New Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development takes office

Shamshad Akhtar

Shamshad Akhtar was appointed by the Secretary-General as Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development at DESA and took office on 9 July 2012.
Ms. Akhtar has previously served as Governor of the Central Bank of Pakistan and recently also as Vice President of the Middle East and North Africa Region of the World Bank. In her capacity as Governor, Ms. Akhtar served as the Chairperson of the Central Bank Board and its affiliates and as Governor of the IMF. During her term, she was recognized for the conduct of the bank, which was restructured significantly, the introduction of an analytical framework for monetary policy, and the development of a ten-year-vision for the finance industry with a vibrant structure for the banking sector. For these accomplishments, she won two consecutive awards as Asia's Best Central Bank Governor from Emerging Markets and the Banker’s Trust. In 2008, The Asian Wall Street Journal also recognized her as one of the top ten professional women of Asia.
Ms. Akhtar has had a long standing career with the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). In her assignment for the World Bank she spearheaded the Bank’s response to the Arab Spring and the Arab regional integration strategy and its implementation. She has served the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for almost 15 years, rising from the ranks as Senior Economist, to attaining the highest professional positions including as Special Senior Advisor to the President of ADB and as the bank’s Director General of the East Asia region. During the Asian Financial crisis she also served as the ADB’s Coordinator to the APEC Finance Minister providing analytical support in a number of economic and social areas for crisis prevention and mitigation, while also leading the engagement with the Bank for International Settlement, and other standard setting bodies.
Ms. Akhtar has worked in several regions/countries dealing with fiscal and taxation policy, decentralization, poverty and inequality, financial and monetary policy, industrial and infrastructure policies and governance development. In the past few months she further served as a member of the Pakistan Economic Advisory Committee and of the Governing Council of Pakistan Statistics Bureau. In addition, Ms. Akhtar advised development agencies on the operationalization of Pakistan’s New Economic Growth Framework and worked on PPP policy frameworks and governance issues.
Ms. Akhtar has earned her post doctorate degree as a US Fullbright Fellow at the University of Harvard and prior, she obtained her PhD in Economics at the Scotland's Paisley College of Technology and a Master in Development Economics at the University of Sussex in the UK. She also has an MSc in Economics from Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.

New World Bank chief to focus on 'market-based' growth –VIDEO

The World's Bank's new president, Jim Yong Kim, has said that capitalist "market-based growth is a priority for every single country".

Dr Kim told the BBC that market-led growth will help create jobs and lift people out of poverty, two issues that were key to global economic growth.

He was chosen as the new president of the World Bank on Monday.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17737681

As IMF Stays French for 5 Years, Contrast With UN's Even Greater Lack of Oversight of Ban Ki-moon

Click here to read this @ InnercityPress.Com

UNITED NATIONS, July 5 -- The disclosure by the International Monetary Fund of Christine Lagarde's terms of appointment for the next five years, on July 5 at 9 am, stand in contrast to those of Ban Ki-moon as Secretary-General of the UN.

First, that Lagarde is getting a full five years represents another loss for the developing world countries which pushed for a non-European to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

When it became clear that Lagarde would beat out Mexico's Carstens, some predicted that there would be an understanding that the next Managing Director would be from the developing world, and in less that five years. The latter, the letter of appointment indicates, is not the case.

But the IMF letter of appointment contains restrictions on conflicts of interest, receiving honors and even travel pay which the UN either doesn't have for Ban, or does not disclosure.

The IMF letter of appointment provides:

“you will not accept any honor, decoration or award during your tenure with the Fund without the approval of the Executive Board, which shall only be given in circumstances where the acceptance of an honor, decoration or award would not give rise to an actual or perceived conflict of interest.”

At the IMF, waiver would be need by the Executive Board. At the UN, while the selection of the S-G is ostensibly by the General Assembly, they provide little to no oversight thereafter. Waivers are gotten through the Ethics Officer, who is selected by Ban: a conflict.

It's worth noting that the one slightly more independent overseer of the S-G, the Under Secretary General of the Office of Internal Oversight Services, had an occupant, Inga-Britt Ahlenius, who was sharply critical of Ban when she left. Her successor, selected by Ban, has said little on the topic.

The IMF letter provides that

“The Fund will reimburse you per diem at the rate applicable to Executive Directors plus reasonable vouchered expenses not covered by the per diem, including all hotel expenses, incurred by you for travel in the interest of the Fund. Such expenses shall include travel and hotel expenses of your spouse/partner in attending Annual Meetings of the Board of Governors held outside the Washington, D.C. area, and in accompanying you on official travel in circumstances where this is in the interest of the Fund.”

By contrast, how much the UN pays for the travel of Ban, his family and entourage is entirely opaque. When Inner City Press even asked about what happens with the airline travel miles of Ban, who speaks about the environment, no answer was provided.

Lagarde & Ban: 5 years of politics, but 1 can be removed, the other can't

The IMF emailed to accredited media an embargoed copy of Lagarde's appointment letter. The UN won't provide details about Ban's terms of service even when directly asked as its noon briefing.

The IMF Executive Board hold an annual “performance feedback process” with the Managing Director. Ban proceeds for five years with little to no oversight.

Perhaps most significantly, the IMF letter provides

“It is our understanding that, although you have been appointed for a term of five years, either you or the Executive Board shall be free to terminate your connection with the Fund at any time.”

At the UN, there appears to be no mechanism at all for removal.

Footnote: The IMF also provides to its Managing Director that “you are expected to observe the highest standards of ethical conduct, consistent with the values of integrity.” Whether this permits what even the New York Post now presents as the purchase of -- but non payment for -- sexual services has not made clear, as DSK resigned, paving the way for five years for his compatriot Lagarde...

* * *

Dambisa Moyo: without change US will almost certainly become a socialist nation

Click here for story on Telegraph.co.uk

Economist Dambisa Moyo predicts in her new book that the West's economic dominance will collapse unless some very difficult choices are made.

By Andrew Cave 9:30PM GMT 08 Jan 2011

Dambisa Moyo is that rare type of person – an economist who makes waves. Her first book, Dead Aid, angered many in the charity sector by arguing that foreign aid has harmed Africa and should be phased out.

Her second, which is published in London on Thursday, accuses America and other Western powers of squandering their world economic dominance through a sustained catalogue of fundamentally flawed policies.

How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly – And the Stark Choices Ahead goes so far as to predict that the US will be a “bona fide socialist welfare state” by the latter part of this century.

“Indeed, if nothing else changes it from its current path,” writes Moyo, “it is almost certain that America will move from a fully-fledged capitalist society of entrepreneurs to a socialist nation in just a few decades.

“The trouble is, it won’t be just any socialist welfare state... the US is on a path to creating the worst and most venal form of welfare state [poorly developed and designed] – one born of desperation from many years of flawed economic policies and a society that rapaciously feeds on itself.”

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There’s plenty more. If current trends continue unabated, Moyo goes much further than the usual surveys predicting when China will surpass the US in GDP – she suggests China’s new hegemony could include the “redback” renminbi replacing the “greenback” dollar as the world’s favourite currency.

“Think about it,” she urges Americans. “Foreign exchange share prices, the price of copper, the price of oil, all in Chinese renminbi.”

The US and other Western powers will be reduced to second division players and the new global powerhouses will not just be China. Forget East versus West. It’s now the Rest versus the old West.

If Dead Aid was labelled “provocative and incendiary”, How the West Was Lost will likely see reviewers’ lexicons raided for even more emotive language. However, Zambian-born Moyo, 41, is not afraid of being a pioneer. The London-based former Goldman Sachs economist is arguably one of the most powerful women in British business, sitting on the boards of FTSE 100 constituents Barclays and brewing giant SAB Miller.

Last year, she featured in Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people and also appeared in Oprah Winfrey’s power list of “20 remarkable visionaries”. She is also one of the World Economic Forum’s “young global leaders” and last year took part in the power-broking Bilderberg Conference, frequented by the world’s movers and shakers.

So what has led her to aim fire at the West’s leaders, struggling as they are with budget deficits and waning economies? The answer, she says, is that she believes the global economy is at an inflexion point in terms of where it goes from here.

“I wanted to write a book that is one-stop shopping for where we are in the world today,” she says. “There’s so much focus on dealing with tactical issues to do with the emergency solution, which are all necessary of course. But people are missing the bigger issues because the way the political structure is set up encourages you to focus on the immediate, rather than what I would say are the important issues, the structural things which have been going on for 50 odd years.

“I hope the book will be picked up by people who are saying: ‘I don’t want to hear all this noise. I just want a clean perspective on what the heck is going on around the world and how is it that we have got to this point.’ ”

So how have we? Apparently with the best of intentions. Moyo says the idea of unintended consequences is a running theme in both Dead Aid and How the West Was Lost, with policies that Western populations have rallied around as great ideas turning out to produce detrimental results.

In this way, she says, Western governments have implemented laudable notions like the idea that everyone should have a roof over their head, receive access to food and be supported in old age

by pensions. These have led to unfortunate outcomes in terms of capital, labour and productivity, the key ingredients for economic growth.

It’s not just the US. “There are tons of examples of UK and European mistakes,” she says. “A classic one is pensions. That’s obviously not an America-specific thing. The British and European economies are suffering under the weight of what is to come. The next great Ponzi scheme after Madoff is probably pensions. Also, it’s not just the United States where performance is declining in a very detrimental and rapid way in maths and science and reading. It’s also very much a problem in the UK.

“And if you compare 1950-1980 with 1980-2000, in terms of GDP growth in the US and many European countries, it’s been exactly the same. Yet between 1950 and 1980, people were living in pretty protectionist regimes and between 1980 and 2000 there was much more capital and trade flows. In addition, real wages have been relatively flat in the US and Europe, so taken together you have a question about whether globalisation, which is another great idea on paper, has actually worked in practice. Has it helped Americans? Has it helped the British people?”

Is there still time to fix these problems? Yes, she says, but the choices are going to be very difficult and may need to be facilitated through political changes, for example in the terms of governments, so they have more incentives to think longer-term.

“We all know what the problems are,” she says. “Which is why I actually think the coalition Government is brilliant because so far they have been able to implement some of the hardest choices of the austerity measures in an environment where it’s much less politicised than if it was just a left-wing or right-wing government in power. You kind of need to strip out the politics.”

It also may require a change of mindset, with Moyo arguing that governments need people who are absolutely focused on long-term structural issues such as education, deficit management, energy, food commodities, longer-term productivity and infrastructure. “The problems have been highlighted but where’s the plan for those issues? There isn’t one.”

It’s these sorts of awkward questions that Moyo seems to most like posing. In Dead Aid she argued that more than $1 trillion of development aid from Western governments to Africa over the past 50 years has not helped Africa but has ruined it, with millions of people poorer because of aid.Destroying the myth that aid works, she said, means making charity history.

Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan agreed, saying that Moyo made a compelling case for a new approach to Africa, while Rwandan president Paul Kagame bought copies of Dead Aid for his entire cabinet. Some others were not so complimentary, however, with David Roodman, a research fellow at the Centre for Global Development, calling the book “sporadically footnoted, selective in its use of facts, sloppy, simplistic, illogical and stunningly naive”. The pro-aid organisation ONE claimed Dead Aid was “reckless”.

Moyo is unmoved. “I was actually pleasantly surprised,” she says. “I thought it would be much more fractious and that there would be many more NGOs and governments that would be incredibly hostile to the message, but it was actually to the contrary.

“I think there’s clearly a fringe group. I can probably count on one hand the organisations that took a lot of offence and I would argue that many of them have a bigger agenda than trying to help resolve the Africa problem. But a lot of NGOs have approached me. Some asked me to join their boards.

“Many of them just asked for advice because they genuinely want to see a turnaround. I think there’s no doubt in anybody’s mind, whether you love or hate aid, that there’s clearly something wrong. There’s clearly a problem with a system that has not delivered economic growth and reduced poverty for 50 years. Nobody can tell me that things are working swimmingly in Africa. they ain’t.”

Born and raised in Lusaka, Moyo achieved a chemistry degree and MBA at Washington DC’s American University, a doctorate in economics from Oxford University and a masters from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government before working as a consultant at the World Bank and then for nearly a decade at Goldman.

“I don’t think my background in Zambia has really affected my lens because my classical training has been Western-style,” she says. “But it’s fantastically fortuitous to have been born African because I don’t feel I have a vested interest to the US or China or wherever.

I feel like I have an impartial perspective on the way the world works. Coming from a continent that’s arguably on the bottom rung, it’s just amazing to see how things operate.”

It certainly hasn’t stopped her from becoming a pronounced free marketeer.

“I think the markets can work in a managed way,” she says. “If they’re left to run rampant it’s obviously problematic, but I think they are the best way of delivering economic benefits and have been shown to be the method to generate the biggest economic benefits to the highest number of people.”

What does she make of the current furore over banker bonuses? “I think some of the proposals coming from Europe are quite interesting,” she says with understatement.

“I’ve seen that they’re going to require vesting schedules on how you get your bonus and there will be caps on what proportion you can earn in cash. There are some interesting things but bonuses are on the whole a red herring. They were an easy target.

“Yes, there might be a need to change things but I think there are more serious things to be addressed. It may be a negative externality of a system but they’re not illegal.

They’re the creation of a system and the only reason that government might be involved in this type of discussion is because they did bail out the banks.

“But beyond that what relevance is there to a broader economy which has some very serious problems in education and health care? I think they are more interesting [than those issues].”

That will please Barclays’ new chief executive, Bob Diamond, but Moyo won’t discuss her non-executive jobs or her time at Goldman, which she clearly doesn’t view as a “great vampire squid”, as Rolling Stone infamously described the investment bank.

She’s already focusing on her next book. Which urban myths does she want to demolish next? “I know what it will be about but I’m not telling,” she smiles.

First, she’ll have to deal with a backlash from proud Americans who don’t agree that the West has been lost.

Are you GAY or ex-GAY? Do you have an NGO? Now you can qualify for World Bank and U.N. Funds!

Click here for story on Metroweekly

PFOX in the World Bank Henhouse

World Bank's workplace-giving program is slated to include an organization that provides support for ''ex-gays''

by Chris Geidner
Published on November 10, 2010, 7:03pm | 4 Comments, 40 Tweets

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays – PFOX – will soon be able to say that its programming is supported by funding provided to it by the World Bank.

As part of the World Bank's efforts to ''strengthen communities,'' the Community Outreach Program coordinates an annual workplace-giving campaign that includes World Bank matching funds given to various community groups and international nonprofits. Depending on the level of employee participation, the bank's matching funds are either 50 percent or 100 percent of the employee donations.

For the first time, the World Bank's 2010-2011 Community Connections Campaign will include PFOX immediately aboveParents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) on its list of eligible organizations, a fact confirmed Wednesday evening by a World Bank spokesperson.

The spokesperson told Metro Weekly in an email on Wednesday evening, ''The Bank is not endorsing this group, or any other group. Staff are free to give to the organization of their choice.''

The World Bank website notes that the ''Community Connections Fund is an independent nonprofit organization set up to oversee the allocation of charitable donations raised'' from the campaign. It also details that ''[s]taff and retirees can make donations via payroll deductions or cash.''

According to materials obtained by Metro Weekly, the accuracy of which were confirmed by the World Bank spokesperson, any group included in the campaign must ''[b]e nominated by a World Bank Group staff member, with the support of at least four additional Bank Group staff and/or retirees.''

Other requirements include that the organization be incorporated as a ''not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization,'' have ''a substantial local presence in the Greater Washington metropolitan area,'' prepare ''an annual IRS Form 990'' and adhere to a few other general provisions. The materials also note that the organization must ''[o]bserve and practice a policy of inclusivity and equal opportunity.''

The World Bank spokesperson wrote, ''Because Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) met the minimum criteria for inclusion on the Community Connections campaign, they were included this year.''

Additionally, the spokesperson wrote, ''The Bank's Community Connections staff conducted due diligence including contacting the Bank staff group GLOBE (Gay and Lesbian or Bisexual Employees) for their perspective and views, as well as the independent, 501(c)(3) Community Connections Board.

He added that ''[t]here were no objections regarding the group's meeting the minimum criteria for inclusion'' but did not state whether there were any objections beyond whether or not the group met the ''minimum criteria.''

PFOX supports so-called ''conversion'' therapy – by which people who identify as gay attempt to become ex-gay – and the National Association for Reparative Therapy (NARTH), specifically.

One of the few videos on the PFOX YouTube channel is a video of an interview with former NARTH president Dr. Joseph Nicolosi. Another shows a televised debate between PFOX's Peter Sprigg and Truth Wins Out executive director Wayne Besen, who has been writing about the ex-gay organizations for more than a decade.

Besen told Metro Weekly on Wednesday afternoon, ''It's as sickening as it is scandalous.''

Besen said that the former president of PFOX, Richard Cohen – who Besen described as ''the guru of the organization to this day'' – runs the International Healing Foundation and ''sent his protégé to Uganda – and what came from that was the Anti-Homosexuality Bill'' that has been the subject of intense worldwide scrutiny and criticism.

''Here's this group that is tied to what can only be described as an eliminationist campaign, worldwide, against gay people,'' Besen said, ''and they're receiving money from the World Bank?''

The American Psychological Association has studied efforts to help people change their sexual orientation, resulting in a 2009 resolution concluding that ''there is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation.''

The resolution went on to ''encourage mental health professionals to avoid misrepresenting the efficacy of sexual orientation change efforts by promoting or promising change in sexual orientation when providing assistance to individuals distressed by their own or others' sexual orientation.''

PFOX, however, describes its mission on its website by stating that, ''Each year thousands of men, women and teens with unwanted same-sex attractions make the personal decision to leave homosexuality.

''However, there are those who refuse to respect that decision,'' the site tells visitors. ''Consequently, formerly gay persons are reviled simply because they dare to exist! Without PFOX, ex-gays would have no voice in a hostile environment.''

Besen, though, said of the World Bank's inclusion of PFOX in its campaign, ''It's unbelievable that they're putting forth a group that is rejected by every mental health organization out there. This is not a charity – or, is only in the most technical terms – this is a group that's not designed to help people, but to hurt them.''

In addition to PFLAG – who the World Bank spokesperson noted ''has been a Community Connection charity for the past nine years'' – other organizations that support the LGBT community and/or those with HIV/AIDS included as eligible organizations in the 2010-2011 list include Brother, Help Thyself; Food and Friends; Metro TeenAIDS; Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL); and Whitman-Walker Clinic.

Although PFOX has argued that sexual orientation nondiscrimination laws require that they be allowed to participate on equal footing with activities that allow the participation of groups like PFLAG, it was just last year that PFOX lost a court battle in D.C. when it attempted to force the National Education Association to give it space for a booth at one of its conferences.

In Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays Inc. v. Government of the District Office of Human Rights, D.C. Superior Court Judge Maurice Ross found – in a portion of the July 2009 ruling praised by PFOX – that professed ex-gays are ''protected from discrimination under the [D.C. Human Rights Act] because it directly contravenes the plain language and intent of the statute.''

Unfortunately for PFOX, and relevant to the question of whether PFOX needs to be allowed to participate in the World Bank's Community Connections Campaign, Ross also found that the NEA was allowed to exclude PFOX from participating in the conference with a booth.

Ross wrote, ''NEA rejected PFOX's application not based on their personal traits, but rather because of PFOX's mission and message.''

He went on to explain, ''The NEA did not reject its application because PFOX's members include ex-gays, homosexuals, heterosexuals, or members of any other sexual orientation. Rather, NEA rejected PFOX's application because PFOX's message and policies were, in NEA's opinion, contrary to NEA's policies regarding sexual orientation.''

In the World Bank's 2010 Annual Report, the bank stated – in its ''Who We Are'' section – ''The institution's diverse workforce is critical to the effectiveness of the Bank's core operational and knowledge services, as it brings a wide range of perspectives to bear on poverty reduction issues and emerging development challenges.''

Besen said that PFOX's inclusion in the campaign could raise questions about the World Bank's commitment to diversity – both in its workforce and in its programs.

''I think it undermines the World Bank's claim to be a group that cares about diversity, and it really makes all of their programs suspect,'' he said.

The World Bank spokesperson disagreed, writing, ''The World Bank Group is committed to a diverse staff, offering Domestic Partner benefits to same sex couples, including for health coverage, for over 10 years.''

He added that the World Bank ''was the first international financial institution to offer health care insurance coverage for same sex couples.

Besen noted that the move has implications for PFOX as well. ''I think what it also does with PFOX – they're actually using the World Bank and exploiting them and their reputation to promote their agenda. And the World Bank shouldn't fall for it.''

As for the next steps, Besen said that the World Bank ''shouldn't endorse this whatsoever. They shouldn't hide behind technicalities. Hatred is hatred.

''They should make an example of it. Say, this is not – PFOX does not represent our values.''

The World Bank spokesperson, however, told Metro Weekly only that ''Community Connections has made clear that they will take the views of staff, including GLOBE, in their consideration of what charities will be included next year.''

U.N. Spends $567,000 To Print 'Vanity Publication'

By JAMES LANGTON
The Sunday Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/17/wun17.xml

http://www.nysun.com/article/45364

LOS ANGELES — For the outgoing U.N. chief, Secretary-General Annan, it might make a good Christmas stocking filler. But the newly published official history of the U.N. Development Program would surely be one of the most expensive gifts that he ever received.

Figures uncovered last week show that the book, authorized by Mr. Annan's right-hand man, Mark Malloch Brown, cost $567,379 to produce. Branded a "vanity publication" by critics, it has become the latest symbol of profligate spending and waste at the world body.

What has provoked outrage are the huge costs incurred in producing the book: a salary of $252,000 paid to the author, Craig Murphy, for less than two years' work; $37,299 in travel expenses for author interviews, and $87,639 given to an unnamed "project coordinator."

Research and editing cost $91,559, and $26,752 was spent on office space. The UNDP also paid the Cambridge University Press more than $55,000 for hundreds of copies of the 390-page book to distribute to libraries.

The true cost of the book was uncovered by a community activist from New York with a long history of probing irregularities in banks and other public organizations, Matthew Lee. A former lawyer, Mr. Lee has turned his fire on the United Nations and has become an accredited reporter at the world body so he can probe its activities and question senior figures more closely.

"This is a major U.N.organization with offices all over the world and a budget of over $4 billion," he said. "This money is meant to be helping the poor."

An international-relations specialist at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, Mr. Murphy calls the book "a sort of West Wing view of the U.N." In his introduction, he singles out for praise the British-born Mr. Malloch Brown, who is a former administrator for the World Bank, saying he offered the "unbeatable combination" of a "good salary and travel budget."

The UNDP is responsible for coordinating the work of the United Nations in more than 150 countries, but the body has become embroiled in a number of scandals; in particular, the Oil for Food program in Saddam's Iraq .

Mr. Malloch Brown's office failed to respond to questions about the cost of the book or provide sales figures.