So far, Oxfam trade warriors are lobbying hard and more than 300 groups have signed a joint NGO letter to WTO Members, because access to medicines, educational resources, seeds or climate change adaptation technologies could all be affected if these countries were to implement the TRIPs agreement any time soon. There are many other reasons why they should not have to implement TRIPs: WTO members owe this to them after failing to deliver on their other promises in the Doha Round (see what I mean about retro?); LDCs don’t have to make any commitments under the parallel agreements on Agriculture and on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA – ah, a wonk’s nostalgia for the acronyms of youth!), so why should they have to implement TRIPs? And anyway, as Ha-Joon Chang has exhaustively documented, all developed countries were IP pirates when they were at a similar stage of development.

The LDC proposal has strong support from other developing countries including the BRICS. In addition, UNDP, UNAIDS and WHO have spoken in favour of the extension. And so has the industry through the CCIA (international IT lobby group, representing Google, Facebook and Microsoft). But (surprise, surprise) the EU, US, Japan and Canada are doing their best to water down the proposal, proposing a short term extension instead, or to include a ‘no roll back clause’, or to differentiate between LDCs. They freely admit in private that they have no economic interest but are pushing this for ideological reasons. Plus ca change.

More background from IPWatch. [h/t Romain Bennichio]

‘This month Chile became the 14th Latin American country to ban smoking in enclosed public spaces.

Chile’s conversion is significant, since it is something of a smokers’ corner. The World Health Organisation says over 40% of Chileans smoke, compared with 27% of Argentines and 17% of people in Brazil, where curbs on smoking began in the late 1990s. Chile’s health minister, Jaime Mañalich, says that treating tobacco victims takes a quarter of the $10 billion public health-care budget.

Chile’s smokers are getting younger. According to the Tobacco Atlas, a study of the industry, nearly 40% of girls aged 13-15 in Santiago, Chile’s capital, smoke cigarettes. That is up from just 20% in 2003, and is the highest rate in the world. Growing prosperity is partly to blame. Mr Mañalich also points to a cultural change: “Chile has always been a very macho country but that is changing. For women, smoking in public is somehow a sign they are liberated.”

Latin America’s new curbs on smoking face resistance from the industry. Philip Morris International, an American tobacco company, has filed a claim against Uruguay at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, an arm of the World Bank, claiming that the country’s anti-smoking measures violate a bilateral investment treaty. Brazil, the world’s third-biggest producer of tobacco leaf, faces pressure from its planters to protect their jobs.

The anti-smoking lobby wants to see pricing and taxing of cigarettes be co-ordinated across Latin America, to discourage contraband. With income varying widely among countries, that would be hard. But governments could discourage smoking with other steps, such as curbs on advertising, bigger health warnings and subsidising nicotine-replacement therapy.

“Only Satan can grant man the faculty of expelling smoke through the mouth,” declared the Spanish Inquisition in imprisoning Rodrigo de Jerez, one of Columbus’s sailors, and the first person to bring tobacco to Europe. Latin American governments now seem to agree.’

Did you do a double take on para 4? If not, why not? A major tobacco company, Philip Morris, is trying to block the Uruguayan Government’s attempts to limit the devastation. According to a briefing by IISD, the company brought the case  in 2010  and ‘is challenging three provisions of Uruguay’s tobacco regulations: (1) a “single presentation” requirement that prohibits marketing more than one tobacco product under each brand, (2) a requirement that tobacco packages include “pictograms” with graphic images of the health consequences of smoking (such as cancerous lungs), and (3) a mandate that health warnings cover 80% of the front and back of cigarette packages.’ Philip Morris’ own version of events confirms this.

The ICSID says that the suit is ongoing, with a tribunal meeting in Paris last February.

Now tobacco is the world’s number one killer, claiming 6m lives a year (over 3 times the number of deaths caused by HIV/AIDS). When Big Pharma tried to restrict access to HIV/AIDS medicines, campaigners jumped all over them, with considerable success (as this week’s landmark ruling against Novartis in India shows). The standard Oxfam recipe for a good campaign is that you need a problem, a solution, and a villain. Big Tobacco would seem to tick every box, don’t you think?

Some useful numbers to demonstrate the extent of the shift: From 1980 to now, developing countries’ share of global GDP rose from 33% to 45%, their share of world goods trade from 25% to 45%, and South-South trade as a % of the world total rose from 8% to 26%.

How has this happened and so what? The HDR’s approach is to learn from the success of 18 of the more than 40 countries in the developing world that have done better than expected in human development terms in recent decades, with their progress accelerating markedly over the past ten years. Not just China and India, but countries like Turkey, Ghana and Mauritius. Again, nothing new there – the Growth Commission had a go at that five years back – but still infinitely preferable to maths-led regression-tastic nonsense that ignores history and politics.

Compared to the Growth Commission, the HDR’s conclusions are more interventionist, and more political. The Report identifies 3 main drivers shared across the success stories:

1. A proactive developmental state

2. Tapping into global markets

3. Determined social policy innovation

On the role of the state, successful countries ‘share some key characteristics. Most were proactive “developmental states” that sought to take strategic advantage of opportunities offered by world trade. They also invested heavily in human capital through health and education programs and other essential social services. More important than getting prices right, a developmental state must get policy priorities right. They should be people-centred, promoting opportunities while protecting against downside risks.’

In case you missed it, that’s a not-very-subtle two fingers to the Washington Consensus and its preference for ‘getting the prices right’.

Oops, wrong South

The report points to some downside risks that threaten this progress: ‘short-sighted austerity measures, failures to address persistent inequalities, and a lack of opportunities for meaningful civic participation.’ But overall, as the South rises, the focus will shift to ‘long-term challenges shared by industrialized countries of the North’ – both commonly shared issues like ageing and jobs, and collective action problems like climate change.

Its recommendations for continuing this amazing progress include

1. Developing countries need to move their focus from ‘growth first’ to human development

2. Enhanced South-South learning and integration

3. Greater representation for civil society and the South in the international system. Global institutions have not yet caught up with this historic change (the international system’s loss rather than the BRICS’). China, with the world’s second largest economy and biggest foreign exchange reserves, has but a 3.3 percent share in the World Bank, less than France’s 4.3 percent. India, which will soon surpass China as the world’s most populous country, does not have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. And Africa, with a billion people in 54 sovereign nations, is under-represented in almost all international institutions.

And in a nice table-turning touch, the report ‘urges the convening of a new “South Commission” where developing countries can take the lead in suggesting constructive new approaches to effective global governance.’

Nothing earth-shattering, but a useful exercise in synthesizing the evolving understanding of development and repositioning the multilaterals within it. So what have I missed?

And here’s the rather frenetic animated version

Land Grabs and Fragile Food Systems

Sophia argues that the globalization and the free trade agreements of the last 20 years have combined with fears over climate change to create the conditions for the current wave of land grabs. But the immediate trigger was the 2008 food price spike, which eroded the confidence of food-importing countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that they could rely on the trading system to feed their people (so many of them started grabbing land instead).

The problem with the WTO is that its insistence on removing import tariffs (which we campaigned on when prices were low) was not matched by any effort to discipline export controls, making it completely irrelevant when prices rose and exporting countries slapped on export taxes to try and keep the food at home, thereby compounding the price spike. Sophia also takes a swing at the WTO’s inability/unwillingness to do anything about corporate concentration in the food sector. When the price spike hit ‘the four companies that between them control an estimated 75 percent or more of the inter­national grain trade saw their profits soar.’

Failures in other areas have aggravated the problem. Food reserves have been run down, biofuels have added a new degree of uncertainty by tying food prices to those of oil and gas (when fossil fuel prices rise, more land gets turned over to biofuels, so less food is produced, so food prices rise). Climate change, both current and rapidly approaching, has only added to that sense of vulnerability on food security.

How to reduce the pressures that are driving the wave of land grabs? The report has a rather convincing policy shopping list arising from this analysis:

• Reformed trade rules that ensure export measures are subject to transparency and predictability requirements and that allow all countries policy space for food security policies. She also proposes ways to ease food price spikes by reducing biofuel production during price surges
• Publicly-managed grain reserves to dampen the effects of supply shocks
• Readily accessible funding for the poorest food importers, which would be triggered automatically when prices increase sharply in international markets
• The development of strong national and international laws to govern investment in land, respecting the principles and guidelines set out in the Voluntary Guidelines on Land Tenure. Tanzania’s recently announced limits on how much land foreign and domestic investors can lease is a hopeful example of a national government taking the initiative to get serious about regulation.

At 12 pages, a very useful addition to the land grabs literature. And in case you missed it here’s what the fuss is about.

Chris Jochnick, director of Oxfam America’s Private Sector Department (twitter: @cjochnick), reflects on the different corporate responses to our ‘Behind the Brands’ campaign launch

Companies have had decades to hone their engagement strategies with activists, but still struggle to find the right approach.  Initial reactions to Oxfam’s Behind the Brand campaign offer an interesting case in point.  The campaign is only a week old, so these are early days – but already we can see certain styles emerging.

Behind the Brands is an aggressive effort to link consumers and the public with their most popular food brands around the enormous environmental and social “footprint” of the food and beverage industry.  The campaign launched last week in countries around the globe with a flagship report, a scorecard (below) ranking the “Big 10” food and beverage companies, an interactive on-line platform to encourage public action, and various “visibility” activities at company headquarters.  Media took notice, with stories in the NY Times, BBC, NPR, Businessweek among dozens of others.  In the first 24 hours, 250,000 people visited the web-page; after a week, 10,000+ have taken some kind of action directed at the companies.

Oxfam was not out to blindside or gratuitously offend. We’ve worked with F&B companies in the past and expect to collaborate in the future.  We spent months consulting with the companies about the Scorecard and let them know in advance what they could expect.

So how have the companies reacted?  Typical responses to a campaign can be grouped into three categories:  (a) defensive (b) equivocal and (c) engaged.  In this case, we’ve seen evidence of all three.

On the defensive, Associated British Foods, the Scorecard’s worst performer, came out swinging to the Guardian: “The idea that ABF would use a “veil of secrecy” in order to hide the “human cost” of its supply chain is simply ridiculous. We treat local producers, communities and the environment with the utmost respect. As for transparency … our next CR report in autumn 2013 will confirm significant improvement in disclosure.”  Mondelez wasn’t too far behind, issuing a short response and sending police out to greet our pamphleteers.  Only one company – Danone – opted to ignore the campaign completely – a form of passive defensiveness.  These are pretty modest steps (to get a contemporary flavor for what companies are capable of, see this bit about Chevron), but do suggest a path of resistance that will only provide the campaign with grist for escalation.

Most companies have taken an equivocal stand, publicly recognizing the importance of the campaign issues, offering olive branches, and touting their corporate citizenship bone fides.   The official response from Mars is typical: “Mars takes a comprehensive approach to this issue, with a strong focus on the entire farming community specifically in the area of cocoa sustainability. Our leadership has had a positive impact on the women, children and families of smallholder farms. Oxfam highlights important issues in their report and we look forward to working with them to address these critical issues.”  As a first step, equivocating may make most sense.   It avoids any commitment and keeps a door open to engagement.

It is too early to characterize any of the companies as “engaged”, but there are some positive signs (see responses here).  Pepsi’s CEO went out to meet Oxfam pamphleteers at Pepsi headquarters and spent 30 minutes discussing the campaign.  Nestle provided a fairly substantive response and, along with Pepsi and Mars, has been receptive to immediate dialogue.  These are helpful openings.

In the face of protests, companies will often start defensively or equivocally, hoping to wait out a campaign.  Oxfam has found that even companies with visionary leaders, scoring high marks on corporate social responsibility, will often balk reflexively at outside pressure.  Pride, inertia, fear of the unknown may all contribute. We saw it play out with the iconic CSR leader Howard Schultz, who resisted for months Oxfam’s push to dialogue with the Ethiopian government around coffee branding rights, even in the face of media, shareholder, barista, consumer and public pressure.   In conversations with Starbucks executives afterwards, it was evident that their deeply-rooted belief in the “goodness” of the company made it more difficult to “hear” or respond to outside criticism.

Companies will also resist campaign demands that require ceding some control.  All of the Big 10 voice support for small farmers and sustainability, and many have good projects in the field.  Companies are responsive to pressure around these projects and will eagerly (necessarily) partner with NGOs.  Campaigns for transparency, due diligence, and worker/stakeholder rights – those issues at the heart of Behind the Brands – are a tougher sell.  Companies are reluctant to identify suppliers, or sourcing volumes or auditing performance; to measure and report on how women and small-holder farmers are faring; or to acknowledge their human rights responsibilities.  But these are the building blocks of real accountability.

Behind the Brands aims to overcome this resistance by strengthening consumer and public voices.  Consumer-facing companies like the Big 10 have to balance accountability concerns with risks to their brands – by far their most valuable asset.  Defensiveness in the face of reasonable public demands will eventually take a toll.  Oxfam knows that many consumers care about where their food comes from; if we can get enough of those consumers to think twice before making choices, companies will have to take notice.

Some company leaders already recognize a business case for treating farmers and planet well.  And they know that transparency in this age is unavoidable.  These companies will see dialogue with credible critical voices as an opportunity.  Oxfam is counting on a handful of these companies to fully engage with the Scorecard – and all the issues underlying it — as a means towards strengthening their brands and business.

Erinch Sahan (right), a private sector policy advisor at Oxfam GB, introduces Behind the Brands, a big new report and company scorecard, launched today.

So we didn’t know we were eating horses. What else don’t we know about the supply chains delivering our food? 18 months ago, Oxfam posed this question to the Big 10: the world’s 10 largest food and beverage companies. In alphabetical order, they are Associated British Foods, Coca Cola, Danone, General Mills, Kelloggs, Mars, Mondelez, Nestle, Pepsico and Unilever. Today, we launch the results of our research and make it the centre piece of a brand-spanking new campaign: Behind the Brands.

The results aren’t pretty. The Big 10 seem unengaged with their supply chains (they don’t seem to know what’s going on and how to address it). Nor do they tell us much about where their commodities come from and next to zilch about how they use their power to shape the behaviour of suppliers. We came up with numbers to show this and ranked them across some important issues. This is how we did it.

7 critical themes
We chose seven themes that directly or indirectly change conditions for the poorest people in the food system: women, small-scale farmers, farm workers, land, water, climate, and transparency; asking whether the Big 10 are:

• improving conditions for women, small-scale farmers and farm workers;
• promoting equitable and sustainable access to and use of land and water;
• reducing emissions and helping farmers adapt to climate change; and
• being transparent about their supply chains and broader corporate activities

How the Big 10 stack up
After 18 months of analysis by Oxfam – and a long process of consultation with academics, industry experts, Oxfam staff on the ground, organisations working on international supply chains and the companies themselves – we came up with the following scores:

So what lies beneath these scores? The following questions transcend the themes and form the back-bone of the scorecard.

Are they telling their suppliers to do the right thing?
Most of what goes into the products does not come from farms operated by the Big 10. So the most important issue is how they shape the behaviour of their suppliers. On this point, the most relevant documents are their supplier codes (and supplier guidelines), which contain the standards they ask their suppliers to meet. An example is Unilever’s Sustainable Agriculture Code, which tells its suppliers to work with farmers’ groups to provide training to farmers and to provide safe working conditions for workers.

We had two problems in assessing supplier codes. Firstly, we cannot know if the codes are enforced, partly due to a lack of transparency around the auditing of suppliers. Secondly, most of the codes contain little meaningful detail. So we could not rely on supplier codes alone and had to broaden the scope of our scorecard.

Are they aware of the broader issues?
Across the themes, we assess if the Big 10 recognize the challenges faced by agricultural communities. For instance, under the women theme, we rewarded Coca Cola, Nestle, Pepsico and Unilever for publicly acknowledging that women lacked access to training related to food markets and for recognizing that small-scale farmers need assistance in adapting to climate change. While this can seem disconnected with their actual practices, for a company to address a problem, it must at least be aware of it.

Do they know details of their own supply chain?
Do companies know the relevant details of their supply chains? A company that knows where there is poorer land governance, will know it needs to focus on that part of its supply chain; a company that identifies water-stressed regions that they operate in is better equipped to channel its efforts.

Are they committed to improving conditions?
Once they identify an issue, we want to see a company commit to tackling it. This could be a target or a general commitment to tackling a problem. For instance, under the water theme, we rewarded nine of the Big 10 for setting a target to reduce water use in their own operations (since this impacts availability of water for local farmers). In farmers, we looked for a commitment to ensuring that small-scale producers receive a price that allows them to earn a decent income (none of the Big 10 does this).

Do their projects address core issues in their supply chains?
The Big 10 are active in philanthropic projects but we focused on whether they are doing anything to address the core issues in their supply chains. For instance, we looked for projects that improve farmer productivity, women’s empowerment, wages, land rights, resilience to climate change and access to water (we have a long list). Under most themes, we also required that they work with a relevant organisation, such as a local union or a farmers’ organisation. Few of the projects conducted by the Big 10 met our criteria.

What remains unanswered
Whether the Big 10 use their power to make their suppliers do the right thing is not very clear. It is hard to get information about who they do business with and exactly where the commodities in their products come from. We know even less about how they engage with their suppliers and, after assessing information in the public-realm, are left with unanswered questions such as:

• How much emphasis do they put on social and environmental issues when negotiating contracts?
• Do they know how much it would cost for their suppliers to do business responsibly and do they pay enough to allow this to happen?
• How much information do they provide to their suppliers in terms of advance notice of upcoming orders and quality requirements?
• Who bears risks relating to transport and weather-related disruption and fluctuating demand?

Greater transparency about how they manage these issues with suppliers is an essential first step – starting with some facts on whether and how they incentivise their buyers to take account of these issues. Until the Big 10 stop hiding behind the excuse of “commercial sensitivity”, they are not serious about being held to account for their power to improve the lives of the marginalised, many of whom are growing the food we eat.

What do the Big 10 need to address?
The Big 10 have several gaping holes in their policies but Oxfam suggests that they prioritise taking action as follows:

1. Make explicit commitments to recognize and fix the injustices in their supply chains.

2. Identify areas of high risk and analyze and disclose their impact on supply chain issues.

3. Make clear their expectations of their suppliers and support them to do their part to fix the injustices.

Erinch Sahan led the team across Oxfam International that put together the scorecard.

The paper summarizes the key trends and flashpoints in global resource use, including:

• Resource trade has grown nearly 50% from a decade ago in weight terms owing to expanding trade in oil, iron and steel, coal, oilseeds and cereals
• Large-scale resource extraction remains concentrated in a handful of countries (China, the United States, Australia, the European Union, Brazil, Russia, India and Indonesia)

And then boils it all down into 5 ‘key findings’:

Volatility is the new normal

Volatility (see graph), driven by shrinking ‘buffers’ (eg reserve stockpiles) is spurring resource nationalism and needs to bedampened down by government and international action. The report has some clever ideas on how to design price smoothing mechanisms for oil, food and metals.

Environmental change and degradation are challenging traditional approaches

Environmental boundaries are starting to bite, notably climate change and water scarcity. Not much new in the way of ideas here (remove fossil fuel subsidies, improve water-sharing agreements etc), more ‘just do it’.

Trade as a frontline for resource conflicts

‘Trade is becoming a frontline for conflicts over resources’. Interesting – trade wars on the way back, eg over unilateral export bans by food producers, but in a different guise from the old WTO style struggle over import liberalization

Resource politics matter

‘Resource politics, not environmental preservation or sound economics, are set to dominate the global agenda and are already playing themselves out through trade disputes, climate negotiations, market manipulation strategies, aggressive industrial policies and the scramble to control frontier areas.’

Likely flashpoints that will need international action include resource production in highly eco-sensitive areas like the Arctic and ‘extreme engineering’ such as weather modification. The report picks up Alex Evans’ suggestion for a high profile annual ‘State of the World’s Resources’ report.

Collaborative governance is the only option

The report’s main big idea, in terms of policy proposals, is to set up a ‘new club of the world’s principal resource-producing and -consuming countries to fill existing governance gaps on resource and scarcities governance. This ‘Resources 30’ or R30 grouping, conceived as a ‘coalition of the committed’, would comprise leaders and officials from thirty countries of systemic significance as resource producers, consumers, importers or exporters.’

And here’s report co-author Bernice Lee introducing the findings

Presentations and lectures: Have Powerpoint, will travel. If you’re in the UK, I’m happy to add your organization to the launch roadshow, provided you can guarantee a reasonable turnout. Please contact chingley[at]Oxfam.org.uk to discuss dates etc. If you’re outside the UK, I’m still interested, but it may be more complicated (and expensive) – but please get in touch. The current list of launch events is here.

You can also follow event news on facebook and twitter

Buying it: You can order individual copies, or if you want to get a bunch of them, contact andrea.palmer[at]practicalaction.org.uk to discuss bulk discounts.

Reviewing it: Andrea is also the go-to woman for review copies

Translations: We’re keen to see translations, either of the whole thing, or in an abridged version. The first edition is already in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Korean, so you can cut translation costs in those languages (we can provide track changes versions). Contact rcornford[at]Oxfam.org.uk.

Blogs: I am generally keen to repost stuff as a guest on other blogs. My ideal model is the World Bank’s People, Deliberation, Spaces site, which regularly reposts, and is really easy to work with (no demand to post before/at same time as me etc). Anyone else out there interested? You don’t have to ask permission to repost, but if you let me know, I can alert you when suitable subject matter is on the way.

Free access: If you want a taster of the new edition we’ve opened up the ‘Food and Financial Crises‘ chapter ahead of publication to clelebrate World Food Day and Oxfam’s GROW week – Look inside now

Finally, here’s a promotional video, featuring me reading an autocue for the first time, which induces a strange zombie-like party political broadcast tone. Felt like having a lobotomy.

Phew, glad that’s done.

, an Oxfam private sector adviser

I must admit, I am drawn by the idea that companies have seen the light. I want to believe that pursuing profits will result in a sustainable world and the end of poverty. The literature around Shared Value (coined by Harvard business academic Michael Porter) supports the idea that there are many undiscovered common interests between society and profit. Sometimes this is the case: where well-paid workers deliver productivity gains; where poor people become consumers and can afford to buy more stuff; and natural resources are managed so that everyone can continue to make money into the future. The business case  is well made. However, as short term financial pressures weigh heavily on managers, too often, corporate actions do not match the sustainable business rhetoric. And we know that many companies are great at building a good image when what they actually do is far from sustainable.

Currently, everyone is turning up the rhetoric on corporate responsibility. GSK, Unilever, Nestle, Shell, Imperial Tobacco Group; visit any multinational’s website and you’ll find something about how it’s core to their business to act in the best interests of society and the planet. It’s hard to tell between the truly good ones (like Body Shop, Innocent and Ben & Jerry’s) and the Halliburtons of the world.

Frustrated that I can’t get beyond the online PR spin, I’ve taken to asking them questions like ‘when push-comes-to-shove, and it’s costly to be responsible, who wins the fight, your buying manager or your corporate responsibility team?’ The answer, unfortunately, is almost always ‘buying’.

Let me provide some context. I work on agriculture for Oxfam because that’s where the poor people are. I care about brands for two reasons. Firstly, that’s where our supporters have power over companies. Secondly, the brands are usually the most powerful players in supply-chains, who can get the big changes to happen. This means that we zero in on food and beverage companies and retailers. So that’s who I’m talking about.

Incidentally, these are also the companies that are often in the vanguard of exploring ways of making money while, at the same time, improving the world (through securing supply, stable chains and consumers buying their products with a clear conscience).

The side of the business that is concerned with product quality is usually the first side to buy into the business case to act responsibly. This is because long-term supplier relationships are good for quality and usually good for development. But the performance of the buyers, who hold real sway in these companies, is measured on profit margin, so they need to get the lowest price and usually drive who the company does business with.

One CSR manager recently told me that “if you want buyers to make ethical decisions, you have to give them a mandatory target to meet. Otherwise, our buyers just tell me I’m naive when I suggest that they prioritise ethical purchasing”. One major retailer that has set substantive social and environmental targets for staff is M&S through Plan A (see pic). We’ll know the tide has turned when retailers with more ‘savings-focused’ consumers join the party.

So how do we know if a company is doing the right things? Next time you run out of conversation with someone who sells stuff ultimately produced by poor people, try a few of these questions. It’s one way to start to get beyond the very seductive PR lines.

1) Who’s responsible for the corporate responsibility targets, the CSR/Communications people or the buying team? For example, at Starbucks, buyers are now responsible for meeting social responsibility goals.
2) Do they even know who’s growing/making their stuff? (I’ve been amazed at how many don’t)
3) When there’s a problem (e.g. child-labour), do they drop their suppliers or work with them on systems that will prevent the problem?
4) Do they ask the people at the bottom of their supply-chain what their problems and priorities are? One way is through a study such as a poverty footprint (e.g. Coca-Cola and Unilever).
5) Are they experimenting with new ways of doing business that improve conditions for the poorest people in their supply-chain? For example, lots of the big chocolate producers (Mars, Nestle, Cadbury/Kraft etc) are piloting different ways of getting technical knowledge to small-scale farmers who grow the cocoa in their chocolate.

Any other suggestions?

In a second post on the impending UN Arms Trade Treaty, Oxfam arms trade policy adviser Martin Butcher discusses the links between Libya’s arms race and hunger in the Sahel

The growing food crisis provoked by drought in the Sahel is affecting millions of people. This crisis has been deepened by the conflict in Mali sparked by the proliferation of arms from Libya in the wake of the fall of Colonel Gadhafi. Some 200,000 Malians have fled from the fighting, which engulfed the whole of Northern Mali from January to March this year. This situation of drought + conflict is providing some harrowing evidence of the need for effective international control of the arms trade. Oxfam has worked for ten years on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), currently under negotiation at the United Nations.

Tuareg tribes in northern Mali have refused to accept the authority of the Bamako government since independence in the 1960s, and their last rebellion ended in 2009 with Malian government forces victorious. But as the war in Libya turned against Colonel Gadhafi, Tuareg fighters from Libya’s armed forces began to return home and formed the Movement for the National Liberation of Azawad (MNLA).

The MNLA are much better armed than previous Tuareg fighters. Malian government forces have reported fighting against men armed with four-wheel drive vehicles mounted with heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons or multiple rocket launchers, and Milan anti-tank missiles. The UN has said that substantial amounts of those kinds of heavy weapons, as well thousands of rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns, substantial quantities of semtex explosive, thousands of small arms and tonnes of ammunition and grenades have flowed into the Sahel from Libya. There are also persistent reports that MANPADS – single operator anti-aircraft missiles – have been smuggled out of Libya. The Libyan government had stockpiled some 40,000 of these weapons, and only 5,000 have been accounted for. Many were undoubtedly destroyed during NATO’s bombing, but several thousand have probably been smuggled out of Libya to the Tuaregs, to terrorist groups, and into the region’s black market for arms.

In addition to being better armed than ever before, the Tuareg fighters from the Libyan army are better trained and disciplined than rebels in the past. As the rebellion began, things went badly for government forces and on 21 March, army officers led by a Captain Sanogo, angered at being outgunned and outmanoeuvred by the MNLA, carried out a coup d’etat to overthrow President Toure. In the wake of the coup, all of northern Mali has fallen to the MNLA without serious fighting, and the Tuaregs declared the end of fighting and a free Azawad in early April.

Malian soldiers

In the South, the coup leaders are now working with ECOWAS and political figures in Mali to restore civilian government as soon as possible. While there is no fighting at present, interim President Traore (former speaker of the Malian parliament) has threatened to wage ‘total war’ on the north if the rebels do not submit to his authority. The army continues to call for more weapons. More fighting is likely in coming months.

How would an ATT help? For a start, in a situation like Mali, a treaty would cut off weapons heading for a conflict zone to encourage political negotiation. National legislation for Arms Trade Treaty implementation would require security sector reform and improve civilian control of the military, both vital areas of good governance that contribute to socio-economic development.

The ATT would provide simple rules, globally enforced, which would detail when an arms exporter could, and could not, send arms to a prospective buyer. If it was thought that the sale of arms might result in breaches of human rights or international humanitarian law; could damage socio-economic development of the recipient state; provoke or prolong a conflict; or lead to diversion to terrorist or into the black market – such a sale would be banned. This would apply to all conventional arms and equipment. While individual countries have such export control policies, there is no such global regulation.

It is likely that, had an ATT been in place in the past twenty years, Libya would have been unable to build up the excessive stocks of arms that are now fuelling conflict in the Sahel. And, given the transparency and reporting mechanism that will be built into the treaty, much more would now be known about just what those stockpiles contained, and where they were stored. This would have allowed effective international action to contain them in the wake of the war.

The Sahel risks being trapped in a vicious self-perpetuating cycle of hunger, conflict and bad governance. That cycle can be interrupted

Tuareg rebels

at various points by action at both national and international level – building food security, fast and effective aid, and passing an ATT that will prevent the kinds of disastrous spillover Mali has suffered from the fall of Colonel Gadhafi.

Martin Butcher is Oxfam’s policy adviser on the Arms Trade Treaty