Creating decent work for all should be at the center of policymaking

On November 28, 2007, The United Nations released the 2007 Report on the World Social Situation. The report calls for governments to promote employment and decent work as their cornerstones of their economic and social policies. According to Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang at a press briefing to launch the report, “Employment and decent work need to be not a by-product but a central objective of development strategies.”

The 2007 Report on the World Social Situation addresses the fact that productive employment and decent work are essential to reduce poverty and promote social development. In arguing for decent work, which is defined by the International Labor Organization (ILO), as satisfying for the person performing it, promotes personal development, and contributes to the well-being of families and society, these are some of the recent trends of international markets documented within the report:

• Labor markets have been evolving in the direction of greater economic insecurity and greater levels of inequality, limiting people’s opportunity to live a life of decent work and satisfactory employment;

• Governments and employers around the world, in their desire to remain or become competitive, have taken many steps to increase labor-market flexibility, thus increasing insecurity among most groups of workers;

• There has been a global spread of informal employment and short-term contracts, giving workers fewer entitlements and little sense of job security;

• The deregulation, privatization and marketization of social services has led to reductions in employment and income security, as well as a loss of voice and representation for workers providing these services

• Labor security is further undermined by the globalization of financial markets and the emergence of a globalized labor supply;

• Statutory regulation is being replaced by self-regulation as part of the liberalization that has accompanied globalization, increasing work insecurity;

• Standardized and collective contracts are giving way to more individualized contracts based on direct bargaining between employers and workers, further shifting the balance of power in favor of employers; and

• The principle of social insurance can no longer be considered the cornerstone of social protection systems, since it is weaker in economies dominated by informal economic activities.

Such recent trends have the international community worried. Mr. Sha pointed out at the press briefing that, “Globally, despite robust rates of economic growth, employment creation is lagging behind growth of the working-age population. From 1996 to 2006, global output expanded by 3.8 per cent per year, yet unemployment rates increased from 6 to 6.3 per cent. Economic growth and job growth are not trending together, to the detriment of our societies and citizens.” Furthermore, inequality within society continues to increase as workers with low education and limited skills are the ones being hardest hit. Unfortunately, current macroeconomic and social policies have not been successful in lowering unemployment rates to desirable levels. Therefore, with the release of this 2007 report, governments must utilize this information for intergovernmental discussion and policy analysis to ensure that economic growth promotes human development.

Empowering Women = Economic Development

On November 16, 2007, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro stated, “When women are empowered, all of society benefits.” In speaking at the International Women Leaders Global Security Summit in New York that day, she elaborated upon the importance of empowering women to build healthier, better educated, more peaceful and more prosperous societies.

The international community has acknowledged the fact that achieving gender equality and empowering women is not only a goal in itself. It is also a condition for advancing development, peace, and security. As set forth by the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), gender equality is one of the main objectives to be achieved by 2015. Nevertheless, as the Deputy Secretary-General claims, “Study after study has shown us that, when women are fully empowered and engaged, all of society benefits. Only in this way can we successfully take on the enormous challenges confronting our world -- from conflict resolution and peace building to fighting AIDS and reaching all the other Millennium Development Goals.” Therefore, it seems that there is much more to do in order accomplish these MDGs. Though the goals sound extraordinary on paper, making real world progress is complicated and complex; financial support as wells societal changes must be coordinated to achieve such goals.

As of October 2000, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 which discussed women, peace, and security. This particular resolution was ‘a landmark on many fronts’ according to Migiro because it established the increasing, disproportionate and unconscionable tolls that modern conflict has taken on women and girls. Ultimately, there have been global goals and commitments focused on empowering women, but implementing them fully have been the greatest adversity. In her speech, Deputy Secretary-General Migiro commented that, “We [member states] in the United Nations system need to work better with Governments to establish truly joint programs, driven by national priorities. We need to work better as a team, so as to give countries access to a common entry point. And we need to appoint more women in leadership positions, at headquarters and in our peace operations around the world.” Recent studies have shown that in almost all countries, women continue to be underrepresented in decision-making positions. Furthermore, women’s work continues to be undervalued, underpaid, or not paid at all. Out of more than 100 million children who are not in school, the majority are girls. Out of more than 800 million adults who cannot read, the majority are women. Accordingly, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. Thus, Migiro prescribes specific changes required to alleviate the current situation:

• Ensuring that men take on a greater role in household and family care
• Challenging traditions and customs, stereotypes and harmful practices, that stand in the way of women and girls
• Ensuring that women have access to education and health care, property and land;
• Investing in infrastructure to make it easier for women and girls to go about the daily business of obtaining safe drinking water and food
• Integrating gender issues into the follow-up to United Nations resolutions and decisions including the work of recently established bodies such as the Peace Building Commission and the Human Rights Council.

Overall, there is a dire need for governments, international organizations, civil societies and private sectors to work together in partnership to ensure that these objectives instituted by the MDGs are fulfilled. However, it is because of illegitimate practices, as in those described in a fellow international relations colleague’s blog (IYE.ART), that hinder such efforts. In is essential that a true international effort be enacted to not only achieve global gendered equality, but more importantly, economic development; the key of which can solve the world’s problems.

Environmentally Friendly Energy Resources? No Thanks, Coal is Preferred

Current discourse about environmental sustainability and global warming is at an all time high. With all those hybrid cars, like the Toyota Prius, lurking on every street corner and movies, which wasn’t really a movie at all but a rather elongated PowerPoint presentation, like Al Gore’s and Inconvenient Truth hitting the big screen, more and more people are becoming aware of the potential environmental problems we face in the near future. Even the seventh goal of the United Nations’ MDGs is focused on environmental sustainability while promoting economic growth. However, according to a recent Associated Press article entitled, “World's coal dependency hits environment,” the international effort to integrate alternative energy resources is far from becoming a reality. In fact, dependency on coal is expected to drastically increase by 60 percent by 2030 to 6.9 billion tons a year. How then, can the UN increase environmental sustainability when the world continues to destroy the environment by consuming fossil fuels?

Coal is simply cheap and abundant. It is the fuel of choice in much of the world with a majority of it going towards electrical power plants. Accordingly, the fossil fuel is responsible for the economic booms in China and India and it has seemingly lifted millions of people out of poverty. Of course it is great to see economic development in parts of the world where poverty has been a longstanding issue, but because of the pollutants emitted by the burning of coal, the environment has suffered drastically. Most of the buzz on global warming today is an externality of carbon emissions. An atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington, Dan Jaffe, states, “Hands down, coal is by far the dirtiest pollutant.” The growth of coal-burning is also directly related to environmental and health issues including acid rain and asthma. An estimated 2 million people are killed prematurely as a result of air pollution, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

It would be politically incorrect to point fingers at individual nations with respects to who is responsible for global warming because every nation has made their contributions. Yet, recent trends have shown that some countries are contributing more to the carbon mission than others. In fact, China and India have been on the forefront of polluting the environment. It takes five to 10 days for the pollution from China's coal-fired plants to make its way to the United States, like a slow-moving storm. An AP Environmental Writer, Michael Casey, comments in an article that it takes 5 to 10 days for the pollution from China's coal-fired plants to make its way to the United States, like a slow-moving storm. China’s pollutants have been found in the form of mercury in the bass and trout caught in Oregon's Willamette River and contributes to acid rain in Japan and South Korea.

Despite all the environmental concerns, China shows little desire to convert to alternative energy. A prime example would be population of the town of Taiyuan and the surrounding Shanxi Province. This area is China's top coal-producing region and one of its most polluted. Nevertheless, coal has turned poor farmers in this city of 3 million people into Mercedes-driving millionaires. Therefore, it all comes down to the power of money. I guess it’s time to think about what’s more important; a sustainable planet for future generations or wealth and pleasure today?

163 Million Women are Missing in Asia...

It’s too late for sorry. The United Nations’ failing attempts to achieve their Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are unrealistic as gender inequality continues to exist amidst the rapidly approaching 2015 deadline.

Experts at the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights have estimated that there are 163 million women ‘missing’ in the Asia-Pacific region.

Therefore, with one of the main objectives of the MDGs being to promote gender equality, the overlying question here is how does the international community expect to empower women when there aren’t any to begin with?

But where have all these girls gone? The answer to this mind-boggling question can be best explained by studies commissioned by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). According to their research, millions of women have gone missing as result of modern gender determination techniques and selective abortions. Countries that have been contributing to the skewed sex ratios at birth (SRB) are the likes of China and India. The two nations have yielded SRBs amounting to just 100 females for every 120 males and 108 males per 100 females, respectively, according to the country’s 2001 census. The deputy executive director for UNFPA stated in a recent press conference, “We place it (skewed SRB) in the context of discrimination against women.” Yet it’s not to say that the countries with the most skewed SRBs have neglected this phenomenon. Renuka Chowdhry, India’s junior minister for women and child development describes the situation as, “When there is no economic recognition to women’s work and no social value attached to this particular gender, when resource sharing remains inequitable, when women are paid less then it becomes easier to do away with this gender.”

However, the most disturbing part of this whole ordeal is that initiatives enacted to mediate the problem have only been addressed as a result of the MDGs in 2000. But, knowledge of this ‘gendercide’ had been presented to the international community two decades ago in 1980.

In the late 1980s, Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Amartya Sen coined the term ‘missing women’ to describe the great numbers of women in the world who are literally not alive due to family neglect and discrimination. He estimated that in 1980, there were 100 million women missing, of which 50 million were accounted for in India alone.

Since Sen’s studies in the late 80s, experts have asserted that women are missing in South Asia not only due to neglect. In many cases, girls are missing because they are murdered at birth, or never allowed to be born. In South Asia, drastic measures are taken to eliminate girl children. These practices are most widely documented in India. An estimated 3 to 5 million female fetuses are aborted in India each year. Furthermore, in one study of a clinic in Bombay, 7999 out of 8000 aborted fetuses were female. However, the discrimination against women is so severe that efforts do not stop there. Many girl children are even killed as soon as they are born. Thus, experts suggest that these practices contribute to the unnaturally high risk of death for young girls.

So then, the only question left to answer is why girls are being discriminated against. After all, biologically, females are stronger and tend to live longer than males. Unfortunately, the answer to this question is hard for people like us – citizens living in a developed country – to fully understand. The logic behind gendercide derives from social implications. Particularly in poverty stricken nations, the female gender is typically seen as less productive in terms of contributing to a family’s household income. By being less desirable, boys are seen as essential because they are physically stronger and can work laborious jobs that flood the labor markets of less developed countries (LDCs).

Therefore, current actions taken up by the international community has come extremely late with respects to the MDGs. Having known about the gendercide since Sen’s studies in the 1980s, progress towards reaching key goals of equality and empowering women is highly improbable especially with the millions already ‘missing’ and the 2015 deadline just beyond the horizon.

Migrants' Contributions Exceed Figures of Foreign Aid

A recent United Nations study revealed that migrants working in industrialized countries sent home more money than donor nations did in foreign aid in 2006. I guess you’re wondering how much funds a group of migrant workers could provide in comparison to that of entire countries? To be exact, migrants working in developed countries (DCs) sent home an approximated $300 billion to their families in 2006 – surpassing the $104 billion provided by donor nations in foreign aid to less developed countries (LDCs). Therefore, how do international institutions like the U.N. expect to accomplish its objectives, as in those set forth by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), if migrants can provide more funds than it does in foreign aid?

According to Sending money home: Worldwide remittances to developing countries, a report generated by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Asia received the largest share of the remittances – more than $114 billion – followed by Latin America and the Caribbean with $68 billion, Eastern Europe with $51 billion, Africa with $39 billion, and the Near East with $29 billion. Kevin Cleaver, Assistant President of IFAD, stated in a U.N. News Centre article that, “[These figures], which [are] conservative estimates, shows that the seemingly small sums sent home by migrant workers when added together dwarf official development assistance.” The study also found that the remittances sent home regularly by more than 150 million migrants exceeded foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries, which in 2006 totaled around $167 billion.

Nevertheless, it would be quite impractical to try and regulate this phenomenon within the countries of which these funds are being outsourced. These transactions are typically sent in the denominations of hundreds of USD at a time, through more than 1.5 billion separate financial transactions. It can be argued that this money is not being recycled within the economy and is in turn hurting these countries. This has been one of the leading arguments for stricter immigration policy amongst advocates within the United States. However, to my knowledge, no nation has seemingly faltered as a result of this to date.

Instead of dwelling on the facts, policies should be set forth abroad by international institutions to productively guide these funds to stimulate economic growth. The report provided by IFAD shows that a majority of these remittances flow to families in rural areas, and is mostly used for basic necessities such as food, clothing and medicines. Yet, 10 to 20 percent is being saved, but not in the proper financial institutions. Therefore, to effectively utilize the money being saved in LDCs, which in 2006 would have amounted to between $30 and $60 billion, organizations like the U.N. should provide educational programs to encourage people in LDCs to save their money in financial institutions, which would then create major opportunities for local development.

In theory, in addition to increased foreign aid for LDCs, the U.N. must harness these funds and increase efforts to leverage remittance flows for greater development impact. The key to resolving the overlying problem of LDCs’ governments inefficiently allocating resources is to better direct their economic plans. If these remittances sent by migrants were effectively used by LDCs in addition to foreign aid provided by DCs, the total amount of funds available for economic growth in 2006 would have been, at most, $164 billion; not to mention the $167 billion already provided in the form of FDI that would have allowed for significant global progress towards accomplishing the MDGs.

Asia-Pacific Region Lag in Reaching Antipoverty Goals

On October 8, 2007, the United Nations publicly released a report in which assessed the progress of the Asia-Pacific region on reaching the antipoverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Results from this report have clearly shown that Asia and the Pacific are well on track and ahead of its peers in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa to reduce extreme poverty by half, attain universal education, and achieve gender parity in education by the target year 2015. Nevertheless the report seemingly yields mixed results as well. Some of which have made surprising correlations between antipoverty progress between Asia and the Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Based on findings within the report, parts of the Asia-Pacific region are severely lagging behind Africa in achieving specific MDGs. In fact, statistics show that Asia and the Pacific accounts for about two thirds of the world's underweight children. More than one in four children under the age of five is underweight. Furthermore, maternal deaths in Asia and the Pacific are anything but satisfactory. The region accounts for almost half of the global total, according to the report, The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007. The region's overall maternal mortality ratio, at over 300 per 100,000 live births, is more than 30 percent higher than in Latin America and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, these rates in many Asian countries exceed those of its regional counterparts.

According to a joint publication by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), “The region's greatest challenges lie in addressing the issues of child mortality, malnutrition, improving maternal health and providing safe drinking water and sanitation facilities.” Haishan Fu, the Chief of the Statistics Development Section for UNESCAP believes, “The 2007 MDG progress report gives us an indication of what the region stands to gain if we intensify our efforts to meet the MDGs. We need to focus on those countries that are moving slowly or not making progress, and within those areas concentrate on improving the lives of the most vulnerable.”

Therefore, despite Asia and the Pacific’s monumental success in making progress towards achieving the MDGs, this report explicitly shows that even the most accomplished regions have much work to do before 2015. As the deadline quickly approaches, Asia is struggling to better the condition of the impoverished. When basic necessities of a healthy life like safe drinking water and sanitation facilities are not present, it’s practically impossible to lift millions of people out of poverty. Consequently, regions all over the world continue to struggle with the MDGs. Ultimately, when the most successful regions are having difficulty making progress, it puts into questions whether or not these goals can actually be completed.

Democrats and Relgion Go Hand In Hand?

In a recent post made by Stephen Mack entitled, “Wicked Paradox: The Cleric as Public Intellectual,” he outwardly argues that, “If there’s any truth to the old adage that religion and (liberal, democratic) politics don’t mix; it isn’t because they are polar opposites—an ideological oil reacting against a metaphysical water. Rather, it’s because they are, more or less, alienated kindred vying for the same space in the human imagination.” I must say, Mack does make a really good point. Since my background centers on International Relations, there is a very fine line when it comes to differentiating between religion and politics. After all, the history of the United States all started in 1630 when according to Mack, “a prosperous lawyer by the name of John Winthrop and a band of English Puritans left the security of their English homes, migrated to the new American wilderness. There they launched one of the most daring experiments in Christian civil government the old world had ever seen.” The foundations of principles and morality essentially began with religion and implementing these fundamentals into law and order is what sparked the American way of life. It is true that these pioneers established the importance of separating church and state, but difference between religion and politics has constantly been a controversial topic; even till this day. It is different in the sense that the separation of church and state entails keeping government and religious institutions independent of one another, while religion and politics is not as easily distinguishable.

I guess the big debate here is that since government and religious institutions can not be one in the same, is it acceptable for politicians to use religion as grounds for campaigning? Mack comments on this debate state that:

What these liberals are saying is that the Christian Right sees politics through the prism of theology, and there’s something dangerous in that. And they’re right. It’s fine if religion influences your moral values. But, when you make public arguments, you have to ground them—as much as possible—in reason and evidence, things that are accessible to people of different religions, or no religion at all. Otherwise you can’t persuade other people, and they can’t persuade you. In a diverse democracy, there must be a common political language, and that language can’t be theological.

Nevertheless, politicians competing for the upper hand in the upcoming 2008 Presidential Election have taken particular interest in the issue; hoping to gain the support of the undoubted religious.

In a recent CNN article entitled, “Obama: GOP doesn’t own faith issue,” writer Peter Hamby comments on Senator Barack Obama’s campaign message to a multiracial evangelical congregation in traditionally conservative Greenville, South Carolina. Obama acknowledged in his speech that, “[He thinks] it's important, particularly for those of us in the Democratic Party, to not cede values and faith to any one party. At least in politics, the perception was that the Democrats were fearful of talking about faith, and on the other hand you had the Republicans who had a particular brand of faith that oftentimes seemed intolerant or pushed people away.” It seems the Democratic candidates’ recent efforts in South Carolina are to reach out to Christian voters. And what better way than to comment on the most important issue to such an audience: religion. However, Obama’s attempts to reach out to a crowd of “church-going Republican primary voters” as Hamby put it, shows that religion is a controversial campaign issue, especially within the United States. Similar efforts by politicians beg the question as to how far some will go to get their votes. Yet, Obama’s speech in Greenville, I must say, was especially well designed. He never delved into religiously controversial issues but instead tip-toed around the general idea. I mean when you’re applauding evangelical leaders such as T.D. Jakes and Rick Warren for beginning to discuss social justice issues like AIDS and poverty in ways evangelicals have never done, and making statements like, “We're going to keep on praising together. I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth,” it’s quite apparent to see what the main objective; to gain support.

Therefore, I believe that as long as politics are involved religious insight is not too far behind. I guess it’s because religion is an aspect of life that people can always resort to. But in a nation where religious freedom is embraced, using such issues to gain political support creates the foundation for debate. Politicians can not rely too heavily on such grounds because every person in the U.S. does not practice the same religion; resulting in conflicting views on particular key issues. The Democratic approach seems to have achieved a happy medium when it comes to religion, not that I’m stating my political position, by giving credit to the spiritual for their current views on key campaign issues. However, religion and politics remains to be a particularly sticky concern.