Tag Archives: food prices

Latest Developments, August 2

Posted on by
Reply

In the latest news and analysis…

USA for Africa
In a speech delivered in the Senegalese capital Dakar, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to portray her country as force for good in Africa, even if “in the past our policies did not always line up with our principles”:

“We’re also working with resource-rich nations to help make sure that their mineral and energy wealth actually improves the lives of their citizens. The days of having outsiders come and extract the wealth of Africa for themselves leaving nothing or very little behind should be over in the 21st century.
…
We want to advance your aspirations and our shared values. We want to help more people in more places live up to their own God-given potentials. We want this to be our mutual mission. That is the work we are called to do in the 21st century.”

Top-down agenda
The Guardian reports that not everyone is happy with the makeup of the UN panel tasked with preparing a “bold yet practical” global development agenda beyond 2015:

“John Hilary from War on Want, the anti-poverty group, criticised the panel for being unrepresentative. ‘Ban Ki-moon has put together a panel of career diplomats, business leaders, politicians and professors,’ said Hilary, who strongly criticized the appointment of Cameron as co-chair. ‘Why is there no one at all from social movements, trade unions or people who are actually engaged in the struggle against poverty? Was there genuinely no room for a single representative from civil society? This is like having a panel to take forward women’s empowerment composed entirely of men.’ ”

Oil shutdown
Al Jazeera reports that a Brazilian court has given oil giant Chevron and drilling company Transocean 30 days to suspend their operations in the country:

“The court said in a statement posted on Wednesday on its website that each company will be fined 500 million reals, or about $244m, for each day they fail to comply with the suspension.
…
‘Two environmental accidents in the space of just four months and the lack of equipment needed to identify the origin of the leaks and contain them, shows that the two companies do not have the conditions necessary to operate the wells in an environmentally safe manner,’ Judge Ricardo Perlingeiro said in his ruling.”

FTT baby steps
The Nicolas Hulot Foundation’s Nicolas Hulot and Oxfam’s Luc Lamprière call for the right kind of precedent to be set by France’s new financial transaction tax which, they say, offers a mere hint of what a “real tax on transactions” could look like:

“If an extreme weather event causes, on average, 23 deaths in a rich country, that number is 1,052 in less developed countries. Even in the face of nature’s fury, the injustice of poverty divides humanity.
If the goal of containing our deficits is laudable, necessary even, we must not create a choice between two debts: the one owed to financial players who are now betting on the euro’s failure, and the one we have been accumulating for centuries in the countries of the South by pillaging their resources, ignoring the pandemics they face and provoking climate change that hits the poorest hardest.” [Translated from the French.]

Crop Shock
The World Development Movement’s Amy Horton presents the latest surge in cereal prices as evidence that the global food system needs urgent reform to reduce the damage caused by biofuels and financial speculation:

“The researchers [at the New England Complex Systems Institute] point out that efforts to reform the markets have been too slow, with US regulators facing a legal challenge from Wall Street and European regulation also delayed. Consequently, measures that might have limited the effect of speculators have not yet been implemented.
…
But power to deliver many of the necessary reforms – not least reform of the global trade system – lies with developed nations. Without a radical change of approach to our food system, including regulation to prevent financial speculators gambling on food prices, the world’s poorest people will continue to pay the highest price.”

Reconstruction business
CNNMoney reports that bakery-café chain Cinnabon has become the first US franchise in Libya, as American business interests expand in the rebuilding country:

“American business interest in Libya is growing, said Chuck Dittrich, executive director of the U.S.-Libya Business Association, a trade group representing American companies that are interested in doing business in Libya.
In April, the trade group led a delegation of 20 American companies to Libya to discuss business opportunities.
Much of the interest is coming from the energy, infrastructure and health care industries, Dittrich said. But American franchises are also taking note of Libya.”

Blocking Braille
The Guardian reports that the US and EU are blocking a treaty that would give blind people access to more books translated into Braille:

“Europe and the US are home to some of the world’s biggest publishing companies, many of which don’t like the idea of an international treaty that would restrict their intellectual property rights. Observers speculate that the Obama administration may be loth to upset the publishing industry, a major campaign supporter, this late in an election year. ‘What we can see in the [negotiating] room is that primarily it’s the business interests that dominate,’ said [Electronic Information for Libraries’ Teresa] Hackett.
Activists are hoping for a legally binding treaty, but US and European delegates have been pushing for a softer ‘instrument’ that would offer only guidelines and recommendations.”

Water rights
Inter Press Service reports that two years on from the UN General Assembly’s recognition of the human right to water, a coalition of NGOs is saying much work remains to be done if the resolution is to become a reality:

“The resolution in the General Assembly proved politically divisive, with 122 countries voting for it and 41 abstaining, but with no negative votes.
The United States abstained and so did some of the European and industrialised countries, including Britain, Australia, Austria, Canada, Greece, Sweden, Japan, Israel, South Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Ireland.
…
In its letter, the NGO coalition said the recently concluded Rio+20 summit on sustainable development affirmed ‘full and unquestioned consensus among UN Member States regarding the human right to water and sanitation’.”

Latest Developments, May 2

Posted on by
Reply

In the latest news and analysis…

May Day
The Christian Science Monitor offers an overview of May Day demonstrations around the world.
“In Argentina, small explosion went off outside the EU headquarters in Buenos Aires before dawn, breaking a few windows, but there were no injuries and no one was arrested.
Earlier, thousands of workers protested in the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan and other Asian nations, demanding wage hikes. They said their take-home pay could not keep up with rising food, energy and housing prices and school fees.
An unemployed father of six set himself on fire in southern Pakistan in an apparent attempt to kill himself because he was mired in poverty, according to police officer Nek Mohammed.”

Food price fear
The Financial Times reports that “industry experts” are predicting food prices will continue to rise over the next two years, though “the surge is unlikely to mirror” the 2007-08 crisis that saw rioting in cities around the world.
“The cost of wheat and rice, the two most important agricultural commodities for global food security because of their status as a staple for billions of people in southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, remains stable thanks in large part to bumper crops over the past few years.
…
Instead, the main concern centres on the price of oilseeds, such as soyabeans, rapeseed and canola, and corn.”

Short-lived peace
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism provides a roundup of US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia during April.
“CIA drone strikes were on hold for most of the month in Pakistan, as Islamabad continued to insist that the US end the strikes after eight years of bombing.
…
On April 29 the pause ended when a drone attacked a former school in Miranshah, North Waziristan. Up to six alleged ‘foreign’ militants reportedly died. Pakistan condemned the attack in particularly strong terms, describing it as ‘in total contravention of international law and established norms of interstate relations.’ ”

Unmanned outlaws
Amnesty International’s Tom Parker contests the Obama administration’s claims that drones kill 40 militants for every civilian casualty and that their use is legal.
“In short, we know that [White House counterterrorism adviser John] Brennan’s 40-to-1 metric was, at best, wrong and, at worst, a deliberate falsehood.
We know that drones do kill militants but they also kill innocent civilians.
We know that they kill both of them outside the framework of any recognized international law.
We also know that yesterday’s speech, which masqueraded as an exercise in transparency, was in fact anything but.”

Wal-Mart vote
The New York Times reports that New York City’s pension funds have announced their intention to vote against five Wal-Mart directors seeking re-election at next month’s annual shareholder meeting, due to an alleged bribery cover-up in Mexico.
“ ‘In its relentless drive for profit and expansion, Wal-Mart has paid millions to settle charges that it violated child labor laws and exploited immigrants,’ [New York City comptroller John C. Liu] said Monday, in announcing the decision to vote against the company’s directors. ‘Now we learn that not only did Wal-Mart allegedly bribe its way through Mexico, but may have tried to cover up the corruption. A select few Wal-Mart executives may benefit in the short term, but the company, its share owners and everyone else lose in the long run.’ ”

Geography of domination
Columbia University’s Hamid Dabashi pleads for the US and its allies to step back and give former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan a chance to find a diplomatic resolution to the violence in Syria.
“[Annan] is the only one in a position to give the ruling regime (not just Bashar al-Assad) a way out of this bloody cul de sac. Unconditional surrender should never be the ruling paradigms in these or any other conflict resolution – not because Gaddafi then or Assad now deserves a face-saving strategy, but because Libyan and Syrian people need it for their future.
What ultimately prevents that possibility is not just the quagmire of violence in Syria. It is the imaginative geography of world politics that has historically written Asia, Africa, and Latin America out of the vital decisions affecting the globe. The US and EU have assumed disproportionate power of decision-making in global affairs and the UN is simply a diplomatic extension of their warmongerings. It is that grotesque geography of imperial domination that must be once and for all dismantled for the world determined to liberate itself, to begin to see itself.”

Agrarian crisis
The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology’s Vandana Shiva argues the orthodox understanding of the economic concept of productivity lies at the root of today’s agricultural, ecological and unemployment crises.
“An artificial ‘production boundary’ was created to measure Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The production boundary defined work and production for sustenance as non-production and non-work – ‘if you produce what you consume, then you don’t produce’. In one fell swoop, nature’s work in providing goods and services disappeared. The production and work of sustenance economies disappeared, the work of hundreds of millions of women disappeared.
…
The false measure of productivity selects one output from diverse outputs – the single commodity to be produced for the market, and one input from diverse inputs – labour.”

Change of diet
In a Q&A with Inter Press Service, Worldwatch Institute’s Danielle Nierenberg calls for “a restructuring of the entire food system.”
“Factory farming or concentrated operations, this agricultural system really started here in the U.S. and in Europe, (and) is now spreading to the Philippines, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia. The environmental, public health and animal welfare impact of this is really extreme. You have huge amounts of waste that can’t be utilised by farmlands, surface fertiliser is becoming toxic waste, there’s tropical water pollution, surface water pollution.
…
We really need to make sure that agriculture is something that sustains and not just some extractive industry.”

Insouciance of war
Author Daniel Richler laments the extent to which people living in a “nation at war” can be almost totally unaffected by the horrors playing out on distant battlefields.
“Is it arrogant to feel this way? To want, in one of these moments, the hockey crowd with their plastic mugs of beer and their popcorn standing for the troops, the families in attendance along the ‘Highway of Heroes’ or others at a policeman’s funeral not to stand, in silence, hands over their hearts in postures received from the movies, to wail inconsolably and furiously – and to riot, damn it, for lost lives rather than a sports result? That would bust the cliché – once, at least, before that scene, too, of thousands outraged at war’s stupidity became a standard part of the war story’s tired repertoire and was repeated, again.”

Latest Developments, January 17

Posted on by
Reply

In the latest news and analysis…

Resource nationalism
British consulting group Maplecroft has added “resource nationalism” in some of the world’s poorest countries to the latest edition of its annual Political Risk Atlas, which identifies potential problems around the globe for businesses and investors.
“Potential actions by governments can include nationalising an entire industry. For example, in August 2011, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez announced his intention to nationalise the country’s gold industry. Likewise in Guinea in 2010, the state sought a renegotiation of contracts, saying it would become a minority shareholder in all mining contracts. Comparable events have occurred in 2011 in other parts of South America and Africa and are likely to be repeated, especially if a global economic slowdown begins to cut into government tax revenues.”

Fueling hunger
The Center for Global Development’s Kimberly Ann Elliott welcomes the end of billions in US subsidies for biofuels but laments the fact that “advanced biofuels that are not food-based are still not available.”
“For developing countries, that means that corn-based ethanol will remain the major biofuel in the United States, diverting a third or more of the corn crop and keeping upward pressure on food prices. The elimination of the blenders’ credit will do little to change that because, while the subsidy bolstered producer profitability when corn prices spiked in 2008 and again last year, it was not a major factor driving demand for ethanol. The congressional mandate requiring that biofuels be blended into gasoline put a floor under the market, which encouraged investment.  Thus, actual production has exceeded the mandated level in every year because oil prices have been high enough to make ethanol competitive.”

Sins of emission
Mongabay reports on an Atlanta-based company that emits more greenhouse gases than Finland and owns the top three facilities on the US Environmental Protection Agency’s list of the top 100 sources of emissions in the country.
“For its part, Southern Company told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that their emissions are ‘indicative’ of their power plants ‘being among the nation’s largest generators of electricity,’ adding that, ‘Southern Company complies with all environmental regulations and supports transparency in emissions reporting. The company is a leader in environmental research, development and implementation.’ Southern company serves around 4 million people. In 2014 the corporation is opening a new coal plant in Mississippi that will reportedly capture 60 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions.
According to its records Southern Company spent over $8 million in lobbying the U.S. government last year. A profile of the company on OpenSecrets.org, run by nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, reads ‘Southern has been one of the biggest proponents for electricity deregulation” and “gives most of its money to Republicans.’ ”

Re-assigning blame
The New School for Social Research’s Tarak Barkawi is perplexed by the use of the word “inhuman” to describe a video apparently showing US marines urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
“For senior US officials to help purvey accusations of the worst kind against the US military – as inhuman – makes little sense. While offering assurances that they will clean house, they should strongly distance themselves from the notion that this is a peculiarly US issue. Iraqis, Afghans, Americans and others have been mutilating each others’ corpses for some years now.
Such officials ought to remember also that these are the kinds of things that happen in the wars they are themselves directing. As the Japanese officer quoted above remarked, “it is the war that forces us to do the killing”.
For the rest of us in the liberal-minded citizenry, we would do well to recall that wars are initiated and sustained by leaders and governments, and by the powerful interests and passions that back them.
To vent frustration for this situation by easy condemnation of some young enlisted marines is a bit like pissing on corpses.”

Corporate charity
The Overseas Development Institute’s Jonathan Glennie asks if “big company charity” is really better for the poor than “transforming core business practices” would be.
“In Western Union’s case, the big issue is transaction charges. There is a strong case that simply giving money to the poor (especially women) is the best way to help them out of poverty. So, without doubting the good work being done by Western Union, is spending through a foundation more effective than simply reducing the transaction charge and letting poor people purchase the things they know they need, such as better food, drugs or schooling?
…
Fundamentally, we should be wary of applauding corporates for charitable giving which, generally speaking, is concerned as much with PR as development outcomes, and is essentially funded by the taxpayer or consumer anyway.”

Demanding justice
Oxfam’s Farah Karimi argues “changing the division of power” in the world is necessary to ensure everyone has access to land, food, water and other essential but increasingly scarce resources.
“There is a third challenge, besides increased scarcity and shrinking political space: the current governance gap. The old governance system dominated by Western industrialized countries is in decay, while a new system that reflects the new global power relations isn’t yet functioning. Of course the G20 has emerged– but key issues such as poverty, justice and sustainable development don’t really feature on the G20’s agenda. The power and impact of globally operating companies is growing, enhancing the need for global governance. But the G20 doesn’t at all succeed in addressing vital global challenges or guaranteeing global goods.”

That which shall not be named
Intellectual Property Watch reports on a speech by World Health Organization head Margaret Chan, in which she praised the global body for its “consistent ability” to forge agreements on fair IP rules, though as the article goes on to say, the issue of counterfeit medicines has been particularly problematic.
“Chan did not directly mention the issue of counterfeit and substandard medical products by name, perhaps because of the difficulty in finding acceptable words by which to refer to it. The issue of “substandard/spurious/falsely-labelled/falsified/counterfeit medical products” – as it has been dubbed by member states in an effort to appease all sides – has been controversial at WHO in recent years. But members managed to agree in October on a new mechanism for addressing the issue.”

Latest Developments, October 21

Posted on by
Reply

In the latest news and analysis…

World Bank and human rights
The Guardian’s John Vidal reports on fears that the World Bank’s proposed Programme-for-Results lending could be disastrous for human rights and the environment in poor countries.
“According to the proposals, the new instrument would eliminate or greatly dilute 25 existing safeguards and policies. They include those that apply to forced resettlement, natural habitats, physical and cultural resources, indigenous peoples, forests, safety of dams, natural habitats, and environmental action plans. Most of these policies have taken years of pressure by NGOs to secure.
The bank, which lends more than $50bn a year, is one of the world’s largest providers of loans for mega-projects, many of which are particularly damaging to local people, the environment and the climate. If countries wanting to build giant dams, roads, power and water projects are to be largely freed from acting in a socially responsible way, the NGOs fear bank lending could lead to more forced evictions and human rights abuses.”

Deregulation fever
The Tax Justice Network slams the World Bank’s new Doing Business report for assuming that deregulating the business environment is inherently good and accuses it of being unduly influenced by corporate lobbyists.
“This has meant that countries that don’t provide effective worker protection are deemed ‘business-friendly’, while those that try to protect their environment are deemed ‘unfriendly’.
Among the indicators used in the guide is a Paying Taxes Indicator (PTI), and – you guessed it – countries are ranked according to their corporate tax rates. In Bankspeak taxing business is ‘unfriendly’.”

Beyond GDP
The Broker magazine’s Steffie Verstappen summarizes an online discussion in which the contributors agreed that growth and per capita GDP are inadequate indicators of human wellbeing.
“What we need, suggests [executive director of WOTRO Science for Development in The Hague, Henk] Molenaar, is ‘a single, powerful concept to rival growth’ as the driving force behind development. Needless to say, this is not an easy task. Nonetheless, the concept is likely to be found in the social nature of human beings and not in the logic of accumulation and competition. If we want to make a difference, we should start looking at and measuring development as a social phenomenon that is ‘nested in relations rather than individuals’, Molenaar contends.”

Food trade
The International Food Policy Research Institute’s Sara Gustafson welcomes new limits on commodity trading in the US as “a step toward reducing food price volatility and thus food insecurity.”
“Specifically, the new rules limit the number of commodity contracts that any investor can hold in agriculture, energy, or metals contracts. The trade limits, originally mandated in the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act which was passed in July 2010, stemmed from worldwide concerns that commodity index and other funds contributed to the 2008 surge in food and fuel prices, and could again be contributing to recent price spikes. The new rules are intended to prevent commodities markets from becoming too concentrated, which can lead to speculation and market manipulation. Under the new limits, a single trader would be allowed to hold spot month positions equal to 25% of the estimated physical deliverable supply of a given commodity.”

Libyan bonanza
The Press Association reports UK Defence Secretary Philip Hammond is pushing British companies to compete for Libyan reconstruction contracts amid expectations the former rebels will be looking to reward the countries that helped them come to power.
“With the military campaign all but over after the death of Muammar Gaddafi and the defeat of what appears to have been the last pockets of resistance, Mr Hammond said sales directors should be ‘packing their suitcases’ for Libya.”

War and peace
The University of Cambridge’s Tarak Barkawi argues it is far too simplistic to think the death of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s death will mean the end of that country’s conflict, in part because NATO’s military support meant the erstwhile rebels never had to cooperate  amongst themselves in a way that might have fostered lasting cohesion.
“Diplomats and the UN make tidy distinctions between ‘conflict’ and ‘post-conflict’, upon which their policies are based.
Yet fighting, out in the open or in the shadows, has often preceded and post-dated the official period of hostilities. More fundamentally, there is a continuum between peace and war.”

Out of Iraq
The Associated Press reports US President Barack Obama has announced all American troops will withdraw from Iraq by the end of the year, though several thousand private security contractors will remain.
“Denis McDonough, the White House’s deputy national security adviser, said that in addition to the standard Marine security detail, the U.S. will also have 4,000 to 5,000 contractors to provide security for U.S. diplomats, including at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and U.S. consulates in Basra and Erbil.
In recent months, Washington had been discussing with Iraqi leaders the possibility of several thousand American troops remaining to continue training Iraqi security forces.
Throughout the discussions, Iraqi leaders refused to give U.S. troops immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, and the Americans refused to stay without that guarantee.”

W abroad
The Canadian Centre for International Justice’s Matt Eisenbrandt and the Center for Constitutional Rights’ Katherine Gallagher explain why they believe the Canadian government should have arrested former US president George W. Bush during yesterday’s visit to a Vancouver suburb.
“Canada has ratified the Convention Against Torture and incorporated it into its domestic legislation. Under the global treaty, Canada has the obligation to prosecute a torture suspect present in Canada unless another country seeks the suspect’s extradition to stand trial elsewhere. This is not a matter of discretion. When Mr. Bush is present in Canada, he must be extradited or prosecuted.”

Latest Developments, October 11

Posted on by
Reply

In today’s latest news and analysis…

Playing footsie with tax havens
A new ActionAid report entitled Addicted to Tax Havens indicates that 98 of the UK’s FTSE 100 companies have subsidiaries (over 8,000 in all) based in tax havens.
“Corporate tax avoidance, which is one of the main reasons companies use tax havens, is having a massive impact on rich and poor countries alike. Developing countries currently lose three times more to tax havens than they receive in aid each year.”

SLAPP-happy mining companies
Candice Vallantin writes in the Walrus about a pair of lawsuits involving mining companies and the authors of a book critical of Canadian-owned overseas mining operations in order to highlight the issue of so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation (or SLAPPs) and their potential to make it impossible to criticize powerful entities.
“In December, the same week the Noir Canada lawyers filed their motion for the court to declare Barrick Gold’s case abusive, Pierre Noreau, a law professor at L’Université de Montréal, published an editorial in Le Devoir. Co-signed by more than two dozen law professors from around the country, it laid out the stakes. ‘Behind [this case] remains a fundamental question: Can we still be critical in our society? Should power (and money) always prevail over the right to know, or at least the right to question publicly?… The future of thought rests on this case.’”

Maintaining EU farm subsidies
The Guardian’s Mark Tran reports trade campaigners are unhappy with proposed reforms to the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP), arguing the changes would have little impact on the massive subsidies that make it virtually impossible for farmers in poor countries to compete.
“CAP reform comes against the background of the EU’s commitment to what it calls policy coherence for development, which seeks to ensure that all policies, not just development, promote growth in developing countries. The continuing high level of farm subsidies will make it hard for EU policymakers to square the circle.”

Grim food forecast
The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2011, a new UN report, foresees no let-up in high, volatile food prices, a scenario that could have wide, long-lasting economic consequences.
“Price volatility makes both smallholder farmers and poor consumers increasingly vulnerable to poverty while short-term price changes can have long-term impacts on development, the report found. Changes in income due to price swings that lead to decreased food consumption can reduce children’s intake of key nutrients during the first 1000 days of life from conception, leading to a permanent reduction of their future earning capacity and an increased likelihood of future poverty, with negative impacts on entire economies.”

Hooray for brain drain
The Center for Global Development’s Charles Kenny argues everybody benefits when skilled professionals migrate from poor to rich countries.
“Michael Clemens at the Center for Global Development finds no evidence that medical brain drain from developing countries leads to shortages of medical staff back home, probably because the opportunity to migrate is one of the things that attracts people to medical school in the first place. For years, nurses have left the Philippines in huge numbers to work abroad, but the country still has more nurses per person than Britain.”

Breakthrough or setback?
Intellectual Property Watch’s William New reports the Medicines Patent Pool has negotiated a new deal for an Indian generics producer to manufacture cheap antiretrovirals, but it remains unclear whether the MPP has addressed concerns expressed over its first agreement signed in July.
“Meanwhile, a newly launched petition against the MPP-Gilead agreement is being led by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, and is based on their assessment that the deal with Gilead represents a “setback” for people living with HIV, and that the process is not sufficiently transparent.
The petition…calls for a renegotiation of the voluntary licence agreement, and a moratorium on agreements by the Patent Pool with Indian generics producers until a model can be created. The petition followed a 2 October meeting between activists and the MPP, and has dozens of signatures of individuals and groups.”

Dissecting Millennium Villages
The Guardian’s Madeleine Bunting puts Columbia University economist/development industry superstar Jeffrey Sachs’s Millennium Villages Project under the microscope, asking if it really represents a replicable model for development.
“The nub of the issue was well put by Chris Blattman when he asked on his blog what the MVP will prove. That ‘a gazillion dollars in aid and lots of government attention produces good outcomes’? This is hardly surprising, says Blattman. The point, he adds, is how we test ‘the theory of the big push: that high levels of aid simultaneously attacking many sectors and bottlenecks are needed to spur development; that there are positive interactions and externalities from multiple interventions’.”

Development perks
Global Integrity’s Nathaniel Heller sounds off about the development industry’s self-importance (“Only in the Diplo-Development Universe™ does a trip to a boring industry conference in Toronto turn into a breathless, dramatic ‘mission.’”) and excessive per diems (“The fixed sum for each destination is calculated based on the following process: a large team of economists closely monitors a common basket of goods across geographies, calculates the cost of that basket in local currency, and then apparently multiplies the result by thirteen.”), arguing these seemingly minor flaws may be symptomatic of more serious problems.
“Habits like “going on mission” and fat per diems perpetuate a mindset of process trumping outcomes in international diplomacy and development. International travel becomes the whole point of some people’s jobs, especially in large international organizations and governmental agencies. Achieving actual outcomes (reducing poverty, reforming institutions, promoting peace) somehow gets swept aside in the frenzy to upgrade to business class…”