EB5 Capital’s Steamboat Springs Marriott Hotels (JF40) Project Receives I-956F Approval from USCIS

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — EB5 Capital is excited to announce that its Steamboat Springs Marriott Hotels (JF40) project was approved by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on September 13, 2024, after pending for approximately 2 months.   This Form I–956F approval confirms that USCIS has assessed and verified the compliance of the project and its related documents. Now that the project is approved by USCIS, investors who filed I–526E conditional green card petitions in this project can anticipate receiving individual petition adjudications in the coming months.

Steamboat Springs Marriott Hotels (JF40) is the development of a dual–branded Marriott hotel nestled atop Steamboat Mountain in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The Project will consist of a 103–room upscale SpringHill Suites, and a 77–room extended–stay TownePlace Suites. Plans include the construction of an upscale bar/lounge area and a full–service restaurant. Other shared amenities include a resort–style pool and hot tubs, an outdoor grill and patio area, fitness and business centers, and ski storage. The project is one of EB5 Capital’s 14 hotel developments in its portfolio of over 40 projects.

“We are pleased with this quick project approval from USCIS,” said Mariana Gomez, Senior Vice President of Operations and Compliance at EB5 Capital. “We’ve had the opportunity to experience the steady and significant improvement in processing times for I–956F applications firsthand and look forward to future approvals.”

JF40 is one of 15 projects EB5 Capital has launched since the passing of the EB–5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (RIA). Since the RIA went into effect, 12 of EB5 Capital’s projects have received I–956F approvals, allowing the firm to maintain its 100% project approval rate with USCIS.

About EB5 Capital

EB5 Capital provides qualified foreign investors opportunities to invest in job–creating commercial real estate projects under the United States Immigrant Investor Program (EB–5 Visa Program). As one of the country’s oldest and most active Regional Center operators, the firm has raised more than one billion dollars of foreign capital across over 40 EB–5 projects. Headquartered in Washington, DC, EB5 Capital’s distinguished track record and leadership in the industry has attracted investors from over 75 countries. Please visit www.eb5capital.com for more information.

Contact:
Katherine Willis
Director, Marketing & Communications
media@eb5capital.com


GLOBENEWSWIRE (Distribution ID 9233094)

Zoom and Mitel announce strategic partnership to deliver differentiated AI-first hybrid communications and collaboration solution for enterprises worldwide

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 18, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZM) and Mitel, a global leader in business communications, announced a strategic partnership designed to empower enterprises worldwide with a unique hybrid cloud solution that combines Zoom Workplace and Zoom AI Companion with Mitel’s flagship communications platform in a modern, deeply integrated communication experience. The partnership will address growing enterprise demand for hybrid unified communications (UC) deployments with a “best–of–both–worlds” solution that delivers security and control for mission–critical communications alongside exceptional collaboration to enhance business productivity. The partnership will introduce a Zoom–first experience within Mitel’s hybrid portfolio, including access to the full Zoom Workplace platform, which works seamlessly with existing Mitel investments.

Modern work continues to evolve, with 82% of leaders planning to make their working styles more flexible in the next two years.* As these changes and the desire to improve employee productivity and customer engagement accelerate, the demand for greater flexibility and modern collaboration solutions is increasing. Enterprises need AI–first solutions that will help drive their business forward, while also maintaining a level of control, regulatory compliance, and security for their mission–critical communications. This complex balance of control and flexibility is prompting 91% of enterprises to prioritize a hybrid approach for their business communications.**

Leveraging Mitel’s Common Communication Framework, the unique Zoom–Mitel offering will deliver a fully embedded, feature–rich experience without add–ons or plug–ins, including UC and mobile app integration, hardware device–level integration, and advanced business process capabilities like bi–directional presence, call–to–video escalation, and centralized user provisioning and administration. Additionally, users will gain access to Zoom Phone with embedded support for Mitel PBX platforms, whether deployed on–premises or in the cloud. It also creates a compelling opportunity for Mitel’s more than 70 million global end–users to elevate their collaboration experience by allowing them to seamlessly access Zoom AI Companion***, Meetings, Team Chat, and more while leveraging their existing Mitel investments.

Partnership highlights:

  • Establishes Zoom as Mitel’s exclusive UCaaS offering within its overall UC portfolio for customers of all sizes.
  • Enables Mitel’s sales teams and over 7,000 partners globally to cross–sell the Zoom–first experience as a core part of the unique hybrid solution or to help customers migrate to Zoom if UCaaS is their preferred deployment model.
  • Enables Zoom sales teams to sell Mitel’s award–winning devices for Mitel hybrid customers requiring physical endpoints.
  • Supports growing customer demand for hybrid capabilities that “just work” across on–premises and private and public cloud models, offering flexibility, security, and control within the enterprise.
  • Provides on–premises enterprise companies an opportunity to introduce industry–leading collaboration capabilities through a model and pace that suits their needs.

“As organizations continue to prioritize hybrid UC deployments, it is critical that users across the globe have access to AI–first, reliable, and seamless collaboration solutions. Together, Zoom and Mitel are now able to address the largest segment of today’s communications market, particularly in EMEA, strengthening growth potential and enabling more users worldwide to reimagine the ways in which they work,” said Eric S. Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom. “Like Zoom, Mitel has a customer–first approach where providing a best–in–class, collaborative working environment is of the utmost importance. I look forward to watching this partnership progress and continuing to work closely with Mitel to meet the evolving needs of our users.”

“Effective communication and collaboration are the lifeblood of modern organizations, but they become transformative when tailored to meet each customer’s unique business objectives. Flexibility and choice are at the heart of every Mitel solution and partnering with Zoom strengthens our ability to deliver on that promise for customers around the world,” said Tarun Loomba, president and CEO of Mitel. “Zoom has a deep understanding of the enterprise market and the flexibility required to support the complex, nuanced needs of today’s distributed workforce. As hybrid communications emerge as the future of business, we see this partnership as a catalyst for driving innovation and growth, together with the Zoom team.”

The joint solution will be generally available for customers in the first half of 2025. Advanced capabilities are underway as part of the multi–phase partnership plan, and continued enhancements are being planned.

“This partnership recognizes the value of hybrid communications. The reality of modern business, today, is that requirements will change and get more complex,” said Dave Michels, founder and lead analyst, TalkingPointz. “Mitel offers powerful private cloud and single–tenant voice solutions, and Zoom has excellent enterprise video and team chat. Together, they create a seamless solution without putting an integration burden on the customer. This partnership brings the best of hybrid communication to market for those looking not to sacrifice flexibility, control, and resiliency, globally.”

* According to an August 2024 global survey conducted by Zoom and Reworked INSIGHTS titled, “Navigating the Future of Work: Global Perspectives on Hybrid Models and Technology.”
** According to a June 2024 global survey of 1,954 organizations conducted by Mitel and Techaisle.
***Included at no additional cost with the paid services assigned to Zoom accounts. Zoom AI Companion may not be available for all regions and industry verticals.

About Zoom
Zoom’s mission is to provide one platform that delivers limitless human connection. Reimagine teamwork with Zoom Workplace — Zoom’s open collaboration platform with AI Companion that empowers teams to be more productive. Together with Zoom Workplace, Zoom’s Business Services for sales, marketing, and customer care teams, including Zoom Contact Center, strengthen customer relationships throughout the customer lifecycle. Founded in 2011, Zoom is publicly traded (NASDAQ: ZM) and headquartered in San Jose, California. Get more information at zoom.com.

About Mitel
A global market leader in business communications powering more than two billion business connections, Mitel helps businesses and service providers connect, collaborate and provide innovative services to their customers. Our innovation and communications experts serve business users in more than 100 countries. For more information, go to www.mitel.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @Mitel.

Zoom Public Relations
Rachel Shatz
press@zoom.us

Mitel Public Relations
Trever Kerr, Americas
Sandrine Quinton, Europe and Asia
pr@mitel.com  


GLOBENEWSWIRE (Distribution ID 9232560)

Explainer: Why Venezuela Needs To Reduce Its Gas Flaring

This photo of the Caribbean Sea taken in 2021 is the above view of the western side of Venezuela's Paraguaná Peninsula. The smoke plume running across the middle of the image appears to originate at a gas flare (mechurrio) of the Paraguaná Refinery Complex. Credit: NASA

This photo of the Caribbean Sea taken in 2021 is the above view of the western side of Venezuela’s Paraguaná Peninsula. The smoke plume running across the middle of the image appears to originate at a gas flare (mechurrio) of the Paraguaná Refinery Complex. Credit: NASA

By Margaret López
CARACAS, Sep 18 2024 – The most visible part of gas flaring in Venezuela is the so-called “Monagas illuminated nights.” These are red and orange skies, which are visible from the homes of the locals at night and which show the gas flaring in the oil fields of Monagas, a state located in the east of the Caribbean country and key in its oil production.

Venezuela was the fifth country in the world with the highest gas flaring by volume during 2023, according to the Global Gas Flaring Tracker Report carried out by the World Bank.

The estimate was that Venezuela flared 8.31 billion cubic meters of gas (bcm) during 2023. This is just 1.32 bcm less than that flared by an oil giant like the United States, which ranked fourth in the global gas flaring ranking and produced at least 10 times more oil than Venezuela.

Reducing gas flaring in Venezuela is a key fact in the coming years of the Paris Agreement, considering that its energy sector (mostly powered by oil and gas) accounts for 66.2% of its total greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Emission Index.

Gas flaring is a practice to remove gas associated with oil production, used mostly in small and dispersed oil fields. It is a method that is usually evidenced by the burning flares that are often seen at a distance from oil fields.

It is considered a safe method to avoid explosions in oil installations, but polluting because in the process carbon dioxide (CO2) and also methane (CH4) are released into the atmosphere. This concentration of gas emissions is what allows the skies to turn red and orange at night, as occurs in Monagas.

As in the rest of the oil-producing countries, gas flaring has been used in Venezuela for several decades. “The Venezuelan oil industry saw gas as a burden, not as a solution. It was not even used in the reinjection fields to extract more crude,” explained engineer Oswaldo Felizzola, coordinator of the International Energy and Environment Center of the Institute of Higher Studies in Administration (IESA), in an interview with IPS.

Russia ranks first among the world's largest gas flaring countries. Credit: Margaret López/IPS

Russia ranks first among the world’s largest gas flaring countries. Credit: Margaret López/IPS

How much gas is flared in Venezuela?

The state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) pledged to reduce its gas flaring between 2016 and 2017. However, there is currently no official Venezuelan data on how much gas is flared in the fields of Monagas and Anzoátegui, two states with extensive daily gas flaring and whose nighttime lighting is so powerful that it was captured by NASA satellite images.

It is also unknown how much gas is being flared at Amuay and Cardón, the main Venezuelan refineries located in the northwest of the Caribbean country.

The private firm Gas Energy Latin America has an estimate that PDVSA loses 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas daily between what is flared and what is simply vented into the atmosphere. This practice was consolidated in Venezuela thanks to the low prices associated with gas compared to oil.

“Gas has had no real value and was always subsidized in Venezuela. The large quantities of leftover methane gas extracted from the fields have no economics. There are no facilities to collect it and, for that reason, it was not sold,” said Juan Szabo, an international energy consultant and former president of production for PDVSA between 1995 and 1999, in an interview with IPS.

Szabo also explained that the 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas lost daily in Venezuela are equivalent to more than the amount of gas consumed in all of Colombia in one day.

Gas flaring is also recognized as a practice of oil companies that wastes natural resources because part of these gases could be used for everyday activities such as cooking in homes or powering thermoelectric plants that provide electricity in the regions of the Caribbean country.

What options does Venezuela have to reduce its gas flaring?

The World Bank highlighted in its most recent report that Venezuela has been decreasing its gas flaring volumes for three consecutive years. During 2023, for example, there was a total reduction of 4% of its gas flaring volumes, mostly from oil fields located in the north of the Monagas state. The big question, however, is how a sustainable policy can be put together to minimize this polluting practice.

Experts Felizzola and Szabo agree that a cost-effective option would be to capture this gas and then re-inject it into fields to improve oil production in the Caribbean country.

“You have to rehabilitate the compression plants and the extraction plants, which would no longer have to be so sophisticated because the reservoir pressure has also dropped. This would help reinject methane gas into the system and improve oil production,” Szabo explained.

Another option is to install pipelines to recover gases such as propane and butane, which can be used directly for sale in the local market, both to industries and to ordinary citizens for their kitchens. However, this project requires a high initial investment, which Venezuela does not have and which could be obtained through financing from multilateral entities interested in promoting a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in small oil-producing countries.

The third option to reduce gas flaring volumes would be creating a system to capture, process, store, and export these gases to markets such as Colombia, Brazil, or Trinidad and Tobago, all countries bordering Venezuela.

However, Felizzola and Szabo also warned that none of these options would be viable without Venezuela first establishing a gas price governed by international standards and cutting subsidies. A public policy more focused on gas as a valuable asset depends on reducing its flaring and its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. The irony is that the least costly and easiest plan to implement is just to re-inject this gas to increase oil production in this Caribbean country.

This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 


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Nagorno-Karabakh: One Year After the Ethnic Cleansing

It has been 12 months since Hayk Harutyunyan, a 22-year-old photographer from Nagorno-Karabakh, cleaned his house for the last time and closed the door behind him for good. “Every morning, before I open my eyes, I imagine how wonderful it would be to wake up at home. But once again, I am not there…” Harutyunyan […]

Mexican chinampas survive surrounded by threats

Farmer Crescencio Hernández checks seedlings in his chinampa in the San Gregorio Atlapulco collective land, in the Xochimilco municipality, in the south of the extensive metropolitan area of Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Farmer Crescencio Hernández checks seedlings in his chinampa in the San Gregorio Atlapulco collective land, in the Xochimilco municipality, in the south of the extensive metropolitan area of Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
SAN GREGORIO ATLAPULCO, Mexico , Sep 18 2024 – Mexican Crescencio Hernández orders radishes, herbs and lettuce for shipment to an alternative market in west-central Mexico City.

The vegetables have been harvested from his chinampa, a pre-Hispanic wetland farming system that survives in three boroughs in the south of the Mexican capital, albeit surrounded by multiple threats.

Hernández, 44, married without children, attributed the success of the traditional technique to good practices. “We take care that there is no sewage in the canals, no construction in this area, we don’t use agrochemicals and reforest every year,” the owner of the Crescen de la Chinampa brand explained during a tour of his chinampa with IPS.

With three workers, Hernández harvests about 500 kilograms of vegetables each week, including tomatoes, peppers, chilli peppers and spinach, from a chinampa he owns and another he borrows in the town of San Gregorio Atlapulco, home to some 24,000 people and part of the borough of Xochimilco, known as ‘the land of flowers’.“We take care that there is no sewage in the canals, that there is no construction in this area, we don’t use agrochemicals, we reforest every year”: Crescencio Hernández.

Originally from the municipality of Acambay, in the state of Mexico (neighbouring Mexico City), Hernández has been a chinampa farmer (chinampero) for 28 years, an activity he shares with his brother, who rents another of these plots of land for agricultural production.

In 2017, he abandoned the use of agrochemicals and now uses compost from the organic matter produced by the farm. In June, he installed a greenhouse inside the chinampa to plant tomato, lettuce and cucumber.

“The basis of the system is water, it sustains it. I diversify production to meet the demand, as I am asked for several products, and also to take care of the soil,” he said.

But what he and other chinampa farmers protect, is destroyed in nearby areas, with the complicity of the authorities, who are responsible for protecting these unique sites.

Irregular urbanisation, the use of pesticides, the effects of the climate crisis, over-exploitation of the aquifer and neglect have dug their daggers into the bowels of the chinampa, according to a study by the World Cultural and Natural Heritage Zone Authority (AZP) in Xochimilco, Tláhuac and Milpa Alta.

The AZP, established in 2014, manages the preservation of the wetland’s special ecosystem in order to maintain the World Heritage designation.

Chinampa farmers in the municipality of Xochimilco, in the south of Mexico City. Credit: Fundación Tortilla

Chinampa farmers in the municipality of Xochimilco, in the south of Mexico City. Credit: Fundación Tortilla

Ambiguity

The original peoples used chinampas, , a term that comes from chinampi, which in the indigenous Nahuatl language means ‘in the fence of reeds’, long before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the 15th century.

The technique creates small, rectangular gardens in the wetlands of the micro-region, by means of fences made of ahuejote (willow) stakes, a tree typical of this ecosystem with the virtue of tolerating excess water.

The bottom of the chinampa is rich in mud and organic waste, which provide nutrients for the growth of plants, irrigated with water from the canals, in one of the most studied areas in the centre of the country.

The chinampas are the vegetable garden that partially feeds the 22 million people of Mexico City and its metropolitan area.

The chinampas system retains water, produces fish, vegetables, flowers and medicinal plants, and saves water compared to traditional irrigation, with a network of navigable canals of some 135 kilometres.

Luis Zambrano, doctor in basic ecology at the Institute of Biology de of the public National Autonomous University of Mexico, believes chinampas have had their ups and downs.

“There are chinamperos who… want to work the way they used to work, and that helps resilience and local food production. But it’s getting worse, because urbanisation, such as houses, football pitches and night clubs, is gaining ground,” he told IPS.

This, he said, because “Xochimilco is very threatened by local public policies that promote these activities, when the land’s vocation is to be productive”.

San Gregorio Atlapulco, part of the municipality of Xochimilco, in the south of Mexico City, lost conservation land between 2012 and 2024, victim of urbanization and the installation of greenhouses, as shown in the two satellite images from each of those years. Credit: Google Earth

San Gregorio Atlapulco, part of the municipality of Xochimilco, in the south of Mexico City, lost conservation land between 2012 and 2024, victim of urbanization and the installation of greenhouses, as shown in the two satellite images from each of those years. Credit: Google Earth

In 1992, the Priority Zone for the Preservation and Conservation of Ecological Balance y was established as a Natural Protected Area (NPA), which covers the ejidos (community farms on public land under concession) of Xochimilco and San Gregorio Atlapulco, with a total of 2,507 hectares.

The chinampera area has 1,723 hectares, equivalent to 68 % of the NPA.

The borough hosts three zones in the ejidos Xochimilco, San Gregorio Atlapulco and San Luis Tlaxialtemalco, which still have canals and host 2,824 active chinampas out of the 18,524 existing ones.

Of the active points, 60% apply the chinampero system, 12.5% host greenhouses, recreational sites and football fields, 9.4% are dedicated to pastures and 16% were converted into residential areas.

In Xochimilco there are 864 active chinampas out of 15,864 registered over 1,059 hectares, corresponding to 47% of the total surface of the traditional system. This area preserves the largest number of chinampas that have potential for restoration.

San Gregorio Atlapulco has 1,530 operational chinampas out of 2,060 registered, over an area of 484 hectares (22% of the total), which makes it the locality with the greatest presence of these active sites.

San Luis Tlaxialtemalco is the smallest, with 103 hectares (5% of the territory), and 430 active chinampas out of 600 registered.

Xochimilco, with just over 442,000 people in an area of about 125 square kilometres, has been a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) World Natural and Cultural Heritage site since 1987.

In addition, its lake system has been part of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, known as the Ramsar Convention, since 2004, especially as a habitat for waterfowl.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) classifies the chinampas as part of the Ingenious Systems of World Agricultural Heritage, as they conserve agrobiodiversity, adapt farmers to climate change, guarantee food security and combat poverty.

But these recognitions have not prevented the destruction, and restoration has been an ever-present promise, always unfulfilled.

The protected natural area has lost at least 173 hectares in recent years due to urbanisation, construction of greenhouses and spaces for mass events, such as festivals, according to calculations by Zambrano and his scientific team. The ANP’s 2018 management plan bans those activities.

Compounding the despair, in 2021 the capital’s government built a vehicular bridge over a wetland, which increases the threats to the ecosystem and has led to several complaints to Unesco, which have yet to be resolved.

The canals between the chinampas provide sediment, the base for planting, and water for irrigating vegetable crops, in a wetland located in three localities in the south of Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

The canals between the chinampas provide sediment, the base for planting, and water for irrigating vegetable crops, in a wetland located in three localities in the south of Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

A possible future

In this adverse context, the chinamperos also sow optimism that flows through the canals of the area.

Biologist Zambrano leads a project that includes research, maintenance of the sites and protection of the axolotl, working with 25 farmers and 40 chinampas that distribute their produce to shops and restaurants with the ‘chinampera label’.

In 2024, the restoration project has a budget of around USD 250,000 from private donations.

The amphibian axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is endemic to the area and is at risk of extinction due to habitat loss.

At the moment, they are analysing profitability and increased production, in order to encourage more farmers to join.

Farmer Hernández highlighted collective work and government support as hopeful elements.

“I see solutions, but it depends on the government giving money. We need farmers to be aware of water use,” he said.

Zambrano called for a ‘social force’ to compel the regional and national governments to restore Xochimilco.

“Today they need subsidies, the value is very low and competition is high. This is a race against the dynamics we have brought in the last decades,” he argued.

He predicted a future with possibilities. “There are going to be places crowded with tourists, a lot of urbanisation and deterioration. But if we manage to change the balance and increase production, if the government supports it, we could have a very profitable area,” he concluded.

Where Has Poverty Gone?

By Michelle Muschett and Sabina Alkire
NEW YORK / OXFORD, UK , Sep 18 2024 – Political polarization, the climate emergency, organized crime, migration, and low economic growth currently dominate the public debate in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and rightly so. However, there is a significant structural challenge to human development and democracy itself that, along with inequalities, lies at the root of these crises: poverty.

Today, 181 million people, 29% of the region’s population, live in monetary poverty, and 33 million suffer from acute multidimensional poverty (considering only countries with available data). Advancing towards a prosperous and resilient LAC requires putting poverty in all its forms and dimensions back at the center of public debate and addressing new responses through public policy.

In past decades, the region significantly reduced poverty by taking advantage of economic growth driven by the commodities boom and the introduction of innovative public policies focused on solving this problem, such as conditional cash transfers—schemes where cash is given to households in poverty in exchange for specific investments in human development, such as ensuring school attendance or participation in vaccination campaigns-.

However, this trend began to reverse two years before the pandemic.

Revitalizing the poverty reduction agenda requires resuming this innovative capacity and political will. We have done it in the past, we must do it again, and it is possible. Brazil’s recent proposal to the G20 to promote a Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty is an excellent step in this direction.

To achieve this, it will be essential to better understand and measure the multiple forms and dimensions of poverty, ensure effective inter-institutional coordination for policy design and implementation, and refine the targeting and allocation of resources through new planning instruments. Given the context of low economic growth and limited fiscal space, efficiency is key to accelerating significant achievements.

Ensuring that people in poverty have the capabilities and opportunities to live the life they want requires tools that capture their realities and experiences, including the multiple deprivations that affect them in different dimensions of well-being and go beyond the lack of income.

Not having access to education, water, or health, among others, are significant deprivations that may or may not be correlated with having money—a person may have sufficient income to not be considered poor and yet not have access to healthcare because there is no hospital near his or her community.

The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), launched by UNDP and OPHI in 2010, complements the measurement and analysis of extreme monetary poverty with information about people’s situation in multiple socioeconomic dimensions.

The MPI has been adopted by countries around the world as an official poverty measure, complementing income-based measures and focusing on each country’s priorities, turning them into effective public policy tools that allow for more precise identification of who and where the poor are, and how it varies by age, gender, territory, and ethnicity.

Latin America has been a pioneer in adopting national MPIs, with 12 countries and two major cities—Mexico City and Bogotá—and can once again be a reference for poverty reduction. The success of conditional cash transfers in the past meant a quantitative leap in the utility of monetary poverty data.

It is time to replicate this success by developing new transformative policies that have the same effect on the utility of multidimensional data, taking advantage of the planning, policy articulation, and monitoring possibilities provided by the rich information obtained from complementary use of both measures.

In Honduras, for example, multidimensional data was used to better identify the population with the greatest vulnerabilities as a result of COVID-19 and to more accurately guide cash supports.

On the other hand, a clear articulation between other national policies and poverty reduction goals will also be crucial to achieving greater impact. Policies like those related to productivity, energy, or climate change are often defined in a sectoral manner despite their potential to accelerate poverty reduction.

These links need to be formalized. It is also important to invite actors beyond the public sector to incorporate these analyses and actions to accelerate poverty reduction as part of their development strategies. For example, the Colombian natural gas producers’ association (Naturgas) created an index of strategic municipalities.

This explicitly incorporates an equity dimension through poverty-related variables alongside business variables usually used by private companies in their decision-making processes. This index generates incentives to invest in areas of greater poverty while respecting the natural profit-seeking of these companies.

If we want to get back on track towards eradicating poverty in all its dimensions, we must put poverty and inequality back on the public agenda, promoting spaces for dialogue, collaboration, and consensus around innovative and transformative public policies that allow us to move towards more equal and inclusive societies.

Only in this way we will be on track to achieve sustainable development in LAC. Let’s not wait any longer and make the leap that we need in public innovation for a well-being and human development that leave no one behind.

Michelle Muschett is Director, Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); Sabina Alkire is Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford.

IPS UN Bureau

 


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Governments Using Billions of Public Funds to Subsidize Climate-Destructive Industries—Report

Joseph Loree, who lives in the oil-rich Lokichar area of Turkana in northern Kenya, keeps a few goats due to frequent droughts. Governments in the Global South are spending billions of dollars subsidising industries harming the climate, such as the one in Lokichar. Credit: Maina Waruru/IPS

Joseph Loree, who lives in the oil-rich Lokichar area of Turkana in northern Kenya, keeps a few goats due to frequent droughts. Governments in the Global South are spending billions of dollars subsidising industries harming the climate, such as the one in Lokichar. Credit:
Maina Waruru/IPS

By Maina Waruru
NAIROBI, Sep 18 2024 – A report examining corporate capture of public finance is accusing industries fueling the climate crisis, including fossil fuel ones, of draining public funds in the Global South, singling them out for squeezing out of governments USD 700 billion in public subsidies each year.

The report, How theFinance Flows: Corporate capture of public finance fuelling the climate crisis in the Global South, released on 17 September says that the climate-destructive sectors are benefiting from money that could go to paying for schooling for all Sub-Saharan African children 3.5 times over, even as Global South renewable energy projects remain starved of cash, receiving 40 times less public finance than the fossil fuels sector.

While urging governments in the developing world to allocate more of their limited resources in ways that “truly serve their people’s needs” through climate solutions for food and energy, the analysis of financial flows by ActionAid reveals that the fossil fuel sector in the region received a staggering annual average of USD 438.6 billion a year in subsidies, between 2016 (when the Paris Agreement was signed) and 2023.

The industrial agriculture sector alone benefited from the government subsidies equivalent to a whopping USD 238 billion a year on average between 2016 and 2021, even as it continued to contribute to the worsening of nature, it  reveals.

It further reveals that the industries causing the climate crisis are also draining the lion’s share of public funds, including in “climate-hit countries,” in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, even as initiatives providing climate solutions remain severely underfunded.

The report points to corporate capture of public finance, combined with a lack of international climate finance, as some of the factors holding back climate action in some of the “countries and communities that need it most”.

While also finding that climate finance grants from the Global North for climate-hit countries are still grossly insufficient to support climate action and the necessary transitions in the southern hemisphere, it gives examples of several countries in Africa where policies in place were in conflict with actual reality actions.

These include the fossil fuel-rich African countries of South Africa and Nigeria, which have been found to be heavily subsidizing the discredited sector.

The countries, including Bangladesh in South Asia, Action Aid says were providing fuel subsidies up to between 22 and 33 times the “per capita level of annual public investment in renewable energy” flow, for example.

As a result, in the hemisphere, renewable energy initiatives are receiving 40 times less public finance than the fossils sector, while climate finance grants amount to just a 20th of the Global South’s public finance going to fossils and industrial agriculture.

“While trillions of dollars in climate finance from the Global North to the Global South are necessary to adequately address the climate and development crises, Global South governments must allocate their limited resources in ways that truly serve their people’s needs through climate solutions for food and energy,” it says.

“Meanwhile, the failure of Global North countries to provide adequate climate finance for climate transitions means that Global South countries are locked into harmful development pathways that destroy ecosystems, grab lands and compound the injustice of climate change,” it adds.

Citing the example of Southern Africa’s Zambia, it says that the industrial agriculture sector in the country gobbled up 80 percent of the national agriculture budget in 2023, through subsidies for “climate-harming synthetic fertilizer’s and commercial seeds.”

“Meanwhile, only 6 percent of the Agriculture Ministry’s Agricultural Development and Productivity Programme was spent on supporting farmers to adopt agroecological, nature-friendly farming approaches, that naturally strengthen soil fertility and reduce dependency on agrochemical inputs,” it explains the contradiction.

Zambia’s neighbor Zimbabwe has made public policy statements in support of a shift towards agroecology, a shift evidenced by 34 percent of the country’s agriculture budget this year supporting farmers to adopt practices to move from climate-destructive agrochemicals.

Despite that, Zimbabwe is still using approximately 50 percent of its entire national agriculture budget towards subsidizing industrial agribusiness inputs such as fertilizers and hybrid seeds,” signaling the industry’s continued control over the sector and budget, as well as the potential to free up more public finances for public good’.

Two west African countries, the Gambia and Senegal, and South America’s Brazil were equally  found to be engaging in contradictory practices, making public investments in renewable energy, on a scale that is almost comparable to the per capita public subsidy provision for fossil fuels.

In the Gambia, the scale of public investment in renewable energy is more than four-fifths that of public finance provided to fossil fuels; while in Brazil and Senegal, the scale of renewables investment was found to be two-thirds that of fossil fuel subsidies.

“Kenya’s ambition to be a global leader in renewable energy is borne out by the finding that per capita investment in renewables in the country is outspending public subsidy provision to fossil fuels. However, recent protests in Kenya against the government’s reduction of fossil fuel subsidies underline the importance of feminist Just Transition principles,” the investigation found.

“Shifts in public financing must be carefully sequenced to protect the rights of people—especially women—living in poverty. Any reductions in fossil fuel subsidies should target the wealthy corporations first. Only once accessible and democratic alternatives and comprehensive social protections are available to people on low incomes, should progressive policies be shifted,” the analysis concluded.

The report further found that governments in the North continue to disproportionately fuel the climate crisis, and even though the developed world has just a quarter of the world’s population, their annual average fossil fuel subsidies amounted to USD 239.7 billion.

Action Aid laments that renewable energy public investment in the Global South comes to an annual average of USD 10.3 billion each year, noting that even worse, renewable energy investment in the South has been on a downward trend, more than halving from USD 15 billion in 2016 to USD 7 billion in 2021.

It calls on governments to speed up the transition to green, resilient, democratic and people-led climate solutions for food and energy, such as renewable energy and agroecology. “For Global South countries already experiencing the devastating consequences of climate change, the need for global transition is all the more urgent”.

According to Arthur Larok, Secretary General of ActionAid International, the report further helps expose wealthy corporations’ ‘parasitic’ behavior.

“They are draining the life out of the Global South by siphoning public funds and fueling the climate crisis. Sadly, the promises of climate finance by the Global North are as hollow as the empty rhetoric they have been uttering for decades. It is time for this circus to end; we need genuine commitments to ending the climate crisis,” he said.

The report also debunks the “false narrative” that fossil fuel and industrial agriculture expansion in the Global South is necessary to address food insecurity and energy poverty and to provide livelihoods and public revenue, said Teresa Anderson, Global Lead on Climate Justice at ActionAid International and one of the report’s authors.

“It seems that money is the root of all climate upheaval. Climate-destructive industries are bleeding the Global South of the public funds they should be using to deal with the climate crisis. “The lack of public and climate finance for solutions means that in climate-vulnerable countries, renewable energy is receiving 40 times less public finance than the fossil fuel sector,” she added.

The time had come for the poor to stand up to industries that are draining their finances and wrecking the climate.

Public resources, the report recommends, should be directed toward supporting just transition away from climate-destructive fossil fuels and industrial agriculture and in favor of “people-led climate solutions that safeguard people’s rights to food, energy and livelihoods.”

It should also go to scaling up decentralized renewable energy systems to provide energy access, and gender-responsive agricultural extension services that offer training in agro-ecology and adaptation.

It appeals to wealthy countries to provide “trillions of dollars in grant-based climate finance each year to Global South countries on the front lines of the climate crisis,” including by agreeing to an ambitious new climate finance goal at COP29.

Further, it calls for regulation of the banking and finance sectors to end destructive financing, including setting minimum standards for human rights, social and environmental frameworks, and transformation of the international financial institutions that are pushing climate-vulnerable countries into “spiraling debt.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 


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