IDA- The Costa Rican race to the bottom

While Costa Rica continues arguing over the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, the central government sets up the stage for the treaty –a treaty that they insist will take Costa Rica up the ladder of development… unfortunately nobody knows yet where the ladder goes, or who builds the steps. The government is considering closing one of the last institutions supposedly helping Costa Rica farmers, the Institute for Agrarian Development (IDA- Instituto de Desarrollo Agrario).
The institute has not had any guidance or attention from the government from the past fifteen years, and now corruption scandals and reckless mismanagement has come to the public scrutiny. The government response, instead of addressing the problem and trying to correct the work of the institute, threatens to demolish one of the last institutions supposedly helping shape rural development. This comes in a time when agriculture is perceived as the odd child of the development agenda, a time when the few support mechanisms promote export crops over the very basic food for the poor.
The original mandate of IDA was to support small farmers with land, credits, and other programs. Although the institute has been terribly job, closing the institute will leave the needs of the rural poor up the air.
This is not the first time food supply is exchanged for money crops- the exchange of maize and beans for exotic ferns and frozen vegetables that Costa Ricans cannot afford. The National Production Center (CNP) and the Ministry of Agriculture have disappeared in the last decade. The Center was never replaced, and the Ministry was replaced with the Ministry of Production- which pays lip attention to agriculture.
With this in mind, Costa Rica continues to define its vision of progress. Selling its coast to foreign investors to make fishermen become construction workes –like its the reality in the Pacific coast of Guanacaste-, and pushing farmers out of the land to… to do whatever they can keep their families alive in the shadows of the informal economy.
Costa Rica, PURA VIDA!!

Now in Costa Rica

I have arrived. A pretty straigtforward trip and lots of plans for the next three weeks. I shall write more later. I will for now try tyo find my way of getting involved with the ongoing political struggles surrounding CAFTA (central american free trade agreement with the US), and envision the dream of finding a job here for after graduation. We shall see!

Frustrated

I wrote the statement below with my friends from Third World Network. It reflects my frustrations with UN processes right now

Chair’s Text Rings Death Knell for the CSD

The Chair’s draft negotiating document miserably fails to provide substance and direction to the current thematic cluster. Without any substantive overhaul—if not a complete re-writing—CSD-15 will be remembered in history as the session that has put the final nail in the CSD coffin.

The first sentence of the Draft Text sets the tone for the entire document: fossil fuel is here to stay, so let us just make it cleaner without any strong commitment to genuinely changing the unsustainable production and consumption patterns and shifting to environmentally sustainable alternatives that are already available. The Chair completely ignored the resounding voices of developing countries that dependence on expensive fossil fuel is making them poorer and preventing them from meeting the MDGs.

Rather than addressing this pressing problem by highlighting the calls for strong commitments to shift to renewables, the smorgasbord of options and possible actions on energy sifted by the Chair from the (un)interactive discussions selectively focuses on pushing for an energy mix that prominently features “cleaner fossil fuels”, with only weak references to renewable energy. If there is any urgent call for action in the text, it is towards moving for upscaling and deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies— but nothing about the need for sustainability criteria for biofuels that could provide sensible direction to all the excitement on the creation of an international market on biofuels.

The section on Industrial Development barely addresses the fundamental barriers raised by developing countries, such as tariff walls and subsidies in developed countries, monopolistic intellectual property rights that impede technology sharing and transfer, and the failure of developed countries to meet their commitment in increasing ODA levels.

LPG is the most prominent alternative to health-damaging traditional cooking and heating methods mentioned in the text, with not a single reference to other affordable, locally-available, and culturally-appropriate technologies raised by a host of developing countries. The LPG industry has been very successful in their lobbying at the IPM.

Despite of the desperate calls from the SIDS for decisive and immediate action to address climate change, the Chair’s Draft Text only offers market-based solutions anchored by public-private partnerships. It reeks of market fundamentalism that even queerly considers strengthening the carbon market as a long-term strategy to address Climate Change.

Effectively overhauling the Chair’s draft text could give CSD a new lease on life. An overwhelming majority of the developing world —those who do not depend on petro-dollars - have said that dependence on fossil fuel must stop in order for sustainable development to proceed. Sustainability criteria must be adopted to guide the current craze over bio-fuels. Genuine efforts that promote sustainable consumption and production must be exerted by the world community, not as a showcase but as a lifestyle. As a lone voice from the oil-producing world, Venezuela said it beautifully: what the world needs is not market fundamentalism, but collective action and solidarity.

The CSD owes it to the world and the next generation. Pump some life into the CSD. Dump the Chair’s draft text.
neth/hira/juan
2March07