EU Referendum

Showing posts with label third world aid. Show all posts

Bolan+Park2[i-Bolan+Park2]One of the more egregious stupidities, from a man given to more than average, is David Cameron's decision to ring-fence the foreign aid programme.

Better late than never, we now have Andrew Gilligan in The Daily Telegraph questioning that decision, in a piece headed: "Did Britian (sic) really need to give millions to the wealthy state of Singapore?"

Apparently, "Britain" (i.e., British taxpayers) has given £8.7 million in development aid to Singapore, whose gross domestic product per capita is the fourth highest in the world, and 46 percent higher than our own. And, of course, we have dolled out well over £1 billion in aid to India over the last three years, for that country to finance its space programme, its defence re-equipment and its own aid programme.

Even where aid is directed to an ostensibly good cause, such as Afghanistan, we see some insane spending decisions, such as the spending of £420,000 on a leisure park for women in Afghanistan, complete with a Ferris wheel.

If ever there was a budget that needed to be ripped apart, shredded, eviscerated and then collapsed, it is our aid budget ... and DFID with it. But that is not Cameron territory. This is the PR spiv who lives by the "feel good" gesture, and for that vanity we are to pay £9 billion from our hard earned incomes.

And the reason we should not rise up and slaughter him is?

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Coal+mining[i-Coal+mining]Despite the excitement (not) over the general election, the work of government goes on, demonstrating if nothing else the irrelevance of most MPs in the process. And confronting ministers is the knotty problem of what to do with South Africa.

We are not referring to the murder of TerraBlanche, but something altogether more serious – whether to support a World Bank loan for a new coal-fired power station in South Africa.

This issue has been grumbling on for some time, but emerged last month when it was first publicly revealed that the United States and Britain were threatening to withhold support for a $3.75 billion loan, vitally needed to get the project off the ground.

Now, with the decision due this week, it has come to a head, with the UK government wilting under sustained attack from green groups, who are demanding that the loan is blocked.

South Africa desperately needs more electricity capacity. Its existing system is already under pressure and in 2008 came close to collapsing. Rolling blackouts had to be imposed, causing massive damage to the productive economy. As a major coal producer, it made sense to go for coal and it Eskom, the power utility, is planning a 4,800-megawatt coal-fired plant at Medupi in the northern Limpopo region.

But the risk of economic damage and hardship if the project is blocked is of little concern to the likes of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Christian Aid. They argue that the 25 million tons of carbon dioxide the plant would produce pose a risk to the world's climate that outweighs the benefits of the secure electricity it would supply.

They have been lobbying behind the scenes to try to persuade Britain to vote against the loan and have held meetings in recent days with Gareth Thomas, the minister for international development, Michael Jacobs, the prime minister's special adviser on climate change, and Susanna Moorhead, head of the World Bank in Britain.

This puts the government rather on the spot. It has already supported the development of the $4.14 billion 4GW Mundra power project in India's Gujarat State – another coal-fired plant - and in fact paid for the development work which would allow the owners, Tata Power, to claim carbon credits under the UN's CDM.

What is particularly problematical here is the timing of the general election, with green groups poised to make a huge fuss which could damage the government's green credentials. Having originally supported the proposal, it is now wavering, and may yet cave in when the vote is taken tomorrow.

And just for once, the UK's vote actually matters for, under the Obama administration, the US has issued new guidelines on the funding of coal plants in developing countries. These direct US representatives to encourage "no or low carbon energy" options prior to a coal-based choice, and to assist borrowers in finding additional resources to make up the costs if an alternative to coal is more expensive.

On this basis, the US is likely to abstain from the vote, leaving the UK in the hot seat, in a classic lose-lose situation. The World Bank has pointed out that there is no alternative source of power which could provide enough capacity fast enough to avoid widespread power cuts.

It is urging Britain and other contributors to vote for the loan and warns starkly of an energy crisis across southern Africa. "Without energy," it says, "countries face very limited or no economic growth: factories and businesses cannot function efficiently; hospitals and schools cannot operate fully or safely; basic services that people in rich countries take for granted cannot be offered."

Thus, if Britain blocks the loan, it will be seen to be hampering third world development, with profound humanitarian consequences. If it approves it, it will attract the wrath of the greenies. And it does not stop there. Since any alternatives would cost at least twice as much, if not considerably more, Britain would be more or less obliged to cough up a substantial amount of cash to help meet the extra costs, if it blocks the loan.

Meanwhile, France, with ambitions of selling its next generation nuclear power plants to South Africa, is supporting the application, putting two major EU members at odds, all in the context of official EU policy being to support "low carbon" development.

Norway, though, is in an even worse position. Its ministry of the environment is urging its government to reject the loan, while the ministry of foreign affairs and the agency for development cooperation want to support it.

But, while the various World Bank members are tying themselves in knots, none seem to be asking questions of groups such as Christian Aid, which seems to have elevated climate change above that of the humanitarian issues on which they were founded.

However, this has not stopped Pravin Gordhan, the South African finance minister, from speaking out. He is accusing green groups of trying to impose their environmental priorities on a country lacking the secure electricity that is taken for granted in the developed world.

"It is regrettable," he says, "that ... developed countries and [a] very small group of NGOs in South Africa are putting their environmental concerns, which can't be immediately addressed, above the economic needs of South Africa and our need to grow the economy so that all the people benefit."

Offering no concessions to the greenie climate agenda, he states flatly, "For now, not only South Africa but developing countries more generally will have to rely on coal."

For decades now, the greenies have been trying to convince the world that they and developing nations have a common agenda. But now, the cracks are beginning to show, big time. When the decision comes to be made on Thursday, therefore, there will be a lot more at stake than a single coal-fired power plant. Lines have been drawn and the World Bank – not for the first time - has become the battlefield.

How interesting it is though that the South Africans are prepared to take on the greenies, when our own more "sophisticated" politicians roll over and give them everything they demand – unless we see different on Thursday.

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bricks[i-bricks]Imagine if you would, your locality plagued with a rash of small brickworks. They are primitive in design, belching fumes and befouling the neighbourhood, the smoke and toxins causing real health problems. What would you do?

Not in any way comparable in seriousness, in the tiny physical world inhabited by EU Referendum, we are faced with the unwelcome prospect of a take-away being opened up at the end of our street.

Before it can open, however, it needs planning permission, so Mrs EU Referendum has been busily consulting with local councillors and organising a petition, plus writing to local officials and the planning committee. Like as not, the development will be blocked – just as it has on the three previous occasions the same owner has made the same application for the same take-away.

The issue here, of course, is that to protect our local environment, we seek relief from government. By and large, it performs moderately well. Certainly, there is not the slightest chance of us ever being discommoded by a brickworks being planted at the end of the street.

But that is not the case in India. With the burgeoning economy and a building boom the like of which we have not seen in England for some time, the suburbs of many small towns and cities have been troubled, exactly as described, with a rash of small brickworks, the like of which would never be permitted or tolerated in any developed country.

Now, to develop a corpus of law, including planning restrictions and pollution controls, and an effective enforcement mechanism, is not exactly rocket science. We in England can trace such laws – and the enforcement bodies – back to the Public Health Act 1848, and the emergence of the "public health nuisance" as a statutory offence which could be dealt with by public officials.

Despite the benefits of modernity, however, the governments (federal and state) of India seems entirely incapable of implementing – or, at least, administering such basic controls over their own territories. And this is despite the fact that brickworks are one of the major causes of pollution in India and, being highly inefficient, are holding back rather than promoting development.

So it is that, with governments manifestly incapable of governing, we see the intervention of international agencies such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF), an offshoot of the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

This emerged into my consciousness while hunting the Pachauri millions, when I came across this project, costed at $2,792,593, part funded by GEF, utilising the services of our favourite NGO, TERI.

Headed, "Energy Efficiency Improvements in Indian Brick Industry", it is a worthy enough project, but only scratches the surface of a much larger problem. And, reflecting the priorities of the funding organisation rather than those of the local communities, its main objective is not the betterment of society (and industry) but the control of CO2 "pollution".

Whatever the merits or otherwise of the project, though, the very fact that the government of India allows it is remarkable. Put the shoe on the other foot and imagine how we might feel if, to sort out the takeaway problem at the top of the street, we had to wait for a United Nations agency to descend upon us, throwing money at a local NGO.

That such agencies exist or are allowed to operate – at least, in India – should be regarded by the citizens as an insult, an affront to national pride. To accept that national systems are so inadequate that the intervention of outside agencies for such basic services has to be a most abject admission of incompetence.

Furthermore, far from helping development, it actively undermines it. One can see the sense in calling on outside consultants to assist in identifying inadequacies in governance and administrative systems – although it is hard to accept that such an endeavour is beyond the capabilities of local talent.

Then, surely, the priority would be to introduce such laws as are needed (where they do not already exist) and then to develop the enforcement systems that make them work.

Yet it is the manifest inability of the Indian government to perform the basic functions of government that is holding the country back. Doing part of the job that the government should be doing can hardly help. It is not poverty, ignorance, or lack of resources, per se that is the problem. We were hardly blessed with the attributes and riches that India can now claim, back in 1848 when we started to deal with our own messes.

The problem is a lack of effective governance. We are thus forced to conclude that India is a third world nation because it has a third rate government. And our "development aid", it seems, is making the situation worse.

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