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	Why wait 100 years? Bridging the Gap in Global Education by Rebecca Winthrop and Eileen McGivney Center for Universal Education - Brookings Institution   June 2015   In the last 200 years, the number of children attending primary school globally has grown from 2.3 million to 700 million today, covering nearly 90 percent of the world’s school-age children. But the gulf in average levels of education between rich and poor countries remains huge.   Without a fundamental rethinking of current approaches to education, it''s going to take another 100 years for children in developing countries to reach the education levels achieved in developed countries. Something needs to change.   Global education enrollment and attainment: Unequal access, unequal outcomes   Who would have guessed in 1763 that the Prussian government’s decision to provide broad access to schooling would be the first step in a mass schooling movement that would spread across the globe? In the beginning of the 19th century, a sum total of 2.3 million children were enrolled in primary school around the world. Today, more than 700 million children are now enrolled in primary school. The spread of schooling around the globe remains one of the most widely successful "going to scale" stories to date. Two hundred years ago, it would have been inconceivable in any country or cultural context that a central feature in a child’s upbringing and preparation for adulthood would be his or her regular participation in classroom lessons and school life.   Of course, education existed long before—and indeed for millennia has been the primary way in which humans have passed down knowledge across generations—but for the vast majority of young people it took very different forms, such as through the family, songs and the arts, cultural and religious institutions, community work, and apprenticeships in arts and trades.   Today, not a single country in the world is without a schooling system, and for most of the world’s youth the education they receive in school—or lack thereof—has a major bearing on their prospects in adult life.   While there has been global convergence around enrolling children in primary school, stark education inequality remains between developed and developing countries. When it''s shown as an average number of years in school and levels of achievement, the developing world is about 100 years behind developed countries.   These poorer countries still have average levels of education in the 21st century that were achieved in many western countries by the early decades of the 20th century. If we continue with the current approaches to education, this century-wide gap will continue into the future.   This 100-year gap, while variable across regions and education levels, is sufficiently large and persistent to demand a response. To better understand what we can do to address such deep levels of global education inequality we first have to understand how we got here in the first place. How did mass schooling develop? What is the nature of the 100-year-gap today? What are the possible future trajectories for global education? These are crucial questions to answer before we can land on a solution to the problem.   The four forces behind the emergence of mass schooling   It may come as a surprise to learn that over the last 200 years, both flourishing democracies and autocratic regimes have consistently placed a great deal of importance on schooling, just as countries with robust and expanding economies invested in schooling as eagerly as countries with stagnating GDP figures.   In fact, the gains in schooling from 1950 to 2010 were nearly equal between the most and least corrupt countries, the most and least democratic, and those with the largest and smallest levels of economic growth.   In other words, the spread of mass schooling cannot be dismissed as merely ancillary to global economic growth or to the increasing prevalence of more representative forms of government. Instead, mass schooling has been a global movement spurred on by multiple forces, often interrelated and mutually reinforcing.   Underlying the development of mass schooling over time, four fundamental forces stand out as having been especially influential in driving the movement: the university, the industrial revolution, nationalism, and human rights.   The university as knowledge holder   The role of the university in the mass schooling movement is often under appreciated. But as David Baker eloquently argues in his latest book, “The Schooled Society,” it has been fundamental in laying the groundwork for the spread of schooling. The Western university, in particular, has had a profound influence on the way in which societies around the world have come to understand knowledge itself. Eight hundred years ago, when the first Western universities were established in Europe, from Paris to Bologna to Oxford, schools were not seen to be the arbiters of knowledge that they are considered to be today.   However, over the centuries the idea inherent in university scholarship that knowledge and truth is open to discovery by anyone has taken hold so firmly in most places around the globe that we hardly question it anymore. Even in parts of the world where strong alternatives to this understanding exist, such as cultural or religious doctrines, they usually exist alongside each other ("traditional" sources of knowledge versus "modern" sources of knowledge, for example).   Today, the university''s role in organizing, validating, and legitimating knowledge has wide influence, including on schooling as the main pathway to reaching university. We see it when the university degree signals to employers a level of competence, despite the fact that many young people forgo actual work experience to attain the degree. We see it in the massive effort parents expend to ensure their children succeed in school, including the nearly $100 billion parents are spending worldwide on tutoring. We see it in the media when the act of leaving school early—"dropping out"—is described interchangeably with failure and social dysfunction.   This widely accepted understanding that accessing knowledge and truth is open to anyone and that the university is the main arbiter of knowledge in society has proved to be powerfully rich soil in which the seeds of mass schooling have flourished.   The Industrial Revolution, technology and the workplace   Within this larger social phenomenon of universities sanctioning the type of knowledge deemed worthy, there developed a pressing economic need for schooling. As technology improved throughout the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, societies and economies shifted from agricultural and skilled-craft trades into manufacturing societies. Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz describe the changes to skills supply and demand in America in “The Race Between Education and Technology.” Their analysis finds that with the advent of new technologies that shifted work from highly skilled trades to manufacturing, there was initially a decrease in the demand for skills. Take automobiles, for example. Early automobiles were built in large artisan shops by highly-skilled craftsmen.   However, with advances in technology, the industry demanded assembly-line workers who were largely unskilled, putting the trained and skilled craftsmen out of business. As technology continued to evolve, though, manufacturing again required highly skilled workers who could work in the increasingly automated plants.   This pattern captures an important dynamic in the economy that promoted the spread of mass schooling not just in the United States, but everywhere. While education had largely been provided through apprenticeships and passing down skills through families, this system began to break down as many of those trades were automated. Instead, general schooling more akin to the schools we see today became the norm and apprenticeships fell out of favor.   In turn, those skills allowed workers to better work with technology and be even more productive. This was true for blue-collar workers who used heavy machinery as much as it was for the growth in white-collar jobs that required literacy, numeracy, and the ability to work with new office technologies.   Schooling came to be seen as the primary institution through which young people could gain the proper training for these higher-skilled positions, and so a rapid increase in schooling came on the heels of rapid technological change.   At the same time, the egalitarian nature of mass schooling coupled with more labor market opportunity outside the home spurred a whole new set of workers. Women took on jobs in manual labor and also white-collar jobs as they gained higher levels of education and the need for office workers increased. Schooling and work for women changed the structure of families and households, so that schools have become increasingly relied upon as child rearing services, further increasing the demand for mass schooling.   Fostering nationalism in the classroom   In addition to the drive for higher-order skills in the labor market, mass schooling was also seen as an important political tool in cultivating citizens identification with the nation-state in which they happened to find themselves. The philosopher Benedict Anderson described this kind of connection to the nation as an “imagined community,” a community in which the members will never meet each other but nevertheless have a “deep, horizontal comradeship” based on shared values and their nation.   Schooling has long been used to build these communities to strengthen a nation’s power. It’s no coincidence that surges in the spread of mass schooling often followed significant military defeats, when governments most needed citizens to be united.   Particularly for newly independent countries in the post-World War II era, this was a very strong driving factor in the global expansion of mass education along with a desire to appear more modern. In one study, an analysis of enrollment data before and after 1940 found that the enrollment spike in the post-war period came primarily from former colonies driven to establish a national identity and be seen as part of the modern world. This was a much more significant predictor of increased enrollment than any country’s economic conditions, urbanization, race, or religion.   The universal right to an education   One of the most important forces driving mass schooling remains the social movement around universal human rights. The notion of rights dates back centuries, but the concept of rights universally enjoyed by all people—regardless of sex, color, ability, or caste—was both profound and catalytic and only really took root in the mid-1900s.   In 1948, following the devastation and atrocities of two world wars, all the countries in the world came together under the auspices of the newly minted United Nations and articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a set of rights and duties for all people. This included the right to education, an education that is to be free and compulsory at the elementary levels and “directed to the full development of the human personality."   This right to education was further elaborated in the second half of the 20th century in subsequent human rights treaties, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, and globally agreed upon goals for education, most notably the Education for All and Millennium Development goals in 1990 and 2000, respectively.   The right to education movement helped to profoundly change expectations around schooling in societies around the world. No longer would young people, parents, and community leaders be satisfied with policies that specifically aimed to educate a small section of society. It was now expected that all children, no matter who or where they lived, should have the chance to go to school. This new set of social norms was a crucial driver of the surge of enrollments after the mid-1900s, particularly in the developing world.   The 100-year gap: A tale of schooling inequality   Hidden within the data on the rise of schooling as the pervasive global form of education for young people is a story of deep inequality. Throughout history there has been an approximately 100-year gap between schooling opportunities and outcomes for young people in the developed and the developing world.   In some ways, this is understandable as mass schooling historically emerged first in Europe and North America and then spread across the globe. However, given the technological social advancements of the 21st century, it is simply not morally acceptable that this gap continues to exist today.   Examining a range of global data sources, it is clear that the 100-year gap persists today, particularly for children in the world’s poorest countries. And perhaps most worrisome, it is not projected to close in the future if we continue with the same education policies and approaches that we are using today. We trace this gap over time using data on children''s enrollment in school, the number of years of school adults have completed, and children''s learning outcomes on literacy, numeracy, and science.   While these indicators are important, we also acknowledge that they might not be the most important indicators of how successful education systems are. We know that the goals of education systems are much broader than simply increasing the volume of those attending school, and we know that there are skills and competencies like problem-solving and perseverance that may be just as important as literacy and numeracy.   Unfortunately, we don’t have very good measures to be able to assess how well schools are serving their students in these regards, so we have chosen the best indicators that are available.   Developed versus developing countries   Throughout this essay we refer broadly to developed versus developing countries. While there are many other possible classifications to use, we chose this ultimately for simplicity. To compare schooling data over time, we chose to use the broad definition of “developed” and “developing” regions classified by the United Nations. By this definition, developed regions include Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, which in historical studies are often termed “Europe and its offshoots,” while “developing regions” are essentially the remainder of the world—Latin America, Asia, and Africa.   We also break down the data when possible into smaller regions to show how widely varied educational progress has been, and how the gap may actually be more than 100 years when we look at countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia.   The U.N. developing regions classification is not perfect, but comparing countries over long stretches of time provides a number of complications. Presently, researchers and policymakers are more likely to use World Bank classifications of high-, middle-, or low-income countries that use per-capita income to determine the development level of a country. This classification would significantly complicate calculations over time because a country’s income level can change and shift it into a new category, and the income level definitions can also change over time. This means that in the U.N. classifications many of the countries in developing regions are actually no longer developing and have reached high-income status, but historically were less developed than Europe and North America.   In any case, this means some of the comparisons here may be conservative and actually underestimate the 100-year gap, given that “developing regions” does not comprise only the poorest countries today.   The gap in enrolling children in school: The historic lag of mass education   In many ways it is not surprising that there is a 100-year gap between developing and developed regions’ education systems, because historically the mass education movement blossomed in Europe and North America in the mid-1800s but it was not until the mid-1900s that it began to spread widely across most of the developing world. In Europe, “many schooling systems … were solidly in place by 1870,” while in developing regions mass schooling was largely a post-World War II phenomenon. This can be shown by looking at some key dates in the establishment of mass schooling.   The same historic lag we see in compulsory schooling legislation can be expressed in terms of primary school enrollment rates. Looking at historic data on gross enrollment, shows that children in developed regions were beginning to enroll in school in large numbers as early as 1870. Enrollment was just over 60 percent in northern Europe and its offshoots, including the United States, Canada, and Australia, while in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) enrollment was just 3 percent.   Taking 60 percent as the threshold from developed region enrollments in 1870, a century later some developing countries in Latin America and Asia had surpassed this level, but sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA region had not yet caught up, with rates of 50 and 55 percent respectively.   The data also suggest that developing regions have since caught up in terms of gross enrollment rates, although this figure doesn’t tell the full story as it looks at total enrollment rather than enrollment of the school-age population. For that, we can look at today’s net enrollment ratios and see that less than 80 percent of school-aged children are in school in sub-Saharan Africa. We know that North America and Western Europe were well past this level at least 40 years ago, even though we don’t have historic data on net enrollment.   Average number of years of school in the adult population   In addition to children''s enrollment in school, the 100-year gap can be seen in how many years of school adults complete on average. Often described as educational attainment, this measure can be thought of as the educational stock in a population, something businesses and economists in particular care about when thinking of the labor force in a country because it can signal how skilled the workforce is overall.   In 1870 the average adult in developed regions completed 2.8 years of education while the average adult in the developing regions finished half a year. As mass schooling expanded, it’s not surprising that the average adult increasingly attained more and more years of schooling. However, a significant gap still exists today —adults in the developed world have on average completed 12 years of schooling and those in the developing world about half of that, 6.5 years.   Notably, even with the major convergence of primary school enrollment across regions we have not seen convergence in educational attainment. This means that while large numbers of children are enrolling in school they are not completing school.   What is even more disturbing is that if we stick to business as usual, it will take another 65 years before developing regions reach the levels of education seen in developed countries today.   Today’s poorest countries will not reach that level until 2100, meaning 1.6 billion people will have to wait 85 years before attaining 12 years of school on average. In the meantime, schooling levels are expected to continue increasing in the developed world, albeit at a slower rate, meaning true convergence is far in the future.   The gap is even larger if you break it down by region. In the above calculations, “developing regions” includes Latin America, China, and Korea, whose progress has been much faster than the poorest regions.   Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are the two regions with the lowest education levels; in 2010, the average number of completed years of schooling was just under five. Looking back, we can see that Europe and its offshoots were already above this level 100 years before. Eastern Europe, Japan, and South Korea hit this level by 1950, and Latin America and China by 1980. The progress in Africa and South Asia has been far slower, and thus the gap between these regions and the most developed countries today is almost eight years.   It would be logical to think that these gaps will close themselves as time goes on. With sharp increases in primary school enrollment should come increased attainment, and as adults become more educated future generations will benefit. But the major issues holding back the least developed regions from catching up in school attainment are related to completion, not enrollment.   For example, the Education for All Global Monitoring Report estimates that at current rates, it won’t be until 2111 when we can expect that all children in sub-Saharan Africa will complete lower-secondary education—96 years from today. Low levels of secondary school enrollment will continue to keep the poorest countries from improving average levels of education.   * Access the full report via the link below. Visit the related web page
	Privatising public services is no way to fund sustainable development by ONE, Council of Canadians, Bond UK, agencies   25 May 2015 (ONE International)   The DATA Report 2015: Putting the Poorest First   2015 is a year that will shape the course of history. A new set of Global Goals – the Sustainable Development Goals – will be launched in September, which will set out the path to a fairer, more prosperous world and an end to extreme poverty.   But goals alone are not enough – they need a clear plan of action and the resources to deliver it. In mid-July, governments will convene for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: this will be the pivotal point of the year. The world needs a new global compact to finance the end of extreme poverty which is targeted at those who need it most – the poorest countries and the poorest people, particularly girls and women.   The 2015 DATA Report looks ahead to the Addis Ababa Conference, setting out key commitments that can be game-changers, particularly for those living in the poorest nations, the least developed countries (LDCs).   ONE is advocating for a mutual accountability pact to meet the most basic needs, like health and education, which will require increased mobilisation of international and domestic resources. Everyone must raise their levels of ambition and play their part.   The key components of this mutual accountability pact include:   Minimum spending levels on essential services such as basic health, education and some social protection, which will be provided through:   Increased domestic government revenues; Increased ODA to 0.7%, with half allocated to LDCs; Specific investments in agriculture, infrastructure, energy and technology, in order to support sustainable, inclusive growth and development.   Delivery of a data revolution to help support a robust accountability framework that sets out clear mechanisms for ensuring that commitments are followed through.   http://www.one.org/international/policy/data-report-2015/   May 22, 2015   Blue Planet Project says privatising public services is no way to fund sustainable development   Blue Planet Project campaigner Meera Karunananthan spoke at a United Nations side event yesterday during the fifth session of the Post-2015 negotiations process (May 18-22). She has been working with allies around the world to ensure that the human right to water and sanitation is explicitly named and respected in the United Nations Declaration for the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which includes the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).   The side event was titled ''Addressing Corporate Accountability and Unregulated Private Sector Participation in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Implications for Follow-up and Review''. It was organized by the Blue Planet Project, NGO Mining Working Group, Franciscans International, Public Services International and co-sponsored by the Republic of Palau.   Karunananthan argued that privatising public services is no way to fund sustainable development.   That was also her argument in an op-ed co-authored with War on Want trade campaigner Mark Dearn that was also published in the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom yesterday.   In that op-ed, Karunananthan and Dearn write, "In its 2014 world investment report, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimates the SDGs will require between $3.3 trillion and $4.5 trillion a year to implement. Proponents of privatisation have used this funding gap to promote the case for greater private sector participation, particularly in the global south. But before the United Nations (UN) creates a new channel for foreign investments in public services it needs to take a closer look at the history of the private sector ''leaving behind'' the most marginalised and vulnerable."   They note, "Without an economic incentive to serve poor communities, the private sector will not ensure universal enjoyment of the human right to water and sanitation. A Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) study shows that private sector investment results in very few new connections in parts of the world where the need is greatest, such as sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia."   And they highlight, "There has been a sharp increase in the use of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). UNCTAD records indicate that, in the 50 years to the end of 2014, there have been a total of 608 known ISDS cases, with 58 new cases in 2012, and 42 in 2014. A new investment agreement is concluded every other week. ...ISDS undermines state sovereignty by allowing investors to make recourse to a separate court system that enables them to sue states when policies threaten present or future profits. ...The fundamental premise of ISDS means southern countries must absorb the double impact of privatisation and investment treaties."   Karunananthan and Dearn then conclude, "With the rise of investment treaties giving primacy to ''corporate rights'', and no legally binding international mechanisms to hold these corporations accountable for human rights violations, greater private sector participation in water and sanitation projects through the SDGs will only exacerbate the water and sanitation crisis around the globe."   http://canadians.org/blog/blue-planet-project-says-privatising-public-services-no-way-fund-sustainable-development http://www.ohchr.org/FR/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16031&LangID=E   http://www.afj.org/press-room/press-releases/more-than-100-legal-scholars-call-on-congress-administration-to-protect-democracy-and-sovereignty-in-u-s-trade-deals   May 2015   Letting Corporations Sue Governments Protecting the Environment is No Way to Solve the Water Crisis, by Maude Barlow, Meera Karunananthan.   As the world looks for innovative solutions to solve the rapidly worsening water crisis, two Salvadoran experts toured Canada this month to promote a simple strategy that could save the public billions of dollars.   Yanira Cortez, Deputy Attorney for the Environment for El Salvador''s Human Rights Ombudsperson''s Office and Marcos Gálvez, President of the Association for the Development of El Salvador are calling on Canadians to help solve the water crisis by challenging investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms that have enabled corporations to sue governments for hundreds of millions of dollars when policies aimed at protecting the environment threaten corporate profits.   The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reports that the number of known investor-State disputes reached 514 in 2012 and argues that foreign investors are increasingly resorting to investor-State arbitration. Many of these cases target national environmental policies and environmentalists argue that the very threat of ISDS puts a chill on environmental policymaking, making investment treaties a serious obstacle to the bold strategies required to address a rapidly deepening environmental crisis.   Salvadorans are currently awaiting a ruling in a six-year legal battle initiated by Vancouver-based mining company Pacific Rim and now pursued by the Canadian-Australian firm Oceana Gold, which acquired Pacific Rim in 2013. In spite of the fact that Pacific Rim had failed to meet Salvadoran regulatory requirements, the company is suing El Salvador for USD $301 million for not having granted them a permit to operate a gold mine. The case is being heard at the World Bank''s International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which exists outside of national jurisdiction. Its mandate is to examine the rights of foreign investors without taking into consideration domestic human rights, labour and environmental laws.   El Salvador -- a small, densely populated country of 6 million people -- is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world. The country''''s battle against mining is directly linked to initiatives taken within the past decade to develop long-term strategies to address its urgent water crisis. According to Yanira Cortez, Deputy Attorney for the office of the Human Rights Ombudsperson, the water crisis is a ticking bomb. A 2010 study by El Salvador''s Ministry of National Resource and the Environment (MARN) found 98 per cent of water sources were deemed to be contaminated and unfit for drinking.   In 2005, when residents of Cabanas learned that a Canadian company, Pacific Rim, had begun explorations for a gold mining project in the area, they commissioned an independent review by U.S hydrologist Robert Moran. He discovered that the mining company''s assessments had serious gaps: it lacked the baseline water quality and quantity data required for an accurate examination of watershed impacts; it also failed to consider the costs to the community of its use of large quantities of water free of charge.   Moran''s report concluded that the project would spell disaster for two thirds of the country''s population who are dependent on the Lempa River watershed for their drinking water, livelihoods and other basic needs. A movement to protect the Lempa River watershed emerged out of the struggle against the mining project and evolved into a national coalition to ban metal mining in the country, known as La Mesa Frente a la Mineria Metalica (National Roundtable Against Metal Mining). La Mesa''s message rapidly resonated across the country. A bill to ban metal mining has the support of more than 62 per cent of the population.   A de facto moratorium was declared in 2008 when then-President Antonio Saca of the ARENA party agreed not to issue new mining permits. Three successive Salvadoran Presidents have maintained the moratorium.   The Salvadoran Parliament has been negotiating a new water policy proposal since 2012 to address the water crisis. It would grant greater power to Salvadoran communities currently engaged in battles against multi-national corporations by setting up a hierarchy of water use that would prioritize domestic use and local food production. It would also give impacted communities the right to consent to the use of community water supplies.   Costa Rica, which has a ban on open-pit metal mining, is facing a similar lawsuit by Calgary-based Infinito Gold, which is suing the government for $94 million.   Cortez and Gálvez are calling on Canadians to join the push to eliminate ISDS in order to prevent future lawsuits. The tour will highlight the fact that investor-state dispute settlements have been equally harmful to Canadian environmental measures. Most recently, Lone Pine Resources used the dispute settlement provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement to sue Canada for $250 million in compensation and potential lost revenue due to Quebec''s ban on fracking.   Oceana Gold''s investor-state dispute settlement is one of nearly 200 new cases being heard at the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). ISDS has become a powerful weapon for some of the most environmentally unfriendly corporations in the world. However, corporations are only able to sue the states who sign trade agreements or investment treaties containing ISDS provisions.   All it takes is political will for governments to walk away from ISDS commitments and reclaim the right to protect their own environment. El Salvador recently reformed its investment law to prevent future lawsuits by foreign investors. Brazil has never signed any treaty with ISDS provisions. Indonesia, South Africa, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela are revisiting their bilateral investment treaties.   Getting rid of ISDS in itself won''t solve the environmental crisis. But it would give communities like those in El Salvador the ability to develop their own environmental strategies without the threat of being sued by abusive multinational corporations.   * Maude Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, chairperson of Food and Water Watch in the U.S., and co-founder of the Blue Planet Project. Meera Karunananthan is the National Water Campaigner of the Council of Canadians. http://www.blueplanetproject.net/   21 May 2015   ICAI scrutinises DFID support to business. (Bond UK)   The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) has published a report on how the Department for International Development (DFID) works with and through business.   Graham Ward, ICAI Chief Commissioner, said: “DFID have clearly stated their intention to work more with business and there are great potential benefits for the poor from this collaboration. We are concerned, however, about how DFID will translate these goals into practical actions without more strategic oversight of business engagement activities and without concrete targets.”   Responding to the report Ben Jackson, Chief Executive of Bond, the membership body for international development NGOs said, “We welcome the attention the ICAI report brings to this increasingly important area and in particular the pressing need to prioritise a focus on the poor. We are concerned about the report’s finding that so far DFID’s work on business growth and investment cannot be shown to benefit poor people – a serious challenge given the share of the aid budget directed towards private sector investment.   "There is also limited evidence that DFID support to businesses is actually additional to what those businesses would have done anyway. Channelling precious aid into enterprises who potentially don’t really need it – rather than into priority essential services such as health and education – runs the risk of experimenting on the backs of the poor.”   Alison Griffiths of Practical Action, Chair of the Bond Private Sector Group, said, “The report concludes that ''the link between business engagement and reducing poverty is not always clear''. NGOs have been raising concerns with DFID for a couple of years about whether and how those in poverty will benefit from their new strategic focus and the increased spend on private sector development.   "We call on DFID specifically to promote inclusion of the people in the poorest parts of the world by looking at a broad spectrum of the private sector, particularly micro businesses and those operating in the informal sector, which provide opportunities or goods and services to strengthen livelihoods.   "We also stress that private sector development will only be inclusive and truly beneficial if environmental sustainability is also prioritised. All actors must operate within planetary boundaries and promote both the sustainable use of natural resources and climate protection."   http://www.bond.org.uk/news.php/457/icai-scrutinises-dfid-support-to-business   International agency ActionAid is calling on leaders from the world’s richest nations meeting at the G7 Summit in Germany in June to end the G7’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition which they say is driving large scale land grabs across Africa, and replace it with genuine initiatives to support small scale food producers.   The New Alliance initiative was launched at the US-hosted G8 summit (G7 plus Russia) and pledged to lift 50 million people out of poverty in Africa by 2022, by investing in agriculture.   ActionAid’s new report reveals that 1.8 million hectares of land have been offered to foreign investors in Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania under New Alliance commitments.   In Malawi alone, a country where one in five people are undernourished, one million hectares are being offered to investors – more than a quarter of the country’s total arable land.   ActionAid USA’s Senior Policy Analyst, Doug Hertzler, said: “President Obama has pledged billions of US dollars to support the New Alliance. But the money is helping big international companies set up huge plantations growing crops for export, rather than supporting Africa’s poorest farmers.”   The US committed almost a third of the funding for this $5.9bn initiative to improve agriculture, but so far the promise of tackling poverty and food security has failed to bring benefits to small scale farmers.   ActionAid has joined with more than 100 African and international organizations in calling for an initiative that prioritises the needs of small farmers and involves communities in deciding their future.   http://www.actionaidusa.org/news/g7-must-end-support-new-alliance-says-actionaid http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/25006-call-of-civil-society-organizations-to-their-governments-on-the-new-alliance-for-food-security-and-nutrition-in-africa http://www.actionaid.org/publications/great-land-heist http://blogs.oxfam.org/en/blogs/14-10-06-leaving-leadership-council-new-alliance-food-security-and-nutrition http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/resources/statement-warning-g7-threat-new-alliance-holds-small-scale-farmers http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2015/may/21/maybe-giving-aid-money-big-business-doesnt-solve-poverty-who-knew http://namati.org/protecting-community-lands/ http://www.fao.org/nr/tenure/voluntary-guidelines/en/ http://www.fao.org/nr/tenure/whats-new/may-2015-newsletter/en/ http://www.landcoalition.org/en http://www.landmatrix.org/en/
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