Tag Archives: World Bank

Latest Developments, February 21

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Perpetual growth
The Guardian reports on a new UN-commissioned study that argues the international community needs to take “dramatic action” if it wants to “avert a collapse of civilisation.”
“ ‘The rapidly deteriorating biophysical situation is more than bad enough, but it is barely recognised by a global society infected by the irrational belief that physical economies can grow forever and disregarding the facts that the rich in developed and developing countries get richer and the poor are left behind.
‘The perpetual growth myth … promotes the impossible idea that indiscriminate economic growth is the cure for all the world’s problems, while it is actually the disease that is at the root cause of our unsustainable global practices’, [the authors] say.”

Plundering Somalia
Inter Press Service reports on a new paper criticizing international policy towards Somalia, with one of the authors suggesting this week’s London summit on the country’s future “seeks mainly to rally public opinion around more violence, more intervention, and more counterterrorism options” rather than promoting a holistic approach to problem solving.
“[Global Policy Forum’s James] Paul said the violence-prone naval approach [to halting piracy] has not worked, because it ignores the illegal foreign fishing and toxic waste dumping that is taking place off the Somali coast.
The fishing and dumping provokes the piracy and has led ordinary Somalis to approve the piracy as a legitimate form of national defence.
But powerful members of the Security Council, notably the U.S. and the UK, have blocked any action on fishing and dumping.
‘They pretend that there is no information about the matter, even while their naval fleets are closely monitoring the movement of all ships in Somali waters,’ Paul said. ‘So much for root causes and holistic approaches. Violence is virtually the only option allowed onto the table in London.’ ”

UN responsibility
The New Media Advocacy Project’s Abby Goldberg writes about a legal petition that calls on the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti to compensate and apologize to victims of a deadly cholera outbreak thought to have been caused by UN personnel.
“If the petition is successful, it will be the first case in history in which the UN takes legal responsibility for harm caused by their personnel.
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The UN must consider the legal request and how to respond, not only for Haitians, but also for the success of peacekeeping operations globally. This case is about Haiti, but it is also about the UN and a changing world. As one of the lawyers who filed the case said, ‘there is a difference between immunity and impunity. Impunity cannot be tolerated.’ The UN can, and must, do better.”

Emission friction
Oxfam’s Duncan Green is baffled by widespread international opposition to the EU’s plan to charge airlines flying in and out of Europe for their carbon emissions, given that three-quarters of the greenhouse gases taxed would come from European and American carriers.
“The main objection to the EU’s policy is that it applies to air-miles clocked up outside European airspace. But the vast majority of emissions captured by the EU [Emission Trading Scheme] scope are from EU and US operators.  By implication, if India and others genuinely want developed countries to act to cut GHG emissions it would seem against their own interest to try to block the EU ETS, because obviously the EU would never apply it just to its own carriers – so if they were to be successful they’d also prevent us doing something about the large majority of emissions from EU/US carriers.”

Re-inventing the World Bank
Former World Bank executive Ana Palacio says the debate over the US monopoly on the institution’s presidency is “legitimate,” but thinks the organization requires far more significant reforms.
“Just as reconstruction finance gave way to development lending over the course of the Bank’s history, its current focus on banking operations should be reconsidered, as the organization’s main source of added value now lies in its formidable potential as a center of knowledge and a coordinator of international policies.
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Today, the international community should look for a World Bank president who is attuned to ordinary people’s growing refusal to tolerate glaring global inequalities, and who understands that development is more than GDP growth. Such a leader, regardless of his or her country of origin, will reinvent the World Bank for the century ahead.”

Universal energy
The Steps Centre’s Rob Byrne and Jim Watson highlight the argument that the world’s poor should not be required to take a low-carbon approach to achieving universal energy access.
“[Practical Action’s Teodoro] Sanchez estimates that half the world’s energy-poor could switch to cooking on sustainable biomass and half to liquefied petroleum gas. Furthermore, half could access electricity from diesel generators while the other half do so from renewable sources. If these plans were implemented, he argues, the increase in global CO2 emissions would be less than 2% above 2005 levels.
If the world takes climate change seriously, this increase could easily be absorbed by cuts in industrialised country emissions and further action to slow emissions growth in the rapidly developing countries (especially China). The cost of this up to 2030 would be about $570bn (including capacity building and institutional costs); less than 3% of the estimated global energy investments needed during the same period.”

Questioning development
And, finally, a piece from last week by the Latin American Center of Social Ecology’s Eduardo Gudynas who argues sustainability will require a profound questioning of the concept of development and a recognition of the rights of nature. 
“The social and environmental crisis is so serious that it is now time to put aside minor adjustments and reforms, and instead address the root causes of resistance to the idea of development. We must adopt an approach whereby the term ‘sustainable development’ no longer requires the suffix ‘development’. The civil society programme in Rio+20 should not focus simply on fixing the superficial problems of development: it is necessary to look for alternatives to the entire body of ideas about development.
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If sustainable development strengthens its demands for change, it must abandon the traditional idea of development and thus break with the anthropocentric ethics that are characteristic of Western cultural tradition.”

Latest Developments, February 8

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Fortress Europe
Agence France-Presse reports the European Commission has rejected a Greek request for funds to help build a fence along the Turkish border in order to stem illegal immigration. “ ‘The commission has decided not to follow up the Greek request because it considers it pointless,’ Michele Cercone, a European Commission spokesman, told a news briefing. ‘Fences and walls are short term measures that do not solve migration management issues in a structural way.’ It is up to EU states to decide how to secure their borders, but they have to take into account ‘international obligations including the respect of migrants, human rights,’ Cercone said.”

Give me your tired, your poor…
Yahoo! News reports that increasingly harsh American immigration laws, such as Alabama’s controversial HB 56 which prohibits “business transactions” between undocumented migrants and the state, are impacting people’s ability to obtain food.
“Last month, Kansas kicked more than 1,000 mixed-status families off its food stamp program when it joined three other states in adopting a stricter food stamp eligibility policy. A low-income family of five made up of two undocumented parents and three citizen children now has to show that its income is close to the poverty level for a family of three–not a family of five–in order to access food stamps. This is intended to prevent illegal immigrants from benefiting from food stamps, but immigration advocates say it will leave citizen kids hungry.”

Mining audit
Reuters reports that Zambia plans to audit all the country’s mining projects in search of back taxes it estimates at between $500 million and $1 billion.
“According to UK charity Christian Aid, more than half of the copper Zambia exported in 2008 was destined for Switzerland, but according to Swiss import data almost none of this arrived and [mines minister Wylbur] Simuusa said this trend continued.
This raises a number of transparency issues and activists say copper exported to Switzerland on paper often fetches a lower price than it would if it was exported elsewhere.
‘Once it leaves, where does it go? We don’t have a clue,’ he said.”

World Bank and tax havens
The Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development’s María José Romero writes about revelations that the majority of clients of the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), are using tax havens.
“According to a recent report by Danish NGOs DanWatch and IBIS, ‘57 per cent of the companies analysed in the IFC’s extrac­tives portfolio from 2010 have channelled their investment in developing countries through an intermediate hold­ing company in a tax haven.’ Additionally, ‘more than a third of the countries hosting [the] IFC’s extractive projects have no specific policies on thin capitalisation,’ which means that IFC’s extractive-industry clients can minimise tax payments in developing countries by injecting as much debt and as little equity as possible into their operating subsidiaries.
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Civil society organisations have demanded changes in the IFC policy in order to ensure that investing in private sector companies has a positive impact on development.  According to Alvin Mosioma from Tax Justice Network, ‘the IFC should stop channelling public funds to companies using secrecy jurisdictions.’ To make effective and measurable progress towards financial transparency, the DanWatch report also recommends that ‘companies supported by IFC should present their annual accounts on a country-by-country and project-by-project basis, which would en­able host governments and civil society to iden­tify tax avoidance and evasion.’ ”

Resource scramble
A new Global Witness report suggests corruption and instability could worsen in Africa unless there is more transparency in the oil, gas and mining industries.
“Firstly, all companies involved in bidding rounds for oil licences, or that hold oil licences should fully disclose their ultimate beneficial owners. This level of transparency provides government and the public with the opportunity to begin to dispel suspicions that government officials may be benefitting illicitly from the allocation of oil licences. Additionally, the terms of all licences and contracts should be published to make it easier for the appropriate authorities and the public to determine that the terms of a contract are not unduly favourable to a company.”

Cynical aid
MiningWatch’s Catherine Coumans argues the Canadian International Development Agency’s decision to fund corporate social responsibility projects near mine sites is “intended to help Canadian mining companies compete for access to lucrative ore bodies in developing countries” where local opposition to mining is growing.
“Subsidizing the CSR projects of well-endowed multinationals is an irresponsible use of public funds by CIDA, particularly as these CSR projects mask rather than address the serious local- and national-level development deficits caused by mining.
If the Canadian government were interested in addressing the negative impacts of mining on development it would have implemented the recommendations of the parliamentary report of 2005 and the CSR Roundtables of 2007.”

Planning ahead
The Inter Press Service reports the Sierra Leone Conference on Development and Transformation has drafted a 50-year plan for the West African nation and intends to submit it to the country’s parliament.
“Many of the communiqué’s recommendations for improving the economy differ from the growing push towards increased foreign investment in mining, instead focusing on the long-term benefits of health, education and infrastructure. In fact, it suggests that no new mineral extraction agreements should be made by the government without first conducting a public comprehensive analysis of the quantity and amount of the resources to be exploited.
‘We’ve had a system that was not set up for a rapidly growing economy that would be prosperous, it was a system set up to ensure we have a quite country where resources could be extracted with us saying very little,’ said [the conference’s national coordinator Herbert] McLeod. ‘The exploitation of these resources could continue to have dangerous consequences if they are not managed well. You could have an already unequal society become more unequal as the benefits accrue to only a small section of the population.’ ”

Pot and kettle
The Overseas Development Institute’s Jonathan Glennie argues that for all the Western criticism of China’s activities in Africa, Chinese behaviour is “more or less” the same as that of other major donors.
“All in all, Chinese aid to Africa is going to come with all sorts of strings attached, despite the ‘no-conditionality’ rhetoric, and it is a huge power play, despite the proclamations of ‘south-south co-operation’. There will be problems, but no more or less than with the more traditional donors; just different, on account of different attitudes and modalities.”

Latest Developments, December 15

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Park eviction
The Guardian reports on allegations that members of Kenya’s Samburu community have suffered violent abuse since being evicted from land sold to a pair of US-based charities.
“The London-based NGO Survival International said the Samburu were evicted following the purchase of the land by two American-based charities, the Nature Conservancy and the African Wildlife Foundation.
The groups subsequently gifted the land to Kenya for a national park, to be called Laikipia National Park.
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A community leader, who did not wish to be named, described police harassment as enormous. He said police beat people, burned manyattas or traditional homesteads and carried out arbitrary arrests during the period leading up to and including the eviction last year. He said they also confiscated many animals and the intimidation has continued.”

State sues investor
Reuters reports that Brazilian prosecutors are suing Chevron and Transocean for $10.6 billion and are seeking to suspend their Brazilian operations over a November offshore oil spill.
“The case will add to already-large legal headaches for both companies. Chevron has already faced years of litigation over alleged pollution by Texaco, a company it bought, in Ecuador’s Amazon region decades ago.
Chevron was ordered by Ecuadorean courts in February to pay damages of $18 billion. The suit is now under appeal in Ecuador, and the dispute is also being reviewed by an international arbitration tribunal. Transocean was the rig operator in the giant four-billion-barrel Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.”

Investor sues state
The Inter Press Service reports on a protest outside a World Bank tribunal that is hearing a lawsuit brought by a Canadian mining company against the government of El Salvador for refusing to grant permits for a project along the country’s main water source.
“Pacific Rim, which has insisted long insisted that it would use the most up-to-date environmental technology and methods to ensure the integrity and health of the river, brought its suit under an “investor-state” provision of the 2005 Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA).
That provision allows corporations to sue governments over actions that allegedly reduce the value of their investments.
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DR-CAFTA is an agreement strictly between the U.S. and Central American countries. Because Pacific Rim is based in Canada, which is not party to DR-CAFTA, it created a U.S. subsidiary in Nevada in 2009 to press its case before the tribunal, after it could not persuade the Salvadoran government to back the mining plan.”

Investment regulation
A new report released by the Bretton Woods Project warns of the dangers of international financial flow volatility and argues poor countries must take measures to guard against foreign investment surges and stops.
“Even more effective would be policies in rich countries to tackle the risks from capital flows at their source. This includes better overall financial regulation, but consideration should be given to specific capital flows policy in source country. More regional and international coordination on capital account regulation, particularly enforcement of rules, would help developing countries deal with financial flows more effectively. Ultimately, a more ambitious global framework agreement could reinforce mutually consistent management techniques across source and destination countries.”

Mining fraud
The Financial Times reports on resentment in Ghana resulting from the perception that foreign mining companies are getting rich off the country’s resources and giving little back in return.
“One lawyer employed by a gold miner in the 1990s told the FT that the company he worked for systematically falsified its accounts to underestimate profits, thereby depriving the state of millions of dollars in taxes.
There are growing suspicions in government circles that similar tax fraud, known as transfer pricing, has been exercised systematically by companies in the sector.”

Illicit financial flows
A new report released by Global Financial Integrity estimates “developing” countries lost $903 billion to illicit financial outflows in 2009 (which is actually lower than the 2008 figure), capping a decade in which they lost $8.44 trillion.
“It would be encouraging to find that the 2009 reduction in illicit outflows occurred because of stronger governance within countries and more transparent financial dealings between countries. There is little indication that this is yet the case. The need for combined global effort to curtail illicit financial flows is more urgent than ever. We are pleased to note that the G20, OECD, World Bank, and others are beginning to take this issue much more seriously.”

An important distinction
ECONorthwest’s Ann Hollingshead draws a distinction between the concepts of “ill-gotten money” and “illicit financial flows,” which have markedly different economic impacts on poor countries.
“The [World Bank] authors study what they term ‘ill-gotten money,’ which they define as ‘money derived (illegally acquired) from crime and tax evasion.’ This includes not only illicit cross-boarder transfers and assets held abroad, but also illicit transfers and assets held and transferred domestically. The difference between this concept and illicit financial flows is important. The economic effect of a criminal activity alone is quite different than the economic effect of a criminal activity with a corresponding transfer of cash internationally. Or the economic effect of an illicit cross-boarder transaction where the underlying activity itself was not illicit.”

Legal corruption
The New York Times reviews Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig’s new book, Republic, Lost, in which he explores the idea of legal corruption.
“There is, in his view, one thing holding back America, a legal but corrupt system of campaign finance. ‘Practically every important issue in American politics today is tied to this ‘one issue,’ ’ he writes. Mr. Lessig’s agenda (invoking Thoreau) is to attack ‘the root, the thing that feeds the other ills, and the thing that we must kill first.’
Existing campaign finance reforms, particularly donor disclosure and contribution limits, have done as much harm as good, leading to ‘a corruption practiced by decent people’ and legitimizing what Mr. Lessig calls ‘a gift economy.’ Disclosure of the identities of contributors has made the venal routine. The system ‘normalizes dependence,’ Mr. Lessig writes. ‘There’s is no shame in the dance.’ ”

Latest Developments, December 4

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Subsidizing Walmart
A new World Development Movement report alleges that so-called climate aid is being used to provide subsidized power to the world’s largest retailer.
“The report, ‘Power to the people?’, details how money taken from the UK aid budget has been used by the World Bank to finance wind farms in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, built without the consent of the indigenous people who own the land. The project produces enough electricity to power 160,000 homes, but is instead being sold at a discounted rate to Walmart. The project is 99 per cent controlled by French electricity giant EDF.”

Disagreement over cluster munitions
The Economist reports on the recent failure of US-led efforts to negotiate a new agreement on cluster munitions that would be less restrictive than the current ban that has been signed by 109 countries and, therefore, more acceptable to the countries that account for 85 percent of the world’s stocks of such weapons.
“The 50-plus countries that opposed the draft protocol, and the campaigners who egged them on, complained that the text still allowed the use of cluster munitions known to cause unacceptable harm. The International Committee of the Red Cross said the American proposal would simply stimulate the development of devices that met the new standards but might still be lethally unreliable; and backsliding from the Oslo rules would set a bad precedent.
The big countries were cross. America (which has argued that a total ban on cluster munitions would make life impossible for NATO) expressed “deep disappointment”. Russia grumbled that opponents were “irrational” and China said they would bear indirect responsibility for future cluster-bomb casualties.”

Outsourcing military missions
Researcher/journalist Jody Ray Bennett argues that the US State Deparment’s awarding of a contract to the controversial DynCorp private security company in the Democratic Republic of Congo is very much in keeping with recent American foreign policy.
“When asked why DynCorp had been awarded a contract back in 2004 to operate in the Sudan, an anonymous US government official told CorpWatch: ‘The answer is simple. We are not allowed to fund a political party or agenda under United States law, so by using private contractors, we can get around those provisions. Think of this as somewhere between a covert program run by the CIA and an overt program run by the United States Agency for International Development. It is a way to avoid oversight by Congress.’”

Blue Helmet mercenaries
Daivd Isenberg, author of Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq, looks into the pros and cons of using private military contractors for UN interventions and uses a Stephen Wittels quote to support his point that such troops are only as good as their contract.
“Because the State Department failed to build into Blackwater’s contract strong incentives to treat Iraqis respectfully, the company did not. Indeed, Blackwater had every reason to shoot first and ask questions later with regards to Iraqis since any civilian could, in theory, have been an assassin, and contractors were, for the first few years of the war, immune to prosecution. It should also come as no surprise that in this consequence-free environment, Blackwater employees adopted excessive aggression as their default disposition, even when it served no apparent purpose. Had their assignment and their conduct been properly engineered in their contract from the outset, a strong argument can be made that Blackwater would not today be known as a collection of ‘cowboys.’”

African leadership
Voice of America reports that African leaders are calling for changes in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
“African Union Social Affairs Commissioner Bience Gawanas says it is time the continent has a greater say in how the fight against sexually-transmitted diseases is fought. Gawanas told a World AIDS Day observance at AU headquarters that the continent most affected by the epidemic must take ownership of the battle to eradicate it.”

African generosity
Globe and Mail columnist Gerald Caplan writes about how much of the West’s wealth has come at the expense of Africa.
“There is not a single African nation that does not suffer from a dearth of trained teachers, health workers and public servants. Meanwhile there are hundreds of thousands of highly trained Africans now working in the West and more are coming as rich countries increasingly demand well-trained immigrants. Like that of other rich countries, the Canadian immigration model, as The Globe’s editorial puts it, “aims to attract the best and brightest from around the globe.” So while International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda announces “new CIDA initiatives for Africa … focused on helping Africa fulfill its future potential,” Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is wooing Africans who could make Africa’s potential a reality.
Is this bureaucratic carelessness or rank hypocrisy? Canada’s case is typical of most rich countries. African governments spend preposterously large sums hiring foreign consultants on short costly contracts to perform the work that could have been done by their own lost experts. Is it necessary to point out that those sums often come out of the foreign aid that we, the so-called “donor” countries, provide? So a nice chunk of our aid goes to pay our own citizens to do work in Africa that Africans are doing in our own countries.”

Manifesto of the appalled economists
The Inter Press Service reports on the growing number of “appalled economists” who are calling on world leaders to change course in the current battle against sovereign debt.
“Although the ‘manifesto of the appalled economists’ was first intended to serve as a basis for debate amongst economists on European economic policies, it has rapidly become a manifesto for thousands who have signed it, not just in Europe, but also across continents and countries from Australia to Brazil. The manifesto is also being discussed in numerous forums.
In the paper, [André] Orléan and his co-authors complain that ‘the neoliberal paradigm is still the only one that is acknowledged as legitimate, despite its obvious failures.’”

Capitalism’s future
Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff asks if capitalism is sustainable and how it can be improved.
“It is ironic that modern capitalist societies engage in public campaigns to urge individuals to be more attentive to their health, while fostering an economic ecosystem that seduces many consumers into an extremely unhealthy diet. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control, 34% of Americans are obese. Clearly, conventionally measured economic growth – which implies higher consumption – cannot be an end in itself.”

Latest Developments, November 18

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Structural maladjustment
The Inter Press Service reports on the release of a new UN report on the current state of the world’s Least Developed Countries, while quoting some of the organization’s economists who are highly critical of the impact the World Bank and IMF have in such countries.
“There are currently 48 poorest countries with low per capita income of less than a dollar a day. About two-thirds of LDCs are located in Africa, and all indicators suggest that they are the worst affected by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank’s market-oriented policies.
‘The neo-liberal policies (fostered by the IMF and World Bank) devastated these countries,’ says Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, [UN Conference on Trade and Development’s] secretary general. ‘These policies turned most sub-Saharan African countries from net food producing countries into net food importing countries.’
Team leader for the report, Zeljka Kozul-Wright, said that the LDCs are the victims of ‘structural maladjustment’ policies followed over the last 40 years, which resulted in ‘boom-bust cycles and growth collapses.’

Aiding repression
The Washington Post reports the US government has launched an investigation to determine whether technology made by California-based Blue Coat Systems helped the Syrian government monitor dissidents.
“On Thursday, three senators urged the Obama administration to investigate whether Blue Coat and another California-based company had provided “tools of repression” to Damascus.
‘The sale of U.S.-made equipment that may have contributed to ongoing violence is unacceptable and should be investigated as soon as possible,’ said the letter from Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) and Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.).
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The senators who asked the Obama administration to investigate Blue Coat also asked for an investigation into the California-based company NetApp.
Bloomberg News has reported that NetApp equipment is part of a Syrian Internet surveillance project designed to intercept and catalogue all e-mail in Syria.”

Copyright trumps all
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Trevor Timm argues a proposed US copyright law – the Stop Internet Piracy Act – will give corporations the power to censor Internet sites and could endanger human rights activists around the world.
“Ironically, we know from the WikiLeaks cables that the State Department has also aggressively lobbied many other countries for strict new laws similar to SOPA. They have even offered to fund enforcement and literally draft the laws that sacrifice free speech for greater copyright protection for Hollywood.
Over one hundred law professors signed a letter staunchly opposing the Senate’s version of this bill on constitutional grounds earlier this year. Even Google’s public policy director Bob Boorstin said the bill ‘Would put the US government in the very position we criticise repressive regimes for doing – all in the name of copyright’. Here’s hoping Hillary takes a closer look and repudiates SOPA as adverse to US interests both at home and abroad.”

Shadow world
Bradford University’s Paul Rogers reviews a new book, written by former South African member of parliament Andrew Feinstein, on the global arms trade and the “web of malpractice” into which it draws the world’s politicians.
“Throughout The Shadow World, Feinstein emphasises the sheer corruption of the whole process, pointing to the enticements and kick-backs, always overshadowed by the ubiquitous use of ‘commission’ and ‘agents’, as though the distancing of corruption through intermediaries somehow makes it more acceptable. What he seeks to do is open up perhaps the greatest international can of worms of the current era, but this is inevitably an area replete with rumour and all too often affected by conspiracy theories that divert attention from the reality of trading in death.”

Cheaper is not always better
Michael Jennings, a lecturer at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, argues that donor pressure for poor countries to open public tenders to international competition is not necessarily good for their economies.
“Public procurement is generally seen as a technical, accounting issue, not a development one. This view is profoundly wrong. State and donor-funded purchasing is a significant part of overall GDP in developing countries, around 20% (and substantially more in some countries). Where that money is spent, and whether governments are able to make decisions on how to use their public resources, matters considerably for development.
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Getting value for money is important, of course. Spend less per individual drug, for example, and you get more drugs for the overall money spent. But “value” should not only reflect monetary considerations. Used in the right way, procurement could be an important development tool: helping create jobs, boosting skills, supporting emerging industrial sectors, helping national economies wean themselves gradually off aid.”

Ostracizing tax havens
ECONorthwest’s Ann Hollingshead writes that although not much in the way of concrete policy came out of the recent G20 summit, its host, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, had some harsh words for a handful of tax havens, including one of France’s neighbours.
“Sarkozy intonated that a list of eleven uncooperative jurisdictions should be ‘excluded from the international community,’ including: Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua, Botswana, Brunei, Panama, Seychelles, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. He added that a list of countries which do not conform to acceptable tax practices would be published at all future G20 summits. ‘We don’t want to have tax havens any more.’ He said ‘Our message is very clear.’”

Power shift
The Overseas Development Institute’s Jonathan Glennie argues there has been “a subtle rebalancing of power” between aid donor and recipient countries over the last few years.
“Changes in the global context are the main causes of this change in body language: donor economies are doing badly, calling into question their assumptions of always knowing best; emerging powers are doing well, implying different ways of doing things and providing poor countries with other avenues for trade and aid relationships; and poor countries are doing better economically than before, giving them more confidence and shaking off an attitude of dependence.”