Blog Contributor:
Mikiko Imai
Mikiko Imai is a Policy Manager at ONE’s Global Policy Team. Her expertise is on economic development, trade and investment issues, but as the only Japanese national in the team, she also follows the Japanese government’s development policies. Prior to joining ONE, she worked at a think-tank in Tokyo and conducted consultancy work for the Japanese government on economic development policies for Africa. Her previous work experience also includes the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva, various summer internships in finance, and volunteer work at UNHCR and ActionAid. She holds a BSc in Economics and MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics.
Sep 29th, 2009 2:22 PM UTC
By Mikiko Imai
|
This summit of G20 leaders in Pittsburgh last week, a year after the Lehman shock, was always going to be about economic recovery and on whether we need to regulate banker’s bonuses. So, did they talk development, at all? The short answer is yes. First, they reaffirmed previous commitments that they have made to the poor. Second, the leaders called on the World Bank to develop a new trust fund to support the new Food Security Initiative agreed at L’Aquila G8 Summit in July. Third, they agreed to review the capital needs of the multilateral development banks, especially the World Bank’s soft loan arm, the International Development Association (IDA), and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
But, there were some clear omissions too. On climate change, even though some G20 leaders committed to scaling up its assistance at the UN High Level Summit on Climate Change just a few days ago, the G20 as a group failed to call for resources to help the poorest countries adapt to the harmful impacts of climate change, and tackle its causes.
This Summit was another opportunity to recognise Africa as part of the solution to the global economic recovery. We thought that the best way to underscore the important role that the continent plays in today’s world is for the G20 to agree to hold an upcoming G20 Summit in Africa. With the G20 becoming the new G8 and the next several hosts already queued up (Canada in June 2010, South Korea in November 2010, and France in 2011), unfortunately, there will be no “G20 Africa Summit” any time soon. One thing is sure though – regardless, ONE will urge these leaders to keep the challenges of Africa and the world’s poor as an important issue on their table.
Read ONE’s analysis of the G20 here.
-Mikiko Imai
|
Sep 10th, 2009 9:34 AM UTC
By Mikiko Imai
|
In the IFC-World Bank Doing Business 2010 report released yesterday, for the first time a sub-Saharan African country—Rwanda—was named the world’s top reformer of business regulations, based on the number and impact of reforms implemented. Doing Business is an annual report that ranks economies based on 10 indicators of business regulation that record the time and cost to meet government requirements for starting and operating a business, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a business.
In Rwanda, it now takes an entrepreneur just two procedures and three days to start a business. Imports and exports are more efficient, and transferring property takes less time thanks to a reorganized registry and time limits. Investors have more protection, insolvency reorganization has been streamlined, and a wider range of assets can be used as collateral to access credit.
Mauritius, ranked 17 globally, is the top sub-Saharan economy for the second year in a row in terms of the overall regulatory ease of doing business.
However, despite these advances, more reforms are needed in Africa. The average rank for sub-Saharan African countries remain the lowest of any region.
Globally, the report shows that despite the financial and economic crisis, a record 131 economies reformed business regulations between June 2008 and April 2009. Singapore is the top-ranked economy on the ease of doing business for the fourth year in a row, but most of the action occurred in developing economies. Two-thirds of the reforms recorded in the report were in low- and lower-middle-income economies.
-Mikiko Imai
|
Sep 3rd, 2009 9:33 PM UTC
By Mikiko Imai
|
Trade ministers from rich and emerging nations are gathered in India for the second day of the two-day informal trade meeting, to make progress on the G20 commitment to conclude the Doha Development Agenda by the end of 2010. As the US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said before he left for India, this could be a “very important step” for their efforts to do so.
So are we finally close to a trade deal that would allow all countries, especially poor African countries, reap the benefits of trade, where they can work their way out of poverty as a result of new opportunities presented by the expansion of global trade? On the one hand, the economic crisis has renewed the political will for an early conclusion of the long-stalled Doha round and thus there is more scope today to achieve the “ambitious and balanced” WTO deal pledged in L’Aquila in July. On the other hand, we have heard these high-level Doha promises before-without any results.
If the Doha Development Round is to be completed by 2010, participants must ensure that the talks produce a deal that integrates poor African countries into the global trading system. Keeping Africa’s needs in the picture is the only way to achieve a truly global recovery — ONE recovery ONE world.
African countries continue to face multiple constraints to expanding trade. A Doha trade deal must effectively help African countries trade more among themselves and with the rest of the world. For a Doha deal to benefit Africa, it must include real reductions in agricultural subsidies in developed countries, improved market access for goods from African countries, a new financial commitment to aid-for-trade and allow countries to pursue trade policies that support development.
If this progress is not forthcoming through Doha, WTO members should develop a separate trade initiative for sub-Saharan Africa. This could be built on existing preference programmes such as the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the European Union’s Everything But Arms (EBA) programme. The package needs to be comprehensive, combining market access and effective trade capacity building. A sub-Saharan Africa wide programme would help prevent trade distortions between neighbouring African countries, and could promote regional trade.
The G-20leaders meeting in Pittsburgh later this month should consider how they could achieve harmonised and coordinated trade measures for Africa – this would go a long way towards achieving a Doha deal that really delivers for development.
-Mikiko Imai
|
Sep 1st, 2009 11:48 AM UTC
By Mikiko Imai
|
Mikiko Imai, ONE’s policy analyst from Japan, writes on the recent Japanese general election:
This past weekend, the Democratic Party of Japan won the Lower House election by a landslide. This historic victory by the main opposition party will end more than half a century of almost uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party. The president of the Democratic Party, Yukio Hatoyama, will be appointed as Japan’s new prime minister by mid-September.
Many in Japan are predicting that this unprecedented political upheaval will change the way Japan is run. Before the election, the Democratic Party pledged that once in power, it would scrutinise the government’s budget.
So what will this mean for Japan’s international development policies? Despite concerted lobbying efforts by our Japanese NGO friends, international development was not a major focus of any of the parties in this election. Politicians were mainly concerned with Japan’s domestic problems, specifically the dire state of the economy. But in today’s interconnected world, no long term solution for Japan’s revival will be viable unless the poorest parts of the world are fully considered – their economic growth can be part of the long term solution for Japan.
Japan can’t afford to decrease its development assistance budget, which funds programmes that are truly working. I hope that Mr. Hatoyama and his new coalition government will take this into consideration when he goes over Japan’s government budgets!
-Mikiko Imai
|
Aug 7th, 2009 2:35 PM UTC
By Mikiko Imai
|
Yesterday, the U.S. announced that it had begun formal negotiations toward a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with Mauritius (an island nation off the eastern coast of Africa). Bilateral investment treaties are legally binding treaties that provide significant legal protections for investors and investments in BIT partner countries. The announcement was made by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the African Growth and Opportunity Act Forum in Nairobi, Kenya.
“The proposed U.S.-Mauritius BIT will help reinforce the efforts of one of Africa’s strongest performers on trade and economic reform, and help improve Mauritius’s already favorable investment climate by providing high standards of investment protection,” Mr. Kirk said in a statement. The U.S. already has five BITs in Africa (Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, the Republic of Congo, and Senegal), and in February 2008, the U.S. signed a BIT with Rwanda (still waiting for the Senate’s approval). The U.S. is also in current discussions about BIT’s with Ghana, Nigeria and Gabon.
According the U.S. government, U.S. companies had assets worth $2.9 billion invested at the end of 2007, an increase of 83 percent from 2006. Since 2004, the U.S. direct investment position in Mauritius has increased nearly 700 percent. The BIT could spur U.S. investments in Mauritius even more – this is important because these investments can employ Mauritian people and create valuable economic opportunities.
-Mikiko Imai
|
Jul 29th, 2009 5:35 PM UTC
By Mikiko Imai
|
In the news last week, there was an exciting story that the first undersea fibre-optic cable in Eastern Africa has become live. This means that people in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Mozambique and parts of South Africa, who previously relied on expensive and slow satellite connections, now have access to high-speed internet access thanks to Seacom, an African-owned company.
The cable is hoped to help boost the prospects of the region’s industry and commerce. Seacom spokesman said that the cable will “reduce the cost of doing business in Africa, within Africa and with international parties” and said that it marked the “dawn of a new era for communications” between Africa and the rest of the world.
According to the BBC, businesses, which have been paying around $3,000 a month for 1MB through a satellite link, will now pay considerably less – about $600 a month. Moreover, the Kenyan government has been laying a network of cables to all of the country’s major towns and says the fibre-optic links will also enable schools nationwide to link into high quality educational resources, it says. But it also warns that it is not clear whether the internet revolution will reach the villages, many of which still struggle to access reliable electricity.
Also check out CNN for more on this great news.
-Mikiko Imai
|
Jul 20th, 2009 1:55 PM UTC
By Mikiko Imai
|
You may have heard the news that the leaders of the most powerful developed and developing countries called for a conclusion of the World Trade Organisation (WTO)’s Doha Development Round by the end of 2010 last week at the G8 L’Aquila Summit in Italy. As trade diplomats negotiate towards a deal, they must make sure that poor countries, particularly in Africa, are integrated into the world trading system. By participating fully in the global economy, countries can earn sustainable resources through exports and ensure that their development concerns are prioritised. Prospects are not looking promising in this regard—a senior African agricultural economist, Mr. Abdoulaye Zonon, raised alarms that the current deal proposed at the WTO to cut cotton subsidies offers little hope to African countries as the proposed cuts apply to only a fraction of actual payments made to its farmers by the US government.
You can read the Reuters article on this here.
-Mikiko Imai
|
|
