Transcript Governance, Regionalism and Global Equity

Policy Coherence, poverty
reduction and sustainable
development
Veena Jha
Why Policy Coherence?
Policy coherence desirable to promote global
equity. Global equity at the heart of debate
because:
• Staggering disparities are unacceptable on
human terms.
• Greater equity would lead to sustainable
development and peaceful prosperity for all.
• Greater equality of opportunities across
countries would lead to more investment, higher
and better growth, and faster poverty reduction,
as well as provide greater security.
What is Required?
Achieving greater global equity:
• requires actions by governments and
people in rich countries.
• by international institutions.
• reforms by national governments in
developing countries.
What is Required?
Actions to foster global Equity :
• need to go well beyond providing aid
• to encompass reforms in the rules that govern
functioning of global and regional markets
• in the processes that set such rules,
• processes in which international and regional
institutions can do much to enhance equity.
Actions Required
• One category of action involves transfers
of public resources from developed to
developing countries in various forms: aid,
debt relief, financing global public goods.
• A second category of actions focuses on
redressing asymmetries in the functioning
of global markets for goods, capital, labor.
These are likely to be more important for
poverty reduction and equity
Actions Required
• A third category of actions focuses on
making the processes whereby rules
governing international interactions are set
fairer and more transparent. This is where
regionalism, governance and policy
coherence comes in.
How do we define equity?
A key determinant of global equity should be
that a person’s country of birth, should not
determine their opportunities: people
should face the same opportunities
regardless of where they are born.
What can we do at the global level
about equity?
• Expanding global public resources to
support national action.
• Redressing asymmetries in global
markets.
• Enhancing the fairness of rule-setting
processes.
Expanding global resources
• While aid has increased marginally in this
decade, aid flows remain small in relation
to need. It was only 0.25 percent of donor
countries' GNI.
• Agricultural subsidies, for instance, were
almost five times larger than aid.
• Efficiency of aid debates have suggested
moving aid away from the most needy to
the most capable.
Expanding global resources
• Aid has to be additional to debt relief.
• Aid should be augmented by funding
global research initiatives, particularly for
agricultural technologies, energy-efficient
technologies, diseases affecting poor
countries, developing vaccines, and
others.
• Proposals of an international tax.
Addressing Global Asymmetries
To the extent that global inequalities are a
product of asymmetries in the way global
markets work, there is a need for global
public action that goes well beyond the
provision of aid to encompass trade,
migration and capital flows.
Addressing Global Asymmetries
Developing country producers
• face obstacles in selling agricultural products,
manufactures and services because of tariff and
nontariff barriers and subsidies in rich countries.
• Workers, who could earn higher returns in rich
countries, face great hurdles in migrating.
• Entrepreneurs seeking financing for their
projects often face difficulties obtaining funds
from international market.
Addressing Global Asymmetries
• International migrants now send home an
estimated $300 billion a year, six times as
much as official development assistance.
• Overall gains from trade reforms are likely
to be much greater than those from aid.
Global Governance
• In today’s international law, equity has not
only an interstate dimension—it also has
an intergenerational dimension, in the
preservation of the environment and other
global commons.
Global Governance
• This concept of international distributive
justice has been applied to many areas:
from financial assistance to needy
countries to world food security, from the
sharing of scientific benefits and the
transfer of technology to the sovereignty
over and management of natural
resources, from the law of the sea and
international waterways to the law of outer
space and radio-frequency assignment.
Example of tensions in global
governance
• in most global treaty negotiations, industrial
nations have had greater power at the
negotiating table. An imbalance of knowledge, a
lack of adequate public support for the issues,
and problems forming coalitions due to diverse
interests have led to a lack of bargaining power
for many developing countries.
• Some argue that industrial nations should have
more power than developing nations because
they are the ones obligated to act under Kyoto
and to pay the cost of addressing this global
challenge.
Example of tensions in global
governance
• Others argue that this is irrelevant because the
“common but differentiated” responsibilities
under the agreement are based on historical
responsibility for the problem and the ability to
act.
• It could even be argued that developing nations
should have more power, because they may be
harmed disproportionately by the actual impacts
of global climate change, such as more
droughts, lower crop yields, rising sea levels,
more violent storms and a wider range of
tropical diseases.
Example of tensions in trade rule
making
• Countries trade interests are determined
by the underlying power imbalance
between strong commercial interests on
one side and the public interest—in both
developed and developing countries—on
the other. These are issues of national
equity which is the jurisdiction of national
governments.
• International inequity is higher in bilateral
deals where the powerful countries clearly
have stronger negotiating power.
Example of tensions in trade rule
making
• For example, many bilateral trade
agreements (such as the EPAs) include
stronger intellectual property rights
protection than required by TRIPs, such as
the granting of patent extensions on
pharmaceuticals.
• Specific types of protection on clinical trial
data submitted for marketing approval
(sometimes termed "TRIPs+").
• This is where commercial interest comes
into conflict with global equity.
Implications for global policy
• To restore equity, trade policy especially
towards developing countries needs to be
cognizant of poverty and leave room for
developing countries to have control over
their resources.
• An unequal trade treaty cannot be
compensated by aid even if it is in
perpetuity.
Implications for global policy
• Global environmental policy should not have
immiserising effects on poor countries, either
through the transfer of polluting industries or
through standards which lead to trade
dislocation and exacerbate poverty.
• Environmental action should be cognizant of
providing equal opportunities to poor countries
as rich do through their massive environmental
subsidies.
Action by Developing country
governments
• Action by developing-country governments
and coalitions of governments.
• Informed and self less leadership.
• Grassroots mobilization, analysis and
policy research to inform alternatives and
networks that disseminate it.
• Alliances with developed country NGOs
and thinkers.