Let them eat horse.

A row has been sparked off in Germany over calls to distribute to the poor food products pulled from supermarket shelves as part of the European horsemeat contamination scandal. Two politicians suggested last week the removed ready meals be distributed amongst the poor in Germany rather than destroyed. As the German Development minister, Dirk Niebel said:

More than 800 million people in the world are starving. Even in German, there are unfortunately people who are financially strapped, even for food … I think we cannot throw away good food…

The proposal has been criticised by opposition politicians (and the German Minister of Social Affairs) for suggesting the poor should be willing to make do with that which has been deemed not suitable for public sale.

The debate raises some broader interesting points about the expectations and rights of the poor and those who receive humanitarian assistance across the world. Does the fact of poverty mean you should be grateful for what you receive (if the opposite would be to receive nothing at all)? Or should the poor have the same expectations of quality (or in this case proper labeling) and appropriate interventions, regardless of the extent to which they materially depend on external assistance?

Of course, few would argue that the condition of poverty should remove (or weaken) rights. Not many would suggest that it is acceptable to send tins of dog food as part of food aid supplies, even if they are technically safe for human consumption. Nor, I think, would many support the idea that Muslims should be expected to eat pork, Hindus eat beef etc, if they are in need of food aid.

But what about food which is less religiously (or species) inappropriate? For example, food aid delivered to pastoralist communities in east and the Horn of Africa has frequently been dominated by maize. On one level, that a maize-heavy diet is not culturally appropriate in such communities might be argued to be less important than the fact people are receiving food when they otherwise might not. But changing what people eat, especially shifting from a protein-heavy to carbohydrate-heavy diet, has longer term health implications, as well as social and cultural ones. Should, therefore, food aid have to take such things into account, or should those in need be grateful for what they get (See p. 10, opens into PDF)?

And what about the way in which a foodstuff has been produced? Famously in 2002, the Zambian government rejected US food aid which contained genetically modified corn citing fears that it was not proven to be safe. Whilst few would argue that a national sovereign government has the legal right to reject material assistance that does not comply with its own national laws, regulations and standards, such rights are rarely transferred downwards: the legal right of individuals to refuse a particular form of assistance, and yet still to expect some form of assistance that is culturally and socially relevant. Even in the case of Zambia, its sovereign right to refuse food was severely criticised by many (especially US-based) commentators who accused the government of effectively condemning to death by starvation those most in need of urgent assistance. What those on the ground actually made of the row was much less discussed, it was simply assumed that the hungry will (and, implicitly, should) eat anything they can.

What this debate hides, of course, are deeper underlying causes of hunger both in Germany and across the world. Handing out free ready meals taken off supermarket shelves is not the only, nor indeed the best, way to meet the needs of the German poor. And the reasons why maize and other foodstuffs grown in the global North make up such a large part of international food aid reflects subsidised agriculture and the production of large surpluses in those regions, as much as if not more than humanitarian instinct.

Despite efforts by aid agencies and others to move beyond general rights to food, health, shelter, etc to realisable rights and rights to minimum standards of care and assistance, there are many who still argue the poor should be grateful with what they receive: humanitarianism as ‘charity’ rather than an obligation to protect and assist.

Be careful of those who say ‘let them eat horse’, and carefully inspect their own kitchens. Now, horse lasagne anyone?

DFID money for peacekeeping?

There is no doubt that activities such as peacekeeping contribute to development. Indeed, DFID has long engaged in post-conflict, peace building activities, with few questioning the legitimacy of such work being supported by UK aid spending. So why is this so controversial?

There are two main concerns. Firstly, as explored previously on this blog, linking military activity (whether under a peacekeeping mandate or not), can have dangerous repercussions, increasing risk for humanitarian engagement. Secondly, it risks diluting aid, and (in this instance) carries the distinct whiff of domestic politics.

The militarisation of aid has long been criticised (see my previous post on this), and I won’t rehash the arguments here. But is this really about decisions as to whether peacekeeping is actually a development activity, or is this more about the need to placate an angry backbench Tory party and rightwing press who continue to complain about the protected status of UK’s international aid spending?

This looks like an effort to avoid the political embarrassment of yet another policy U-turn, backtracking on the 0.7% commitment, whilst actually doing so in practice. It will be interesting to see in the next few months what other activities suddenly become seen as ‘development’, leading to a recalibration of funding pots.

Would the diversion of DFID funds to activities not previously supported be such a bad thing, if a halfway decent case for their relevance can be made? Many activities have impacts on development. Improving the mix of renewable energy within UK power supplies would make such a contribution. Should DFID be investing in offshore wind turbines and research into tidal energy? Professional development through education of people from the global South arguably impacts on development. Should university scholarships for, say, African scholars therefore be counted towards the 0.7% target?

The answer surely has to be no. The decision to protect and increase aid spending was an important political message, especially at the international level, and at a time when aid commitments are being reneged upon and cut back. Dilution, which is what this is, sends the wrong message. Worse, it damages DFID and its own programmes. And to make it worse, diverting money to the Ministry of Defence is hugely problematic, especially given the UK’s recent military past. Humanitarian workers will not be resting easy this evening.

Why are polio workers and campaigns so feared and reviled by some?

Twelve people were shot dead this morning in two attacks on health centres in Kano and Hotoro in northern Nigeria. In the first attack, four polio health workers were shot by gunmen on motorcycles. In the second attack, 30 minutes later, women and children waiting outside a health centre were fired upon. As this is written, details are still coming through, and the motives behind the attack are not clear. However, it fits into a wider pattern of attacks on polio workers, often in Muslim-dominated countries or areas.

In December last year a string of attacks left nine Pakistani health workers dead, including the murder of five women in targeted attacks in Karachi and Peshawar, after Taliban targeted those undertaking polio vaccination campaigns. In January of this year, further attacks in northwestern Pakistan, including three in the last week of January alone leaving three people dead (including a police officer escorting health workers), targeted polio vaccination campaigns.

The killings are shocking, a reminder of the dangers faced by health workers as they go about their business. But tragic as they are, opposition, fear, distrust and even violence against health workers engaged in such activity, have long been a hallmark of polio (and other) mass health interventions across many parts of the world.

Indeed, Nigeria is no stranger to opposition to polio vaccination campaigns. A decade ago, several northern Nigerian states refused to participate or cooperate with a WHO-sponsored campaign, undermining its effectiveness and contributing to a resurgence in cases of polio in northern Nigeria.

Rumours and fears are not, of course, confined to Africa, Asia or the global South, as non-participation rates in the triple vaccine campaign against measles, mumps and rubella demonstrated in the UK.

Resistance to polio vaccination campaigns is often portrayed as irrational, feeding as it does on a virulent mistrust of ‘western’ intentions (such interventions being characterised as ‘western’ by those seeking to resist them) towards often Muslim populations. In northern Nigeria, in 2003, it was rumoured that the vaccine had been contaminated by the US in order to sterilise Muslim men. Similar rumours surround polio campaigns in Pakistan. However, there, rumours about the vaccine itself are compounded by the fact that US agents seeking Osama bin Laden did so under the cover of a fake Hepatitis B vaccination campaign, with inevitable results.

Such rumours and resistance to biomedical advice and expertise is not confined to polio. In Mali during the 1980s and 1990s, rumours surfaced that condoms were laced with HIV. Similar rumours occur elsewhere in Africa, with both male and female condoms linked to such fears. Given such fears, it is not surprising that an early joke (albeit a joke founded upon more serious concerns) about AIDS amongst many Africans was that it stood for American Invention for the Discouragement of Sex (or Syndrome Imaginaire pour Décourager les Amereux for the French term SIDA).

Why do such rumours hold such power, moving beyond concern and refusal to participate, to acts of violence and murder? Perhaps because such rumours feed into longer, decades old, concerns and fears over the intentions of western interventions, including health interventions. In Africa, in the 1930s fears of western ‘Vampires’ can be seen across a wide swathe of eastern and central Africa (and probably west and southern too): unsurprising really, given the combination of the memory of a brutal colonial occupation coupled with the taking of blood, for reasons never really fully explained, by health workers. In South Africa, resistance to health advice over HIV and AIDS in the 1980s was fuelled by the knowledge that medicine and medical services were part and parcel of the Apartheid state: mistrust was not only to be expected, it was an entirely rational response. And such fears would not easily dissipate with the ending of Apartheid. In the US, research has suggested that the lingering memories of Tuskagee have contributed to higher rates of belief in ‘conspiracy theories’ about HIV amongst African-Americans. Again, is it entirely irrational to fear the state in such cases, given that historical legacy?

The belief that ‘the West’ is seeking to eliminate Africans through forced or covert sterilisation, whilst not based on actual fact, nonetheless is build upon foundations which are more solid than many care to admit. From the 1960s, population control policies and debates characterised Africa as dangerously out of control, facing a rapidly encroaching Malthusian disaster: western health interventions, those allied to population control at least, were an attempt to reduce the population. Current language on population, couched perhaps in more moderate language, nonetheless contains reminders of these debates.

More recent history over the past decade or so has given additional reason for the Islamic world to trust ‘western’ intentions. Western powers may state that health interventions are not strategic points of entry (a point terribly undermined by the decision to use polio vaccination campaign as a cover) or designed to establish control, but the very real experience of those living in many parts of the world is that western biomedicine has been used as a tool, alongside others, for domination for well over a century.

What has happened in Nigeria today, and in Pakistan over the past couple of months is a very real tragedy. Health workers and those supporting them, trying to eradicate a horrible disease which continues to cast a shadow over the communities in which it thrives, have been murdered. The bravery of those who continue to undertake such work in these conditions is amazing, and deserves to be more widely recognised.

The rumours around the safety of the polio vaccine are unfounded. But the problem is how to get that message across in a way that is accepted. We cannot easily dismiss such attacks as irrational hatred of the west, or ignorant fear of medicine. It is a sad reflection of the long history of use and misuse of health campaigns and services by colonial powers as part of the arsenal of control and domination. Telling people there is no need to fear biomedicine and health campaigns is a difficult task when so many people have very good historical reasons for doing so. That could never justify the attacks, nor the decision by states and others not to participate in such campaigns. But a better knowledge of the historical roots of such fears and violence might help us understand it.

Norway, criminalising HIV, and the romance of ascertaining ‘consent’

Last week, the Norwegian Law Commission* published its report on the law and communicable disease, with a particular focus on HIV. Sadly, its recommendations do not address any of the concerns noted in the previous blog, and the result is a potential mess of recommendations that will do nothing to address the concerns of those who see legislative responses to HIV as deeply worrying.

Inevitably, given the tradition of such laws, it does not distinguish between transmission (where infection occurs) and exposure (which does not result in infection). Draft legislation, the Commission recommend, should “cover both transmission of infection and exposure of another person to the risk of infection.” Yes, one can be prosecuted for dangerous driving, or driving under the influence, regardless of harm being caused. But applying that principle here demonstrates a woeful lack of knowledge about risk in relation to infection with HIV, and smacks of witch-hunting.

Recognising the difficulties of demonstrating wilful negligence and/or deliberate efforts to infect, the Commission seeks to distinguish between those who may occasionally lapse in their efforts to take reasonable precautions, and those whose actions may be deemed criminal. It suggests the prosecutions would only take place when the “perpetrator” (already using stigmatising language) had “expose[d] two or more persons to the risk of infection or exposes another person to such risk on repeated occasions or through reckless behaviour.”

This raises obvious problems, not least how to discover whether an individual is a serial offender in this regard. Are they envisaging adverts in papers: ‘Have you slept with this person? Did they use a condom? Was their sexual behaviour reckless’? But more seriously, although the intention is to focus on those whose behaviour falls foul of reasonable expectations of the occasional slip-up, the effect is to label those who may have good reasons for their behaviour, criminals: a designation that does little to help control the spread of the virus, but does increase marginalisation and stigmatisation of often already vulnerable individuals.

Also worrying are the prescriptions for mother-child transmission, or where sex workers have been pressured into unprotected sex. Here the Commission advises “caution should be generally exercised with regard to the institution of criminal proceedings” (seeking to tone down the implications of existing legislation). But it still leaves open the possibility for a prosecution. The notion that mothers might intentionally infect their unborn or recently born children has very little evidence to sustain it. And for those very rare cases where a mother is not taking sufficient care to minimise infection, there are plenty of other ways to set in place child protection. This is an issue for social services, not for HIV criminalisation.

If these areas are worryingly problematic, one area is simply barmy: how to manage the thorny issue of proving consent to unprotected sex between discordant couples (i.e. couples where one is positive, and the other not). Proving consent is notoriously difficult, as discussed in the previous blog. But rather than follow what one might assume is the logical path of ditching the idea, the Commission proposes another solution:

“The draft contains a provision to the effect that consent exempts a person from liability to a criminal penalty in the case of infection transmitted by sexual activity. In order for consent to have an exempting effect, such consent must be given in the presence of health care personnel in connection with infection control counselling.”

That’s right. In some perverse mirroring of a partnership ceremony, couples must give their consent in front of a health care professional, having undergone counselling. Where to begin with this? The idea that consent over sexual relationships is a single, one-off event (which would surely have pretty awful consequences for laws on marital rape)? The idea that couples will not have discussed and considered this already (and this clearly can only be a proposal designed for couples: I can’t quite see health clinics setting up shop in the corner of a club to ensure witnessed consent for all those hooking up)? The way it reduces human relationships, desire, lust and sex to a rational exercise in risk analysis? It ignores issues surrounding sexuality: where people feel unwilling or unable to be public in their sexuality, a trip with partner to the health clinic for the consent ceremony is yet another barrier. And what about those with multiple partners? Perhaps schedule one lover five minutes after the other, with a curtain to ensure secrecy is maintained (disguises optional)?

It’s unworkable nonsense, of course. But nonsense that has real impacts on those living with HIV, and makes it harder to put into effect real prevention, care and treatment programmes, especially for those who might feel stigmatised for reasons of sexuality or other reasons.

* Thanks to Matthew Weait, Professor of Law and Policy at Birbeck, for telling me about the report. He has written extensively on the HIV and the law. His book, Intimacy and Responsibility: the Criminalisation of HIV Transmission (Abingdon: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007) is excellent.

Criminalising HIV?

In August 2010, German popstar, Nadja Benaissa, was given a two year suspended sentence having been found guilty of causing bodily harm to one man, and attempted bodily harm on two others. Her crime was to have ‘intentionally and recklessly” infected a former partner with HIV.

Nadja’s high profile ensured this case received considerable international attention. But over 600 people (and probably many more) have been convicted for similar acts under legislation designed to prosecute the transmission of the virus. Where cases have been publicised, the individuals have often been excoriated in the press (often with very one-sided accounts), seen as malicious, wanting vengeance on former partners, or callous in their consideration for others.

The question of how the law is used in relation to HIV control was raised again last week with the publication of a report by a Norwegian Commission looking into the country’s legal response to ‘criminal’ HIV infections (of which more in the next blog post). Events elsewhere have also drawn attention to this issue. At the beginning of October, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that people with a low HIV viral load and who use condoms (and thus have a low risk of transmitting the disease) need not inform sexual partners of their status. The ruling makes changes to the 1998 law which declared non-disclosure of status to be an aggravated sexual assault.

The ruling is controversial: in some provinces it may have served to increase the obligations imposed on people living with HIV; and it does not overturn other problematic legal issues in relation to the criminalisation of HIV. Over the past year or so, there has been increasing attention paid to the dangers of HIV-specific legislation, as well as increasing numbers of such laws appearing on statute books.

In July 2012, the Global Commission on HIV and the Law published its report. In it, the Commission explores how the law has created obstacles to accessing HIV services and support, created new vulnerabilities and exacerbated existing inequalities that both help fuel epidemics and worsen the experiences of those living with HIV. It highlighted the ways in which such laws impact negatively on the rights of those infected, and have a deleterious effect on wider society.

But despite widespread, and long-standing, concerns over the use of such laws, HIV-specific legislation that seeks to outlaw what are variously described as malicious, deliberate, reckless or wilfull attempts to infect others with HIV, exists in 34 states in the USA; 27 countries in Africa, 13 in Latin America, and 9 in Europe. Most of those prosecuted (over 300) live in the US and Canada.

In Africa many countries have enacted legislation (encouraged by the US) based upon a model law for west and central African countries drawn up at N’Dajema, Chad, in 2004 . Kenya’s HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Act states:

“A person who is and is aware of being infected with HIV … shall not, knowingly and recklessly, place another person at risk of becoming infected with HIV unless that other person … voluntarily accepted the risk of being infected.” [section VI (24)]

For many, the use of such laws against those who are aware of their status, and who do not take every precaution to prevent onward infection (wearing a condom, not sharing needles, informing sexual partners about status etc), appears eminently reasonable. After all, don’t we each have a personal responsibility not to harm others whether through action or inaction? If someone has deliberately tried to infect another, should they not face prosecution for what, even if increasingly (for those with access to treatment) a chronic condition, nevertheless has lifelong implications?

Leaving aside the questionable assertion that there are sufficient numbers of individuals who do seek to deliberately infect others, the problem is that such laws do not do the job with which they are primarily tasked: protecting those who are not positive; and encourage openness and transparency about status. More than that, they are riddled with inconsistencies and problems that not only makes them ineffective, but potentially dangerous. There are many problems with these prosecutions, but to consider just a few:

1. Such laws often seek to criminalise both transmission (the passing of the virus to a non-infected person, i.e. where infection occurs), and exposure (where no transmission of the virus occurs, i.e. no infection). People have been convicted despite not infecting their sexual partner. A homeless person with HIV in the US was sentenced to 35 years for spitting at a police officer, despite there being no chance of infection for the officer. This makes the law a blunt instrument at best. It also treats the positive status as an aggravating factor in other criminal charges, which only serves to increase stigmatisation of those living with HIV.
2. Many laws acknowledge that some individuals may consent and willingly agree to unprotected sex with a  positive individual. How can the law deal with such cases? In some instances there is an obligation on the individual to inform their partner of their status (such as Lesotho, where provided an individual has told their partner, they should not be prosecuted, even if transmission occurs). In other countries (for example, South Africa) consent may not be sufficient in itself to protect from prosecution. But the issue of consent is notoriously difficult to determine.
3. The laws fail to take account of social inequalities, power imbalances and stigma that marginalise. The issue of consent seeks to impose a cold rationality upon decisions that are driven by emotion, desire, addiction, etc – very far from rational decision-making. But more importantly, it assumes that it is always possible for positive individuals to inform partners of their status. In societies where women are often blamed for ‘bringing the virus into the home’, where domestic violence is both common and protection by police and state institutions weak, or where exposing ones status might lead to loss of land, livelihood or home, it is not possible to assume transparency is possible or even advisable.
4. The laws not only fail to take social, economic and political factors into account, they can exacerbate existing inequalities and stigma. Women are more likely to be tested for HIV (through, for example, accessing sexual and reproductive health care). As a result, it is likely that the positive status of a woman would be confirmed first, whether she was infected before or after (and by) her partner. That would place her at higher risk of prosecution. Women are likely to retreat from healthcare services rather than face the prospect of being thrown out of their home, and losing access to their children and land. Where being gay is illegal, it makes it very difficult for men who have sex with men to access services (including testing) when even that basic act could leave them vulnerable to arrest or harassment. Sex workers, similarly, are frequent targets for such laws, and in doing so create new patterns of marginalisation and exclusion. In the UK, asylum seekers and migrants have been over-represented in criminal prosecutions.

There may well be arguments, in very isolated and rare cases, for prosecution of individuals. But new HIV-specific laws are not the answer; nor are they actually needed. Existing legislation can be, and is, used in such cases. However, as a general rule, criminalisation of transmission and exposure produces results precisely counter to those intended by such legislation. It exacerbates discrimination and marginalistion. It increases vulnerability and risk taking. What it does not do is offer protection, to anyone.

In 2007, UNAIDS noted:

“… punitive approaches that involve mandatory HIV testing, disclosure or treatment, or that criminalize HIV transmission, exacerbate already existing HIV stigma and discrimination and drive people away from HIV prevention and treatment into greater fear, secrecy and denial.  As a result, people may be afraid to be tested, afraid to disclose their status and afraid to take up HIV prevention and treatment lest it reveal that they are HIV positive – all of which maintains a spiral of more infection, less treatment and more infection.”

Five years on, and are legislators listening at all?

The centre can hold: things don’t always fall apart

The New York Times has a feature looking at the birth of new nation states from the disintegration of the old (similar, although less extensive to the interactive map The Guardian published online a couple of weeks ago). The usual feature in the New York Times piece: DRC is splintering, of course; Somaliland’s breakup is, apparently, “confirmed”; Mali’s division is seemingly “irreparable”. Belgium makes an appearance, but predictably the gaze is largely upon Africa and Asia.

Predicting the demise of the nation-state is something of an industry. After all, ‘country will probably not split apart’ garners less editorial excitement than the prospect of messy national divorces, new flags and the rush to print updated maps.

Much analysis in these type of pieces focuses on the factors and forces that push apart, rather than those holding it all together. But surely experience,in Africa at least, suggests the centre has in fact been able to hold relatively well over the past 60 or so years, albeit with compromise and change.

At the heart of the NYT piece is the fact of the inherent instability of artificial borders, an idea popularised in Basil Davidson’s Black Man’s Burden and a mainstay of analysis of the African polity ever since. No-one is disputing the fact that boundaries across much of Africa are artificial creations of rapacious colonial states, cutting across pre-existing and real polities and communities. But in truth, all borders are artificial constructions, representing the victory of one set of actors over another. The difference becomes one of longevity. How long must a border have been in existence before it becomes accepted as creating more than imaginary communities and holds real social and cultural force?

Wouldn’t it be a far more interesting question to ask that why, given the abitrary nature of colonial boundaries, African states have by and large, with some notable exceptions, stuck together? But this doesn’t fit in with the normal narrative about Africa, one that tends towards the words fragile, precarious, unstable, failed. It is, moreoever, a narrative that is rarely applied outside Africa and Asia. The Guardian‘s map included movements that are slightly problematic in being considered in such a context. Is Uamsho on Zanzibar primarily secessionist? Are there other ways of looking at it (and other so-called secessionist movements)?

Moreover, there is a question of scale here. What support does Uamsho have? Does it – the organisation rather than the wider pro-independence movement – post an existential threat to the union? For example, how would a map of the UK look with such treatment? With strong (if not necessarily majority) independence movements in Scotland and Northern Ireland, smaller but still significant support in Wales, not to mention calls for Cornish independence: is the UK therefore an example of a failed state, or one heading for collapse?

The question of a breakaway Somaliland is frequently held up as the next new African country (as per the NYT analysis). But whilst it is operating in many ways as an independent country, and there are certainly calls for a full and clean break by some, the reality is by no means as certain nor as clear cut as the western binary ‘in-or-out’ analysis allows for. There is an in-between, not one that sits comfortably with traditional notions of the nation-state, but one that has a real and tangible existence nonetheless. Borders are places of fluidity, not fixed impenetrable barriers. It is by no means certain that Somaliland would choose to become a separate and independent state, even if it continued to resist ‘rejoining’ Somalia as per the traditional nation-state model.

Elsewhere, the urge to pull together rather than fracture has resulted in countries such as Tanzania, where a real sense of nationhood was forged from the colonial inheritance. Even where civil war has exerted a terrible and tragic toll in human life and misery, in how many cases has this culminated in a split? More interesting to ask why DRC has stayed together despite its history of political and civil turmoil than think about ways it might split apart.

Perhaps it is time we moved on from the obsession with borders and boundaries as the places where the seams begin to pull apart irrestistably and irrevocably, and consider how they offer new opportunities that transend, rather than destroy, countries. It might be journalistically less exciting, but from a social science and humanities perspective, the ways in which Africans, African states and African institutions have managed their tarnished legacy is both interesting and in many cases inspiring.

UNCTAD’s Trade & Development Report, 2012: time for a rethink on the economics of austerity?

Against the backdrop of continued global economic gloom in the global North, UNCTAD’s latest annual report, Trade and Development Report 2012: Policies for Inclusive and Balanced Growth, published today, has worrying news for high growth developing countries who had, the report suggests, largely recovered ground since the onset of the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2007-08.

Continued (and growing) instability in the Eurozone and other areas is still as contagious as ever, threatening the ability of developing nations to sustain their own levels of growth. The report comes on the back of similar analysis from the OECD at the start of the month. Hardly surprising that Africa is susceptible to shocks in the global, and especially European, system, of course. With 62.4% of all Mozambique’s exports, 36% of Malawi’s and almost 30% of Ethiopia’s (to name but three countries)  exports going to the EU, recession there will inevitably hit these markets hard.

However, the impact of contagion is only one aspect of the danger to developing economies. Interestingly, the UNCTAD report highlights the destabilising influence of what it terms ‘flawed’ structural reform policies being undertaken in the global North (and especially Europe). ‘Those reforms are all too often coded language for labour market liberalisation including wage cuts, a weakening of collective bargaining and greater wage differentiation across sectors and firms.’ [iv]

Bad news, of course, for the British government which relentlessly pursues Plan A in the face of increasing criticism and calls for a more nuanced approach than cut, cut, cut. UNCTAD’S prescription largely follows the outline of the various Plan Bs which call for the state to play a heightened counter-cyclical role.

There are a number of interesting areas covered by the UNCTAD recommendations, interesting not least because they have a certain resonance with recent events and debates.

Pay me my money down

Firstly, the issue of income inequality. Speaking to the Stock Exchange earlier this month, Ed Milliband launched a new Labour theme: pre-distribution. Horrible word, but in essence, this argues for addressing inequality through policies designed to reduce the need for post-taxation redistribution: such as access to education from early years, access to health services, and perhaps most importantly efforts to increase wages.

For UNCTAD, raising incomes is important for addressing growing levels of income inequality. The report calls on governments to pursue an income policy, as well as employment, fiscal, monetary, productive, etc policies. Such a policy would, it suggests, see wages rising in line with average productivity, and adjusted for inflation (importantly, income policy would be forward looking to projected productivity and inflation targets, not solely based on the previous period). Legal minimum wages should be established (and at meaningful levels).

Public spending to support access for essential goods and services would also be a key feature. ‘Well targeted social transfers and the public provision of social services’, it argues, ‘can serve to reduce inequality of disposable income’. [xiv]. So governments should spend money on education, but also make sure there are increased job opportunities for school leavers; public employment schemes address both unemployment and wider income through establishing a minimum wage floor; and concessional lending to small urban and rural producers which can help boost productivity.

The importance of wage levels have been brought home over the summer months through a series of strikes by public sector workers, such as those by teachers and medical professionals in Tanzania and Kenya. The potential outcome of growing income inequality was perhaps most tragically seen in the terrible events at Marikana, where low wages fuelled the anger that undermined trust in the National Union of Miners and the rise of the Associated Mining and Construction Union as a new representative voice of some, at least, of South Africa’s miners.

The banker man grows fatter

Another issue from the report which has become more prevalent over the past year or so in international development debates, is that of taxation. The report calls for the taxation of ‘rentier incomes and incomes from capital gains at a higher rate than profit incomes from entrepreneurial activity’ [xiii]. It also suggest that the policy of offering tax concessions to foreign direct investment is ultimately counter-productive. Certainly, there is good evidence that offering tax concessions to encourage investment has a significant impact on national economies: Odd-Helge Fjeldstad at the International Centre for Tax and Development, suggests tax exemption of this type in Tanzania represents a loss of around 6% in GDP.

In a section designed to make those heading international mining companies nervous, the report also calls for governments of resource-rich countries to take ‘their fair share of commodity rents, especially in the oil and mining sectors’ [xiii]. In other words, governments should increase royalties and taxes from international mining companies to ensure national citzens benefit from the current commodity price boom. Expect some strong counter-claims as to why this is either not possible, not advisable, or pleas that the extractive industries sector is already paying its fair share. But with new oil and gas discoveries seemingly being made every day, the rush to exploit African natural resource wealth would in reality be unlikely to be seriously slowed by the prospect of higher rents (no matter how much some companies may threaten such outcomes).

A chance to make it good somehow?

Whilst the report is unlikely to keep British Chancellor George Osborne up at night (I’m not sure UNCTAD’s criticisms will have the same impact as, say, the IMF – which has similarly called for greater public spending to boost the economy), it does cut against the current pro-private sector / pro-market approach of Coalition Government international development policy. Andrew Mitchell adopted a much stronger pro-private sector approach within DFID, seeing the private sector as the key engine of economic growth and job creation. For example, giving evidence to the Select Committee on Economic Affairs in January 2012, Mitchell said:

… we are very clear that the private sector, wealth creation and economic growth are the engine of development. After all, 90% of all the jobs created around the world are created by the private sector, so that has been our priority. [249]

‘Freeing up the trading system’ will lead to increased economic growth, wealth creation and ‘lift people out of poverty’. [228]. The ‘right economic policies’ for development, according to DFID, are focused on liberalising policies, such as introducing ‘competitive markets’.

DFID is not alone in looking to the kinds of structural reform identified as potentially destabilising by UNCTAD upon aid recipient governments. Whilst many, including DFID, have encouraged increased public investment in some areas, donor have also pushed hard for reforms that may be holding back pro-poor growth, increasing inequality, and as a result heightening aid dependency.

There is unlikely to be much, if any, roll-back of the current pro-private sector approach by DFID under the new minister. But with yet another report questioning certain aspects of the approach, surely the time for a re-think is here.