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This week, the United Nations convenes its sixty-eight General Assembly session, bringing together heads of state and other high officials from all 193 members of the UN. Although many pressing global challenges crowd the agenda of world leaders, the major theme of this year’s session is the global development agenda after 2015, when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which have guided global development policy since 2000, expire. In several earlier blog posts, I discussed issues that should be considered in crafting the new development agenda. Now the international community must come together to determine what comes next. Even though economic growth has brought wealth to many formerly poor countries such as China, India, and Brazil, over three billion people remain trapped in poverty worldwide.  The tragedy of poverty is not restricted to poor countries.  Indeed, many of the global poor live in rich or middle income countries, and have seen the fortunes of their neighbors rise, while they have been left out and left behind. Thus, the new post-2015 development agenda must address inequality as well as poverty, to ensure that average improvements do not mask intractable suffering, and to focus global attention on the challenges facing the most vulnerable. At the same time, there is an emerging global consensus that environmental sustainability should be a central development goal. The landmark Rio+20 conference on sustainable development, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012, launched the drafting process of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs aim to build upon the MDGs, but with a clear commitment to safeguarding the environment for future generations. At a local level, environmental degradation threatens the resources and livelihoods of subsistence farmers and pastoralists; with rivers and forests polluted and misused, they have no way to make even a meager living. And at a global level, climate change caused by unsustainable fossil fuel use is increasingly generating unpredictable droughts and floods, which devastate the poor, and threatening small island nations with rising sea levels. The UN must forge a new development agenda that tackles these concerns regarding environmental sustainability and inequality, in addition to other issues such as rule of law, good governance, personal security, and human rights — all of which are both critical means for improving wellbeing, as well as important ends in and of themselves. The UN’s task is further complicated by the fact that many of the most potent tools in the fight against global poverty are outside the organization’s purview. Thanks to the integration of global markets, the rules governing the global economy are now some of most significant determinants of prosperity and poverty.  These economic rules influence property rights, capital markets and global financial flows, multinational banks and investors, and legal claims and mechanisms for redress – all of which have profound implications for the global poor. The UN recognizes the importance of these issues, but economic governance negotiations usually occur in intimate meetings between finance ministers, not showy events among foreign ministers. Still, the UN has the unique and crucial power to coordinate and solidify global development guidelines for the future. This coming week the General Assembly is holding six events on the theme “The Post-2015 Development Agenda: Setting the Stage,” including high-level events about women, youth, civil society, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, South-South cooperation, communications technologies, global partnerships, water, sanitation, and sustainable energy. Given that nearly half of the world’s population is still trapped in poverty, hopefully these meetings will be more than just rhetoric, and will bring the world one step closer to realizing sustainable and inclusive development.

Extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.25 per day, has declined significantly in recent decades. Thirty years ago, more than half of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty - today, less than a quarter do. Still, that translates into some 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty, and a disproportionate number of them are female. Overall, seventy percent of the world’s poor and about two-thirds of the world’s hungry and malnourished population are women and girls. This is surprising given the fact that many women are employed: they make up forty percent of the international labor force. In the developing world, there are eight to ten million small and medium-sized women-owned businesses, and millions of other women work in the informal economy. However they earn less than ten percent of the world’s income and own less than one percent of the world’s property. On average, women’s businesses tend to be smaller and less productive than male-owned operations. Boosting the productivity of businesswomen in the bottom billion could reduce poverty, grow economies, and create jobs. But what is the best way to support women-owned enterprises? Do poor women need more capital, more skills training, or both? A Roadmap for Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment -- a new report from the ExxonMobil Foundation and the UN Foundation --explores these questions and offers some interesting insights. The report is unique in that it takes a comprehensive look at both effective and ineffective strategies aimed at helping women launch, sustain, and grow small businesses. Based on empirical evidence from eighteen commissioned studies across four categories (entrepreneurship, farming, wage employment, and young women’s employment), the Roadmap identifies proven, promising, and high-potential interventions that increase women’s productivity and income in developing economies. The report also lays out a diverse set of “lessons learned” derived from the research – including the finding that giving electricity and mobile phones to the ultra-poor  increases their productivity, and the realization that providing capital or skills training alone is usually not enough to help women grow and sustain their businesses. The Roadmap report pays extra attention to agriculture.  According to the World Bank, agriculture employs sixty-five percent of Africa’s labor force and accounts for thirty-two percent of the continent’s gross domestic product. And sub-Saharan Africa still accounts for more than one-third of the world’s extreme poor. It is also the only region where the number of poor people has increased significantly over the past three decades, rising from 205 million in the 1980s to 414 million as of 2010.  Improving African agricultural productivity is critical for reducing poverty. Numerous studies, including some cited in the Roadmap, show that investing in women-owned smallholder farms not only gives women a source of income, but also alleviates malnutrition and hunger. Women account for forty-three percent of the agricultural workforce, but women-run farms underperform those owned by their male counterparts, most likely because female farmers do not have the same access to resources that male farmers enjoy. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that giving women equal access to agricultural resources could increase yields by twenty to thirty percent. Eliminating gender inequalities in agriculture could raise total output in developing countries by up to four percent, and reduce the number of hungry people in the world by about fifteen percent. As the authors of the Roadmap report point out, “By expanding and sharing knowledge of what is most effective, funders, implementing organizations and policymakers will be better equipped to achieve greater impact for women, and the benefits for families and communities made possible by women’s economic participation and empowerment.” The Roadmap itself is an excellent contribution to that effort.

The Middle East is seldom associated with the start-up world. When thinking of the region, few imagine entrepreneurs working away, hustling to secure funding and find customers for their fledgling businesses. But that image is increasingly a reality. In a region where unemployment among young people is well into the double-digits, a hunger for job creation and connectedness, coupled with technological breakthroughs, has sparked a start-up movement. In his new book, Startup Rising: The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East, Christopher Schroeder argues that “While economic success is hardly assured [in the Middle East], the rise of a new generation of business entrepreneurs cannot be ignored.” Schroeder, an American entrepreneur and venture investor, was one of the first people to call international attention to the potential of Arab start-ups; in a 2010 op-ed in the Washington Post, he noted that the entrepreneurial shift in the Middle East was “worth watching and supporting.” Now, in the midst of conflict and political upheaval, Arab entrepreneurs are launching a revolution of their own and providing a much needed economic boost to the region. The Arab Spring, paired with the global recession, has weakened many Middle Eastern countries’ economies. Unemployment rates have soared, especially among people under the age of 30 who comprise two-thirds of the region’s population. In 2012, the International Labor Organization reported that youth unemployment rates worldwide were highest in the Middle East and North Africa, at 28.3 percent and 23.7 percent, respectively. The economic toll of the past two-and-half years of conflict is clear. In Egypt, for example, unemployment reached 13 percent at the end of 2012, compared to around 9 percent pre-revolution. As the World Bank noted in a recent paper on the Egyptian economy, 3.5 million people are unemployed, 88 percent of whom are educated and hold at least an intermediate degree. Furthermore, the report found that “Youth, aged between 15 and 29, make up around three quarters of the unemployed, with the largest portion (44% of the unemployed) falling in the 20-24 years age-bracket.” Women have also struggled to achieve their economic potential. According to the World Bank’s 2013 Open Doors report, only 25.2 percent of women participate in the labor market – nearly half the average rate in other lower and middle income countries. That women only account for one-fourth of the region’s work force is even more surprising given that more than half of all college graduates are women. And little has changed over time: female labor force participation has increased by only 0.17 percentage points each year for the past thirty years. Despite these challenges, entrepreneurs in the Middle East are managing to grow micro, small, and medium enterprises that supply up to 99 percent of private sector jobs in some Arab countries. In particular, Amman, Jordan has become a start-up hub. Jordan is an especially conducive place for entrepreneurs as it boasts a strong education system, has invested in Internet distribution channels, and offers one of the region’s most robust media landscapes. Young entrepreneurs are sprouting up in other Middle Eastern cities as well, including Beirut, Cairo, Dubai, Riyadh, and Doha, sparking what is being referred to by some as the “start-up spring.” This phenomenon has been amplified by entrepreneurship accelerators such as Oasis500, Wamda, and Silatech, and emerging regional crowd-funding platforms such as Zoomal and Yomken. As was the case during the Arab Spring, women are a driving force in this revolution. Internet-based start-ups have given Middle Eastern women a portal into the often male-dominated field of entrepreneurship. Arab female entrepreneurs are excelling and even surpassing their counterparts in other regions, making up about 35 percent of the region’s start-up labor force -- more than three times the global average. Internet and technology start-ups, which can be launched and run from home or from all-female offices, are helping women tackle social, economic, and political barriers that often limit their employment opportunities and ability to contribute to local and regional economies. In addition to empowering women, technology start-ups play another interesting role in the Middle East. In a region prone to transition and strife, technology start-ups are more resilient than many other businesses given that their virtual infrastructure is not as susceptible to on-the-ground conflict. Technology entrepreneurs are able to sustain and even grow their businesses in volatile environments. Growing Internet usage in the Middle East, which has historically lagged behind other regions in Internet speed and reliability, is also fueling the start-up movement. For those looking to promote stability and prosperity in the Middle East, supporting and investing in the region’s start-ups is a good option. As small and medium businesses continue to drive regional economies, Arab entrepreneurs, including youth and women, can create a future for themselves while also boosting innovation and growth in their economies.

The Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and The Economist’s Intelligence Unit recently published their inaugural Women’s Entrepreneurial Venture Scope (WEVenture Scope) report, which ranks twenty countries in Latin America and the Caribbean based on their business climate for women entrepreneurs. “Women entrepreneurs in Latin America and the Caribbean are potentially one of the greatest underutilized resources in the region,” the report finds, noting that over the past twenty years, a more women in Latin America and the Caribbean have become active in the workforce, which has spurred economic growth. According to the report, Latin American women’s growing incomes led to a thirty percent reduction in extreme poverty from 2000 to 2010. The report’s authors suggest that this reduction would be even more dramatic if there were more female entrepreneurs in the region. Despite mounting evidence that empowering businesswomen has widespread economic benefits, however, their social and economic potential remains largely untapped. The WEVenture Scope report shows that because women in Latin America and the Caribbean are unable to access the capital, resources, skills, and networks that they need to develop their businesses, many female-run microenterprises cannot grow into the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that drive countries’ job-creation and economic growth engines. In addition, over half of the women entrepreneurs surveyed in Latin America and the Caribbean participate only in the informal economy, leaving them more vulnerable to corruption and further limiting their access to financing. The barriers facing women entrepreneurs in Latin America and the Caribbean are hardly unique to the region. In its 2012 Women’s Report, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) showed that although women’s participation in entrepreneurship differs across regions, there are still fewer women than men entrepreneurs in almost every country. The exceptions: Panama, Ecuador, Mexico, Thailand, Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda. In fact, studies have shown that women in Latin America and the Caribbean are more likely to pursue entrepreneurial activities than their peers in almost any other region of the world. GEM data shows that twenty-seven percent of the female population in Sub-Saharan Africa and fifteen percent in Latin America and the Caribbean are engaged in entrepreneurship, but women’s entrepreneurship rates in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and Asia barely reach five percent. The GEM report highlights a number of factors that could contribute to the low rate of female entrepreneurship worldwide. For example, women usually start their own businesses out of economic necessity rather than opportunity and frequently have less confidence in their entrepreneurial abilities than their male counterparts do. The report’s authors stress that these challenges need to be put in context, noting that gender disparities have cultural and institutional roots, given that entrepreneurship is often a male-dominated field with few female role models. Still, women entrepreneurs continue to play a growing role in economic growth. As of 2012, there were more than 126 million women around the world starting or running their own businesses and an additional 98 million leading established businesses. Many of these women-led businesses employ women as well as men, and more women entrepreneurs enter markets every day.  With fewer barriers in the forms of access to capital, markets and networks, those numbers should climb even higher.

The UN High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, composed of political appointees from every continent, recently issued a highly-anticipated report proposing a new framework for measuring economic, social, and environmental progress and performance. The report urges world leaders to pursue development goals focused on several critical issues that have been sidelined for too long, including governance and rule of law, inequality and social and economic exclusion, and sustainability. As the report makes clear, a rising tide does not necessarily raise all boats, thus a clear commitment to combating inequality and advancing social and economic inclusion must be at the core of the global development agenda. This embrace of social and economic rights indicators presents a direct challenge to the longstanding, wealth-based growth paradigm of development. Furthermore, the recognition that standard growth trajectories are wreaking havoc on the environment, threatening the inheritance of future generations and disproportionately impacting the world’s most vulnerable populations, suggests that sustainability must become a central objective of growth and development policies. This furthers the embrace of sustainable development that began in the 1980s and was eloquently encapsulated in the 1987 Brundtland Report. Lastly, the report puts governance, rule of law, and human rights at the center of the development agenda—both as an ends and as a means to achieving development goals. Still, turning big ideas into actions inherently faces political challenges. The proliferation of various indicators in recent years demonstrates the technical feasibility of measuring everything from rule of law to sustainability. But the data collection process remains controlled by political will and the financial resources made available. Moreover, different indicators can favor some countries over others or incentivize perverse government policies. Therefore, despite the emerging global consensus that multifaceted metrics of development are desperately needed, it remains uncertain whether the international community will be able to come to a consensus around a clear set of alternatives. In my next post I will discuss one set of norms regarding human wellbeing and progress that have already been endorsed and adopted by the global community: human rights.

As I discussed in my last post, governments and international organizations are increasingly taking an interest in alternative ways to measure countries’ development, outside of the traditional measure of gross domestic product. For example, in 2008, the French government commissioned a report from a group of leading social scientists, known as the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, to explore the limitations of current economic and social measures and to propose alternatives. The major recommendations of the commission’s 2009 Report are instructive and mark a departure from conventional wisdom. The commission concluded that, in today’s complex economy, better measures of economic performance are required, specifically ones that take into account household income, wealth distribution, and inequality. More important, the commission endorsed a multidimensional take on wellbeing, which considers factors such as health, education, ability to find work, political voice and governance, social connections and relationships, sustainability and environmental concerns, and economic and physical insecurity. In a relatively radical departure from previous thinking, the commission argued that this diverse set of quality-of-life indicators should consider inequalities, not just overall wealth. The small kingdom of Bhutan has also become a leader in the alternative development measurement movement. Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) index, first developed by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck in 1972, aims to chart progress according to the deceptively straightforward metric of “happiness.” Recognizing, as Aristotle did, that happiness does not derive solely from material possessions, the Bhutanese government has rejected per capita income as a measure of wellbeing. Calculated primarily based on household surveys and government data, the index considers seven core indicators of wellbeing: economic, environmental, physical, mental, workplace, social, and political. The Bhutanese government has earned international recognition for its alternative index, successfully championing a UN resolution to include happiness as a development indicator. To be sure, Bhutan’s index is idealistic and might be too complex to be adopted on a global scale. But this tiny country has helped change the thinking of leading development economists and world leaders. Last year, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a “new economic paradigm” based on the premise that “Social, economic and environmental well-being are indivisible. Together they define gross global happiness.” With such high-level backing from world leaders, governments, and international organizations, “alternative” measurements of development and wellness might soon be commonplace.

How should the status and progress of a country or people be measured and judged? For over six decades, the standard metric has been economic production and consumption-—per capita income, as variously defined by gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), and gross national income (GNI). These measures are commonly used as shorthand to describe the quality of life in a given country, but in reality they represent a dramatic oversimplification of wellbeing. As a thought exercise, consider the protagonists of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas Carol: judging by their per capita incomes alone, Uncle Scrooge is far better off than Tiny Tim. But the moral of the play is that wealthy Scrooge lives an undoubtedly miserable life whereas Tiny Tim is poor but happy. Thankfully, over the past thirty years, some leading policymakers, development practitioners, and scholars have begun to challenge traditional measures of wellbeing. As a result, a plethora of alternative indices designed to measure countries’ performance on a range of social and political metrics have emerged. Indicators now exist to measure elusive characteristics such as democratic governance; voice and accountability; rule of law; civil and political rights; sustainability and natural resource consumption; and business climate. Many researchers and policymakers now agree that economic wealth as traditionally measured does not capture progress; that a focus on income alone ignores other essential issues; and that new and more appropriate metrics are needed. The first breakthrough moment in this movement came in the early 1990s with the establishment and wide acceptance of the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI attempts to give a single concrete number to the complex concept of development, as defined by the economist Amartya Sen. This framework measures development not just in terms of income, but in terms of the ability of individuals to live free and meaningful lives. The human capabilities approach views income as a means to realizing freedom, not as an ends in itself, so the focus is on all the aspects of human development. Around the same time, another equally powerful current of thought brought environmental sustainability to the fore. The global environmental movement first gained traction in 1960s with the recognition that the world’s economic growth trajectory was wreaking havoc on the environment and causing irreparable harm in the form of acid rain, dead bald eagles, deforestation, and toxic water and soil. Environmentalists such as Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, argued that any conception of wealth or wellbeing that fails to consider natural resource depletion is fundamentally flawed and misleading--if economic growth comes at the cost of environmental damage, then the depletion of shared natural resources should be taken into account in any honest calculation. Although this concept continues to face resistance from many who see real and immediate financial costs from prioritizing environmental sustainability in terms of profitability, growth, and jobs, the idea also has some powerful allies, including the World Bank, which is currently championing Natural Resource Accounting (NRA). Like a banker marking down the value of a spendthrift’s trust fund, NRA deducts the destruction and depletion of natural resources from countries’ economic production figures. Advocates of sustainable development view environmental sustainability as an issue of inter-generational equity. As first crystallized with the publication of the Brundtland Report in 1987--issued by a high level UN commission chaired by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland--sustainability should be viewed as integral to economic and social performance, and is required to ensure opportunity for future generations. These newer measurements have critics, and have yet to realize the status of ubiquitous shorthand descriptors enjoyed by per capita income measures. Some skeptics argue that although fine in theory, in practice both the HDI and NRA, along with the myriad of other measures, distort and mislead because they aim to count what cannot be counted. Other critics point to practical issues of public understanding – whereas the meaning of GDP is relatively clear, alternative measures are more complex and difficult to understand. Others argue that per capita income is both a powerful determinant and reasonable proxy for other aspects of development, since poorer countries also almost invariably have more poor people--rendering other measures redundant and distracting. Then, of course, there are those who benefit from the status quo, and would stand to lose from a shift in policies towards new development approaches. This debate is evolving quickly and the policy implications of what we measure and how we measure it are profound. I will be exploring this issue in greater depth over the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more posts on measuring development, and comment or email me to contribute to the conversation.

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is by Deirdre White, president and CEO of CDC Development Solutions (@CDCDevSolutions). Here she discusses the limits of foreign aid and how the private sector can help further development goals.   Due to years of national economic turmoil, the future of U.S. foreign aid is now uncertain. In May, Congress proposed capping next year’s foreign aid budget at $40.6 billion, which is fifteen to twenty percent less than the current amount of $51.7 billion. The recent sequestration has reduced international assistance programs by another $1.7 billion. Fortunately, several advances bode well for the future of economic development. First of all, over the next several years, a number of today’s developing countries—including Ghana, Mozambique, and Tanzania—are expected to move into the ranks of the middle income countries, joining states such as Chile, Brazil, and South Africa. With more wealth, these countries should be better equipped to help their underserved citizens. Still, many organizations in these countries, including government agencies, businesses, and nonprofits, require foreign assistance; but more than traditional direct aid investment, these organizations now need elite professional training. Thus, as the U.S. government begins to cut foreign aid spending, there is an enticing opportunity for private sector organizations to step in and provide much needed skills-transfers and training. Seeking to cultivate this approach to development, the State Department and USAID hosted a Forum on International Corporate Volunteerism last month that recognized the catalytic impact of training programs for organizations and individuals in emerging and frontier markets. Representatives from Amazon, Citibank, IBM, CDC Development Solutions (the organization I work for), spoke at the event, as companies learned how they can use their resources to further global development. Drew O’Brien, the State Department’s special representative for global partnerships, championed the effectiveness of innovative public-private partnerships. In his opening remarks, O’Brien explained “Corporate volunteer programs bring private sector innovation and experience to our diplomatic and development work . . . At the same time, they help to achieve our foreign policy objectives.” Jim Scott, senior advisor to the NGO Seed Global Health and a panelist at the event, described how his organization’s Global Health Service Corps (GHSC) is cultivating stronger, more sustainable health systems by training doctors and nurses in underserved areas. This year, GHSC will send thirty-three physicians, nurses, and medical professionals to African countries on year-long assignments. Rather than providing direct medical services in rural areas that do not currently have access, these volunteers will work with government ministries of health and education to train dozens of local practitioners in medicine, psychology, and nursing. This type of program will enhance the knowledge base of current and future generations. One GHSC volunteer, who will be travelling to Malawi, is a child psychologist. According to Scott, there are no child psychologists currently practicing in that country. Thus, the volunteer plans to work on a strategy to secure the practice of child psychology in Malawi after she leaves, in addition to training local professionals in the practice. It is these types of long-term plans and partnerships that will help emerging and frontier markets overcome many challenges. More than direct funding, developing communities abroad need expertise. “What would happen if every Fortune 500 company fielded 100 employees per year?” asked Stanley S. Litow, president of the IBM Foundation and vice president of IBM’s Corporate Citizenship efforts, speaking about the long-term potential of the initiatives he oversees. “Collectively, we would deploy 50,000 of the most talented leaders around the world to solve some of the most difficult problems facing society.” IBM, which is celebrating the five-year anniversary of its Corporate Service Corps, the largest program of its kind, recently deployed a team of volunteers to Brazil to work with Casa da Criança, a NGO that serves youth centers across the country. Since 1999, the organization has managed over $19 million in donated products and services; mobilized 2,000 architects, interior designers, and artists; and has worked with nearly 30,000 partner companies. In four weeks, the IBM team helped train Casa da Criança in a new business approach that integrates digital technologies into their work and will enable the organization to manage their products, services, and partnerships more effectively and efficiently. The NGO expects to enjoy an eight percent gain in productivity and efficiency by using these technologies. This corresponds to $117,000 in annual savings. Over a five-year period, these new practices should save the organization enough money to serve an additional 600 children. In many African countries as well, business acumen could help jumpstart economic development. The journalist Ben Schiller pointed out in his recent Fast Company article that many entrepreneurs in emerging markets need to develop strong management skills more than they need funding. The private sector is in an ideal position to develop and benefit from training programs that spur economic development in emerging and frontier markets. At the end of his recent tour in Africa, President Barack Obama remarked, "I believe that the purpose of development should be to build capacity and to help other countries actually to stand on their own feet. Instead of perpetual aid, development has to fuel investment and economic growth so that assistance is no longer necessary." Innovative programs led by private sector actors, in partnership with NGOs, governments, and individuals can bring the world closer to this vision. As Special Representative O’Brien eloquently described, “We are fortunate to work in a field where there is no such thing as a bad idea. For every problem or issue that’s out there, there are solutions and partners that are waiting.” Now is the time for such partnerships to flourish.

My blog post last week proposing a global "Lawyers Without Borders" organization to represent local communities on international economic law issues generated such an unusual number of emails and comments I think it is worthwhile to highlight a couple responses. Robin Ford wrote: "Thanks for this timely  article. I agree, but would go further.  There are many organizations that provide pro bono assistance... Advocates for International Development, the international wing of the American Bar Association, the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association, Human Rights Watch, and more.  I am sure they talk to each[other] from time [to time], but an overall coordinating and strategy-setting body would help them all be more productive.  In addition, I would like to see the creation of a group of superb commercial lawyers willing to work for less to assist lesser developed countr[ies’] governments with matters such as debt financing and public-private initiatives.  Far too often such governments are disadvantaged...when their legal team is not as skilled as the one acting for the other side of a deal." Garth Meintjes, executive director of the International Senior Lawyers Project, wrote: "The solution that you propose already exists, albeit not yet at the scale and scope that you envision.  The International Senior Lawyers Project is a free resource for communities and developing country governments who need high-level legal expertise.  ISLP works internationally on an attorney-client basis to empower those who lack the legal knowledge or representation to manage their resources effectively and to develop their economies.  ISLP’s staff in New York, London, and Paris are working hard to reach more clients and to recruit more volunteers.  Please visit ISLP.org for more information." What did you think about the blog post? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please post them in the comments below

Private capital flows through foreign direct investment and portfolio investment now exceed $1 trillion annually. This has deep income, wealth distribution, and human rights effects for people around the world—creating opportunity for many, but leaving some behind. International economic rules govern these capital flows by regulating banks and multinational investors, determining property rights, and establishing legal claims and mechanisms for redress. Yet vulnerable communities, such as subsistence landholders, informal workers and entrepreneurs, marginalized religious and ethnic groups, and slum dwellers, have virtually no voice in determining the rules of the global economy and lack effective representation to protect their interests within the developing international legal framework. Accountable governance is critical to protecting human rights, advancing shared opportunity, and promoting inclusive and sustainable development, but is fundamentally lacking at the global level. In the United States, organizations like the Legal Aid Society provide pro-bono services to poor clients faced with day-to-day legal challenges. But no such organization or network exists globally to represent poor communities regarding international matters. Although a number of international advocacy groups currently mobilize public action and pressure policymakers regarding some issues, these organizations are not directly accountable to the constituencies they serve because they do not directly represent vulnerable groups or individuals through client-based relationships. Moreover, all these efforts fall far short of addressing the real needs of affected communities in terms of capacity, reach, and scope. This challenge can be addressed by establishing a global network of legal offices to provide pro-bono client-based representation for vulnerable local communities affected by international economic policy. These advocates for local communities would help level the playing the field, improve social accountability, and ensure that the rules of the global economy work better for everyone. Similar to a standard consulting firm or corporate law firm, this network of pro-bono legal clinics would provide advice, lobbying, and counsel at all stages of the legal and policymaking process: including aiding legislative drafting by congresses and parliaments, rule-making by regulatory bodies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, treaty negotiation and drafting, arbitration within dispute-resolution forums like the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, policy-setting by international standard organizations like the Financial Stability Board, and litigation through domestic courts. International economic laws are complex and influence the lives of vulnerable groups in several different ways. Expert advocates would represent affected communities on the full range of issues and circumstances in which international laws and norms have significant local effects. This social accountability network should tackle the following challenges: representing communal landholders who are being forcibly displaced by foreign investment “land grabs” and development projects such as hydroelectric dams and oil and mining projects representing local communities whose access to subsistence livelihoods or resources are threatened by global climate change agreements influencing new global banking and finance regulations to protect the interests of small-scale microcredit borrowers and entrepreneurs in the global south protecting local fishing communities whose livelihoods are being eviscerated by the global fishing industry advocating on behalf of communities living near sites of fuel extraction and natural resource exploitation whose livelihoods are threatened by environmental pollution promoting intellectual property rights in trade and investment treaties that advance access to essential medicines and medical technologies A new network of advocates for vulnerable communities would address a critical challenge of global economic governance by advancing social accountability—a loosely based Lawyers Without Borders would ensure the rules of the global economy work for everyone, not just the rich and powerful.