Social protection is essential to safeguard people from shocks, but half the world is without any coverage, including over 90 per cent of people living in climate-vulnerable countries, according to a new report released on Thursday by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
“Climate change does not recognise borders, and we cannot build a wall to keep the crisis out,” said Gilbert Houngbo, ILO Director-General. “The climate crisis affects us all and represents the single, gravest threat to social justice today.”
Findings showed that governments are failing to make full use of the powerful potential of social protection to counter the effects of the climate crisis and support a just transition to a greener future.
…
Low-income countries, including the most climate-vulnerable States, need an additional $308.5 billion a year, or 52.3 per cent of their GDP, to guarantee at least basic coverage and international support will be needed to reach this goal.
…
The report also recommends prioritising investment in social protection, including external support for countries with limited fiscal space.
Even if this money was somehow mustered, it would provide no benefit whatsoever for the intended recipients. The following is from Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati;
“For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!”
The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.
04.07.2005, 00.00 Uhr
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa…
Shikwati: … for God’s sake, please just stop.
…
Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
…
Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
…
SPIEGEL: Following World War II, Germany only managed to get back on its feet because the Americans poured money into the country through the Marshall Plan. Wouldn’t that qualify as successful development aid?
Shikwati: In Germany’s case, only the destroyed infrastructure had to be repaired. Despite the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a highly- industrialized country before the war. The damages created by the tsunami in Thailand can also be fixed with a little money and some reconstruction aid. Africa, however, must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.
We all want to help – you would have to be utterly heartless to see a picture of a starving child in the midst of utter desolation, and not want to reach out and provide food and other assistance.
But according to Shikiwati, all of the help kind Westerners provide actually makes things worse, by perpetuating and worsening the economic dysfunction which led to that starvation.
The only thing we can do to make things better in poor nations is leave them to sort out their own mess, so they can learn how to be prosperous, the same way our ancestors learned how to create the prosperity they bequeathed to us.
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Denis
September 13, 2024 10:18 pm
“Climate change does not recognize borders…”. Except in the USA where our Climate Reference Network shows little or no warming since January of 2005, when it first started reporting. A little more American exceptionalism I suppose.
That picture of the starving child is at best cherry-picked or at worst plain fabricated to tug the heartstrings. You cannot know. The use of any such picture should be a red flag warning for “warning – scoundrels ahead”.
When are we going to stop equating what people say with what they believe?. Most of them sure don’t say what they believe.
Scarecrow Repair
September 13, 2024 11:26 pm
The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good.
He’s absolutely right. It discourages developing their own farms and industry, food aid especially is more likely to be unwanted donor surplus than anything the recipients want or even know what to do with, and money just fills the despots’ Swiss bank accounts.
Better to buy their products and encourage them to stand on their own instead of adapting to being beggars.
There is another mechanism often in play, aside from making people dependent.
I have no idea how extensive it is but I believe there has been enough evidence over the past 80 years to acknowledge it is real. “Aid” from western nations all around the world has too often been to serve the interest of the giver, not the recipient nation.
Similar to the way that campaign contributions are often the means to obtain special privileges through special legislation or regulation, the payers support the corrupt politicians in the receiving countries in order to be able to benefit greatly through allowances to strip resources that should belong to the people of that nation or by getting special privileges to do profitable activities they could not do in their own “civilized” countries.
Those corrupt officials are supported by western nations only as long as they deliver – and provide “plausible deniability” to the payers. Although in more than a few cases, the payees have used the support to strengthen their own positions well enough to be able to turn viscously on the payer nations. Think Iran, Vietnam, China for examples.
A great racket: Take OPM and give it to somebody else to gain economic and political power for yourself or your cronies.
terry
September 14, 2024 12:06 am
Canada has the perfect equivalent. Billions spent on the indigenous have created a welfare trap for them and us, that neither can get out of. Nothing improves – oh, they own better cars, but that seems hardly the point.
It is way past time to pull the plug on these United Nations begging letters.
Countries with poverty in this modern age have poverty through incompetence of those supposed to combat it.
This is not a matter for the UN which is supposed to reduce war risk but has forever failed this kpi.
The UN path has been connected to corruption, diversion of funds, high admin costs. Countries have to tackle domestic matters domestically, for that is the efficient and responsible way to avoid UN bedwetters and their interminable videos of eye shots of skinny kids.
It is time to campaign for the funeral of the UN.
Geoff S
The UN has morphed into a socialist criminal maffia organisation and uses blackmail and propoganda to bribe the peons to give up their hard earned cash. The climate change ponzi scheme has become the successful vehicle to establish a religious cult following that Joseph Goebels would have been proud of.
The UNFCCC, the IPCC, and the UN COP receive all their funds from donations from all the countries. Even the poor countries donate small amounts of funds which they can ill afford to do so.
These organizations are actually running an environmental shake down racquet, and are raking in billions. For UN COP28 the countries have pledged 57 billion dollars, the last time I checked.
The IPCC has 432 workers and a budget of many millions of Swiss francs. The IPCC headquarters are in super safe Switzerland. On winter weekends they take “The Global Warming Express” to St. Moritz.
The only system that provides prosperity for all peoples is free-market capitalism. All other systems degenerate into ideological economic distortions and disincentives by tyrannical governments.
The climate crisis exists only in the minds of the leftist totalitarian climate charlatans and their psycho-phants in the far-left MSM..
IT IS NOT REAL.
But it is still used as a lever for the corrupt UN bureaucrats and their cronies in the developing countries.
Tom Johnson
September 14, 2024 4:28 am
Poor nations are not poor because they lack money, they’re poor because they lack a governing system that creates wealth. Giving them money simply gives their corrupt leaders a bigger source for more corruption. The US interest payments just passed 1 $ trillion per year. One or two more Socialist presidents will give us a Venezuelan lifestyle – a few rich leaders and poverty for the rest of the nation. Giving more dollars to the Global Warming hoax will simply accelerate that.
Quilter52
September 14, 2024 5:31 am
We could start the collection by using all the salaries of the lying corrupt incompetent UN kleptocrats.
Tom Halla
September 14, 2024 7:04 am
The UN is a lobbying arm of the WaBenzi, a Bantu term for apparatchiks who somehow end up driving a Mercedes.
John Hultquist
September 14, 2024 7:10 am
About 75 years ago my mother gave me a quarter to put in a collection basket for a missionary visiting from Africa. His talk at the church was interesting, sad, and convincing — that the village needed our help.
James Shikwati, only 35, would not be aware of all the quarters us good kids contributed over the many years. 😇
Following Shikwati’s advice, I now contribute locally.
John Hultquist
September 14, 2024 7:26 am
A map (unfortunately a poor projection) of national debts is shown here: List of countries by government debt – Wikipedia
Most of the African and Asian countries are in better shape that the “rich” nations.
Conclusion: “Rich” nations are not governed well either.
mleskovarsocalrrcom
September 14, 2024 7:45 am
Socialists/Communists always steal from Capitalists to fund their ideology. What happens when there are no more Capitalists to steal from? Ask Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, etc. ………….
Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent.
The creeping socialism in the U.S. exhibits the same characteristics.
spren
September 14, 2024 8:51 am
Someone once described this scam as the taking of money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries.
Kind of makes British imperialism of the 1700’s look good, or as George Carlin said, “Whip a little industry on them!” One problem with Carlin’s idea is many Africans don’t have a concept of making many things and selling them, they don’t understand modern economics where they are making shoes in Africa to sell worldwide. There is a story (I don’t know if it’s true) of Nike opening a shoe factory where after the first run of shoes were made the workers took one pair for themselves and went home. They thought, somewhat logically, that when those shoes wore out they would go back to the factory and make another pair. No concept of a salary, a work day, paid days off, … It is extremely difficult to take an uneducated population living in abject poverty and put them to work in modern factories. This is where the religious aspect of British imperialism was important, it forced Christian values on the population like a work ethic. Maybe the Chinese can do better?
One of my pet peeve’s is the bleeding heart libtards will freak-out over climate change and spend trillions of dollars on something that can’t be fixed, but they won’t spend a few million to bring clean drinking water and sanitation to Africa.
Free stuff has never been able to make people productive. It makes them more dependent.
“Don’t wish for it.
Work for it”.
Bob
September 14, 2024 2:19 pm
If I were to help anyone the United Nations would be the last organization I would turn to. The UN is corrupt and power hungry. I pay no attention to any outfit that uses terms like social protection. Social protection doesn’t mean anything therefore it can stand for anything. The UN may have been a noble idea, I don’t know, but it has turned into a shit show. The US needs to leave the UN and the UN needs to move their headquarters to some other nation.
Shikwati: In Germany’s case, only the destroyed infrastructure had to be repaired. Despite the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a highly- industrialized country before the war.
The Weimar Republic came after the First World War. A case of mis-speak?
Jeff Alberts
September 14, 2024 6:58 pm
“Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent.”
That’s also what welfare programs have to to [mostly] black communities in the US.
Africa, however, must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims.
They also need to shed their extreme superstitions.
I don’t recall the exact numbers but analysis of the US Welfare system by various organizations, including the Federal General Accounting Office showed that 80 some % of the money went to administration rather than to recipients. The UN is likely to have an even worse record.
If you want to actually help the kids, find a private charity whose goal is to give a hand up rather than a hand out.
(For example, I think in the UK there was/is a charity called something along the lines of, “Send a Cow”?
What they did was donate a cow to African farmers and help teach them farming techniques.)
“Climate change does not recognize borders…”. Except in the USA where our Climate Reference Network shows little or no warming since January of 2005, when it first started reporting. A little more American exceptionalism I suppose.
Climate crisis – what climate crisis? See the World Climate Declaration at: https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/
That picture of the starving child is at best cherry-picked or at worst plain fabricated to tug the heartstrings. You cannot know. The use of any such picture should be a red flag warning for “warning – scoundrels ahead”.
When are we going to stop equating what people say with what they believe?. Most of them sure don’t say what they believe.
He’s absolutely right. It discourages developing their own farms and industry, food aid especially is more likely to be unwanted donor surplus than anything the recipients want or even know what to do with, and money just fills the despots’ Swiss bank accounts.
Better to buy their products and encourage them to stand on their own instead of adapting to being beggars.
Exactly the same as standard welfare.
Teach them to fish, don’t give them fish.
There is another mechanism often in play, aside from making people dependent.
I have no idea how extensive it is but I believe there has been enough evidence over the past 80 years to acknowledge it is real. “Aid” from western nations all around the world has too often been to serve the interest of the giver, not the recipient nation.
Similar to the way that campaign contributions are often the means to obtain special privileges through special legislation or regulation, the payers support the corrupt politicians in the receiving countries in order to be able to benefit greatly through allowances to strip resources that should belong to the people of that nation or by getting special privileges to do profitable activities they could not do in their own “civilized” countries.
Those corrupt officials are supported by western nations only as long as they deliver – and provide “plausible deniability” to the payers. Although in more than a few cases, the payees have used the support to strengthen their own positions well enough to be able to turn viscously on the payer nations. Think Iran, Vietnam, China for examples.
A great racket: Take OPM and give it to somebody else to gain economic and political power for yourself or your cronies.
Canada has the perfect equivalent. Billions spent on the indigenous have created a welfare trap for them and us, that neither can get out of. Nothing improves – oh, they own better cars, but that seems hardly the point.
They prefer big pickup trucks.
It is way past time to pull the plug on these United Nations begging letters.
Countries with poverty in this modern age have poverty through incompetence of those supposed to combat it.
This is not a matter for the UN which is supposed to reduce war risk but has forever failed this kpi.
The UN path has been connected to corruption, diversion of funds, high admin costs. Countries have to tackle domestic matters domestically, for that is the efficient and responsible way to avoid UN bedwetters and their interminable videos of eye shots of skinny kids.
It is time to campaign for the funeral of the UN.
Geoff S
The UN has morphed into a socialist criminal maffia organisation and uses blackmail and propoganda to bribe the peons to give up their hard earned cash. The climate change ponzi scheme has become the successful vehicle to establish a religious cult following that Joseph Goebels would have been proud of.
Ponzi scheme is right. The UN siphons off all but a little and everyone has to keep giving to keep the scheme going.
The UNFCCC, the IPCC, and the UN COP receive all their funds from donations from all the countries. Even the poor countries donate small amounts of funds which they can ill afford to do so.
These organizations are actually running an environmental shake down racquet, and are raking in billions. For UN COP28 the countries have pledged 57 billion dollars, the last time I checked.
The IPCC has 432 workers and a budget of many millions of Swiss francs. The IPCC headquarters are in super safe Switzerland. On winter weekends they take “The Global Warming Express” to St. Moritz.
KPI King Pin Inclination (vehicle steering geometry angle)
I note that every specialty has its lingo!
KPI Key Performance Indicator 😏
I just replied to your post re the Kauffman essay. Go check it out. BTW, what is your opinion of the Kauffman essay?
our ancestors learned how to create the prosperity they bequeathed to us.
It seems our descendants want to reverse that
The only system that provides prosperity for all peoples is free-market capitalism. All other systems degenerate into ideological economic distortions and disincentives by tyrannical governments.
The climate crisis exists only in the minds of the leftist totalitarian climate charlatans and their psycho-phants in the far-left MSM..
IT IS NOT REAL.
But it is still used as a lever for the corrupt UN bureaucrats and their cronies in the developing countries.
Poor nations are not poor because they lack money, they’re poor because they lack a governing system that creates wealth. Giving them money simply gives their corrupt leaders a bigger source for more corruption. The US interest payments just passed 1 $ trillion per year. One or two more Socialist presidents will give us a Venezuelan lifestyle – a few rich leaders and poverty for the rest of the nation. Giving more dollars to the Global Warming hoax will simply accelerate that.
We could start the collection by using all the salaries of the lying corrupt incompetent UN kleptocrats.
The UN is a lobbying arm of the WaBenzi, a Bantu term for apparatchiks who somehow end up driving a Mercedes.
About 75 years ago my mother gave me a quarter to put in a collection basket for a missionary visiting from Africa. His talk at the church was interesting, sad, and convincing — that the village needed our help.
James Shikwati, only 35, would not be aware of all the quarters us good kids contributed over the many years. 😇
Following Shikwati’s advice, I now contribute locally.
A map (unfortunately a poor projection) of national debts is shown here:
List of countries by government debt – Wikipedia
Most of the African and Asian countries are in better shape that the “rich” nations.
Conclusion: “Rich” nations are not governed well either.
Socialists/Communists always steal from Capitalists to fund their ideology. What happens when there are no more Capitalists to steal from? Ask Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, etc. ………….
The creeping socialism in the U.S. exhibits the same characteristics.
Someone once described this scam as the taking of money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries.
In reply, how about the US demands that the UN get the hell out of New York and relocate in a country such as Zimbabwe.
Just stop feeding the UN monster.
Kind of makes British imperialism of the 1700’s look good, or as George Carlin said, “Whip a little industry on them!” One problem with Carlin’s idea is many Africans don’t have a concept of making many things and selling them, they don’t understand modern economics where they are making shoes in Africa to sell worldwide. There is a story (I don’t know if it’s true) of Nike opening a shoe factory where after the first run of shoes were made the workers took one pair for themselves and went home. They thought, somewhat logically, that when those shoes wore out they would go back to the factory and make another pair. No concept of a salary, a work day, paid days off, … It is extremely difficult to take an uneducated population living in abject poverty and put them to work in modern factories. This is where the religious aspect of British imperialism was important, it forced Christian values on the population like a work ethic. Maybe the Chinese can do better?
One of my pet peeve’s is the bleeding heart libtards will freak-out over climate change and spend trillions of dollars on something that can’t be fixed, but they won’t spend a few million to bring clean drinking water and sanitation to Africa.
“climate-vulnerable countries”
Absurd!
Free stuff has never been able to make people productive. It makes them more dependent.
“Don’t wish for it.
Work for it”.
If I were to help anyone the United Nations would be the last organization I would turn to. The UN is corrupt and power hungry. I pay no attention to any outfit that uses terms like social protection. Social protection doesn’t mean anything therefore it can stand for anything. The UN may have been a noble idea, I don’t know, but it has turned into a shit show. The US needs to leave the UN and the UN needs to move their headquarters to some other nation.
SPIEGEL: Following World War II…
Shikwati: In Germany’s case, only the destroyed infrastructure had to be repaired. Despite the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a highly- industrialized country before the war.
The Weimar Republic came after the First World War. A case of mis-speak?
That’s also what welfare programs have to to [mostly] black communities in the US.
They also need to shed their extreme superstitions.
I don’t recall the exact numbers but analysis of the US Welfare system by various organizations, including the Federal General Accounting Office showed that 80 some % of the money went to administration rather than to recipients. The UN is likely to have an even worse record.
If you want to actually help the kids, find a private charity whose goal is to give a hand up rather than a hand out.
(For example, I think in the UK there was/is a charity called something along the lines of, “Send a Cow”?
What they did was donate a cow to African farmers and help teach them farming techniques.)