Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Why Are So Many in Africa So Hungry?

The number of ‘undernourished’ or hungry people in Africa increased from about 182 million in the early 1990s to around 233 million in 2016.

A tea farmer in Nyeri County, central Kenya contemplates what to do after his crop was damaged by severe weather patterns. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

Sydney/Kuala Lumpur: Globally, 108 million people faced food crises in 2016, compared to about 80 million in 2015 – an increase of 35%, according to the 2017 Global Report on Food Crises. Another 123 million people were ‘stressed’, contributing to around 230 million such food insecure people in 2016, of whom 72% were in Africa.

The highest hunger levels are in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) according to the Global Hunger Index 2016. The number of ‘undernourished’ or hungry people in Africa increased from about 182 million in the early 1990s to around 233 million in 2016 according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), while the global number declined from about a billion to approximately 795 million.

This is a cruel irony as many countries in Africa have the highest proportion of potential arable land. According to a 2012 FAO report, for African sub-regions except North Africa, between 21% and 37% of their land area face few climate, soil or terrain constraints to rain-fed crop production.

Why hunger?

Observers typically blame higher population growth, natural calamities and conflicts for hunger on the continent. And since Africa was transformed from a net food exporter into a net food importer in the 1980s despite its vast agricultural potential, international food price hikes have also contributed to African hunger.

The international sovereign debt crises of the 1980s forced many African countries to the stabilization and structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) of the Bretton Woods institutions. Between 1980 and 2007, Africa’s total net food imports grew at an average of 3.4% per year in real terms. Imports of basic foodstuffs, especially cereals, have risen sharply.

One casualty of SAPs was public investment. African countries were told that they need not invest in agriculture as imports would be cheaper. . Tragically, while Africa deindustrialised thanks to the SAPs, food security also suffered.

In 1980, Africa’s agricultural investments were comparable to those in Latin America and Caribbean (LAC). But while LAC agricultural investment increased 2.6 fold between 1980 and 2007, it increased by much less in Africa. Meanwhile, agricultural investments in Asia went from three to eight times more than in Africa as African government investments in agricultural research remained paltry.

Thus, African agricultural productivity has not only suffered, but also African agriculture remains less resilient to climate change and extreme weather conditions. Africa is now comparable to Haiti where food agriculture was destroyed by subsidised food imports from the US and Europe, as admitted by President Bill Clinton after Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake.

Lost decades

SAP advocates promised that private investment and exports would soon follow cuts in public investment, thus paying for imports. But the ostensibly short-term pain of adjustment did not bring the anticipated long-term gains of growth and prosperity. Now, it is admitted that ‘neoliberalism’ was ‘oversold’, causing the 1980s and 1990s to become ‘lost decades’ for Africa.

Thanks to such programmes, even in different guises such as the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), Africa became the only continent to see a massive increase in poverty by the end of the 20th century. And despite the minerals-led growth boom for a dozen years (2002-2014) during the 15 years of the Millennium Development Goals, nearly half the continent’s population now lives in poverty.

The World Bank’s Poverty in Rising Africa shows that the number of Africans in extreme poverty increased by more than 100 million between 1990 and 2012 to about 330 million. It projects that “the world’s extreme poor will be increasingly concentrated in Africa”.

Land grabs

Despite its potential, vast tracts of arable land remain idle, due to decades of official neglect of agriculture. More recently, international financial institutions and many donors have been advocating large-scale foreign investment. A World Bank report notes the growing demand for farmland, especially following the 2007-2008 food price hikes. Approximately 56 million hectares worth of large-scale farmland deals were announced in 2009, compared to less than four million hectares yearly before 2008. More than 70% of these deals involved Africa.

In most such deals, local community concerns are often ignored to benefit big investors and their allies in government. For example, Feronia Inc – a company based in Canada and owned by the development finance institutions of various European governments – controls 120,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Advocates of large-scale land acquisitions claim that such deals have positive impacts, such as generating jobs locally and improving access to infrastructure. However, loss of community access to land and other natural resources, increased conflicts over livelihoods and greater inequality are among some common adverse consequences.

Most such deals involve land already cleared, with varied, but nonetheless considerable socioeconomic and environmental implications. Local agrarian populations have often been dispossessed with little consultation or adequate compensation, as in Tanzania, when Swedish-based Agro EcoEnergy acquired 20,000 hectares for a sugarcane plantation and ethanol production.

Land grabbing by foreign companies for commercial farming in Africa is threatening smallholder agricultural productivity, vital for reducing poverty and hunger on the continent. In the process, they have been marginalising local communities, particularly ‘indigenous’ populations and compromising food security.

Anis Chowdhury, a former professor of economics at the University of Western Sydney, held senior United Nations positions during 2008–2015 in New York and Bangkok. Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2007.

(IPS)

Why Are So Many Young Africans Risking Their Lives to Flee Their Homes?

Will the G20’s new ‘Compact with Africa’ succeed in combatting poverty and climate change and deter the exodus of African economic migrants?

Young African migrants seek opportunities abroad as the World Bank projects that “the world’s extreme poor will be increasingly concentrated in Africa”. Credit: Ilaria Vechi/IPS

Sydney and Kuala Lumpur: Not a single month has passed without dreadful disasters triggering desperate migrants to seek refuge in Europe. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), at least 2,247 people have died or are missing after trying to enter Europe via Spain, Italy or Greece in the first half of this year. Last year, 5,096 deaths were recorded.

The majority – including ‘economic migrants’, victims of ‘people smugglers’, and so on – were young Africans aged between 17 and 25. The former head of the British mission in Benghazi (Libya) claimed in April that as many as a million more were already on their way to Libya, and then Europe, from across Africa.

Why flee Africa?

Why are so many young Africans trying to leave the continent of their birth? Why are they risking their lives to flee Africa?

Part of the answer lies in the failure of earlier economic policies of liberalization and privatization, typically introduced as part of the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) that many countries in Africa were subjected to from the 1980s onwards. The World Bank, the African Development Bank and most Western donors supported the SAPs, despite UN warnings about their adverse social consequences.

SAP advocates promised that private investment and exports would soon follow, bringing growth and prosperity. Now, a few representatives from the Washington-based Bretton Woods institutions admit that ‘neo-liberalism’ was ‘oversold’, condemning the 1980s and 1990s to become ‘lost decades’.

While SAPs were officially abandoned in the late 1990s, their replacements were little better. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) of the World Bank and IMF promised to reduce poverty with some modified policy conditionalities and prescriptions.

Meanwhile, the G8 countries reneged on their 2005 Gleneagles pledge to provide an extra US$25 billion a year for Africa as part of a US$50 billion increase in financial assistance to “make poverty history”.

Poor Africa

Thanks to the SAPs, PRSPs and complementary policies, Africa became the only continent to see a massive increase in poverty by the end of the 20th century and during the 15 years of the Millennium Development Goals. Nearly half the continent’s population now lives in poverty.

According to the World Bank’s Poverty in Rising Africa, the number of Africans in extreme poverty increased by more than 100 million between 1990 and 2012 to about 330 million. It projects that “the world’s extreme poor will be increasingly concentrated in Africa”.

The continent has also been experiencing rising economic inequality, with higher inequality than in the rest of the developing world, even overtaking Latin America. National Gini coefficients – the most common measure of inequality – average around 0.45 for the continent, rising above 0.60 in some countries, and increasing in recent years.

While the continent is experiencing a ‘youth bulge’, with more young people (aged 15-24) in its population, it has failed to generate sufficient decent jobs. South Africa, the most developed economy in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), has a youth unemployment rate of 54%.

The real situation could be even worse. Discouraged youth, unable to find decent jobs, drop out of the labour force, and consequently, are simply not counted.

Surviving in Africa

Most poor people simply cannot afford to remain unemployed in the absence of a decent social protection system. To survive, they have to accept whatever is available. Hence, Africa’s ‘working poor’ and underemployment ratios are much higher. In Ghana, for example, the official unemployment rate is 5.2%, while the underemployment rate is 47.0%!

Annual growth rates have often exceeded 5% in many African countries in the new century. SAP and PRSP advocates were quick to claim credit for the end of Africa’s ‘lost quarter century’, arguing that their harsh policy prescriptions were finally bearing fruit. After the commodity price collapse since 2014, the proponents have gone quiet.

With trade liberalization and consequently, greater specialization, many African countries are now even more dependent on fewer export commodities. The top five exports of SSA are all non-renewable natural resources, accounting for 60% of exports in 2013.

The linkages of extractive activities with the rest of national economies are now lower than ever. Thus, despite impressive economic growth rates, the nature of structural change in many African economies have made them more vulnerable to external shocks.

False start again?

Africa possesses about half the uncultivated arable land in the world. 60% of SSA’s population work in jobs related to agriculture. However, agricultural productivity has mostly remained stagnant since 1980.

With agriculture stagnant, people moved from rural to urban areas, only to find life little improved. Thus, Africa has been experiencing rapid urbanization and slum growth. According to UN Habitat, 60% of SSA’s urban population live in slums, with poor access to basic services, let alone new technologies.

Powerful outside interests, including the BWIs and donors, have been advocating large farm production, claiming it to be the only way to boost productivity. Several governments have already leased out land to international agribusiness, often displacing settled local communities.

Meanwhile, Africa’s share of global manufacturing has fallen from about 3% in 1970 to less than 2% in 2013. Manufacturing’s share of total African GDP has decreased from 16% in 1974 to around 13% in 2013. At around a tenth, manufacturing’s share of SSA’s output in 2013 is much lower than in other developing regions. Unsurprisingly, Africa has de-industrialized over the past four decades!

One cannot help but doubt how the G20’s new ‘Compact with Africa’, showcased at Hamburg, can combat poverty and climate change effects, in addition to deterring the exodus out of Africa, without fundamental policy changes.

Anis Chowdhury, former professor of economics, University of Western Sydney, held senior United Nations positions during 2008–2015 in New York and Bangkok. Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2007.

(IPS)

Growing Inequality Under Global Capitalism

The main benefits of economic growth are being captured by a tiny elite. Despite global economic stagnation in the last decade, the number of billionaires in the world has increased to a record 2,199.

The main benefits of economic growth are being captured by a tiny elite.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has described severe income inequality as the biggest risk facing the world. Credit: IPS

Sydney and Kuala Lumpur: Income and wealth inequality has increased in recent decades, but recognition of the role of economic liberalisation and globalisation in exacerbating inequality has never been so widespread. The guardians of global capitalism are nervous, yet little has been done to check, let alone reverse the underlying forces.

Global elite alarmed by growing inequality

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has described severe income inequality as the biggest risk facing the world. WEF founder Klaus Schwab has observed, ‘We have too large a disparity in the world; we need more inclusiveness… If we continue to have un-inclusive growth and we continue with the unemployment situation, particularly youth unemployment, our global society is not sustainable.’

Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director, told political and business leaders at the WEF, “in far too many countries the benefits of growth are being enjoyed by far too few people. This is not a recipe for stability and sustainability”. Similarly, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim has warned that failure to tackle inequality risked causing social unrest. “It’s going to erupt to a great extent because of these inequalities.”

In the same vein, the influential US Council of Foreign Relations’ journal, Foreign Affairs carried an article cautioning, “Inequality is indeed increasing almost everywhere in the post-industrial capitalist world…. if left unaddressed, rising inequality and economic insecurity can erode social order and generate a populist backlash against the capitalist system at large.”

Much ado about nothing?

Increasingly, the main benefits of economic growth are being captured by a tiny elite. Despite global economic stagnation for almost a decade, the number of billionaires in the world has increased to a record 2,199. The richest 1% of the world’s population now has as much wealth as the rest of the world combined. The world’s eight richest people have as much wealth as the poorer half.

In India, the number of billionaires has increased at least tenfold in the past decade. India now has 111 billionaires, third in the world by country. The largest number of the world’s abject poor also live in the same country – over 425 million, a third of the world’s poor, and well over a third of the country’s population.

Africa had a resource boom for a decade until 2014, but most people there still struggle daily for food, clean water and healthcare. Meanwhile, the number of people living in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank, has grown substantially to at least 330 million from 280 million in 1990.

In Europe, poor people bore the brunt of draconian austerity policies while bank bailouts mainly benefited the moneyed. 122.3 million people, or 24.4% of the population in the EU-28, are at risk of poverty. Between 2009 and 2013, the number of Europeans without enough money to heat their homes or cope with unforeseen expenses, i.e., living with ‘severe material deprivation’, rose by 7.5 million to 50 million people, while the continent is home to 342 billionaires.

In the US, the income share of the top 1% is at its highest level since the eve of the Great Depression, almost nine decades ago. The top 0.01%, or 14,000 American families, own 22.2% of its wealth, while the bottom 90%, over 133 million families, own a meagre 4% of the nation’s wealth. The top 5% of households increased their share of US wealth, especially after the 2008 financial crisis. Meanwhile, the richest 1% tripled their share of US income within a generation.

This unprecedented wealth concentration and the corresponding deprivation of others have generated backlashes, arguably contributing to the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election, the Brexit referendum, the strength of Marine Le Pen in France and the alternative for Germany, and the ascendance of the Hindutva right in secular India.

‘Communist’ China and inequality

Meanwhile, China has increasingly participated in and grown rapidly as inequality has risen sharply in the ostensibly communist-ruled country. China has supplied cheaper consumer goods to the world, checking inflation and improving living standards for many. Part of its huge trade surplus – due to relatively low, albeit recently rising wages – has been recycled in financial markets, mainly in the US, which helped expand credit at low interest rates there.

Thus, cheap consumer products and cheap credit have enabled the slowly shrinking ‘middle class’ in the West to mitigate the downward pressure on their living standards despite stagnating or falling real wages and mounting personal and household debt.

China’s export-led development on the basis of low wages has sharply increased income inequality in the world’s largest country for more than three decades. Beijing is the new ‘billionaire capital of the world’, no longer New York. China now has 594 billionaires, 33 more than in the US.

Since the 1980s, income inequality in China has risen faster than most. China now has one of the world’s highest levels of income inequality, rising mainly in the last three decades. The richest 1% of households own a third of the country’s wealth, while the poorest quarter own only 1%. China’s Gini coefficient for income rose to 0.49 in 2012 from 0.3 over three decades before when it was one of the most egalitarian countries in the world. Another survey put China’s income Gini at 0.61 in 2010, greatly exceeding the US’s 0.45.

(IPS)

Window to Restructure Global Economy, Ensure Sustainable Development Closing, Warns UN Report

‘Quantitative easing’ has not only failed to ensure a robust recovery, but has also exacerbated the inequalities and disparities breeding ethno-chauvinist populism, says the report.

The World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) was the only such report to identify risks to the global economy before the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, while both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) largely ignored them. Credit: IPS

Sydney/Kuala Lumpur: More than eight years after the global financial crisis exploded in late 2008, economic growth remains generally tepid, while ostensible recovery measures appear to have exacerbated income and other inequalities. Yet, despite the G-20 group of the world’s largest economies raising the level, frequency and profile of its meetings, effective multilateral cooperation and coordination remains a distant dream.

Little reason to cheer
The UN’s recent World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) 2017 offers little cause for comfort:

• the world economy has not yet emerged from the protracted slow growth following the 2008 financial crisis;
• significant uncertainties and risks weigh heavily on its projected modest global recovery for 2017-2018;
• despite modest economic growth, global carbon emissions have not declined in the last two years;
• more alarmingly, new investment in renewable energy dropped sharply in the first half of 2016, as progress in emissions mitigation in recent years could easily be reversed;
• growth in the least developed countries (LDCs) will remain well below the sustainable development goals (SDGs) target in the near term; and
• below-target growth and tax revenue threaten critical public expenditure on healthcare, education, social protection, and climate change adaptation.

Credibility

Unfortunately, the WESP does not attract as much media attention or fanfare as other similar global reports, such as the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic Outlook or the OECD’s Global Economic Outlook. Nevertheless, WESP was the only such report to identify risks to the global economy before the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, while both the IMF and OECD largely ignored them.

Even after the US sub-prime housing debt problems became apparent and Lehman Brothers had collapsed, both remained optimistic, predicting a soft-landing in the US at worst, which they suggested would be off-set by robust growth in Europe. Both supported the turn to ‘fiscal consolidation’ as soon as ostensible ‘green shoots of recovery’ were spotted in 2019. Despite greater consideration of ostensibly Keynesian policy options since, seriously Keynesian macroeconomic analysis remains largely off-limits.

Global recovery?

WESP 2017 identifies policy paralysis and lack of policy coordination as among the main factors holding back global economic recovery. Over-reliance on unconventional monetary policy and fiscal consolidation in major economies, especially in Europe, are contributing not only to policy uncertainty, but also to growing inequality.

Protracted weak global demand – due to fiscal contraction, high household debt and growing inequality – has reduced incentives for firms to invest. Political and policy uncertainties, due to events such as Brexit, have also discouraged private investment. Thus, investment has slowed significantly in major developed and emerging economies. The extended period of weak investment is driving the slowdown in productivity growth.

Meanwhile, international trade expanded by just 1.2% in 2016, the third-lowest rate in the past three decades. Slow world trade growth is both contributing to and symptomatic of the global economic slowdown.

What needs to be done?

Thus, WESP 2017 calls for a more balanced policy mix – moving beyond excessive reliance on monetary policy – to restore a healthy growth trajectory over the medium-term for the global economy as well as to tackle some social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

Government support for public goods, such as combating climate change, remains crucial, as private investors tend to evaluate risk and return over short-term horizons and under-invest in public priorities. Investment in research and development, education and infrastructure would promote sustainable development as well as social and environmental progress, while supporting productivity growth.

WESP 2017 also calls for greater international coordination to ensure complementarities among trade, investment, and other public policies, and to better align the multilateral trading system with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to ensure inclusive growth and decent work for all.

Global Green New Deal

Any recession or economic crisis also offers the opportunity to weed-out lagging activities or obsolete practices, and to restructure the economy to put it on a more sustainable path. Thus, to tackle the global financial crisis, in early 2009, the UN proposed a Global Green New Deal (GGND) comprising public work programmes and social protection, including in developing countries. This bold proposal remains relevant as the global economy struggles to recover, and achievement of the SDGs is threatened.

Most critically, public works programmes should be launched, not only in developed countries, which can resort to deficit financing, but also in developing countries, where resources are more limited and policies are generally more hostage to the global financial system. Thus, GGND can not only accelerate economic recovery and job creation, but also address sustainable development challenges more generally. To be more effective, GGND should be part of a broader international counter-cyclical effort comprising three main elements:

1. Financial support for developing countries, provided through the multilateral system, to prevent their economic slowdown.
2. National government-led investment packages in developed and developing countries to revive and ‘green’ national economies.
3. International policy coordination to ensure that developed countries’ investment packages not only create jobs in developed countries, but also have strong developmental impacts in developing countries. These should involve collaborative initiatives among governments of developed and developing countries.

The window of opportunity to restructure the global economy towards a more sustainable path has been closing as governments procrastinate, adopt self-defeating fiscal consolidation policies, and give up economic management responsibility to the monetary authorities. ‘Quantitative easing’ has not only failed to ensure a robust recovery, but has also exacerbated the inequalities and disparities breeding ethno-chauvinist populism. Bold, internationally well-coordinated actions are needed now more than ever.

Anis Chowdhury is a former professor of economics at the University of Western Sydney and held senior UN positions during 2008-2015 in New York and Bangkok. Jomo Kwame Sundaram is a former economics professor and UN assistant secretary-general for economic development and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for advancing the frontiers of economic thought in 2007.

(IPS)

World Bank Reports Continue to Mislead

Closer examination of the Doing Business Report suggests that the ‘evidence’ it cites is weak and heavily influenced by the experiences of developed countries.

Representative image. Credit: IPS

Sydney and Kuala Lumpur: The World Bank’s Doing Business Report (DBR) 2017, subtitled ‘Equal Opportunity for All’, continues to mislead despite the many criticisms, including from within, levelled against the bank’s most widely read publication and bank management promises of reform for many years.

Its foreword claims, “Evidence from 175 economies reveals that economies with more stringent entry regulations often experience higher levels of income inequality as measured by the Gini index.” But what is the evidence base for its strong claims, for instance, that “economies with more business-friendly regulations tend to have lower levels of income inequality?”

Closer examination suggests that the ‘evidence’ is actually quite weak and heavily influenced by countries closer to the ‘frontier’, mainly developed countries, most of which have long introduced egalitarian redistributive reforms reflected in taxation, employment and social welfare measures, and where inequality remains lower than in many developing countries.

The report notes that relations between DB scores and inequality ‘differ by regulatory area’. But it only mentions two, for ‘starting a business’ and for ‘resolving insolvency’. For both, higher DB scores are associated with less inequality, but has nothing to say on other DB indicators.

Other studies – by the OECD, IMF, ADB and the UN – negatively correlate inequality and the tax/GDP ratio. Higher taxes enable governments to spend more on public health, education and social protection, and are associated with higher government social expenditure/GDP ratios and lower inequality. The DBR’s total tax rate indicator awards the highest scores to countries with the lowest tax rates and other contributions (such as for social security) required of businesses.

Bias
The DBR’s bias to deregulation is very clear. First, despite the weak empirical evidence and the fallacy of claiming causation from mere association, it makes a strong general claim that less regulation reduces inequality. Second, in its selective reporting, the DBR fails to report on many correlations not convenient for its purpose, namely advocacy of particular policies in line with its own ideology.

The World Bank had suspended the DBR’s labour indicator in 2009 after objections – by labour, governments and the International Labour Organisation – to its deployment to pressure countries to weaken worker protections. But its push for labour market deregulation continues. For example, Tanzania’s score is cut in 2017 for introducing a workers’ compensation tariff to be paid by employers while Malta is penalized for increasing the maximum social security contribution to be paid by employers.

New Zealand beat Singapore to take first place in the latest DBR rankings following reforms reducing employers’ contributions to worker accident compensation. Nothing is said about how it has become a prime location for ‘money-laundering shell’ companies.

Meanwhile, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Belarus, Serbia, Georgia, Pakistan, the UAE and Bahrain – eight of DB 2017’s “top 10 improvers” – have recorded poor and, in some cases, worsening workers’ rights, according to the International Trade Union Confederation. A DBR 2017 annex claims that labour market regulation can “reduce the risk of job loss and support equity and social cohesion,” but devotes far more space to promoting fixed term contracts with minimal benefits and severance pay requirements.

In support of its claim of adverse impacts of labour regulations, DBR 2017 cites three World Bank studies from several years ago. Incredibly, it does not mention the extensive review of empirical studies in the Bank’s more recent flagship World Development Report 2013: Jobs, which found that “most estimates of the impacts [of labour regulations] on employment levels tend to be insignificant or modest”.

DBR 2017 adds gender components to its three indicator sets – starting a business, registering property and enforcing contracts – concluding: “For the most part, the formal regulatory environment as measured by Doing Business does not differentiate procedures according to the gender of the business owner. The addition of gender components to three separate indicators has a small impact on each of them and therefore a small impact overall”.

Should anyone be surprised by the DBR’s conclusion? It ignores the fact that the policies promoted by the bank especially adversely affect women workers who tend to be concentrated in the lowest paid, least unionised jobs, for example, in garments and apparel production or electronics assembly. The DBR also discourages regulations improving working conditions, for example, for equal pay and maternity benefits.

Despite its ostensible commitment to ‘equal opportunities for all’, the DBR cannot conceal its intent and bias, giving higher scores to countries that favour corporate profits over citizens’, especially workers’ interests, and national efforts to achieve sustainable development.

Sadly, many developing country governments still bend over backwards to impress the World Bank with reforms to improve their DBR rankings. This obsession with performing well in the bank’s ‘beauty contest’ has taken a heavy toll on workers, farmers and the world’s poor – the majority of whom are women – who bear the burden of DBR-induced reforms, despite its proclaimed concerns for inequality, gender equity and ‘equal opportunities for all’.

Anis Chowdhury, a former professor of economics at the University of Western Sydney, held senior United Nations positions during 2008–2015 in New York and Bangkok. Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2007.