Questions and Answers
Download the Vote Global manifesto
Part 1: More and better aid and debt relief
Part 2: Tackling climate change
Part 3: Making the global economy work for the poor
Part 4: Good governance and tackling corruption
Part 5: Responding to conflict situations
Part 1: More and better aid and debt relief
Why did the figure 0.7% of national income for aid get chosen?
Research by the United Nations (UN) indicates that 0.7% of rich world GNI can provide enough resources to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals. The figure was already first committed to in a 1970 General Assembly Resolution. By supplying a percentage rather than a set amount, all countries can make a fair contribution relative to their wealth.
Find out more from the Millennium Project
What is a debt tribunal?
In the past the focus of debt campaigns has been ad hoc debt cancellation for poor country governments (e.g. Jubilee 2000, Make Poverty History in 2005). However, still only 20% of unpayable poor country debt has been dropped. There is now great support for a new way of dealing with debt – the creation of a fair, democratic and transparent debt tribunal, run by the United Nations that would review all unpayable or illegitimate debt.
Find out more from Jubilee Debt Campaign
What is wrong with economic conditions linked to aid and debt relief?
In order to be eligible for debt cancellation or some loans, poor countries must be following policies set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Many of these are economic policy changes such as privatisation of basic services and cuts in social spending.
Often these undermine democracy and damage living conditions for the poorest.
The UK has promised not to attach economic policy conditions to aid it gives directly to poor countries, however aid and debt relief delivered by the World Bank and IMF – which the UK helps to fund – still has huge numbers of these damaging conditions attached.
Find out more from the UK Aid Network
What is an ‘Innovative financing mechanism’?
There are many ways other than aid and debt relief to provide funds to poor countries. The first ‘development tax’, agreed in 2006, in the form of the Air Ticket Levy – whose funds provide treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis – sets an important precedent for further progress in this field.
At present, campaigners are calling for a ‘Robin Hood Tax’ – a 0.05% tax on International Financial Transactions which could raise $400 billion for tackling poverty.
Find out more from Robin Hood Tax
Doesn’t aid get channelled in to corruption?
Corruption is a barrier to development, and a whole section of the manifesto is dedicated to tackling corruption. The UK needs to make sure it is not supporting corrupt projects through its companies, its private sector projects, or its aid. One way it can do this is to channel aid in part to anti-corruption groups and civil society, another is to make changes to UK practice and law to ensure UK companies do not directly contribute to corruption.
Find out more at the Department for International Development Website
Part 2: Tackling climate change
Is climate change really happening, and is it created by humans?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the global authority on climate change, which takes evidence from thousands of scientists from over 130 countries – concludes that there is a more than 90 per cent chance that the observed warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.
The world has previously experienced warmer and colder periods without interference from humans. However, such a rapid increase in average global temperatures over the last century cannot be accounted for by natural factors alone, and strongly correlates with CO2 levels.
This increase in temperature leads to changes in climate including sea level rise and drought – most recently seen in the mass floods in Bangladesh and the Philippines.
What is the urgency of a 40% cut in CO2 emissions by 2020?
Scientists have said we need cut in CO2 emissions of at least 80% by 2050, but this must be a constant downwards trajectory. For instance – if the entire 80% cut came in 2049, so much CO2 would have been emitted in to the atmosphere that it is likely the planet would have passed the point of no return.
Find out more from Friends of the Earth
What is wrong with carbon offsetting?
Offsetting is the theory that some people can pollute more if other people agree to pollute less. However it does not guarantee emissions cuts because many ‘offset’ projects in developing countries would have happened anyway. Offsetting also allows people in rich countries to carry on polluting while requiring unfair reductions in developing countries, who did not create the problem. The world needs developed countries to cut their own emissions first and fast and pay up for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries.
Find out more from Friends of the Earth
Why do poor countries need Climate Change finance?
As well as money to invest in clean technologies, poor countries need funds to adapt to those effects of climate change that are already happening – for example by improving early warning systems and building raised foundations for homes, schools and emergency flood shelters.
These funds should be granted through the UN – not the World Bank which is unaccountable to the poorest countries (see Part 3) and has a history of funding polluting projects.
Find out more from the Bretton Woods Project
Part 3: Making the Global Economy work for the poor
What is wrong with the trade deals at the World Trade Organisation (WTO)?
The Doha trade talks collapsed because no deal was better than a bad deal for poor countries as major agricultural exporting countries put self interest above other considerations.
The issues that led to the collapse show little sign of having been resolved.
Find out more from Christian Aid
What is wrong with the trade deals at the EU?
The new trade deals that the EU is trying to secure with former European colonies are called Economic Partnership Agreements or EPAs.
These deals could result in significant job losses amongst producers of manufactured goods, many of whom are women who would lose access to decent work opportunities, reduced government income from trade taxes to invest in decent public services like health and education, reduced access to cheap medicines for the poorest people and reduced access to financial services for low income communities and small businesses.
Find out more from the World Development Movement
What are the IMF and World Bank, and why do they need to be reformed?
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are two of the global institutions that oversee global financial flows.
The World Bank is supposed to support developing countries by providing grants and loans. Unfortunately both World Bank and IMF decisions have often harmed poor countries instead – especially through economic conditions (see Part 1).
The combined vote of Sub-Saharan African countries in these institutions is less than 5% – compared to the USA and Europe who between them command 50% of the votes.
What are tax havens?
Tax havens are countries that offer low or zero taxation, and a veil of secrecy that undermines international regulation. They allow big companies and wealthy individuals to escape from their responsibility to pay tax.
Christian Aid has calculated that tax dodging by multinational companies costs developing countries at least US$160bn (£98 billion) in lost revenue annually. If that money was allocated according to current spending patterns, the lives of 350,000 children under the age of five could be saved every year.
A new international standard is needed that would require companies to reveal, for every country in which they operate, the name(s) under which they trade, the profits they make and the taxes they pay.
Find out more from the Tax Justice Network
Why do we need a UK Commission on Busienss, Human Rights and the Environment?
NGOs have documented a number of ongoing instances of UK businesses being complicit in human rights abuse and environmental mismanagement in developing countries.
The UK Government has a responsibility to ensure UK companies do not continue to get away with violating human rights and damaging the environment abroad. A new UK Commission on Business, Human Rights & The Environment would provide guidance to companies on what standards they must adhere to when operating abroad, and act as a forum for hearing and resolving allegations of infringements.
Find out more from the Corporate Responsibility Coalition (CORE)
Part 4: Good governance and tackling corruption
How do we have effective development and avoid corruption?
The key to effective development is a functioning and accountable state and a strong civil society to monitor government’s performance and funds. Thus, by channelling some of our aid to support parliamentary committees, national human rights institutions, independent auditing, the freedom of the press, civil society organisations, anti-corruption groups and academia, people in developing countries are better able to hold their governments to account.
It is also key that the UK does not itself contribute to or play a part in corrupt practices.
What is the UNCAC?
The United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and the OECD AntiBribery Convention are international agreements against corruption. The UK is a signatory to both treaties and must set an example and ensure that their implementation is independently monitored.
Find out more from Christian Aid
Part 5: Responding to Conflict Situations
What is the ‘Responsibility to Protect?’
The Responsibility to Protect is a UN principle based on extensive research which aims at addressing the international community’s serial failure to prevent and stop genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
Its key pillar is the principle that it is the responsibility of the international community to take timely, decisive and proportionate action, by force if necessary, to prevent and halt genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity if a state is manifestly failing to protect its population, and if all other routes of intervention have been exhausted.
Find out more from the International Responsibility to Protect campaign
What is the International Criminal Court?
The International Criminal Court is an international tribunal, established in 2002, where individuals can be tried for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The court is currently investigating situations in four African Countries.
Find out more at the International Criminal Court website
What is the status of the UN Arms Trade Treaty?
Irresponsible arms transfers fuel conflict, poverty and human rights abuses. In the past, the UK has shown leadership in promoting a strong Arms Trade Treaty at the United Nations. But right now the Treaty is stuck in the slow lane – governments have been discussing the ATT since 2006, meanwhile over 2 million people have died from armed violence.
