ISSN 1655-5295 ISSN 1655-5295 Education for Development Magazine is published by Education for Development IBON International GLOBALIZATION ISSUES ▼ IBON Center Vol. 7, No. 4 JULY-AUGUST 2008 24 CSO roadmap to Accra 114 Timog Avenue, Quezon City Reileen Joy Dulay 1103 Philippines Secretariat, Reality of Aid E-mail Address: [email protected] COVER Tel. Nos. +632 927 7060 to 62 Local 202 26 Towards a more broad-based Fax +632 927 6981 view of ownership Felix Zimmermann OECD Development Centre Antonio Tujan, Jr. 28 CLIMATE CHANGE ▼ International Director CSOs condemn G8’s distorted International Department climate ‘vision’ Asia Pacifi c Research Network Maria Theresa Nera-Lauron Head, International Department THIRD WORLD ▼ 30 People’s struggle for justice and existence against Gandak Dam Water and Energy Users’ Federation, Layout Artist 3 Resist privatisation, Nepal Florenio Bambao reclaim public Cover Artist The Philippine labor situation Florenio Bambao 33 Ecumenical Institute for Labor services Education and Research Jane Kelsey Photo Credits ARENA-New Zealand Wendy House COMMENTARY ▼ ogwen/flickr.com NEWS ▼ rycordell/flickr.com 7 37 Seaworthy verdesam/flickr.com Dr. Giovanni Tapang Anthony Morland / IRIN 10 SPECIAL FEATURES ▼ AGHAM Tiggy Ridley / IRIN “Free trade”, neoliberal im- Jaspreet Kindra / IRIN LETTERS ▼ Jerry Wen / flickr.com migration and the globalization Rev_Bri / flickr.com of guestworker programs 39 PAN AP to the Philippine Thomas Sennet / World Bank Aziz Choudry government: Protect your Donnaphoto/flickr.com GATT Watchdog & bilaterals.org people! Institute a TOTAL ban Allison Acosta / flickr.com Manoocher Deghati / IRIN on Endosulfan! Asia Pacific Research Network 19 On the global economic and Dey Alexander / flickr.com financial crisis: Roots and Eric Draper / White House prospects Muji Tra / flickr.com Sonny Africa Ratan Bhandari / WAFED IBON Foundation, Inc. Daniel Y Go IRRI Images ArkibongBayan ionline Philippines News IBON International holds the rights to the contents of this publication. The publication may be cited in part as long as IBON International is properly acknowledged as the source and IBON International is furnished copies of the final work where the quotation or citation appears. COVER STORY PHOTO: ANTHONY MORLAND / IRIN RESIST PRIVATIZATION, RECLAIM PUBLIC SERVICES Jane Kelsey ARENA-New Zealand ransferring power from the state to enterprises and resources through asset sales. That private capital and creating profi table has since been overtaken by a complex combination new markets in public services, of competitive deregulation, user-charges, targeted including for the essentials of life, subsidies, contracting out, concessions, public private are driving imperatives of neoliberal partnerships, private fi nance initiatives, multi- globalization. The term ‘privatization’ stakeholder partnerships and much more. Tdescribes this broad ideological and political agenda. Privatization policies and practices are the primary Privatization policies have been accompanied by tools that have enabled transnational corporations and other neoliberal prescriptions, such as fi scal austerity, private elites to plunder the public domain for private deregulation and competition, liberalization of gain, while the costs and losses are socialized and/or foreign investment and limits on capital fl ows, pro- nationalized. market regulation of natural resources, labour market deregulation. This integrated package creates the The onslaught of privatization has continued now conditions for transnational corporations to dominate for more than two decades. The early Washington these markets, maximize their profi ts and minimize Consensus template focused on the privatization of their obligations. EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENT 3 COVER STORY At the same time the target of The Asia Pacifi c Research Network privatization has broadened from public services and assets to the (APRN) believes that privatization institutions and processes of government itself. As markets needs to be stopped and public services have expanded, the state’s reclaimed - not because the public primary responsibility has been redefi ned as enabling private sector has always met people’s needs, capital to expand and profi t. Neoliberal defi nitions of ‘good but because privatization is fuelled by governance’ take policy choices transnational corporate greed that does and responsibilities away from governments and depoliticize not pretend to put people ahead of both the content of policies and the way they are made. This profi ts and is rationalized by an ideology process transfers political power that shows contempt for the carnage to technocrats, statutory bodies, private fi rms, local governments that it leaves in its wake. and NGOs, most of whom lack democratic mandates or public donors and trade agreements. Despite this hegemonic accountability. The fundamental The underlying aim had shifted straitjacket, when market social, economic and development from the restructuring of national activities become unprofi table rights of the people are eviscerated economies to achieving uniform and corporations exit the state is and their enduring realities of rules that would smooth the path expected to step back in, absorb inequality, poverty, powerless and for international capital in an era the costs of recovery and re- exploitation become invisible. of ‘globalisation’. privatize. There are also a growing number of examples where the Some governments in Asia The post-Washington Consensus social and environmental impacts and the Pacifi c, such as India, promoted the new phase of privatization have created Australia, Japan, and New of privatization under the such volatile political conditions Zealand, adopted this neoliberal euphemism of public-private and that the state has been forced prescription voluntarily for multi-stakeholder ‘partnerships’, to re-regulate or even resume ideological and political reasons. Policy Reduction Strategies and control. However, a sustained In most countries, however, ‘good governance’. The General counter-hegemony to neoliberal the privatization agenda has Agreement on Trade in Services globalization has yet to emerge. been dictated. From the mid- (GATS) and a rapidly expanding 1980s the IMF, World Bank, raft of WTO-plus services and The Asia Pacifi c Research Asian Development Bank and investment agreements sought Network (APRN), a regional others imposed the Washington to lock and advance these network of 50 alternative research Consensus style of privatisation rules and fetter the ability of institutions working closely with as an integral part of structural governments to respond to grassroots organizations and adjustment programmes, backed genuine democratic pressures and social movements, believes that by loan conditionalities. remedy crippling market failures. privatization needs to be stopped Millennium Development and public services reclaimed By the mid-1990s that simplistic Goal 8 designated all these - not because the public sector has model of privatisation was deeply instruments as the pathway for always met people’s needs, but discredited. It was replaced by development and delivering because privatization is fuelled a more sophisticated layering of people the fundamentals of life: by transnational corporate greed obligations that were justifi ed in safe drinking water, health care, that does not pretend to put people the name of ‘coherence’ across the education and freedom from ahead of profi ts and is rationalized international fi nancial institutions, poverty. by an ideology that shows 4 EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENT COVER STORY contempt for the carnage that it the complexities of privatization the same time, the catchcry of leaves in its wake. across the broad spectrum of the ‘enabling’ state reduces the the public domain, including state to an agent of capital and The negative impacts are felt governance itself, the APRN aims requires them to operate through in every aspect of daily life to establish a new level of analysis ‘partnerships’ that transfer power across Asia and the Pacifi c, most of its impacts and generate a and ensure profi ts to transnational severely for the rural and urban dynamic debate resistance and corporations. poor, women and the elderly. It alternatives through the lens of has also wrought havoc in rich ‘people’s services’. Most of the current research countries, with growing inequality, and resistance strategies on feminisation of poverty and For reasons outlined above, privatization tends to focus disenfranchisement. the starting point is to treat the instead on sectors, such as privatization of the public domain education, health care, water, APRN has chosen the topic as a hegemonic strategy that telecommunications, electricity, of privatization for the annual denies alternatives, and constantly pensions, public transport, etc. conference in 2008 out of reinvents itself through new All those sectors are crucial to concern that current research and language and techniques as the people’s survival and quality debate has begun to stagnate. previous version is discredited. of life. But communities do not The conference programme The hegemony of ideology, experience public services and deliberately eschews the standard institutions and instruments that privatization in this fractured way. approach that analyses discrete drive the privatization model A more profound analysis needs sectors and contrasts state and currently hides behind the to integrate the social, economic, market models. By confronting