Social Watch E-Newsletter - Issue 287 - February 10, 2017

As the Ontario and Quebec governments design their versions of a basic income pilot program, Canadians find themselves engaged in a policy question they haven’t grappled with in almost half a century: how should the welfare state evolve? 
At the heart of the basic income debate is a discussion about what’s required for everyone to have a basically decent life. Implicitly, it embraces a conversation about the importance of markets in that pursuit.
Solidarity will be a key consideration as the economy evolves. The accelerating automation of work; the growing precariousness of jobs for newcomers and youth; and the mother of it all—slowth (long-term slow or no growth, the result of population aging, technology and global instability)—mean that while the status quo is not an option, change will be difficult. Read more

The Trade and Development Board of UNCTAD on Monday held a discussion on the Least Developed Countries Report 2016 which amongst others had argued that graduation of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) is "not the winning post of a race to cease being an LDC, but rather the first milestone in the marathon of development."
The number of new countries becoming LDCs, the near doubling of the size of the group in the last 45 years in part reflects the small number of countries graduating out of the category - just four in the 25 years since the principle of graduation was established (Botswana in 1994, Cabo Verde in 2007, Maldives in 2011 and Samoa in 2014). Read more

Sovereign debt restructurings, as can be seen from examples like Greece and Argentina, are difficult, often traumatic experiences for the sovereign debtor and its citizens. It is invariably the case that in a sovereign debt restructuring (SODR), the sovereign, because it either has lost access to financing or can only obtain it on more expensive terms, will be forced to reduce its expenditures in order to try and meet its renegotiated debt payments. Read more

On March 9, the OECD's Development Assistance Committee will decide on how to include what are known as ‘private sector instruments’ (PSI), in aid. This could mean a dramatic increase in the use of aid to invest in or give loans to private companies, or to agree to bail out failed private sector projects, through guarantees. However, without strong safeguards and transparency standards there is a real risk that aid could be used as a backdoor subsidy for corporations with powerful lobbies in donor countries. Read more