At stake is the future ownership of the world’s critical raw mineral supply chains that the renewable energy revolution will need to break free of our fossil fuel dependency.

The UN’s panel on critical energy transition minerals aims to inject justice, environmental standards and human rights into the sector’s supply chains. To do so, it must intervene in the international trade, investment and tax systems.

At present, the rich world wants to ensure that it – and it alone – controls critical mineral supply chains. The US Inflation Reduction Act dished out tax advantages to electric vehicle manufacturers which source, process or recycle in the US or its free trade agreement (FTA)-partners. The EU has also set a goal of processing 40% of the critical minerals that it consumes within its borders by 2030. The UK is following a similar path. But resource-rich countries aspire to process and transform more of their minerals so that they can see some of the economic rewards.

Of the ten countries which dominate the ownership of minerals via companies domiciled within their borders, eight are among the world’s richest Top 20.

While China is a major source of minerals like gallium, graphite, magnesium and tungsten, other countries including Brazil (niobium), Congo (cobalt), India (barite), Indonesia (nickel), Peru (arsenic), Russia (palladium) and South Africa (platinum and Manganese) are also significant players, and rarely talked about.

Critical minerals offer developing countries like these a “critical opportunity,” as the UN chief Antonio Guterres put it, when announcing the panel in April. “But only if they are managed properly,” he cautioned. “The race to net zero cannot trample over the poor.”

If that happens, the poor will understandably resist – and we will all suffer. To avoid this, we need a World Trade Organisation-level waiver of trade disputes in the climate realm preventing states from being challenged over policy tools crucial to sustainable industrialisation.

As well as carving producer states out of the processing value chain, the status quo also shuts out every African country except Morocco – with whom the US has an FTA – from Washington’s supply chains. This is unfair and a self-defeating invitation to other countries to strike deals with African producers, given that Africa is home to 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves. Worse, if countries do sign FTAs, they are then prevented from adopting the same policies which could build their own green industries.

This is how it works. FTAs often prevent low and middle-income countries from using industrial policy tools – such as local content requirements, export restrictions and subsidies – to regulate, add value to, and share the benefits of their own mineral resources.

Most international investment agreements also contain investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions allowing corporations to sue governments in secret arbitration panels for billions of dollars when their profit expectations are affected by measures such as environmental regulations or public health protections. Increasingly, this presents a serious disincentive to pursue industrial policies or regulate extractive projects to ensure better labour conditions or reduce environmental destruction.

Here’s an example. One Canadian-Chilean company, Tethyan Copper, won $11bn from Pakistan after the country’s supreme court ruled in favour of local communities who argued that the contract signed by a regional administration had been illegal. Tethyan had only invested $150m in exploration but its award was so large that it would have bankrupted the Pakistani state. To avoid this, Pakistan caved in and awarded Tethyan a mining license.

ISDS mechanisms are a holdover from attempts to prevent former colonies from appropriating industrial concerns after independence. The office of the US Trade Representative compared them to gunboat diplomacy, while others liken the campaign against ISDS to abolishing slavery. The truth is that ISDS has no place in the modern world and should be repudiated and renegotiated by all nations working in this sector.

The world must also move to prevent a race to the bottom in tax competition. Fair taxation that allows for sustained industrialisation is essential for long term fiscal stability and high value chain integration. Disclosure requirements, the cross-border exchange of tax information to counter evasion threats and integrated regional partnerships can all build transition mineral value chains into a sustainable regional development model.

Ultimately, if we don’t get this right, the green transition will look – to most in the world – like just another resource grab. The green transition must be redistributive in order to have the global buy-in to succeed.

But to do this effectively at the scale needed, it will be necessary to go beyond the UN panel. Perhaps we need to start thinking about a producer organisation similar to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the 1970s, which advanced the interests of critical resource producers in a very different time and context. Certainly, the distribution of critical mineral profits should be fairer, the environmental impacts should be more closely monitored, and bodog casino the democratic control of the sector’s decision-making processes must be broader and deeper.

In the teeth of a global economic system that answers first to the call of the dollar, it seems that it may well be time for producers to take a stand together. To quote Guterres again: “The renewables revolution is happening, but we must guide it towards justice.”

To read the blog post as it was published on Publish What You Pay website, click here.

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Multilateralism is waning, and one of the world’s leading multilateral institutions, the World Trade Organization, is in crisis, because the United States has been blocking new appointments to its dispute settlement mechanism’s Appellate Body since 2018. In the run-up to the WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference last month, some optimists hoped to see progress on specific issues, such as an agreement not to impose tariffs on digital commerce, but expectations were generally low.

The pessimists were right. India led the charge against extending a moratorium on e-commerce tariffs, and only a last-minute deal prolonged it for another two years. After that, it is expected to expire. India and its allies celebrated the outcome as a victory. For the first time in years, the culprit undermining the WTO was not the US but developing countries (including Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, and others).

True, what happened with digital commerce is characteristic of the usual conflicts that play out during trade negotiations. Free trade always produces winners and losers. Digital commerce may be in the interest of businesses in advanced economies as well as consumers and businesses in low- and middle-income countries; users of an app, game, or other software product made in a different country may pay lower prices in the absence of tariffs. But domestic producers will reliably demand protection from imports, and governments will see tariffs as a promising way to boost revenues.

While these issues are typical, developing countries’ opposition to an extended digital-tax moratorium is emblematic of a deeper problem: namely, the growing impression that the WTO has nothing to offer them anymore. The assumption is that it unilaterally serves the interests of big businesses rather than of the average person in a low- or middle-income country.

But is this true? In fact, recent research shows that poverty reduction in the past three decades has been more likely in developing countries that are well integrated into the international trade system – as measured by the number of signed trade agreements and access to large, lucrative export markets. In this sense, the multilateral trade system has indeed benefited the developing world.

International integration is particularly important for smaller economies. Unlike India and China, countries such as Thailand, Kenya, and Rwanda cannot fall back on large domestic markets. No wonder opposition to trade deals so often comes from larger developing countries such as India, Indonesia, and Brazil. They can afford to turn their back on international trade if the terms of the proposed deal are not enticing enough.

But even these countries appreciate the benefits of participation in global trade. India, for example, used the closing of the Ministerial Conference to reaffirm its commitment to negotiation and multilateralism, in principle. The question, then, is why developing countries have such a negative view of the WTO specifically.

Their dissatisfaction dates back to 1995, when the WTO succeeded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. At the time, developing countries felt that they had just been pressured into signing a trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) agreement that would yield big payoffs for multinational corporations without offering many benefits to their own populations.

Another ongoing source of tension is agriculture, where developing countries traditionally have a comparative advantage. Existing trade agreements continue to permit high-income countries to subsidize local producers and impose tariffs on imports. Various other rules, escape clauses, and notification requirements have created de facto loopholes that only countries with abundant resources are able to exploit.

For example, fishing subsidies (another area of major contention) are permitted under certain conditions. But monitoring fishing stocks to prove that such conditions are being met is prohibitively expensive for most developing countries. They therefore have good reason to complain that international trade rules are biased against them.

Looking ahead, a potentially bigger issue concerns advanced economies’ efforts to link trade agreements to labor and environmental standards, such as through the European Union’s proposed Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). While well-intentioned, advanced economies must recognize that their efforts to address climate, labor, and human-rights issues could have serious distributional consequences, potentially coming at the expense of many developing countries.

This is especially true of climate change. Low-income countries may have the most to lose from the consequences of climate change, but they are understandably reluctant to impede their own growth to fix a problem caused by richer countries’ past sins. Combine these concerns with high-income countries’ push toward “friend-shoring” (which implies more trade among rich countries, given bodog online casino the current geopolitical map), and today’s world starts to look even more like one where advanced economies are pitted against developing ones.

Ironically, the obvious way to avoid such division is to revive multilateralism. Now more than ever, the challenges we face are global in nature, and thus call for global solutions. But shared objectives, by definition, must account for the concerns of developing countries. That is what successful multilateralism has always demanded.

Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, a former World Bank Group chief economist and editor-in-chief of the American Economic Review, is Professor of Economics at Yale University.

To read the full commentary as it appears on Project Syndicate’s website, click here.

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The LDC-specific priorities are placed in four key areas: (a) agriculture and food security, (b) fisheries subsidies, (c) decisions on graduation, and (d) paragraph 8 of the MC12 outcome document. Of these, LDC graduation is the most critical, especially for the LDCs already on the path to coming out of the category within three to five years. Bangladesh, along with Nepal and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, will formally come out from the UN-defined category by the end of 2026. More LDCs will follow these countries. There are 45 LDCs, of which 15 are now on the path to graduation, and 10 are WTO members. Last December, Bhutan came out from the list.

In the document placed for MC13, LDCs categorically emphasised ‘the need for fresh support measures by the development partners targeted to LDCs after graduation to ensure smooth and sustainable transition.’

Five months ago, in October last, the General Council meeting of the WTO decided to encourage members of the organisations to provide a smooth and sustainable transition period for the graduated LDCs before withdrawing the unilateral tariff or duty-free and quota-free (DFQF) market access to these countries have been enjoying as LDCs. The decision becomes a big boost to the LDCs, although it is not binding. It is also unlikely that the scheduled ministerial conference will make it binding instead of keeping it voluntary or ‘best endeavour’ for the member countries. In that case, a continuation of the benefits for the LDCs after graduation will entirely depend on the willingness of the market access-providing countries. In other words, LDCs have to negotiate separately or bilaterally to enjoy the benefit for an extended period.

Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), at a proposal regarding MC13, urged the Bangladesh government to take proactive action plans to negotiate with the respective DFQF and GSP granting countries and preferential trade agreements partners for extension of all support measures for at least three years after the graduation following the European Union’s Everything But Arms (EBA) extension for three years for graduating LDCs. EU and the United Kingdom (UK) currently offer DFQF benefits for all the graduated LDCs for three additional years.

In the last ministerial conference, LDCs stressed the extension of international support measures (ISM) available under WTO in favour of graduating LDCs and proposed to phase out unilateral trade preferences granted to these countries for six years or a period determined by the preference-giving country. It was not accepted at the conference, however. The continuation of the trade-related benefits is necessary to ensure the smooth graduation and contain any abrupt disruption in trade in goods and services of the countries, as per the spirit of the UN General Assembly Resolution.

Between 2018 and 2022, LDCs’ exports of goods and services increased at an average annual rate of 7.1 per cent, according to the estimate provided by the WTO secretariat. LDCs’ share in global trade in goods and commercial services increased from 0.95 per cent in 2018 to 1.02 per cent in 2022. And LDCs’ share in global exports reached 1.23 per cent in 2022, which is far below the target set in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Target 17.11 of SDGs underscored doubling the least developed countries’ share of global exports by 2020. It means that LDCs’ share in global exports should be at least 1.92 per cent in 2020, which was 0.96 per cent in 2015, the year of launching the SDGs. Thus, the countries need continuous support in the multilateral trade forum.

Moreover, those advancing to become non-LDC also require support to make the transition smooth and effective. It is, however, challenging to secure support in the upcoming conference as some developed countries, mainly the United States (US), have strong reservations. Advanced developed countries like India are also less interested in backing the LDC’s demand. So, there is no alternative to persistent, tough negotiation, no matter how disappointing that is.

The LDC-specific international support measures also include exemption from the prohibition of export bodog sportsbook review subsidies and an extended transition period up to 2033 for the LDCs on implementing the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), especially for pharmaceutical products. Currently, there is no provision for a transition period, so when an LDC officially becomes a non-LDC, it will not be able to enjoy the benefits, which means it has to abolish the export subsidies immediately and face stringent IP requirements.

Developed and developing countries have already put several issues of their interests on the negotiation table and are working hectically to get some of those in the outcome documents. Decisions on prohibiting fisheries subsidies, permanent solutions on public stockholding (PSH) of foods, and reforms of the WTO’s dispute settlement system are top agendas where Bangladesh and all the LDCs can do little but watch. The withdrawal of suspension of e-commerce taxation is also critical, where Bangladesh has some interests. Then, plurilateral deals on domestic regulations on services trade and e-commerce are also proposed by some members. As the final days of the conference approaches, the temperature of intense fighting rises.

To read the full editorial as it appears on The Financial Express, click here.

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Canada and Caricom’s commitment to forging new strategic partnerships to address climate change could not come at a more crucial time for the region. In a policy paper on Trade-Related Climate Priorities for Caricom at the World Trade Organisation (Dr Jan Yves Remy, The UWI SRC & TESS Forum 2023) Small Island Developing States including those comprising Caricom were recognised as especially vulnerable to global (climate-driven) shocks, despite their disproportionately low contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. The paper also notes that “natural disasters from climate change present a clear and present danger to Caricom economic activity”. These challenges are compounded by macro-economic pressures that hamper the region’s ability to develop its climate resilience. Trade and trade policies can be harnessed to drive climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.

This SRC Trading Thoughts considers how trade rules could be leveraged to promote green industries, and highlights the possible components of a strategic “Green Free Trade Agreement (FTA)” between Caricom and Canada.

An opportunity to reignite trade negotiations between Caricom and Canada?

Negotiations between Canada and Caricom towards a reciprocal FTA were launched on July 1, 2007. This was intended to replace the existing CARIBCAN preferential trade agreement which has been in existence since 1986, and provides duty free access to the Canadian market for certain goods of Caricom origin. As of May 2015, Canada’s position on the reciprocal FTA negotiations was that “(g)iven the lengthy negotiations and that Canada and Caricom continue to have different objectives for a Canada-Caricom trade agreement, no additional negotiations are planned at this date”. In the context of Canada’s renewed commitment to climate-related strategic ventures in the Caricom region, including its vocal support for the Bridgetown Initiative and pledged funding to tackle the climate crisis in the Caribbean, there are favourable diplomatic conditions for revisiting the idea of a Canada-Caricom FTA.

Canada’s trade priorities include “contributing to a rules-based international system that advances Canadian interests” by “fostering co-operative multilateral action and pursuing new and innovative partnerships with a focus on… climate change and environmental protection”. While a formal articulation of Caricom’s trade priorities, in particular as it relates to climate change, is less readily available, Caricom leaders at the Heads of Government Conference “recognised that the impact of Climate Change and other exogenous shocks were having a debilitating effect on Small Island and low-lying coastal Developing States (SIDS) as well as other vulnerable developing countries, and that there was an urgent need to provide macro-economic security, resilience and sustainability for our countries”. Caricom and Canada therefore have a common strategic interest in mutual partnership to address climate change and environmental protection. Revisiting the Canada-Caricom negotiations from the angle of a ”Green-FTA” could be part of Caricom’s response to the urgent needs triggered by the impact of climate change.

Where to begin?

Generally, trade agreements can promote green industries by removing tariffs and non-tariff barriers on green goods and services and improving access to climate related technologies. FTAs can also be used to incorporate environmental standards into trade agreements, and to embed environmental commitments such as those found in the Paris Agreement. Recent agreements also focus on sustainable production methods, sustainability criteria, and conditions bodog sportsbook review of labour. FTA rules can also be used to incentivise environmentally friendly practices. For instance, trade agreements can provide preferential treatment for countries that adopt sustainable practices, or are in the process of transitioning to climate resilient economies.

An increasing number of FTAs include provisions addressing the environmental goods which are necessary for building climate resilient and climate responsive economies. Canada is a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and as such has established a list of environmental goods for targeted tariff reduction so that APEC businesses and citizens access important environmental technologies at lower cost, which in turn will facilitate their use and benefit the environment. Some of the environmental goods identified in APEC’s list which are relevant to Caricom’s own green transition include solar water heaters, solar photovoltaic cells, smart grid equipment and recycling machinery. Similar collaboration between Canada and Caricom to phase out or reduce tariffs on a list of environmental goods of mutual interest over an agreed timeframe, would lower the cost of importing these technologies into the region and potentially aid the region’s green economy transition, and would be an attractive market access proposition for Canadian manufacturers of environmental goods.

FTAs between Canada and other developing countries hint at opportunities for strategic collaboration between Caricom and Canada to address climate and environmental priorities. When Canada entered into an FTA with Honduras, the countries also entered into a parallel agreement on environmental collaboration. That agreement includes provisions which are relevant to Caricom’s efforts at climate change mitigation, adaptation and promotion of sustainable development. For example, Canada and Honduras committed to ensuring that their domestic environmental laws provide for high levels of environmental protection and continuing to develop those laws and environmental management systems, taking into consideration their respective levels of development.

The Canada-Honduras collaboration is a good example of the type of legal framework which could be adopted in a Canada-Caricom agreement. In the Caricom context, it would encourage the harmonisation of environmental laws across the region and potentially raise the level of environmental protection within individual member states, while providing a measure of flexibility appropriate to the realities of our small vulnerable economies. These commitments should be exempt from the dispute resolution provisions of the FTA. During the previous Canada-Caricom FTA negotiations, Canada expressed its intention to seek to negotiate a parallel Environment Agreement which would also address commitments not to derogate from domestic environmental laws to encourage trade or investment, compliance with and the enforcement of environmental laws, and promotion of accountability, transparency and public participation on environmental matters.

Looking beyond Canada and Caricom trade practice, the WTO has observed that an increasing number of FTAs contain provisions which address green issues. A non-exhaustive list of areas which are relevant to the Caricom region and could potentially be addressed in a Canada-Caricom Green FTA include public, private and civil sector participation in policy-making processes; transparency; remedies in environmental matters; biodiversity and traditional knowledge; patents and plant variety protection; sustainable management of forests and fisheries; trade in forest and fish products; energy and mineral resource management; clean energy; energy efficiency; natural disaster management and technical assistance and cooperation provisions aimed at supporting the implementation of some of the environmental provisions. A Canada-Caricom joint committee could be established to support these objectives by identifying areas of mutual interest from among these, and implementing appropriate measures and provisions.

The commitments expressed at the Conference of Heads of Government must now be translated into policy and action to secure a sustainable and prosperous future for the region. A Canada-Caricom Green FTA would promote sustainable development, protect the environment, stimulate economic growth, and support Caricom members to address their climate priorities.

Russell Campbell is a Research Assistant at the Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services of The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill.

To read the full article, please click here.

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The Aug. 20 letter highlighted that a free trade pact with Kenya would be “the appropriate next step in recognizing and strengthening relations, economic opportunities, and a security partnership between the United States and Kenya.”

Kenya began negotiations on a trade deal with the U.S. during the Trump administration. The Biden administration has stalled the negotiations without specifying whether or how Washington would resume the talks.

The letter to Tai made the case that the Biden administration has a “historic opportunity” to work toward a trade agreement with Kenya, which would be the first such pact between the U.S. and a sub-Saharan African country.

The letter further noted that “as the U.S. increasingly bodog online casino partners with Kenya to combat al-Shabab and other terrorist groups, it is more important than ever to recognize Kenya as an important ally in the Horn of Africa.”

Indeed, a trade agreement with Kenya is clearly in America’s interest. Regrettably, however, the Biden administration has shown little appetite for restarting stalled trade negotiations with Nairobi.

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing in May, Tai did state the necessity of making sure that what we do with Kenya will “reinforce all of the things that Kenya is doing in Africa, not take away from that.”

Two months later, when she announced and highlighted a “U.S.-Africa trade ministerial” that will be held later this year, Tai said the ministerial would be focused on how to “build” on the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

Currently, the cornerstone of America’s economic engagement with Africa is the 21-year-old African Growth and Opportunity Act. A preferential trade program, it offers eligible sub-Saharan African countries duty-free access to the U.S. market for more than 1,800 goods until 2025.

More can and should be done to build on the African Growth and Opportunity Act and upgrade it to strengthen and broaden commercial ties with Africa.

A renewed U.S. effort to promote economic freedom across Africa should also be a central part of America’s long-term mission to assist African countries. Greater economic freedom, reinforced by trade freedom, is the long-term solution to the continent’s weak health security capacities and many more of its economic and social challenges.

It’s notable that in commemorating the launch of the Organization of African Unity, Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, global health, and global human rights, in June stressed that, moving forward, U.S. policy toward Africa should be more about trade and investment, less about aid.

She further underlined that “we will need to be aligned—like a lot of other countries around the world that view the continent of Africa as a partner—as an investment partner, a business partner, and not view the continent of Africa as a place where we need to deliver charity.”

While the U.S. cannot provide the leaders of foreign nations the political will needed to transform their economies according to free market principles, it can support the cause of economic freedom through consistent policy dialogues with its African partners and by providing technical help for reform-minded countries.

A readily available and practical next step toward that strategic objective would be for the Biden administration to resume negotiations aimed at hammering out a free trade agreement with Kenya as noted by the senators’ letter.

Anthony B. Kim researches international economic issues at The Heritage Foundation, with a focus on economic freedom and free trade.

To read the full commentary from The Heritage Foundation, please click here.

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Our excess-mortality model suggests that 8m-16m people have died in the pandemic. The central estimate is 14m. The developing world is vulnerable to the virus, especially lower-middle-income countries where remote working is rare and plenty of people are fat and old. If you strip out China, non-rich countries have 68% of the world’s population but 87% of its deaths. Only 5% of those aged over 12 are fully vaccinated.

Alongside the human cost is an economic bill, since emerging markets have less room to spend their way out of trouble. Medium-term gdp forecasts for all emerging economies are in aggregate 5% lower than before the virus struck. People are angry and, even though protesting during a pandemic is risky, violent demonstrations around the world are more common than at any time since 2008.

Rich places, such as America and Britain, are no strangers to incompetence and turmoil. But disappointment has hit emerging economies especially hard. In the early 2000s they buzzed with talk of “catch-up”: the idea that poorer countries could prosper by absorbing foreign technology, investing in manufacturing and opening up their economies to trade, as a handful of East Asian tiger economies had done a generation earlier. Wall Street coined the term brics to celebrate Brazil, Russia, India and China—the world economy’s new superstars.

For a while, catch-up worked. The proportion of countries where the level of economic output per head was growing faster than in America rose from 34% in the 1980s to 82% in the 2000s. The implications were momentous. Poverty fell. Multinational companies pivoted away from the boring old West. In geopolitics catch-up promised a new multipolar world in which power was more evenly distributed.

This golden age now looks as if it has come to a premature end. In the 2010s the share of countries catching up fell to 59%. China has defied many doomsayers and there have been quieter Asian success stories such as Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. But Brazil and Russia have let down the brics and, as a whole, Latin America, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa are falling further behind the rich world. Even emerging Asia is catching up more slowly than it was.

Bad luck has played a part. The commodity boom of the 2000s fizzled out, global trade stagnated after the financial crisis and bouts of exchange-rate turbulence caused turmoil. But so has complacency as countries have come to think that fast growth Bodog Poker was preordained. In many places basic services such as education and health care have been neglected. Crippling problems have been left unfixed, including South Africa’s idle power plants, India’s rotten banks and Russia’s corruption. Instead of defending liberal institutions, such as central banks and the courts, politicians have used them for their own gain.

What happens next? One risk is an emerging-market economic crisis as interest rates in America rise. Fortunately most emerging economies are less brittle than they were, because they have floating exchange rates and rely less on foreign-currency debt. Long-running political crises are a bigger worry. Research suggests that protests suppress the economy, which leads to further discontent—and that the effect is more marked in emerging markets.

Even if emerging economies avoid chaos, the legacy of covid-19 and rising protectionism could condemn them to a long period of slower growth. Many of their people will remain unvaccinated until well into 2022. Long-term productivity could be lowered as a result of so many children having missed school.

Trade may also become harder. China is turning inward, away from the broadly open policies that made it richer. If that continues, China will never be the vast source of consumer demand for the poor world that America has been for China in recent decades.

The West’s increasing protectionism will also limit export opportunities for foreign producers which, in any case, will be less advantageous as manufacturing becomes less labour-intensive. Unfortunately, rich countries are unlikely to make up for it by liberalising trade in services, which would open up other paths to growth. And they may fail to help exposed economies such as Bangladesh—a success story—adapt to climate change.

Faced with this grim landscape, emerging markets may themselves be tempted to abandon open trade and investment. That would be a grave error. An unforgiving global environment makes it even more important for them to stick to policies that work. Turkey’s notion that raising interest rates causes inflation has been disastrous; Venezuela’s pursuit of socialism has been ruinous; and banning foreign firms from adding customers, as India just has with Mastercard, is self-defeating. When catching up is hard, those emerging markets which stay open will have the best chance.

Catch up, don’t give up

Some rules have changed: universal access to digital technologies is now vital, as is an adequate social safety-net. But the principles of how to get rich remain the same today as they ever were. Stay open to trade, compete in global markets and invest in infrastructure and education. Before the liberal reforms of recent decades, economies were diverging. There is time yet to avoid a return to the needless hardship of old.

To read the full commentary from The Economist, please click here. 

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Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are missing out on the foreign direct investment (FDI) they need to transform their economies and benefit from meaningful progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But it doesn’t have to be this way.

According to the 27th Global Trade Alert Report, Advancing Sustainable Development with FDI: why policy must be reset, an annual average of only two new greenfield FDI projects in SDG-intensive sectors were announced in each LDC between 2015 and 2019.

This comes amid broader declines in the real value of FDI into developing countries that started with the 2008 financial crisis and have accelerated during the pandemic.

Although global FDI inflows had been nominally recovering since 2010, gaining an average 7.1% per year until 2019, a typical annual capital depreciation rate of 3.9% eroded much of that growth. At that rate, FDI inflows into developing countries would need to exceed $440 billion just to replace ageing FDI assets. And due to economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, FDI has since plungedto levels not seen since 1995, the report highlights.

This is concerning for LDCs that have yet to replicate the huge economic boost that transition economies and low and middle income countries (LMICs) in East Asia and Eastern Europe had already enjoyed due to FDI, noted Simon Evenett, co-author of the report and Professor of International Trade and Economic Development at the University of St Gallen.

But with creative thinking and support from donors and international organizations, LDCs still have an opportunity to buck the current trend and experience a similar uplift, he added. “Just because it hasn’t happened to the degree LDCs might have liked in the past doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future.”

Facilitate commercial returns

One lesson LDCs can apply from recent years is that facilitating good commercial outcomes for FDI investors is critical.

Despite the higher risks associated with investing in developing countries – and hence investors’ rational desire to be compensated with higher returns – direct foreign investments in developing countries in Asia Pacific and Central and South America have for more than a decade yielded returns that barely exceed those of European Union countries, the Global Trade Alert Report noted.

According to UNCTAD’s 2020 World Investment Report, the fall in global FDI inflows coincides almost exactly with a gradual decline in those investments’ financial returns, which shrank from 7.1% in 2010 to 6.7% by 2019. Declines in developing countries were significantly sharper, with FDI returns falling to 7.8% by 2018 from 11.5% in 2011, while in Africa they almost halved over the same period, from 12% to 6.5%, UNCTAD figures show.

At the same time however, private-sector firms are under growing pressure from both civil society and their own investors to contribute more to sustainable development and improve their ESG credentials. This may offer window of opportunity for LDCs to compete for a bigger share of higher-quality, more sustainable FDI – but only if they can help firms be adequately rewarded with better commercial returns.

Treat FDI better

Treatment of FDI has also deteriorated across the board since 2014, with FDI-conducive policies at both G20 countries and LDCs falling sharply between 2019 and 2020 to less than 40% of all newly implemented policies, the Global Trade Alert Report found.

Figure 2 Global Trade Report June 2 2021, p27

Cambodia however offers one positive example of how policies aimed at supporting FDI inflows and financial returns can reap rewards, according to Evenett.

Although Cambodia was not immune to Covid-19 – with Coface figures pointing to a 49% year-on-year decline in foreign investment in the first quarter of 2020 – its FDI inflows had reached a record high the previous year, growing 16% to $3.7 billion, according to UNCTAD. And even in 2020, the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) approved 238 investment projects worth $8.2 billion across a good mix of sectors.

Ways the kingdom has facilitated foreign investment include the creation of special economic zones (SEZs) that provide businesses with access to land, infrastructure and services, and the introduction of incentives such as corporate tax holidays, 100% ownership of companies and duty-free import of capital goods.

Self-reflect with development bank support

LDCs looking to reboot their FDI should start by examining their own track record, seeking to establish which policies or corporate practices are responsible for the rates of return multinational corporations’ foreign affiliates generate in their country, as well as what is driving up perceived risk levels and what impact FDI has on the ground, the report recommends. Partnering with the World Bank or a regional development bank should help this process.

Policy makers should then develop an FDI framework that not only helps their country compete against other locations for foreign investment but makes it more lucrative for companies to invest in the country than simply export to it, Evenett argues.

Target incentives at priority sectors

Policies should ensure state aid for FDI is targeted only at sectors that the LDC has identified as most likely to benefit sustainable development, the report advises. Enhanced incentives should also be offered for investments that facilitate the transfer of innovations that deliver progress towards priority sectors.

A list of these sectors should be made public to inward investors and potential donor governments, it adds.

Resist erecting trade barriers

The erection of trade barriers has long been recognized as a potential tactic for countries looking to attract more FDI from foreign companies that want to reach new markets.

“Governments can try and secure more FDI by blocking out exports and making firms jump the trade barrier and invest in the country,” Evenett noted. However, “our experience of that is it’s a disaster.”

One unintended consequence of introducing tariff or non-tariff barriers is that LDCs’ low-income populations end up paying more for essential goods and services, such as food, medicines or education, he explains. It is far better in such cases therefore to properly incentivize investment in local production capacity from the outset, he argues.

Ensure transparency and stability

Whatever improvements LDCs make now, policy stability and transparency will be key to de-risking FDI in the future, Evenett adds. Any FDI framework should therefore have a five- to 10-year shelf life and be made clear and accessible.

To make long-term investments, companies need to be able to research and understand regulations easily and have confidence they won’t change halfway through a project. “Uncertainty is the killer of investment,” he concludes.

To read the full commentary by Enhanced Integrated Framework, please click here.

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The pandemic highlighted the importance of trade and foreign trade logistics. In March 2020, COVID-19 transformed daily life as we knew it. Yet, trade has primarily withstood the disruptions caused by international transportation restrictions and social distancing policies. It has even grown substantially in some areas, such as e-commerce and online trade, for instance. According to an Amazon report, its international net sales increased by 28.3 percent between the first half of 2019 and the same period in 2020.  

By shining the spotlight on the opportunities brought by digital transformation, the pandemic has put customs authorities and their response capacities to the test. The urgent need to clear the critical goods needed to respond to the health emergency while keeping regular trade flows moving forced authorities to transition to digital customs systems almost overnight.  

Even before the pandemic hit, LAC was lagging North America, Europe, and Asia in implementing the commitments it had taken on under the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement, according to 2019 data. Therefore, the region needs to create efficiencies in its international trade logistics.  

LAC’s economic recovery depends mainly on how its foreign trade logistics perform, which rests on the appropriate physical and digital infrastructure and related transportation services.  

Innovating and transforming customs administration through technology  

In response to these challenges, the new IDB publication Logistics in Latin America and the Caribbean: Opportunities, Challenges, and Lines of Action discusses some of the technologies that the region’s countries could implement to innovate and transform their customs administration.  

The optimization, automation, and digitization of customs and border processes are among the areas that new technologies address. These factors are the cornerstones of modernization and lay the groundwork for generating the high-quality data needed to implement robust and effective risk management systems. 

For example, the ability of customs to obtain, process, and analyze large amounts of quality data is key to strengthen regional value chains and make them agile and secure. Automation also requires other innovative components, such as electronic signatures and authentication mechanisms for internal and external users.  

Another ingredient in the recipe for effective and efficient customs is the traceability of goods. New technologies like radio frequency identification systems (RFID), the Internet of Things (IoT), geolocation tools, electronic seals for container and trailer doors, and OCR license plate readers make it possible to track cargo, vehicles, and the people driving them.  

These systems can be deployed at critical points such as production centers, bonded warehouses, and road corridors that connect land border crossings, seaports, and airports. One example is the system developed in Brazil to track and trace cargo vehicles, packaging, and products by integrating this data with electronic tax documents. Likewise, physical traceability can be accompanied by digitally documented data from each transaction. 

The data that customs authorities capture has immense value for customs and border risk management by digitizing and associating them with freight and transportation documents (cargo manifests, bills of lading, customs declaration data, and electronic invoices). Once the data is captured, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data tools allow the processing and analysis of large volumes of information to identify patterns and potentially risky or fraudulent operations.  

Coordinated Border Management based on the use of new technologies 

For the benefit of supply chains and foreign trade logistics, it is also essential that the use of new technologies is carried out in the context of Coordinated Border Management between customs and other authorities involved in border processes. 

This coordination is streamlined with interoperability between authorities and economic operators through Single Windows for Foreign Trade (SWs) or Port Community Systems to reduce times and costs for operators and increase control capacities. For example, the adoption of a SW system in Costa Rica is associated with a 1.4 percentage-point increase in the exports of companies that used the system compared to those that did not. 

There is also an opportunity to promote and strengthen regional value chains through interoperability initiatives between customs systems and other border entities. These include the Central American Digital Trade Platform (PDCC) and the CADENA application, which uses blockchain to facilitate  data exchange from companies whose reliability has been certified, such as authorized economic operators.  

Finally, these components would not be effective without functional infrastructure at the entry and exit points of goods at land borders, seaports, and airports. Likewise, the effect would not be the same if the infrastructure did not include advanced technological entry, exit, inspection, and monitoring systems. The Mexican customs authority’s Customs Technological Integration Project (PITA) is an example of a comprehensive technology-based border infrastructure intervention. The customs authorities of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panamá are following suit and implementing border crossing reform processes that cover border facilities and include the use of cutting-edge technologies, with support from the IDB.  

IDB support for the modernization of customs and border management 

Through the Trade and Investment Division of the Integration and Trade Sector of the IDB, we support an innovative agenda of projects to modernize customs and border management in LAC. Two examples of these are the digital transformation and automation projects for the customs authorities of Colombia and Peru, including smart traceability plans for cargo and vehicles. We are also providing support for regional initiatives involving the use of blockchain to exchange data between eight customs offices in LAC and the application of artificial intelligence to improve customs risk management in several countries, among other projects. 

LAC countries should embrace the availability of new technologies, the fast-track innovation induced by the pandemic, and the support of international organizations, such as the IDB, to expedite the digital transformation of their customs administrations. 

José Martín is a consultant at the Trade and Investment Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Previously, he was the Representative in Washington, DC, for the Ministry of Finance of Mexico and the Mexican Tax Administration Service for more than 26 years. José Martín was one of the negotiators of customs provisions, trade facilitation, certification and verification of origin, and supervision of foreign trade operations of the recently concluded Mexico-United States-Canada Agreement (T-MEC).

Sandra Corcuera-Santamaría is a customs and trade specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington DC since 2006. She is responsible for several national and regional projects for customs modernization and coordinated border management, and trade facilitation initiatives, including the coordination of the Authorized Economic Operator Program in Latin America and the Caribbean. Prior to her career at the IDB, Sandra spent six years in the Economic and Commercial Office of the Spanish Embassy in Washington, and was a project coordinator at the consulting firm EuropeanDevelopment Projects in Brussels, Belgium. Sandra has a Master in Public Administration from the University of Leuven, Belgium and a Bachelor of Political Science from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain.

To read the full commentary from the Inter-American Development Bank (IBD), please click here. 

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Although it did not materialize because of lack of sufficient support, a major political figure in the country, Mr. Andargachew Tsige, had called an impromptu meeting and appealed to his supporters to “come out in millions and burn the US flag” to oppose the Biden administration. (Andargachew once claimed to have authored the roadmap for Ethiopia’s transition and is believed to be the key link between the Ethiopian Prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, and the Eritrean President, Isaias Afeworki.) Judging by the reactions of the various officials of the Ethiopian government, Addis Ababa appears to be seriously concerned about the implications of the new US policy, and rightly so.

The key argument that members and supporters of the Ethiopian regime are invoking in their opposition to the new US policy is the Westphalian conception of state sovereignty, which reinforces the strongly held view in some circles in the country that Ethiopia is an exceptional state, in whose internal affairs outsiders are not welcomed to meddle. Alluding to these sentiments, Mr. Abiy has referred to the US in a recent public event as a “young nation without history”, revealing the kind of thinking that might have led his country into a ruinous civil war. It appears that the young and gaudy leader might have expected that the US foreign policy establishment would continue to afford the Ethiopian government significant deference – as in the past – regardless of how it conducted its internal affairs.

The view that Ethiopia is an exceptional state – as professed by a segment of the Ethiopian political class – has serious detractors. The narrative that it is a country consisting of unequal nations, which had been cobbled together through imperial annexation by the Amhara ruling class only in the last century and half, has gained significant ground under the leadership of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Arguably, the wars in Tigray, Oromia, and Benishangul are driven by Abiy’s apparent determination to reverse course and reimpose a view of Ethiopia that is cherished by the unitarist political camp.

More importantly, it is difficult to reconcile the image of Ethiopia as an exceptional country that nurtures its sovereignty, with the harsh economic reality it is facing. It remains dependent on foreign aid to meet some of the basic needs of its population. The US, its western allies, and the multilateral institutions in which they are important stakeholders send billions of dollars to Ethiopia every year, most of which is allocated as a budget support to the government.

Of the $13 billion dollars or so promised by the World Bank to Ethiopia for the current three-year period, nearly half of the funds had been earmarked for workers’ salaries in the five pro-poor sectors identified by the Bank, under the moniker of human development. The World Bank is just one of about twenty-seven countries and agencies funding Ethiopia’s pro-poor sectors (the sectors include education, health, agriculture, water, and social protections), endeavoring to contribute to economic development in the country. Ethiopia’s education sector alone receives over $1 billion every year from these sources, with World Bank’s share constituting less than half of the transfers.

Ethiopia is also heavily dependent on the planned – now uncertain – restructuring of its debt by the International Monetary Fund, without which it will be in default on the external debt it has accumulated over the years due to the persistent deficits in its balance of payment. Currently, the country’s international reserve can finance imports only for the next month and half. For all intents and purposes, therefore, Ethiopia is looking at the abyss in terms of economic activities, without the promised debt restructuring by the IMF.

Under these dire circumstances, the claim that a rational recalibration of their policies by the US and the other donor nations – to induce the Ethiopian government to hold an all-inclusive and meaningful dialogue with the federalist camp –   amounts to infringing on the sovereign rights of an independent state, does not make much sense. Unless being an “exceptional country” means dependence on the generosity of others for survival, it is difficult to reconcile the rhetoric coming from Addis Ababa with the difficult economic realities the country is facing.

Additionally, the sovereignty argument rings hollow, when one considers that Ethiopia is on the verge of collapse, posing serious risks and threats to millions of innocent human lives, regional stability, and World peace.  Although he came into office primarily through a popular protest movement – also known as the Oromo Protests – Mr. Abiy did not waste any time in ditching the largely peaceful movement and to hitching his political wagon with forces whose main mission was to undo the social and political changes that had transpired in the country when the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) was at the helm.

Working in concert with the Eritrean regime, Abiy’s government has instituted policies and initiatives that have put millions of lives at risk, and it is overseeing a devastating civil war on many fronts – with the war in Tigray capturing international attention largely due to its intensity, and insurgencies in Oromia and Benishangul gaining significant momentum in the last three years. Ethiopia today is “tense, deeply conflicted, dangerous, and bitterly contested by warring factions”, taking a giant leap towards becoming a failed state, thus quickly turning into a real danger to its people and international peace.

If the dangerous political course Addis Ababa is pursuing continues along its current trajectory, it has a potential of turning the Horn of Africa into an ungovernable mess, with seriously adverse implications to the international community.  Under these circumstances, the call by Western powers (who will be called upon to bear some of the cost of the war) for an all-Inclusive dialogue – to try to solve Ethiopia’s age-old political problems – is the least they can do. Great powers have from time to time led international efforts (including and up to conducting overseas military operations) to protect their geo-political interests and to save innocent human lives; therefore, the recent policy initiatives being undertaken by the US and its European allies with respect to the conflicts in Ethiopia are to be expected from responsible global leaders.

What Abiy and co. are framing as US’s intervention in Ethiopia’s internal affairs – invoking a Westphalian notion of state sovereignty and appealing to a diminishing sentiment among Ethiopians (Ethiopia’s dubious exceptional status) – can be understood rather as a concerted effort by the Biden administration to avert a potentially disastrous collapse of the Ethiopian state. The Western world, whose counsel the Ethiopian prime minister seems to have rejected, had considered him a worthy partner who could lead the effort to bring about the long-sought democracy and development in the country, likely facilitating his meteoric rise to power.

A contemporary phenomenon that the promoters of centralized Ethiopian state are also neglecting (in their rush to justify a brutal war that has victimized millions of people) and much of the Western world has been seeking to come to terms with, is “the global resurgence of cultural and religious pluralism … the quest for cultural authenticity and civilizational states” in the modern age. International Relations scholars are recommending to policy makers in the West to be thoughtfully cognizant of these developments while rearticulating their foreign policies to meet the challenges of the emerging multipolar world.

The current civil war in Ethiopia has been characterized as a manifestation of the contestation between unitary political forces that subscribe to Ethiopian exceptionalism as an ideology, and others that aim to promote cultural and linguistic pluralism in the country. The Tigray people are proud custodians of the Aksumite civilization, and it is very difficult to see them as part of Ethiopia where their identity is suppressed, and their collective destiny is determined by the central government in Addis Ababa. Similarly, the Oromo are reclaiming their Gadaa civilization – an indigenous democratic socio-political system recently inscribed by UNESCO as an intangible human heritage, which was suppressed for over a century along with the other important markers of their identity – and it would be unrealistic to expect them to buy into Mr. Abiy’s vision of Greater Ethiopia, where the Amhara identity becomes the dominant norm, once again.

Whereas thoughtful world leaders are cognizant of these developments and fine tuning their policies to meet the challenges of the 21st Century, Mr. Abiy and his regional partners appear to be stuck in the past – on the principle of state sovereignty that was designed in Europe to overcome the challenges of a different era, and is increasingly being viewed as a flawed principle of international law for the modern times we live in – to push the political agenda, and maintain the cultural hegemony, of the Amhara over all other social groups in the country.   

Viewed from these perspectives, it is not entirely surprising that the Biden foreign policy team is rising to the challenge and sending a clear signal that it will not be deterred from pursuing a rational foreign policy objective in Ethiopia, regardless of a legalistic interpretation of current law pertaining to state sovereignty. It must be applauded and supported for initiating a policy change and processes that aim to hold the Ethiopian regime and its associates accountable for their gross and unacceptable violations of human rights.

Teferi Mergo is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Waterloo in Canada, with joint appointments at St. Paul’s College and the department of Economics. He is a Research Fellow at the Global Labor Organization – and he has been recognized for excellence in research at the University of Waterloo.

To read the original commentary from Global Policy, please visit here

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Both the European Union and the United States have now committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2050. And they have established similar milestones along the way: by 2030, the EU intends to slash its greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by at least 55%, relative to the level in 1990, while the US intends to cut them by 50-52% from their 2005 level.

To fulfil these commitments, the EU and the US will have to overcome many of the same challenges. For starters, they must scale up the deployment of existing clean technologies (including solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles) and foster innovation in emerging technologies (such as green hydrogen, solid-state batteries, and enabling digital innovations). Here, cooperation could go a long way toward accelerating progress.

Second, the EU and the US need to make better use of carbon pricing, where Europe is leading the way: it has already established the world’s largest carbon market, which it soon plans to upgrade and expand. The US currently has no country-wide carbon-pricing system, but the intellectual and political momentum for one is building.

Yet harnessing this momentum to make real progress in the US, and ensuring the fairness and political durability of any carbon-pricing system, will demand measures to address distributional effects. Returning the revenue to the public as carbon dividends could prove vital.

Third, both the EU and the US will have to address the socioeconomic disruptions arising from the green transition. This means facilitating industrial transformation in carbon-intensive regions and assisting workers who are forced to change jobs. Employment and economic opportunity are central to climate strategies in both the US – “when people talk about climate, I think jobs,” Biden recently declared – and Europe, with its green “industrial strategy.”

The EU and the US are also aligned in terms of the international climate imperatives they face. Neither side’s efforts will count for much if they do not also support the green transition in developing countries. To this end, mobilising climate finance and facilitating transfers of clean technology are essential.

Supporting developing countries’ green transition could go a long way toward deterring “carbon leakage”: when companies relocate production to countries with lower carbon taxes or less stringent environmental regulations. But more direct solutions – such as a carbon border adjustment mechanism, whereby companies pay a higher price to import goods whose production involved higher GHG emissions – will also be needed.

The EU is already working on such a mechanism as part of the European Green Deal. This is clearly a good thing. But a joint EU-US mechanism would be better – especially if it was part of a broader transatlantic green deal.

In fact, the EU and the US should go even further and create a “climate club,” as Nobel laureate economist William Nordhaus proposed in 2015. As one of us (Simone) and Guntram B. Wolff recently argued, economies would have to take four steps to join: strengthen and align domestic targets; agree to a system for quantifying and comparing domestic climate policies; establish a standard for measuring the carbon content of complex goods; and ensure transparent taxation and regulation.

Any country that wanted to join the climate club should be welcomed. This would help to advance another shared EU-US interest: establishing rules of the game in emerging sectors and markets, such as green hydrogen and sustainable finance.

Markets need widely accepted rules to grow and develop, and those who help to devise those rules reap a significant strategic advantage. Nobody is better positioned to claim that advantage than the US and Europe, which together represent 40% of global GDP and 30% of goods imports.

Other countries cannot ignore what happens in the US or Europe. If they take joint action – whether to adopt a joint sustainable-finance taxonomy or introduce a climate border adjustment mechanism – others would surely follow suit. Beyond accelerating climate action worldwide, this would strengthen the global leadership position of the EU and the US – and reinforce the open, rules-based multilateral system they support.

Add to all this the values and principles that the EU and the US share – including respect for human rights and the rule of law – and it seems clear that greater climate cooperation is in both sides’ interests. Biden’s trip to Europe is the ideal opportunity to get started.

Ana Palacio is an international lawyer specializing in international and European Union law. Ms. Palacio is a Member of the Council of State of Spain and is the Founding Partner of the law and public affairs firm Palacio y Asociados.

Simone Tagliapietra is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He is also Adjunct professor of Energy, Climate and Environmental Policy at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and at The Johns Hopkins University – School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Europe.

To read the full commentary from Bruegel, please click here.

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