are considered primary commodities. All technologies – both peaceful and military – have specific material requirements. For example, energy transitions…
Enhancing Mining Revenue Jomo Kwame Sundaram
The commodity boom early this century was mainly driven by mineral prices. Yet, mining’s contribution to developing countries’ revenue has been modest, largely due to massive tax evasion and avoidance. Less mining royalties Decades of well-supervised mineral extraction prove resource extraction by accountable and effective states can accumulate more ‘resource rents’ to enhance sustainable development and social welfare. Well-regulated, progressive resource rent taxation can greatly enhance such extractive industries’ fiscal contribution to public wellbeing and national development. But mining royalty rates fell significantly at the end of the 20th century to a range up to 30 per cent. Mineral revenue rates must…
Chronicles of Debt Crises Foretold Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
The debt crises looming in developing countries are being exacerbated by changing debt composition. Declining net foreign exchange earnings have worsened their predicament. As concessional development finance declined, many governments turned to riskier forms of borrowing from international capital markets. Concerted interest rate hikes are supposed to stem inflation; however, given that prices have mainly risen due to supply chain disruptions caused by war, sanctions and pandemic, interest rate increases are likely to trigger more debt crises, much worse than before. Current discourses, for example about China's ‘debt trap’ diplomacy, distract from urgently needed international and national measures to avert…
Finally, a Real Chance for International Tax Cooperation Jomo Kwame Sundaram
After decades of resistance by rich nations, African governments successfully pushed for the United Nations to lead on international tax cooperation. All developing countries and fair-minded governments must rally behind this initiative. UN leadership The official UN Secretary-General’s Report (SGR) was mandated by a UN General Assembly resolution, unusually adopted by consensus in late 2022. All countries must now work to ensure progress on financing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate justice after major setbacks due to the pandemic, war and illegal sanctions. Rich countries had blocked an earlier tax cooperation initiative at the Addis Ababa Financing for Development (FfD) summit…
UN Financing Appeal Last Hope for SDGs and Climate? Jomo Kwame Sundaram
The United Nations Secretary-General’s Dialogue on Financing for Development on 20 September may well be the world’s last chance to save the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and curb global warming in time. The UN and International Finance Many features of the international financial system – including multilateral arrangements developed over many decades – have been overtaken by new developments, sometimes resulting in multidimensional crises. The month-long 1944 Bretton Woods gathering was convened as a UN conference to create conditions conducive to post-war recovery and post-colonial development. But the systemic concerns of John Maynard Keynes and others from developing countries were…
UN Must Reclaim Multilateral Governance from Pretenders Jomo Kwame Sundaram
International governance arrangements are in trouble. Condemned as ‘dysfunctional’ by some, multilateral agreements have been discarded or ignored by the powerful except when useful to protect their interests or provide legitimacy. Economic multilateralism under siege Undoubtedly, many multilateral arrangements have become less appropriate. At their heart is the United Nations (UN) system, conceived in the last year of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency and World War Two. The 1944 UN conference at Bretton Woods sought to build the foundations for the post-war economic order. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) would create conditions for lasting growth and stability, with the…
NAM 2.0+G77 vs G7+NATO+OECD+WEF Jomo Kwame Sandaram
Jomo K.S. warns US policies are driving the world to war and depression leaving developing countries with a strong vested interest to reconvene a new non-aligned movement and strengthen democratic institutions of global governance. Link to transcript: https://gpenewsdocs.com/nam-2-0g77-vs...