Diplomacy & Defense Think Tank News

UN peace operations are going through an accelerated period of reconfiguration and drawdown. Between June 2017 and March 2018, long-standing peacekeeping missions in Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia closed, while the mission in Haiti was reconfigured into a transitional peacekeeping mission. Looking ahead, the Security Council has mandated the closure of the peacekeeping mission in Darfur and the initial drawdown of the peacebuilding mission in Guinea-Bissau, and its attention is starting to shift to other missions.

With these upcoming transitions in mind, this issue brief explores experiences and lessons from recent UN transitions in Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, and Liberia. Each of these transitions has been the subject of a detailed IPI policy report published as part of IPI’s project on “Planning for United Nations Peacekeeping Operations Transitions.” Drawing on this research, this issue brief recommends how to manage politics and recalibrate policies to better shape future transitions. Its recommendations include to:

• Adopt shared and long-term political strategies, particularly in Security Council mandates and benchmarks, as well as through regular sharing of assessments from the field.
• Ensure integration in field-level planning strategies well before the Security Council sets transition timelines, with senior leadership from the mission shaping the vision, driving planning, and providing concrete recommendations for the future UN presence in the country.
• Strategically engage the host society to align peacebuilding priorities and to communicate the core message that the mission is leaving but the UN is remaining in the country.
• Engage early to secure adequate financing, capitalizing on debates surrounding the transition while it is still on the Security Council’s agenda.
• Institutionalize dedicated transition support capacity within the UN system, including policy and programmatic guidance, operational support, planning expertise, and surge capacities.
• Sustain long-term peacebuilding through partnerships, ensuring that residual peacebuilding challenges are mainstreamed into national development plans and international and regional development frameworks.

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Maria-Louise Clausen talks to SEPAD about her current research

Zusammenfassung:

Mobile money is a success story in terms of facilitating account ownership and payments in developing and emerging countries. Today, telecommunication companies offer mobile money services across more than 90 countries. The most popular services are deposits and instant digital money transfers between users. Widespread mobile money adoption is boosting financial inclusion, reducing in transaction costs and facilitating successful consumption smoothing and risk sharing among users. Nonetheless, mobile money is also associated with heterogeneous effects and risks among the poor and vulnerable populations. This article reviews the recent literature on the impact of mobile money in developing countries.

A country where an individual’s chances of success depend little on the socio-economic success of his or her parents is said to be a country with high relative intergenerational mobility. A government’s motivation for seeking to improve mobility is arguably two-fold. There is a fairness argument and an economic efficiency argument. When mobility is low, it means that individuals are not operating on a level playing field. The odds of someone born to parents from the bottom of their generation will be stacked against him or her. This is not only unfair but also leads to a waste of human capital, as talented individuals may not be given the opportunity to reach their full potential. Reducing this inefficiency will raise the stock of human capital and thereby stimulate economic growth. Since the waste of human capital tends to be concentrated toward the bottom of the distribution, the growth brought about by mobility-promoting policy interventions tends to be of an inclusive nature, in line with the spirit of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10 on reducing inequality.
For large parts of the world’s population, individual education is still too closely tied to the education of one’s parents, and there is a clear divide between the high-income and developing world. The patterns observed globally are also observed within Europe. Intergenerational mobility (or equality of opportunity) is visibly lower in the new member states (i.e. Eastern Europe), where national incomes are lower.
Raising investment in the human capital of poor children towards levels that are more comparable to the investment received by children from richer families will curb the importance of parental background in determining an individual’s human capital. Countries at any stage of development can raise intergenerational mobility by investing more to equalise opportunities. The evidence strongly suggests that public interventions are more likely to increase mobility when:
a)    public investments are sufficiently large,
b)    are targeted to benefit disadvantaged families/ neighbourhoods,
c)    focus on early childhood, and
d)    when there is a low degree of political power captured by the rich.

A country where an individual’s chances of success depend little on the socio-economic success of his or her parents is said to be a country with high relative intergenerational mobility. A government’s motivation for seeking to improve mobility is arguably two-fold. There is a fairness argument and an economic efficiency argument. When mobility is low, it means that individuals are not operating on a level playing field. The odds of someone born to parents from the bottom of their generation will be stacked against him or her. This is not only unfair but also leads to a waste of human capital, as talented individuals may not be given the opportunity to reach their full potential. Reducing this inefficiency will raise the stock of human capital and thereby stimulate economic growth. Since the waste of human capital tends to be concentrated toward the bottom of the distribution, the growth brought about by mobility-promoting policy interventions tends to be of an inclusive nature, in line with the spirit of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10 on reducing inequality.
For large parts of the world’s population, individual education is still too closely tied to the education of one’s parents, and there is a clear divide between the high-income and developing world. The patterns observed globally are also observed within Europe. Intergenerational mobility (or equality of opportunity) is visibly lower in the new member states (i.e. Eastern Europe), where national incomes are lower.
Raising investment in the human capital of poor children towards levels that are more comparable to the investment received by children from richer families will curb the importance of parental background in determining an individual’s human capital. Countries at any stage of development can raise intergenerational mobility by investing more to equalise opportunities. The evidence strongly suggests that public interventions are more likely to increase mobility when:
a)    public investments are sufficiently large,
b)    are targeted to benefit disadvantaged families/ neighbourhoods,
c)    focus on early childhood, and
d)    when there is a low degree of political power captured by the rich.

On Thursday, July 18th, IPI is hosting a Speaker Series event featuring H.E. Mr. Lamberto Zannier, OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities.

Remarks will begin at 10:15am PST / 1:15pm EST

Ambassador Zannier has occupied this position since July 2017. Previously, he was OSCE Secretary General for two consecutive three-year terms, from July 2011 until June 2017. Other senior positions include UN Special Representative for Kosovo and Head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) from 2008 to 2011, Director of the Conflict Prevention Centre of the OSCE (2002-2006), Chairperson of the negotiations on the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (1998-1999) and Head of Disarmament, Arms Control and Cooperative Security at NATO (1991-1997). Zannier joined the Italian Foreign Ministry as a career diplomat in 1978 and also served in Rome, Abu Dhabi, Vienna, and The Hague, mainly specializing in multilateral and security affairs. He has authored several publications on security, conflict prevention, and crisis management issues. He holds a law degree and an honorary degree in International and Diplomatic Sciences from the University of Trieste, Italy.

The event will be moderated by Dr. Adam Lupel, Vice President of IPI.

On Wednesday, July 17th, IPI together with the United Nations, and the Al Baraka Banking Group is cohosting a policy forum event titled “Financing the 2030 Agenda: How Financial Institutions are Integrating the SDGs in their Core Business.”

Remarks will begin at 5:15am PST / 8:15am EST

While the 2030 Agenda has attracted public and private investments in a wide variety of areas that support the achievement of the SDGs, financing for sustainable development requires action by diverse global actors, both public and private. Though the public and private sectors are often seen as having incompatible goals, innovative financing modalities continue to emerge, offering the United Nations and its partners in development important new avenues to finance the 2030 Agenda. The financial services sector in particular has pioneered a number of innovations and best practices in both financing and promoting sustainable development. This side event brings together several of the world’s leading financial institutions to discuss best practices in financing for sustainable development.

Welcoming remarks:
Dr. Adam Lupel, Vice President, International Peace Institute
Mr. Amin El Sharkawi, UN Resident Coordinator in Bahrain

Opening remarks:
Mr. Elliott Harris, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development and Chief Economist in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)

Speakers:
Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, SVP, The World Bank Group
Zubaida Bai, Founder and President, ayzh Inc and Happy Woman Fund
Bruno Bastit, Senior Corporate Governance & Sustainable Finance Specialist, S&P Global Ratings
Christian Deseglise, Global Head of Central Banks and Global Sponsor of Sustainable Financing, HSBC
Dr. Ali Adnan Ibrahim, First VP – Head of Sustainability & Social Responsibility, Al Baraka Banking Group
Rina Gee Kupferschmid-Rojas, Managing Director/ Head of Sustainable Finance, UBS
Amit Puri, Global Head Environmental & Social Risk Management, Standard Chartered
Muna Abu Suleman, Global SDG Philanthropist

Moderator:
Ms. Jimena Leiva Roesch, Senior Fellow, International Peace Institute

SAVE THE DATE: 9.-10. Juli 2020, in Berlin!

Der Call for Papers für unsere SOEP2020 - 14th International German Socio-Economic Panel User Conference ist online.

SOEP-ForscherInnen aller Disziplinen sind eingeladen,sich mit einem Abstract zu bewerben. Das Hauptthema der Konferenz und der Keynotes lautet "Inequalities and Their Subjective Perceptions in a Changing World".

Mehr Informationen (in englisch) auf unserer  Konferenzhomepage.

In einem Sondergutachten hat sich der Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung möglichen Reformen in der Klimapolitik gewidmet. Dazu ein Statement der DIW-Energieökonomin Claudia Kemfert:

Auch die Wirtschaftsweisen kommen zu dem Schluss, dass ein wichtiger Baustein wirksamen Klimaschutzes eine CO2-Bepreisung ist. Da die Erweiterung des EU-Emissionsrechtehandels auf die Sektoren Wärme und Verkehr kompliziert und langwierig wäre, schlägt die Studie als Übergangslösung die Einführung der nationalen CO2-Bepreisung entweder über die Entwicklung eines Emissionsrechtehandels für die Sektoren Wärme und Verkehr in Deutschland oder die Einführung einer allgemeinen CO2-Steuer vor. Letzteres wäre aus meiner Sicht die bessere Variante: Die Einführung einer CO2-Steuer ist leichter umsetzbar, sorgt für Transparenz und kann über eine Erhöhung des Steuersatzes zu einer adäquaten Lenkungswirkung führen. Sie bringt Planungssicherheit, da Investoren heutige Investitionsentscheidungen vor dem Hintergrund fällen, dass der CO2-Preis stark steigen wird und sich die Emissionsminderung auszahlt. Zudem kann das Steueraufkommen leicht rückerstattet werden – zum einen, um soziale Ungleichheiten zu vermeiden und zum anderen, um finanzielle Anreize für mehr Klimaschutz zu geben, etwa über eine Förderung der Elektromobilität und der energetischen Gebäudesanierung. Die Ausweitung des EU-Emissionsrechtehandel auf die sogenannten Non-ETS-Sektoren, also Verkehr und Wärme, hätte hingegen entscheidende Nachteile. Die Preise würden insbesondere im Verkehrssektor sehr stark steigen. Das Vorhaben wäre zudem in juristischer Sicht ein schwieriges Unterfangen und die Abstimmung innerhalb der EU könnte bis zu zehn Jahre dauern – Zeit, die wir in Sachen Klimaschutz nicht mehr haben. Und selbst dann wäre fraglich, wie effektiv eine solche Reform wäre. Ein einheitlicher CO2-Preis wäre sehr hoch, die CO2-Vermeidungskosten sind in den einzelnen Sektoren jedoch sehr unterschiedlich. Vor allem die Industrie würde dann tatsächlich Gefahr laufen, nicht mehr im Wettbewerb bestehen zu können. Man sollte also durchaus unterschiedliche CO2-Bepreisungen zulassen. Die daraus abgeleitete Alternative der Einführung eines Emissionsrechtehandels für die Sektoren Wärme und Verkehr nur in Deutschland wäre aber auch keine gute Lösung: Sie wäre administrativ enorm aufwendig, was zu ungeheuer hohen Transaktionskosten führen würde. Der einzige Vorteil läge in der möglichen Anschlussfähigkeit an das Europäische Emissionsrechtehandelssystem. Eine Reform der Energiesteuern sollte daher Mittel erster Wahl sein. Sie ist ohnehin längst überfällig, denn fossile Energien werden seit langem zu gering, Strom hingegen zu hoch besteuert. Es bietet sich somit an, eine Steuerreform im Energiebereich auf den CO2-Gehalt auszurichten – mit einer CO2-Abgabe würde man mehrere Fliegen mit einer Klappe schlagen. Gleichzeitig muss natürlich klar sein, dass sie kein Allheilmittel sein kann, sondern eine Maßnahme von vielen nötigen.

Zusammenfassung:

Although households in developing and emerging countries are relatively poor, there is potential to save. For example, one study estimates that up to 8.1% of a poor household’s budget in such countries is spent on so-called temptation goods, like alcohol, tobacco, and festivals (Banerjee and Duflo, 2007). At the same time, many households are aware of the fact that they do not save enough. They name factors like self-control problems and family obligations as reasons why they cannot save more. In high income countries, default assignments already facilitate decision making in many areas of life. Among others, these could not just successfully increase organ donation rates (Johnson and Goldstein, 2003) but also retirement savings (Thaler and Benartzi, 2004). With the increased supply of formal financial services in the developing world, default assignments are also a promising and cost-effective tool for these households. Prominent studies on whether and how default assignments increase the savings of the poor are summarized below.

Martin Bruns, who works at the Forecasting and Economic Policy department, has successfully defended his dissertation at the Freie Universität Berlin.

The dissertation with the title "Essays in Empirical Macroeconomics: Identification in Vector Autoregressive Models and Robust Inference in Early Warning Systems" was supervised by Prof. Dr. Helmut Lütkepohl (DIW Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin) and Prof. Dr. Dieter Nautz (Freie Universität Berlin).

We congratulate Martin on his success and wish him all the best for his future career!

DIIS' sommerpodcast om Lars Erslev og den nye verdensorden er nået til 11. september 2001, og hvordan angrebet - og ikke mindst dets efterspil - ændrede USA´s position i verden og ideen om en liberal verdensorden

Tatsiana Kliatskova, who works at the Macroeconomics department, has successfully defended her dissertation at the Freie Universität Berlin.

The dissertation with the title "Essays in International Finance" was supervised by Prof. Dr. Helmut Lütkepohl (DIW Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin) and Prof. Marcel Fratzscher, Ph.D. (DIW Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin).

We congratulate Tatsiana on her success and wish her all the best for her future career.

Khalid ElFayoumi, who works at the Macroeconomics department, has successfully defended his dissertation at the Freie Universität Berlin.

The dissertation with the title "Heterogeneity in Macro-Finance: The Role of Disaggregate Dynamics in Aggregate Fluctuations" was supervised by Prof. Dr. Helmut Lütkepohl (DIW Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin) and Prof. Marcel Fratzscher, Ph.D. (DIW Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin).

We congratulate Khalid on his success and wish him all the best for his future career!

Sommeren er over os, men heldigvis kan du tage lyden af DIIS med dig på ferie. Vi har samlet fire anbefalinger til podcasts om alt fra den nye verdensorden til russisk cyberkrig.

To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, developing countries need additional funding. Funding can come from four sources: domestic public resources (or revenues), international public resources, domestic private resources or international private resources. Of these four sources, domestic revenues from taxes and non-tax sources (e.g. profits from state-owned oil companies) are by far the most important. Tax revenues amounted to USD 4.3 trillion in 2016 for low- and middle-income countries alone, which is more than double the amount of international public and private capital these countries received in the same year. Domestic revenues have been growing in a majority of low- and lower-middle-income countries over the last 15 years. However, these increases remain insufficient to cover the financing needs of the SDGs, estimated at USD 2.5 trillion per year for developing countries, according to figures from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. In addition, these countries have to deal with the recent decline in financial flows from international public and private sources – a decline of 12 per cent between 2013 and 2016. As a result, many governments are under pressure to mobilise more revenues at home. What options do they have to achieve this goal?
In this briefing paper, we focus on the international dimensions of the issue. We argue that governments need to act multilaterally in three key areas.
First, tax avoidance by multinational corporations (MNCs) remains a global problem, despite important progress in recent years. Though not openly illegal, tax avoidance causes considerable damage to developing countries. Poorer countries depend to a higher degree on corporate taxes than richer countries and are thus more vulnerable to these practices. International initiatives to act upon tax avoidance – for instance, by introducing a minimum tax and by taxing the digitalised economy – should take the taxation rights of poorer countries into account.
Second, fighting illegal tax evasion is another relevant topic. At an international scale, the exchange of tax-related information – for instance, on the beneficial ownership of assets – is a key factor, and developing countries need to participate in this exchange on a broad scale. This will require additional domestic and international efforts to boost capacity and credibility.
Third, governments worldwide should increase trans¬parency on their tax expenditures and dismantle those structures that prove to be either harmful or ineffective in fiscal, social or environmental terms, or create negative spillovers for other countries. As a first step, governments should agree on common reporting standards and start producing regular, public and encompassing reports on the tax expenditure schemes in place.
Evidently, this is not an agenda for individual countries or a call for unilateral action. Current approaches to international tax cooperation – mostly propelled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the G20 – need to be broadened and include all countries on an equal footing; they should also be deepened to cover those aspects of taxation that are not yet being sufficiently addressed. It is also clear, however, that the degree to which developing countries will take part in international standard-setting and regulation depends to a considerable degree on their capability to push forward critical governance reforms at the domestic level.

To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, developing countries need additional funding. Funding can come from four sources: domestic public resources (or revenues), international public resources, domestic private resources or international private resources. Of these four sources, domestic revenues from taxes and non-tax sources (e.g. profits from state-owned oil companies) are by far the most important. Tax revenues amounted to USD 4.3 trillion in 2016 for low- and middle-income countries alone, which is more than double the amount of international public and private capital these countries received in the same year. Domestic revenues have been growing in a majority of low- and lower-middle-income countries over the last 15 years. However, these increases remain insufficient to cover the financing needs of the SDGs, estimated at USD 2.5 trillion per year for developing countries, according to figures from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. In addition, these countries have to deal with the recent decline in financial flows from international public and private sources – a decline of 12 per cent between 2013 and 2016. As a result, many governments are under pressure to mobilise more revenues at home. What options do they have to achieve this goal?
In this briefing paper, we focus on the international dimensions of the issue. We argue that governments need to act multilaterally in three key areas.
First, tax avoidance by multinational corporations (MNCs) remains a global problem, despite important progress in recent years. Though not openly illegal, tax avoidance causes considerable damage to developing countries. Poorer countries depend to a higher degree on corporate taxes than richer countries and are thus more vulnerable to these practices. International initiatives to act upon tax avoidance – for instance, by introducing a minimum tax and by taxing the digitalised economy – should take the taxation rights of poorer countries into account.
Second, fighting illegal tax evasion is another relevant topic. At an international scale, the exchange of tax-related information – for instance, on the beneficial ownership of assets – is a key factor, and developing countries need to participate in this exchange on a broad scale. This will require additional domestic and international efforts to boost capacity and credibility.
Third, governments worldwide should increase trans¬parency on their tax expenditures and dismantle those structures that prove to be either harmful or ineffective in fiscal, social or environmental terms, or create negative spillovers for other countries. As a first step, governments should agree on common reporting standards and start producing regular, public and encompassing reports on the tax expenditure schemes in place.
Evidently, this is not an agenda for individual countries or a call for unilateral action. Current approaches to international tax cooperation – mostly propelled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the G20 – need to be broadened and include all countries on an equal footing; they should also be deepened to cover those aspects of taxation that are not yet being sufficiently addressed. It is also clear, however, that the degree to which developing countries will take part in international standard-setting and regulation depends to a considerable degree on their capability to push forward critical governance reforms at the domestic level.

Hvilken fremtid har Syrien? De eksterne aktørers rolle

A series of leaks have exposed questionable methods by the judge who put Lula in prison - president Bolsonaro’s current Minister of Justice. The content exposes a politicized judiciary, and the lack of political consequences and attempts to strangle the whistleblowers expose an anti-democratic sentiment in Brazils top echelons