International Development CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by ActionAid
About ActionAid
Founded as a British charity in 1972, ActionAid is an international NGO working in 45 countries worldwide, and our positions and recommendations reflect the experiences of our staff and partners in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. Our vision is a world without poverty and injustice in which every person enjoys the right to a life with dignity. We work with poor and excluded people to eradicate poverty and injustice. We advance women’s rights both through our programmatic and advocacy work.
1. We welcome the decision of the International Development Committee to conduct an Inquiry into the Post 2015 Development Goals. It is undeniable that MDGs have proved to be an important rallying point for the international community. There is now no more vital task than to find a successor that builds on their strengths whilst making up for their shortcomings.
2. ActionAid has chosen to focus our submission on the issues where we have specific programme experience and/or a track record of policy development. This submission is organised according to the questions posed in the Request for Evidence.
Lessons learned from the adoption of the International Development Targets and the Millennium Development Goals: in particular how effective has the MDG process been to date
3. It is difficult to firmly gauge the overall impacts of the MDGs. However most would say that they have played a positive role in improvements to human development. Despite uneven progress across the goals, the framework has been as a focal point for governments, civil society organisations and business to rally round, precipitating increases in aid flows from the North, budget increases and new policies from the South and galvanising new players to act.
4. Some of the specific targets which make up the goals have already been met or will be met by 2015, for example, halting the spread of AIDS, decline in malaria and achieving gender parity in primary education.i Other targets, such as completion of primary education, have seen significant progress in some countries, whilst in others virtually none. Progress on nutrition is difficult to gauge as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has withdrawn estimates for 2009
5. One criticism of the goals is a lack of ambition and “fractional” nature of the targets: halving rather than eradicating hunger and extreme poverty, for example, still leaves a lot of people very poor and hungry even if successful. The MDGs have also been criticised for being too narrow in focus, and reductionist in their approach. MDG 2 on primary education, for example, was a major driver of increased enrolment in primary education but did not require concomitant improvements in quality. Low levels of learning achievement in low-income countries are now the major concern of the international education community.
6. More fundamentally, the MDGs did not address the root causes of poverty, most especially women’s inequality, which made it impossible for the goals to be truly transformative. So, for example, focus on enrolment masked the fact that girls might have high levels of absenteeism and are not completing because of violence in schools. Unless the structural causes of poverty, such as power relations, are addressed poverty eradication will be impossible to achieve. ActionAid believes the post 2015 framework should address equality.
7. Underpinning this failure to address inequality was the absence of a human rights based approach in the MDG goals. Poverty and inequality arise principally because human rights have been denied, and if we are to end poverty then it is necessary to protect, promote and fulfil the human rights of people living in poverty. Poor people are the leading agents in their development process and when empowered are able to challenge unequal power relations, the root causes of inequality. Failure to put rights at the centre of the MDG framework was a missed opportunity. ActionAid believes the post 2015 framework should have rights at its centre.
8. Discrimination, gender-based violence and gender-based disadvantage mean that women are disproportionately far more likely to be poor, hungry or illiterate and thus face a development emergency. This vulnerable position means that shocks such as climate change and resource scarcity are also likely to push them further into poverty and put them more at risk of violence. The failure to mainstream a gendered approach across the goals has created barriers to the goals being reached. For example, MDG 1 on hunger may have had a deeper impact if it had specifically addressed the issue of women’s land rights, a huge enabling factor in the fight against hunger. The Prime Minister has expressed his own commitment to ensuring “that the fight for the empowerment of women is at the heart of” the post 2015 process.iii ActionAid believes that gender should be mainstreamed across the post 2015 framework.
9. It is extremely concerning that one of the two gender specific goals, MDG 5 on maternal health, is the most off-track. The United Nations Population Fund attributes this failure to the low value placed on saving women’s lives by governments and the lack of women’s political influence over health policy and spending.iv ActionAid believes that, in addition to mainstreaming equality and gender across the goals, there should also be a separate goal on gender equality in the new post 2015 framework.
10. One crucial missing piece in the MDG framework was a target on violence against women and girls (VAWG). VAWG is one of the most systematic human rights violations in the world and prevents women and girls form taking opportunities which might otherwise be available, limiting their options to escape poverty. This a critical issue in its own right, but its existence significantly undermines progress towards all the development goals, thus making them impossible to achieve. For example, in relation to MDG 4 and 5 on child and maternal health, a World Health Organisation study found over 5% of women were physically abused when they were pregnant.v ActionAid believes that a separate target on violence against women and girls should be created within the new successor framework, under a gender equality goal.
How should the “Sustainable Development Goals” being established following Rio +20 relate to the development goals being considered by the High-Level Panel?
11. The prominence of environmental pressures and resource scarcity above any other factor could shape the development narrative over the coming decade. Human-induced climate change, the existence of which was still being debated in 1999, is already having serious impacts for all people, but most especially for poor women and men. Extreme weather events, which have become increasingly attributable to climate change, are causing droughts, floods and intensifying storms. Millions of people who have escaped extreme poverty over the last two decades are vulnerable to the kinds of societal shocks created by extreme weather events and could easily be pushed back into desperate poverty unless adequate social protection is put in place.vi
12. Furthermore, climate change is increasing pressure on the world’s already stretched resources. As viable agricultural land becomes scarcer, land-grabbing by business and government is increasingly an issue, impacting on the rights of poor people the world over. Biofuels, which had been misguidedly promoted as a solution to climate change, are putting increased pressure on land as fuel crops replace food, whilst worsening climate change. This too is squeezing poor people’s access to land, while increasing the cost of food with devastating and long terms impacts on poor households. The food price crisis of 2008 for example was, according to the FAO, in part attributable to the wide scale replacement of food crops with crops grown for biofuels.vii
13. While increasing the level of fuel efficiency and increasing the use of truly renewable energy is a priority for the global North, securing access to clean energy is critical for poverty reduction and development. This is, to a large extent, also reflected in the draft sustainable energy SDG that was discussed in the run up to the Rio+20 conference.
14. Any new global development framework must address sustainability issues in a common but differentiated way. It must be internally consistent, ensuring that the pursuit of environmental targets creates the conditions for poverty reduction and in no way worsens them. Securing coherence between goals on food, water and energy will be critical for the success of the SDGs but also for the success of any new MDGs.
15. The SDGs already address some of the shortcomings of the MDGs: they are southern led, would be universally applicable, contain differentiated targets and most obviously, place greater importance on the need to address sustainability in order for strong human development to be achieved. ActionAid believes that the two processes must result in the agreement of a single set of goals to guide policies to achieve equitable and sustainable development for all.
The coverage of future goals: should they be for developing countries only or should progress be monitored in all countries?
16. Changes in the global landscape in the period since the MDGs were adopted make it imperative that the future framework be global in scope. However there must be some flexibility in how goals are applied and delivered to allow for contextualisation (eg Bangladesh in comparison to China). Any new framework should be global in scope but provide space for innovative localized solutions and alternatives, and guidance to locally identified policies, strategies, goals and indicators.
17. To allow adaptability whilst remaining robust the post-2015 framework must be backed up by strong accountability mechanisms. Currently a country’s performance at reaching the MDGs is an unreliable guide to how well they have responded to their obligations to satisfy the human rights of their entire populations. If there are to be a new global development targets there must be a mechanism which fosters accountability, not only to a governing body but to the people for whom these targets have been created.
18. There is a continued need to make progress on the development issues identified within the existing MDG framework, including going beyond the fractional targets in most cases. Poverty remains a modern day scandal and nothing less than its eradication should be the aim of the new framework. Rather than shifting the agenda completely, a new framework should ensure that goals which have not been met are renewed and reframed with greater ambition to see them achieved. For example, there should be a revised education goal which addresses quality as well as access to education, and goals on poverty and hunger should remain and aim higher.
The process: are the right voices being heard? What are the opportunities for and constraints to global consensus?
19. A workable framework will only come out of a process which has been truly inclusive and has empowered poor people to participate. ActionAid supports a consultative process for the development of the post-MDG framework and strongly encourages members of the High-Level Panel, particularly its chairs, to take opportunities to listen to the voices of people living in poverty as they develop the new framework.
20. The process must have strong horizontal and vertical consultations to develop an evidence base for what has worked with the MDGs, what did not work and how to proceed and agree on an alternative development framework beyond 2015. Deepened democratic local-national dialogue processes and platforms that feed into UN led global debates, must be set up to promote ownership and safeguard the voices of the poor and marginalized.
21. In bringing together voices, attention must be given to building a more holistic outlook and ensure that the interconnectivity of policy issues are discussed widely and jointly across the thematic interests and expertise of people’s movements, civil society, academics, trade unions, governments, think tanks and private sector.
Targets: was the MDG “target-based” approach a success? Should it be retained? How should progress be measured?
22. The measurement of the goals, based on national averages, also masked inequalities, by region or by gender for example. By using aggregated data countries or regions could claim success on their MDG targets even when large and distinct sections of the population failed to benefit from improvements.
23. The new framework should include specific targets under each goal and these should reflect gender barriers. Gender sensitive indicators should be developed based not on the data that exists, but the actually improvements needed. Indicators will need to be fully disaggregated by sex and data more fully disaggregated by sex than is currently the case.
Financing global goals: are new mechanisms needed?
24. For any post-MDG framework, aid flows from the traditional donor community will no longer be viable as the main source of finance for the achievement of new goals. In “traditional” donor countries, economic downturn and cuts to public funding have meant that aid budgets have come under threat. The UK is just one amongst a small handful of countries, where the commitment to give 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) in aid has remained intact. With countries such as Italy and Spain showing reductions of 38% and 53% respectively, it is clear that alternative financing sources will need to be mobilised to meet a new and possibly more ambitious set of goals. It also calls upon these donors to ensure that the aid that is available is made as effective as possible.
25. Perhaps the most promising avenue for increasing the resources available for public services and state investment comes from domestic sources themselves. As poorer countries’ economies grow, the middle classes swell and the private sector grows, more countries should increasingly be able to raise revenues from taxation. This is a clear gap in sustainable development finance and, in the context of establishing useful post-2015 goals, a measurable one. Many poor countries raise less than 15% of their GDP in domestic revenues—while developed countries typically raise 25 to 45% of their GDP. In 2009, ActionAid calculated that if all developing countries came up just 15% of their GDP, they could raise at least $198 billion a year, around 30% more than the entirety of annual OECD-DAC overseas development aid.viii
26. Four key areas of change are needed and donor countries have a major part to play in all of them. First, current international standards for international tax agreements and the taxation of international profits make it difficult for developing countries to prevent cross-border tax avoidance and evasion. Flexible standards that work for both developed and developing countries need to be set in an equitable international forum where everyone has a seat at the table.
27. Second, unscrupulous corporate behaviour see developing countries lose billions in potential tax revenues. Just one multinational company investigated by ActionAid avoids an estimated £20 million in tax across Africa and Asia each year—sufficient to fund education for 250,000 more children in those countries.ix Presumptive legal measures against corporate tax avoidance in national tax systems, as well as more transparent reporting of companies’ tax position and robust corporate commitments to tax responsibility, are needed to reduce such behaviour.
28. Third, developing countries need political backing to resist pressure from business and capital-exporting countries for unwarranted tax incentives and tax breaks to foreign investors—arguably an even larger source of revenue loss than corporate tax avoidance.
29. Finally, aid should be spent on building the capacity of developing countries’ tax administrations to collect tax efficiently and clamp down on evasion and avoidance. This can have extraordinary returns: DFID set up the new Rwandan Revenue Authority in 1998 with £20.5 million in funding, alongside funding from other donors and the government’s own resources. Rwanda now collects this amount in taxes every four weeks.x
30. As with traditional “aid effectiveness”, a critical counterpart to boosting domestic revenues for poverty reduction will be to empower citizens to hold governments to account for their spending decisions, and ensure that revenues are transparently and progressively spent. With the potential revenues available, which could help end aid dependency, it is imperative that mobilising domestic resources through progressive taxation is fundamental to the financing of the post-2015 framework.
The role of the private sector and other non-state organisations
31. There is increasing interest in the role of the private sector in development, with private sector actors commanding an increasingly prominent place in debates around how to achieve growth, equity and sustainability. ActionAid recognises the enormous diversity of actors in the private sector and believes that there are positive roles to be played by many. For example, increasing the productivity of smallholder farmers—many of whom are women—is key for improving food security in poor countries. High-profile advocates from the private sector—for example Bill Gates and Paul Polman (Unilever)—can also play an important role in rallying support for a new global development framework.
32. However, it is also clear that private sector actors can have a negative impact. It is well documented that many multinational companies have conducted their operations without sufficient regard for human rights in developing countries. For example there are instances of companies using exploitative employment practices,xi or negotiating tax breaks that are disadvantageous to poor people.xii There should therefore be equal attention paid to regulating the excesses of private sector behaviour in poor countries as there is to engaging the private sector in development debates.
33. Civil society has a vital role to play in ensuring that rights-holders are able to claim their rights from governments (as duty-bearers of those rights). NGOs, trade unions, professional associations and special interest groups are all legitimate actors that need to have the right to organise and the right to free expression. Governments and international institutions must be transparent and to create opportunities for meaningful dialogue on policy direction.
October 2012
References
i Evans, A et al. Beyond the Millennium Development Goals: Agreeing to a Post-2015 Development Framework. Managing Global Order, USA, 2012
ii Op.cit.
iii http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/prime-ministers-speech-on-family-planning/
iv Turquet, L Hit or Miss: Women’s Rights and the Millennium Development Goals. ActionAid, London, 2008. p.24
v Claudia Garcia-Moreno et al, WHO ultra-country study on women’s health and domestic violence against women: Initial results on prevalence, health outcomes and women’s responses. WHO, 2005.
vi Melamed, C After 2015: Contexts, politics and processes for a post-2015 global agreement on development. ODI, London, 2012. p.26
vii http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/foodclimate/HLCdocs/HLC08-inf-3-E.pdf (accessed 10 August 2012)
viii ActionAid, Accounting for Poverty: How international tax rules keep people poor (2009), p. 5
ix ActionAid, Calling Time: Why SABMiller should stop dodging taxes in Africa (2010), p.8
x ActionAid, Accounting for Poverty: How international tax rules keep people poor (2009), p. 45
xi ActionAid, Who Pays, London, 2007
xii ActionAid, Calling Time. Why SAB Miller should stop dodging taxes in Africa, 2012