Development

The biggest achievement of the past week’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York was the adoption of a new fifteen-year plan for global development. Replacing the soon-to-expire Millennium Development Goals, seventeen new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will guide UN and domestic development policies through 2030 with an ambitious, and some say overly idealistic agenda. Based on UN member and civil society input over a three-year process, the final set of SDGs aims to eliminate hunger, reduce inequality, promote shared economic growth, and “end poverty in all its forms everywhere.” President Obama, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and Pope Francis all endorsed the new “global goals” during the three-day UN Sustainable Development Summit held in the run-up to UNGA. Here are two major takeaways from the summit: The Global Goal of Good Governance One of the more controversial global goals is SDG 16, which promotes inclusive, accountable institutions and includes twelve specific targets on anti-corruption, representative decision-making, access to information, and the rule of law. With a UN-led global survey of over eight million people ranking governance as a top priority (the second most popular answer in low-income countries), leaders incorporated it into the SDGs despite “adamant resistance.” While many, including U.S. policymakers, support the citizen-led goal, others point to the ambiguity over what “good governance” means, owing to differing perceptions between developed countries and poorer ones. Further, defining and measuring corruption remains difficult, with no standardized cross-country metrics. While polling data propelled governance onto the SDG agenda, citizen participation may also determine whether goal 16’s accountability objectives are achieved. Financing the Global Goals The SDGs now set, the development community must find ways to pay for them as costs are estimated to run $3 trillion a year or more. With private capital as a growing funding source—foreign direct investment (FDI) outpaced government-led assistance by about five times last year—the UN and domestic donor agencies embraced multinationals during the summit. A “UN Private Sector Forum” convened business leaders including Unilever’s Paul Polman, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and MasterCard’s Tim Murphy with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Oxfam International’s Winne Byanyima to discuss SDG priorities. Many pitched a win-win “business for good” model that stimulates domestic economic growth and cuts poverty while expanding the customer base. Yet others highlighted the limits of private investment—UNGA President Mogens Lykketoft pointed to the failure of big corporations and wealthy individuals to pay taxes. Next week rich countries may advance this conversation with new international rules to govern multinationals.

CFR’s Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy (CSMD) Program highlights noteworthy events and articles each Friday in “This Week in Markets and Democracy.”  The U.S. Fight Against International Corruption What do kleptocrats in Nigeria, South Korea, Equatorial Guinea—and as of this week, Malaysia—have in common? Fear of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Over the past five years its Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative has investigated and prosecuted corruption cases from each country, recovering over $600 million in ill-gotten assets. Increasingly active prosecutors trace and seize money that comes within U.S. borders, or through U.S.-based banks, revealing New York luxury apartments purchased through shell companies, bank accounts worth hundreds of millions, California beach homes, and even $1 million in Michael Jackson memorabilia. They don’t always succeed—the DOJ had recovered just half of its outstanding claims as of last year, the majority coming from one $480 million settlement involving former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. And not all the money makes its way back home, as DOJ has a less-than-perfect track record in victim compensation. But it remains one of the most effective U.S. tools against global corruption, as long as kleptocrats prefer to “invest” their money in more stable Western markets. Using Data to Head off Future Atrocities This week the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) launched The Early Warning Project, designed to prevent the very acts of genocide the museum commemorates. Its statistical assessments use historical indicators including political violence, infant mortality, and state failure to determine the countries most at risk of mass atrocities, defined as state-led killings of over 1,000 people. Myanmar and Nigeria top their rankings based on 2014 data. Nigeria seems to have overcome the immediate threat, completing the first peaceful power transfer in the country’s democratic history (though Boko Haram-perpetrated killings and alleged military abuses in the counterattack continue). Myanmar is still playing out in the run up to November’s parliamentary elections. Disenfranchised, the Muslim ethnic Rohingya minority continues to face systemic and escalating discrimination. And Myanmar’s election commission last week disqualified almost all Muslim opposition candidates (then reinstated eleven), threatening an already fragile democratic transition. By identifying elevated risks in fifty countries—including Sudan, Egypt, and Afghanistan—the USHMM hopes to galvanize global attention and action. What We are Reading on the UN’s New Global Goals Today world leaders adopted seventeen new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. Aiming to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030, targets range from reducing inequality and ending hunger to action on climate change. Here is what others are saying about the new development agenda: The word “sustainable” is used more than seventy five times in the text of the seventeen SDGs—but what does it mean? NPR talked to the Center for Global Development and other experts to find out. In a Huffington Post op-ed, U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice argues that the new UN development agenda is critical to U.S. national security, particularly SDG goal 16: good governance. Others are less enthusiastic about SDG 16. Matthew Stephenson, writing for The Global Anticorruption blog, argues that while the agenda’s anti-corruption focus is important, the goal will be difficult to measure and ultimately may prove counterproductive. Finally, FastCoExist argues that by painting an overwhelmingly positive picture of the SDGs without explaining poverty’s complexities, the UN may do a disservice to finding solutions needed to end it.

Alex Grigsby is the assistant director for the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations.  The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and United Nations Economic, Social, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Broadband Commission released its annual report on Monday, with statistics on the state of Internet access. Here are some highlights: Approximately 3.2 billion people will have Internet access by the end of this year, representing just over 43 percent of the world population. The vast majority of those people are in the developed world, where 82 percent of people are online. The developing world only has about 35 percent Internet penetration. The growth of Internet usage is slowing. This can largely be explained by the fact that most urban areas, where it is more economically viable for providers to deploy equipment, now have some form of Internet access. Rolling out broadband to rural and remote areas will likely take more time, hence the slowdown in growth. Most of the developing world’s first interaction with the Internet will probably be on a smartphone as mobile broadband subscriptions outpace fixed broadband subscriptions. Internet access is getting considerably cheaper, with a majority of the world’s countries having reached a target of fixed broadband service available for 5 percent of gross national income per capita. Although the report praises the growth of Internet access, it also provides an overview of the major challenges that will continue to impede broadband rollout to the roughly 4 billion people without access. On the supply side, providing access to people in rural areas makes it less commercially viable for providers to deploy equipment, often requiring government investment to incentivize providers. On the demand side, many in the developing world don’t necessarily perceive a need for Internet access. According to the report, "a significant number of national languages (such as Hindi and Swahili) are used by less than 0.1%" of the ten million most popular websites in the world. It’s hard to grasp the value of the Internet if the content or applications are in a language that someone can’t comprehend. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Developers won’t create local applications and services unless there’s a market for those services, but it’s hard to gauge whether a market exists if people don’t see the utility of getting online. With the release of the zero-draft of the WSIS+10 outcome document earlier this month and the negotiations slated to begin in earnest next month, countries are likely going to use the report to their advantage. Russia and the G-77 (UN-speak for a grouping of developing countries) could use it to argue that the 57 percent who continue to lack Internet access justifies new targets and international mechanisms to get 4 billion people online. Their respective position papers submitted to the UN in advance of the negotiation process include references to the need for a new multilateral body to manage Internet issues, a position they have consistently taken over the last decade. Opponents of new mechanisms, including most Western countries, could point to the Broadband commission as proof that the digital divide is narrowing. And while they will probably argue that more work needs to be done, alternative solutions such as regulatory environments that favor broadband deployment and spectrum policy are more likely to bridge the divide than new international institutions. For example, the U.S. government is slated to announce a new "Global Connect" initiative in the next two weeks at the UN General Assembly, which will aim to bring 1.5 billion people online over the next five years with the help of the World Bank. You can read the report in its entirety here.

CFR’s Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy (CSMD) Program highlights noteworthy events and articles each Friday in “This Week in Markets and Democracy.” TPP’s Auto Parts Hold Up: North American Supply Chains in Play This week Japan and the United States resumed bilateral talks over rules of origin requirements for auto parts within the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) rules of origin, established over two decades ago, led to an auto production boom as car companies from around the world opened factories—including VW, Toyota, Nissan, and Kia in Mexico and Volvo in the United States—to gain lower-cost market access. Canada too is tied into the tiered supply chain with car parts from Magna International and Linamar Inc. ending up in assembly lines and showrooms to its south. As the North American auto industry boasts record sales, U.S. labor unions, Canadian suppliers and the rapidly-growing Mexican auto industry oppose relaxing rules of origin. The North American bloc worries that TPP plans to lower the requisite percentage of components made by trading partners for duty-free status will lead Japanese car makers to shift some production to China and Asia more generally, undercutting North America’s advantage. Cleaning Up Corporate Supply Chains: Reporting Trumps Results? A recent study ranking over twelve hundred companies based on their compliance with Dodd-Frank’s Section 1502 provision shows the gap between monitoring supply chains and ensuring ethical standards. To adhere to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requirements, 1502 mandates U.S. businesses disclose use of “conflict minerals” (tantalum, tungsten, tin, or gold) commonly found in iPhones, computer parts, lightbulbs, and jewelry. According to the Tulane-led study, in aggregate companies committed over $700 million dollars and six million employee hours to 1502-related auditing last year, yet filings revealed that 90 percent reported they were unable to verify if their products contained conflict minerals. Microsoft and Apple ranked high in compliance by adhering to a complex auditing process—though both concluded that their production process may be tainted. Designed to “name and shame” (the act doesn’t penalize those that fail to report, only those that knowingly make false reporting claims) 1502 supporters argue that greater transparency and due diligence will eventually lead to more ethical sourcing. Still, a year after the rule took effect, advocacy groups say companies are falling short, and questions remain if such reporting forwards the stated end goal of stemming violence. International Efforts to Combat Corruption: IACC Wrap-Up Transparency International ended its sixteenth International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) in Malaysia by calling for “zero tolerance” for public official impunity. The IACC agenda focused on how to hold corruption’s beneficiaries accountable, with recommendations ranging from criminalizing grand corruption under international law—by imposing sanctions against banks that skimp on due diligence and launder illicit funds—to stringent travel and visa restrictions on individuals suspected of bribery and graft. Many IACC participants will now head to this month’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), pushing leaders to adopt a post-2015 agenda that commits to global anti-corruption efforts. Despite new development goals and the conference’s efforts to bring kleptocrats and their enablers to justice, getting governments to act remains a challenge. Initial steps in tracing and repatriating the $1 trillion annually drained from developing countries through corruption and illicit financial flows include a new U.S. FBI effort to investigate international allegations of theft and bribery, and UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s vow to take on money laundering by outing foreign entities buying British property.    

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is from Dr. Khalid Koser, executive director of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) and Amy E. Cunningham, an advisor with GCERF. Here they discuss how a global policy shift to tackle violent extremism is exposing tensions between the development and security sectors. Led by the United States and partner governments, ‘countering violent extremism’ (CVE) is a new policy paradigm that aims to address structural and social conditions enabling recruitment and radicalization to violent extremism. Unlike counterterrorism approaches that rely on broad security legislation or heavily-militarized responses, CVE focuses on prevention by trying to alleviate underlying causes of injustice—endemic poverty, ethnic and religious tensions, and political marginalization—with the goal of building more conflict-resilient communities. CVE prioritizes a role for civil society, as these organizations are often viewed by communities as more credible than local governments or law enforcement. They are also better positioned to identify local-level drivers of violent extremism, and more suited to work with neglected groups through education, interfaith dialogues, and arts and sports activities. Ultimately, civil society empowers communities to better deflect extremist agendas. Yet because CVE combines development and security concerns, it exposes a wide gap between national and international agencies expected to implement the policy—development agencies and NGOs fall on one side, and military, police, and intelligence agencies on the other. In large part, this divide is an unintended consequence of the ‘Global War on Terror,’ which at times distorted development principles such as ‘Do No Harm’ (by diminishing credible CVE efforts through over-securitization); misappropriated development tools—including vaccination campaigns—for security ends; and blurred roles and responsibilities in delivering humanitarian aid. As the two sides now combine efforts to counter violent extremism, they struggle to overcome a legacy of mistrust. The divide also stems from cynicism from some in the security sector about CVE’s effectiveness, compounded by growing pressures on domestic security budgets. The result is an unwillingness to devote serious resources to CVE. Even where there is acceptance, there is impatience. Prevention-focused CVE efforts don’t deliver immediate results. Development agencies are equally hesitant about the strategy’s merits. Skeptics dismiss CVE over concern that it does not prioritize the most vulnerable populations, and many question the argument that poverty leads to violent extremism, citing a lack of substantive research. Others express concern that CVE does not address poverty enough, treating poverty alleviation as a welcome side effect instead of an end goal. Visiting Bangladesh, Mali, Nigeria, and other nations as executive director and advisor of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF), we have seen firsthand how the uneasy relationship between security and development can hinder CVE efforts’ effectiveness. First, communities most at risk of radicalization are often overlooked. Security interventions tend to focus on populations and regions where violence is already rife; development interventions target the poorest. But at-risk communities such as refugees, transit migrants, and internally displaced persons may not fall into either category. Second, a CVE policy agenda has not yet translated into integrated programming or better coordination on the ground, creating an opportunity for security and development disagreements. Among other priorities, CVE efforts that provide positive economic and social alternatives for at-risk youth—in the form of education, vocational training, or arts and culture programs—are still addressed through intermittent, ad hoc projects, or subsumed in ongoing international development efforts. Third, proving CVE works is challenging for both sides. Standard development monitoring and evaluation efforts are difficult in insecure environments. For security agencies, it is hard to demonstrate that more training or deeper community engagement measurably reduce violent extremist threats. Without a real effort to fill the existing data gap, the CVE approach will remain unproven, ensuring that development and security communities remain in silos. As a step toward solving the development-security rift, a dedicated organization to lead CVE efforts on the global stage is needed. An internationally-brokered institution or multilateral body dedicated to CVE research, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation would go a long way in improving information sharing and eliminating redundancies, and could help to overcome mistrust and skepticism towards the overall CVE approach. Global leaders should consider this recommendation when they convene for high-level CVE meetings at the United Nations General Assembly in September. While ongoing CVE summitry and dialogue are important, effective on-the-ground actions still lag. CVE’s framework will only succeed if a more creative and integrated alliance between security and development sectors is forged.

This Week in Markets and Democracy will return on August 28. Until then, here is what CSMD is reading this week. The World Economic Forum identifies ten trends that will shape the future role of civil society—new technology and a focus on inequality topped the list. Economist Dani Rodrik argues that emerging markets are facing a slowdown because they did not follow the fundamental rules of growth, and failed to undertake the necessary political and structural reforms. In light of China’s recent devaluation, Shawn Donnan of the Financial Times looks at currency’s changing role in trade. As economies become more integrated into global supply chains, fluctuations matter less. In a new report, Transparency International concludes that half of the forty-one parties to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Convention on Combating Foreign Bribery have not prosecuted any foreign bribery cases since signing the agreement.

Ah, Vegas in August. 100-degree heat, pool parties, and thousands upon thousands of hackers. Every summer the cybersecurity world takes over Sin City for a week. Black Hat, growing ever more corporate and responsible, is paid for on expense accounts. DEF CON? Well DEF CON is paid with cash at the door. I spent a week out there meeting with new technology companies, talking to chief information security officers (CISOs) about their challenges, and getting schooled in the art of network forensics by the good folks who run Packet Detective. Looking back on the week, there was one dominant theme: the need for more skilled professionals in the field. After a day of hearing pitches from startups I asked the CISO of a popular streaming service what he was shopping for. He answered in one word: “people.” He then asked me what I did and then just as quickly turned his attention on a security operations center analyst at a major credit card company (turns out cyber policy wonks are not in short supply). The hottest party of the week wasn’t hosted by FireEye or Palo Alto Networks. It was hosted by Nike (see photo above). No, Nike isn’t slapping its famous swoosh on network security gear. If you want to get an idea of how desperate companies are, a maker of athletic apparel now throws parties at Mandalay Bay to recruit cyber talent. It’s clearly a sellers market. Unfortunately, the market for talent doesn’t work the way that the market for firewalls works. More forensics experts cannot be rolled out of a cleanroom. Training takes time and money and in this field much of the learning is best done on the job. Years ago, I wrote about one model for solving this problem: have the military train cyber skills and then push out the skills and experience to the private sector. It’s worked for the navy’s nuclear sector and civilian nuclear power and for military pilots and commercial aviation. As one senior official in the Pentagon recently pointed out to me, in 1939 the Army Air Corps had 22,000 members. Five years later the renamed Army Air Force had 2.4 million. DOD can scale. Yet, at current numbers, the 6,000 cyber warriors Admiral Rogers is training for Cyber Command will be snapped up by the private sector as soon as their enlistment contracts are over without making a dent in the workforce demand. Instead of looking to government, the cybersecurity industry should steal a page out of the casino industry playbook. If you’ve ever wondered how Mario Batali can open a new high-end Italian eatery in the middle of the Nevada desert without having to pluck his restaurant team out of midtown Manhattan, the answer is the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas. Run in a unique partnership by the Culinary Workers Union with fees paid by the big Strip casinos, the Culinary Academy trains more than 3,000 workers a year to work as line cooks, bartenders, and servers at Las Vegas hotel restaurants. Graduates leave with the basic skills needed for entry-level positions, ready to gain new skills on the job and focused training down the road. The most remarkable thing about the Culinary Academy is that it is free. The fees from the casinos not only cover classes but daycare and other side perks.  The do-it-yourself/phone-a-friend approach that most people in the cybersecurity industry used to gain their skill set clearly has reached its limits. Perhaps it is time for the many rivals hawking their wares on the floor of the Mandalay Bay Convention Center to band together and train the workforce so that there is someone to respond to the millions of alerts of malicious cyber activity their devices generate each day.

This is a post in a new series on the Development Channel,“This Week in Markets and Democracy.” Each week, CFR’s Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Program will highlight noteworthy events and articles. Calais Crisis: Europe’s Migration Woes The escalating Calais crisis underscores Europe’s serious migration challenges. Thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants are camping in makeshift shelters on the French side of the Channel Tunnel and risking their lives in desperate attempts to cross into Britain. In response to Calais and similar scenes playing out across Europe, growing anti-immigration rhetoric blames migrants for taking native-born citizens’ jobs and draining government funds. Yet a study by Oxford’s Migration Observatory finds migrants may actually raise average wages for the UK’s medium and high-paid workers. (Those most adversely affected by UK immigration are likely migrants themselves, who tend to be low-wage workers facing increased labor supply). And as the EU ages and birth rates decline, migration will be vital to maintaining GDP growth and standards of living. Europe is expected to lose nine million workers by 2060. In Germany, the IMF warns that starting in 2020, growth will take a hit due to an aging population. From Calais to the Greek islands, governments are struggling to deal with short-term migration costs without losing sight of longer-term economic needs–the balance will require more cohesive EU migration policies. Time for TPP Deal Running Out Domestic interests prevented the twelve Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) members from reaching a final deal last week in Maui, and upcoming elections in two TPP countries threaten further derailment. Who’s to blame? Australia’s farmers want more access to the heavily-subsidized U.S. sugar industry. Mexico, a major auto exporter, made new demands on rules-of-origin for car parts. And the United States is fighting for long-term pharmaceutical patents opposed by all other members, especially developing countries. While U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman is “more confident than ever that the TPP is within reach,” Canada’s eleventh-hour holdout on dairy concessions, coming as the nation heads toward October elections, undermines that bravado. With other TPP members seeing the dairy issue as non-negotiable, Canada could potentially opt-out or be kept out of the agreement. And even if Canada comes around, TPP pessimists–who note that the stalled Doha Round of trade talks broke down over similar agriculture and intellectual property disagreements–worry that looming U.S. elections will push a deal beyond 2016. Post-2015 Agenda – Moving from Rhetoric to Reality One hundred and ninety-three countries reached final agreement on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) this week, sealing the post-2015 development agenda the UN will adopt in September. Many civil society organizations and governments praised UN member states for reaching consensus on seventeen goals that aim to eradicate poverty “in all forms everywhere,” among other ambitious targets. Advocacy groups celebrated the addition of next generation development issues with increasing global relevance, from ending modern slavery and human trafficking to acknowledging the significance of global migration. Still other rights groups are concerned that the SDGs’ monitoring and review process is vague and insufficient, and lacks a meaningful role for civil society. Getting from rhetoric to reality involves both financing and governance challenges. Only together can the private sector, aid donors and domestic governments raise the estimated $3.3-$4.5 trillion a year needed to fund the post-2015 agenda and guide projects necessary to meet SDG goals–these untested arrangements are already showing cracks.  

Over the past decade, world leaders and practitioners alike have increasingly recognized that the practice of child marriage undermines development and stability. This is especially true in regions like sub-Saharan Africa, where Niger claims the highest rate of child marriage globally—at 75 percent—as well as in South Asia, where India is home to about one third of the world’s known child brides. Less common, however, are efforts to combat this practice in Latin America, despite high numbers in the region: According to a report launched in July by Promundo, a Brazil-based non-governmental organization (NGO), Brazil is ranked fourth in the world in terms of absolute numbers of girls married or co-habitating by age fifteen. More than 870 thousand women ages twenty to twenty-four years are married by age fifteen, and about three million—or 36 percent—will be married by eighteen. Despite these stark numbers, Brazil hardly registers on the international agenda as a hotspot for child marriage, and the subject is largely absent from national research and policy discussion. One reason for this could be the sheer size of Brazil’s population, which is the fifth largest in the world: given the overall number of people in the country, the absolute number of child marriages represents a smaller portion of the population than in most places where this practice is considered to be a serious challenge. In addition, informal unions—or cohabitations—are common in Brazil and many other countries in Latin America, which also helps mask the problem, as these unions often are not considered to be “marriage.” The practice of child marriage also has been overlooked in Central America, where institutionalized racism, poverty, ambiguous laws, and lack of opportunity fuel high rates in rural communities. For example, notwithstanding a legal prohibition against marriage before age eighteen in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2010, twelve percent of adolescent girls fifteen to seventeen were married through formal or informal unions, and about 54 percent of these girls already had at least one child. In Guatemala, 30 percent of girls were married by eighteen nationwide, but in rural communities, this percentage nearly doubled to 53 percent. In an effort to combat the widespread belief among poor, rural, and indigenous communities that child marriage is a route out of poverty, some NGOs are working with communities in Latin America to shift norms and create safe spaces for adolescent girls. One community-based program led by the Population Council, called “Abriendo Oportunidades,” works with indigenous girls to foster financial literacy and self-esteem, promote sexual and reproductive health, and discuss topics like marriage. The program has reached nearly eight thousand indigenous girls since 2004 and provided them with alternatives to early marriage. According to an evaluation conducted in 2011, 97 percent of girls participating in the program remained unmarried throughout its duration. As governments determine whether to include a target on ending child marriage by 2030 in the Sustainable Development Goals currently under negotiation at the United Nations, incorporating experiences from Latin America will be critical. To achieve this ambitious target, we need to be clear-eyed about every region where child marriage takes place. Engaging with Latin America on this global issue will be critical to finally bringing this harmful practice to an end.

On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza factory, which manufactured apparel for Benetton, Primark, and J.C. Penney, among others, collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The disaster killed over 1,100 and injured another 3,000, most of them young women. In the tragedy’s wake, Bangladesh has tried to help the victims and their families, and to improve industry safety and working conditions more generally, with mixed results. Rana Plaza highlights both the best and the worst of what globalization and global supply chains bring to developing countries. Large-scale apparel manufacturing came to Bangladesh in the late 1970s. South Korean company Daewoo, better known today for its auto and electronics businesses, joined with local partner Desh Garments to found one of the first export-oriented garment factories, producing shirts. Many more followed–today the country claims over 5,000 garment factories with 4 million workers. In 2011, Bangladesh accounted for almost 5 percent of global apparel exports. The industry drives the domestic economy, representing 16 percent of GDP and spurring growth of nearly 6 percent a year for the last two decades. Apparel dominates exports, constituting over 90 percent of what the nation sends abroad. This trade has helped fundamentally change Bangladeshi society, in many ways for the better. Poverty rates have fallen from 70 percent in the 1970s to less than 40 percent today. The nation has made steady gains on the UN’s Human Development Index. And the garment industry gave particularly rural women an alternative to backbreaking agricultural labor and opened up the possibility of financial independence. A 2015 study in the Journal of Development Economics found that Bangladeshi women with access to garment factory jobs delay marriage and childbirth and stay in school longer, as literacy and math skills are valued on the factory floor. Yet the industry also pays poorly and restricts union membership. Workers routinely suffer from respiratory diseases, injuries, and even death. Rana Plaza is just the worst of many incidences: in 2005 the Spectrum garment factory collapse killed 64 and 112 people died in the Tazreen garment factory fire in 2012. The often blatant disregard for labor rights and safety standards comes in part from the way these supply chains function. A 2014 study by the NYU Center for Business and Human Rights found that international brands such as Zara and the Gap operate through indirect sourcing. By subcontracting to purchasing agents, the big brand names have little to no access and oversight. And outsourcing continues on down the production pyramid: factories that receive contracts from middlemen often then subcontract themselves in order to scale up to meet the volume and time demands of fast fashion. So Zara rarely knows, much less inspects, these multiple levels of dressmakers, leaving little to no transparency in the manufacturing process. And there is scant loyalty from big brands pursuing the lowest nominal cost, limiting factory incentives to invest and making accountability all the more difficult. As production moves to smaller and more unregulated factories–some just rows of sewing machines in garages or homes–abuses multiply. These facilities often fail to maintain even basic safety standards, for instance supplying fire extinguishers in the overheated, fabric-filled rooms. Low wages, long hours, and disregard for safety standards create the conditions for disasters like Rana Plaza. The response to the Rana Plaza collapse also underscores the good and the bad of this global commercial connectedness. International organizations quickly pressed for improved working conditions. The International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Better Work Bangladesh program pushes for more monitoring by the government and the industry itself. International brands and buyers founded the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety and the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety to help change the dangerous status quo. Still, these programs only target companies on the books–an estimated 40 percent of the industry. And the government’s National Action Plan to upgrade the garment sector remains an aspiration rather than a reality. While the Accord and the Alliance have spurred some positive shifts, the government lacks the funds and the capacity to revamp the industry. Some foreign firms are changing their practices. H&M inspects its subcontractors’ facilities and offers incentives for better working conditions. Uniqlo is shifting the way it works with suppliers, creating longer-term relationships, providing 18-month forecasts, and compensating local partners for any lost production. Still others, including the Gap, haven’t altered their practices or signed onto plans to monitor and finance factory safety, arguing it would expose the company to litigation in the United States. For the actual victims of the Rana Plaza, compensation and justice lag. An ILO-managed Rana Plaza Donors’ Trust Fund for the victims just reached its USD$30 million goal. And only this June were factory owner Sohel Rana and 41 others charged with murder. As Bangladesh struggles to improve wages and working conditions, the public and private sectors worry about losing the industry and its jobs. After the 2014 police crackdowns in Cambodia, the government instituted a higher monthly minimum wage for its garment industry. In response, many Western brands began to look elsewhere. New countries–particularly those in Africa–hope to boost their own manufacturing potential by joining the apparel supply chain, competing with Bangladesh and others on cheap wages and low power costs. Automation, including robotic sewing machines, threatens to replace manual labor altogether. How Bangladesh addresses these challenges will affect its economy, its politics, and its people. Still, the possibility for a prosperous future remains deeply tied to trade and to remaining an integral part of these and other global supply chains.

Lincoln Davidson is a research associate for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. You can follow him on Twitter @dvdsndvdsn.  The number of Internet users in China has grown to 668 million, according to a report released last week by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), a state agency that administers China’s domain name registry and conducts research on the Chinese Internet. Below are the main points from the agency’s annual Internet development report. Full text of the report can be found here. The total number of Internet users in China grew to 668 million, a 5.6 percent increase over last year. That’s an Internet penetration rate of 48.8 percent. In the United States, by comparison, 85 percent of people access the Internet, although the penetration rate seems to be hovering around that point. Mobile Internet users grew to 594 million, 88.9 percent of all Internet users. Compare that to the United States, where only about 67 percent of Internet users access the Internet through their mobile phone. The share of Internet users residing in rural areas grew slightly relative to urban Internet users. Rural residents now account for 27.9 percent of all of China’s Internet users. As in the rest of the world, young people account for a majority of Internet users. People between ten and thirty years of age make up 55.2 percent of the online population in China. Users of online payment platforms like Alipay, the Chinese equivalent of Paypal or Venmo, continued to grow. Among Chinese Internet users, 53.7 percent use an online payment platform, while 46.5 percent of mobile phone users use a mobile payment service. 374 million people engaged in online shopping in China last year, 12 percent more than last year. The percentage of Internet users speculating in stocks online dropped by 0.3 percent since the beginning of the year, perhaps in response to increased volatility in Chinese stock markets over the last two months. The number of users of Weibo, Chinese microblogging services that are similar to Twitter, declined by 35 percent year-on-year, providing confirmation for the argument that Weibo is dying as users migrate to WeChat, a mobile messaging service with a more discrete blogging feature. The average amount of time Chinese Internet users spend online each week decreased for the first time ever, dropping to 25.6 hours from a high of 26.1 hours the last time CNNIC surveyed users, in December 2014. Chinese Internet regulators have gotten a lot of bad press in recent weeks, as it came out that new national security and cybersecurity laws included measures that would make it easier for the government to monitor citizen activity online. For example, the government appears to be doubling down on a requirement that Chinese citizens use their real name and state-issued ID number when opening online accounts and demanding that Chinese companies use technology that is domestically-sourced and "controllable." However, despite these limitations, the state of China’s Internet isn’t all bad, as Internet service provision continues to increase. Internet penetration in China has increased by about four percent annually since 2010. While this year’s increase of 2.8 percent represents a gradual leveling-off of growth rates, Internet usage in China remains significantly lower than in developed countries, so there’s still room for growth. Given a recent commitment by the central government to increase investment in infrastructure development, particularly in rural areas, we could even expect a higher year-on-year increase next year.

This is a guest post by Anna Bezruki, an intern for the Council on Foreign Relations Global Health Program. She studies biology at Bryn Mawr College. According to the final report on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) released earlier this month, more than a third of the world population (2.4 billion) is still without improved sanitation. The target to halve the global population without adequate toilets by 2015 has not been reached. Consequently, sanitation has been pushed on to the post-2015 sustainable development goals (SDGs). Although India is perhaps the most widely cited failure, accounting for roughly half of open defecation worldwide, it is at least making progress toward the SDG target. The same cannot be said for Nigeria. Lacking the political infrastructure to reform sanitation and faced with security and political concerns that overshadow development goals, Nigeria is struggling to reverse the trend. Unlike in India, where the percentage of people with access to a toilet shared by only one family increased by eighteen points between 1990 and 2012, that percentage declined in Nigeria from 37 to 28 percent. This incongruity is best illustrated by the fact that there are more than three times as many cell phones in Nigeria as people who have access to adequate toilets. This means thirty-nine million defecate outside, sixteen million more today than in 1990. Poor sanitation contributes to diarrheal diseases and malnutrition through fecal contamination of food and water. One gram of feces can contain one hundred parasite eggs, one million bacteria, and ten million viruses. Diarrheal diseases kill approximately 121,800 Nigerians, including 87,100 children under the age of five each year. Eighty-eight percent of those deaths are attributed to poor sanitation. Poor sanitation is thought to strain the immune system to the point that permanent stunting and other manifestations of malnutrition can result. More than 40 percent of Nigerian children under the age of five are stunted, and malnutrition is the underlying cause of death in more than 50 percent of the approximately 804,000 deaths annually in the same age range. The impact of inadequate toilets goes beyond hazardous exposure to feces. A survey conducted by WaterAid, a nonprofit organization focusing on providing safe water and sanitation access, in a Lagos slum revealed that the 69 percent of women and girls without access to toilets are at higher risk of verbal and physical harassment when they relieve themselves. The effects of poor sanitation are also costing Nigeria economically. The Nigerian Water and Sanitation Program estimates that poor sanitation costs the country at least three billion U.S. dollars each year in lost productivity and health care expenditures. While estimates vary, in 2011, Nigeria invested approximately $550 million, less than 0.1 percent of GDP, on sanitation, a number which has likely decreased since then. This is less than a quarter of the approximately $2.3 billion annually that would have been necessary to meet the MDG target. It will take more than money and infrastructure to fix Nigeria’s sanitation. Even if investments were to sufficiently rise, the lack of a single government entity with complete responsibility for sanitation within the government, as well as widespread corruption and a lack of community support, would likely hamper efforts. Providing latrines without first creating demand within the community has failed repeatedly, including in India, where latrines have been repurposed for extra storage. There are also other problems, like a treasury emptied by corruption and the war on Boko Haram, that top President Buhari’s agenda. While these are immediate threats that require intense focus, sanitation is an essential long-term investment that will help Nigeria grow.  

Amidst final negotiations over the Sustainable Development Goals, both private and public sector development funders are turning their attention to the gap between this ambitious agenda and available resources. Last week, government, business, and NGO representatives gathered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the Third Financing for Development Conference to devise ways to support this new development agenda. One proposal is to support innovation to fuel cost-effective approaches to development. On the eve of the Addis conference, I hosted a roundtable at the Council on Foreign Relations with a pioneer of development innovation: Ann Mei Chang, executive director of the Global Development Lab at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Launched in April 2014, the Global Development Lab is USAID’s newest entity, designed to fund breakthrough innovations to “accelerate development impact faster, cheaper, and more sustainably.” Such a broad mandate requires both flexibility and a willingness to fail—two characteristics not traditionally associated with government agencies. The Global Development Lab takes a venture capital-style approach to funding development. It crowdsources solutions from around the globe, including from individuals and organizations that have never before worked with USAID. The Lab makes high-risk, low-cost investments in projects, with the potential to increase funding for those that show promise. By experimenting and “failing small,” the Lab can take on more risk than the average government aid funder. Some have expressed skepticism about the power of innovation to accelerate development gains. Bill Gates, for example, has criticized models that emphasize tech innovations too heavily as potentially distracting from perpetual development challenges, such as a lack of sanitation infrastructure or access to basic health services. In fact, while the Global Development Lab does support projects that are technically advanced, some of the most successful initiatives simply improve upon common solutions and existing knowledge by permitting the flexibility to innovate. For example, in one Lab-funded project, the NGO Evidence Action explored how to enhance the uptake of chlorine to disinfect drinking water and prevent diarrhea, which is the cause of death for an estimated 760,000 children under five each year. Despite widespread acknowledgment of chlorine’s efficacy, uptake stands at less than ten percent around the world. In an attempt to improve this number, innovators from Evidence Action came up with an idea called the chlorine dispenser, a low cost machine installed in areas with community water services. With the push of a button, the dispenser distributes an appropriate amount of chlorine into a bucket or jerrican. This simple innovation has already had an outsized impact: in areas where it is operational, including Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda, it has increased the use of chlorine to nearly 50 percent. Other projects funded by the Lab stem from unlikely sources and test unexpected methods. One intervention dreamed up by a car mechanic in Argentina—called the Odón Device—became a potentially life-saving tool to assist with obstructed labor. The device, which is now in development at Becton, Dickinson and Company, features a plastic bag which inflates around the baby’s head in the womb and is pulled until it emerges. The innovator, Jorge Odón, first thought of the idea after watching a YouTube video that showed how to extract a cork stuck inside an empty wine bottle. This device is considered safer than vacuum assist and forceps, which are even more dangerous when used by inexperienced practitioners in low-resource settings. While these out-of-the-box ideas have the potential to accelerate development gains, one of the Lab’s greatest challenges is how to measure impact—particularly in areas such as democracy, human rights, and governance. The Lab is piloting sensors and mobile surveys in an attempt to obtain timely and gender-disaggregated data, but more work is certainly needed. Though the Lab is still a work in progress, its approach to innovation in development is a model to consider incorporating into the next stage of development funding.

Amidst final negotiations over the Sustainable Development Goals, both private and public sector development funders are turning their attention to the gap between this ambitious agenda and available resources. Last week, government, business, and NGO representatives gathered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the Third Financing for Development Conference to devise ways to support this new development agenda. One proposal is to support innovation to fuel cost-effective approaches to development. On the eve of the Addis conference, I hosted a roundtable at the Council on Foreign Relations with a pioneer of development innovation: Ann Mei Chang, executive director of the Global Development Lab at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Launched in April 2014, the Global Development Lab is USAID’s newest entity, designed to fund breakthrough innovations to “accelerate development impact faster, cheaper, and more sustainably.” Such a broad mandate requires both flexibility and a willingness to fail—two characteristics not traditionally associated with government agencies. The Global Development Lab takes a venture capital-style approach to funding development. It crowdsources solutions from around the globe, including from individuals and organizations that have never before worked with USAID. The Lab makes high-risk, low-cost investments in projects, with the potential to increase funding for those that show promise. By experimenting and “failing small,” the Lab can take on more risk than the average government aid funder. Some have expressed skepticism about the power of innovation to accelerate development gains. Bill Gates, for example, has criticized models that emphasize tech innovations too heavily as potentially distracting from perpetual development challenges, such as a lack of sanitation infrastructure or access to basic health services. In fact, while the Global Development Lab does support projects that are technically advanced, some of the most successful initiatives simply improve upon common solutions and existing knowledge by permitting the flexibility to innovate. For example, in one Lab-funded project, the NGO Evidence Action explored how to enhance the uptake of chlorine to disinfect drinking water and prevent diarrhea, which is the cause of death for an estimated 760,000 children under five each year. Despite widespread acknowledgment of chlorine’s efficacy, uptake stands at less than ten percent around the world. In an attempt to improve this number, innovators from Evidence Action came up with an idea called the chlorine dispenser, a low cost machine installed in areas with community water services. With the push of a button, the dispenser distributes an appropriate amount of chlorine into a bucket or jerrican. This simple innovation has already had an outsized impact: in areas where it is operational, including Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda, it has increased the use of chlorine to nearly 50 percent. Other projects funded by the Lab stem from unlikely sources and test unexpected methods. One intervention dreamed up by a car mechanic in Argentina—called the Odón Device—became a potentially life-saving tool to assist with obstructed labor. The device, which is now in development at Becton, Dickinson and Company, features a plastic bag which inflates around the baby’s head in the womb and is pulled until it emerges. The innovator, Jorge Odón, first thought of the idea after watching a YouTube video that showed how to extract a cork stuck inside an empty wine bottle. This device is considered safer than vacuum assist and forceps, which are even more dangerous when used by inexperienced practitioners in low-resource settings. While these out-of-the-box ideas have the potential to accelerate development gains, one of the Lab’s greatest challenges is how to measure impact—particularly in areas such as democracy, human rights, and governance. The Lab is piloting sensors and mobile surveys in an attempt to obtain timely and gender-disaggregated data, but more work is certainly needed. Though the Lab is still a work in progress, its approach to innovation in development is a model to consider incorporating into the next stage of development funding.