First Draft: Sunday, 16 September 2001

*Paper to be presented at the International Seminar "The Right to Food" – A Challenge for Peace and Development", Rome, 17-19 September 2001, organised by the International Jacques Maritain Institute with the technical support of FAO. The views expressed are personal: the OECD, its Development Centre and their Member states are not accountable for the text.

Among the diverse challenges for world peace and development, physical security of people and property became very salient in the wake of the tragic events of 11 September, when hijacked commercial aeroplanes crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre and into the Pentagon. These events threaten world peace and development as their negative economic consequences will strongly affect poor people in poor countries - unless the global solidarity observed with respect to the victims helps build an equally global coalition for peace and development.

Aside from terrorist attacks on people and property, the suffering caused by hunger among 20% of world population must be a prominent "challenge to peace and development". Indeed the most common characteristic of poverty is the lack of access to food, so that the reality underlying any "right to food" is how to reduce poverty. In this regard, the Millenium Development Goals include reducing by half the proportion of world population living in absolute poverty between 1990 and 2015. The target, first set by the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), who co-ordinates the quasi totality of official development assistance, can be achieved: at current rates, a billion people will have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty by 2015.

At the same time, the 1996 World Food Summit secured a commitment to reducing the number of undernourished people by half by 2015. Five years later, FAO estimates suggest that some 800 million people, mostly women and children, do not have access to food.

The apparent contradiction between these two measures, stressed by Clare Short, the UK Secretary of State for International Development in a speech to a FAO Conference on 5 September (and kindly supplied by our OECD colleague Brian Hammond), can be explained by the fact that the concept of undernourishment used is largely a measure of national level food supplies. Two decades ago, Amartya Sen (1983) showed that access of the poor to food is not related to food production, but rather to the inability to purchase food (due to the poor´s "inability to trade" as one of us put it in the Users' Guide to the OECD Development Centre, available at www.oecd.org/dev). It is striking that there should still be scope for confusion between food security and self-sufficiency. This paper argues that the debate about the "right to food" must be careful to define what specific entitlements such "right" actually brings to the poor. Otherwise talking about targets without reliable data, without sound analysis and without attention to culture risks making the cure worse than the disease (Braga de Macedo 2001b and Braga de Macedo, Fukasaku and Hiemenz 2001 in the Asian context).

The paper is organised into seven sections aside from this introduction. Section II sketches our development perspective, section III defines global finance, section IV discusses hunger and poverty reduction, section V proposes a strategy of economic growth flanked by pro-poor measures in the fields of education and health, including the promotion of agricultural research along the lines discussed in a recent seminar organised by the OECD Development Centre and the Asian Development Bank. Section VI introduces the political dimension in governance and discusses the example of Argentina. The concluding section VII raises doubts about the operationality of the "right to food" approach, in comparison with poverty reduction.

It is generally acknowledged that sustained institutional change is required for national economic and social development. But the consensus disappears when you attempt to specify the prerequisites of institutional reform or the policies capable of bringing about sustained change. In addition, under globalisation, the responsibility of whatever global institutions might exist in promoting - or hindering - national development is a subject of great controversy. The apportionment of relative responsibilities at global, national and local government levels has philosophical roots, which are often neglected in the debate. Yet the practical implications of global markets escape no one concerned about development.

If the main responsibility for change is global, in effect, citizens and policymakers in developing countries can only wait for a better international order, perhaps even in the form of a world legitimate government providing for global public goods. Conversely, if the main responsibility rests with concrete citizens and policymakers, then the focus shifts from global to national, local or regional governance. Greater proximity to decision making brings hope, but it also calls for deeper and more immediate institutional changes.

It would be naive to think that better data, sounder analysis, or finer attention to culture could solve this riddle. Yet data, analysis and culture are all three needed to address issues of globalisation, given the emotional overtones that the term has acquired in the last few years.

The development perspective underlying this paper is that, in the absence of an unambiguous answer stemming from data, analysis or even culture, hope is essential for the betterment of every man. This hope is entangled with the emerging awareness about a "global common good". Indeed, as Pope John Paul II said on 27 April, 2001, the Catholic Church hopes "that all creative elements of society will co-operate to promote a globalisation which will be at the service of the whole person and of all people (emphasis in the original)".

This development perspective has an immediate consequence: whatever the national citizens and policymakers must do, perhaps in association with like-minded others, they should do, rather than waiting for a "just global order" to match the new global financial landscape.

Certainly global finance has led to a strong increase in the creation of value and standards-of-living. World financial markets are far more efficient than ever before. This is good news for both advanced economies and emerging market economies because there is a growing body of evidence that financial sector development contributes significantly to economic growth.

An increasing number of developing countries are participating in the new global financial landscape. But: the very poor countries remain largely excluded from the global financial system.

At the same time, financial crises have been blamed for much of the misery (unemployment and poverty) in developing countries and emerging markets alike. Even OECD Member countries like Mexico, Korea and Turkey have been subject to financial crises and certainly continue to face the prospect, along with OECD Development Centre Member countries like Argentina, Brazil or Chile. Experts have acknowledged that the increase in the more efficient functioning of financial markets has been accompanied by the increased likelihood of significant market disruptions. The new global financial landscape is capable of transmitting disturbances or mistakes at a far faster pace throughout the world economy than before, in part through sheer contagion and herd behaviour of market participants. Consequently, the increase in systemic risk -- i.e. the risk that the entire financial system may collapse -- poses new challenges for financial policy makers, especially in thin and fragile markets as the ones in emerging markets tend to be.

These financial crises have therefore raised fundamental questions about the benefits of the new global financial system. In particular, doubts have been expressed about the benefits for emerging markets to integrate into the world financial system. What is the real situation?

Private financial flows to emerging markets have become more important (as opposed to official financial flows). Many developing countries rely now predominantly on private financial flows. In other words, these countries are to a significant degree integrated into the international financial system. This is having important implications for the "integrating" countries. First, the disciplining force of financial markets has become more important with important consequences for the conduct of their economic and financial policies (but, as will be argued later, also for their politics and political system).

Second, speaking metaphorically, financial markets punish "bad" policies & reward "good" policies: this creates a so-called "beauty contest" among countries, which under some circumstances can have positive results.

However, this "yardstick competition" (a term due to Schleifer 1985 extended by Braga de Macedo, Cohen and Reisen 2001 to exchange rate regimes) requires a domestic effort to earn credibility, which cannot be presume to apply across the board, even among the current members of the European Union, let alone in emerging markets, where it is often said that they must "grow up" (e.g. Argentina, from the title of Domingo Cavallo's article in the Financial Times of 26 July 2001, quoted in the preface to the previous reference). Such domestic effort to earn credibility implies sustained institutional change and benefits from democracy and transparency (Keohane and Nye 1999). In particular, better governance relies on a sound financial system. In the absence of a good regulatory framework, in particular, the costs of immediate and complete financial openness, perhaps associated with a currency board, will certainly be greater than the benefits. The experience of Argentina is revealing, insofar as the regulatory framework is acknowledged to be superior to several OECD countries (Mishkin, 2001). In addition, the current international financial architecture has allowed for an unprecedented degree of contagion of financial crises, where herd behaviour on the part of investors plays a role over and above the policy failures of individual countries. The policy consequence remains the same: financial openness brings significant benefits in terms of growth and development if it is part of a well sequenced strategy where improvements in governance are sufficient to cope with the challenge of globalisation.

Whatever the best sequencing for domestic and external financial liberalisation open to emerging markets, the fact remains that most poor countries are not integrated into the international financial system. Therefore they continue to rely on official financial flows (grants and soft loans from donors or multilateral organisations). Why are they not integrated? In part because they are poor: some of them are prisoners of historical and geographical circumstances (what we called culture above), but, for most countries it is because they are prisoners of social and political orders that are hostile to a well-functioning market order that is supporting high economic growth. Often these countries are also engaged in chronic armed conflicts, internally or with other countries.

As noted below, the presence of severe governance failures will make it very hard to reduce poverty and thus tackle effectively the problem of hunger. In discussing the problem of hunger two types need to be distinguished: famines versus undernourishment or endemic deprivation. Famines are temporary but violent events. They kill many people but they do not persist at the same level of intensity. Endemic deprivation is a more persistent phenomenon, whereby many people live in a semi-permanent state of undernourishment and disease. It can afflict hundreds of millions of people through increasing mortality, debilitation, illness, shortening people’s lives and lowering their productivity.

What are the conventional public policies to fight hunger? Sen (1983) and others have shown that famines and endemic deprivation have to be treated as distinct (though inter-linked) problems. A key point is to observe that famines are initiated by acute and a severe loss of entitlements, thereby depriving people of the capacity to acquire food. This notion of entitlement is not purely legal and cannot therefore be associated with the right to food discussed here. Indeed, there is the same conceptual difference between the two concepts as between the progress on the Millenium Development Goal of poverty reduction and that of the World Food Summit.

But the emphasis on entitlements is also in contrast with the popular notion that famines are necessarily caused by a large and sudden drop in the production of food. Entitlements are bundles of goods over which people can establish ownership through production and trade, using their own means. Sen (1983) makes also the following useful distinction: famine prevention and famine relief. Famine relief can best be handled, according to Sen, by organising public employment with payment in cash wages (this in contrast to relief in the form of hand outs, also called food aid). It is a relief system based on a mixture of state action with private trade and marketing. We will not further discuss here the many problems and issues involved in the tactics and operational details of this relief, but the intervention of Clare Short quoted above is also quite severe about the effectiveness of such schemes. In fact, she quotes the French proposal made at the recent untying negotiations in the DAC that all food aid should be untied, especially upon expiry of the present Food Aid Convention in 2002.

The prevention of famine, as well as the elimination of poverty, is clearly more of a strategic nature. The best defence is a healthy market economy based on sound private and public institutions that support economic growth and rising incomes. This is the best way of solving chronic food problems. This in contrast to those who argue that growing more food is the key in solving famine and endemic deprivation. This is also in contrast to prescriptions for building-up large bureaucracies in poor countries that would tackle the "food production problem". According to economic experts familiar with the situation in Africa, the major feature of the problems of sub-Saharan Africa is not the particular lack of growth of food output, but the general lack of economic growth altogether (of which the problem in food production is only one important aspect). Experience shows that the protection of entitlements solely based on state intervention and government action is bound to fail.

As another illustration of the need to match the direct effect of globalisation on governance with improvements in governance and the appropriate sequencing of liberalisation, the example of Argentina is useful. It will be mentioned below in connection with democratic governance.

In a path-breaking initiative for economics as a social science, the Vatican convened on 5 November, 1990 a colloquium based on a questionnaire sent to thirteen economists representing the best professional opinion world-wide about Social and Ethical Aspects of Economics. The responses provide a variety of views on the role of markets in economic growth and development and were used in the preparation of the 100^th anniversary of the Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum, given on Mayday, 1891. Pope John Paul II chose to call his Encyclical Letter for that occasion Centesimus Annus.

The proceedings of the Vatican colloquium reveal a consensus: markets operate in particular environments and their performances depend on that of other institutions - economic, social and political. Ten years after Centesimus Annus, the emphasis of the Encyclical Letter on the natural and human environments, together with its rejection of central planning as a viable alternative to the market, remain major innovations in the economic and social thinking of the Catholic Church. Recalling Centesimus Annus on 27 April, 2001, Pope John Paul II noted "that the market economy is a way of adequately responding to people's economic needs while respecting their free initiative but that it had to be controlled by the community, the social body with its common good".

This concrete human dimension contrasts with the "end of history" view of Francis Fukuyama (1989). With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union, the world-wide triumph of liberal democracy and the advent of true global economic progress seemed to follow the triumph of the market over the state. The recommendations of the Bretton-Woods institutions combined with American preferences to form what came to be known as the "Washington Consensus".

Yet, no such consensus existed among economists and policymakers. On the contrary, most contributions to the volume on Social and Ethical Aspects of Economics (Musu and Zamagni, 1992) suggested that effective states as well as efficient markets were both crucial ingredients for a successful human society. Then and now, the crucial policy issue is how states and markets should interact when the latter become global. The desired interaction, it is surmised, will result from changes in corporate and political governance.

As global markets remain only part of concrete policy environments, institutional changes at global level are not prerequisites for most policy reforms. Indeed, the principle of proximity, with profound roots in the thinking of the Catholic Church, suggests the opposite - governance responses at the local level, through the combined action of elected officials and civil society. Moreover, the European example makes clear that the common good may be provided by regional institutions.

Even if the existence of a "global common good" becomes more widely acknowledged, there is no way the existing global institutions can provide for the common good without relying on national and local entities. Sometimes, perhaps because of contradictory positions of the member states, the UN, WTO, IMF and World Bank are unable to co-operate effectively with each other in areas where their combined mandates and areas of expertise would have produced better results. But in specific areas of the competence of the UN system, its Secretary-General cannot carry out minimal global governance tasks, as was recently recognised by Gordon Smith and Moises Naim (1999).

Fortunately, there have been occasions when the global economic and financial institutions have co-operated with the UN system. Some pertain to conflict resolution on the ground (e.g. El Salvador, East Timor), others to joint ventures. Among the latter, two examples come to mind: the joint publication of A Better World for All by the IMF, OECD, UN and World Bank and the preparation, which has involved IMF, World Bank and WTO, of the UN Conference on Financing for Development to be held in Mexico in Spring 2002 (Braga de Macedo 2001a).

Nevertheless, the democratic accountability of global institutions, let alone of regional ones, remains very far into the future. National legitimacy remains the source of democratic accountability. If we postulate both, national governance becomes the norm. The appropriate level of governance response should only be changed when the level of the nation-state is found to be sufficiently inadequate, due to changes in technology, in preferences, or both.

As mentioned, the quality of governance can be improved by solving the problem closer to the citizen than the often cumbersome national administration would allow. This is why the principle of proximity is explicitly recognised in the 1992 Treaty on European Union (in the current version see articles 1, second paragraph and 2, second paragraph, which mentions the principle of subsidiarity and refers to article 5 of the 1957 Treaty establishing the European Community; see also No.48 of Centesimus Annus).

But, for many issues, improving governance calls for international policy co-operation and even for new international institutions. The quest for appropriate regional institutions echoes both concerns as there are subnational and supernational regions. Among the latter, the institutional framework of the EU and of the OECD deserve notice because both are built on the belief that peer pressure among them can bring about better policies. In addition, the EU´s combination of unity with diversity may be an appropriate response for what Pope John Paul II calls a "globalisation of solidarity". In order to ensure this, a greater awareness of the common European good is called for. This presumes that the EU will play its part in the globalisation of solidarity, from its own enlargement to the reinforcement of its development policies. At the moment, the amounts reported to the DAC cannot be meaningfully consolidated and therefore remain scattered and with less impact. It is worth citing that, according to the 2000 numbers released on 25 April, 2001 on the occasion of the DAC high level meeting, the EU states and the European Commission (EC) accounted for $30 billion, compared with $23 billion divided roughly equally between US and Japan.

This call for an interdisciplinary development strategy should not obscure the essential prerequisite of higher economic growth. But it was important to stress the interdisciplinary approach first: even though there is a fair deal of agreement that market-based economic growth is key for the prevention of poverty and hunger, there is a great deal of ongoing discussion on which kind of economic growth strategy to follow in developing countries. Sometimes this discussion tends to be fairly superficial, especially in a developing country context, by solely focusing on macro-economic conditions and the functioning of markets in a narrow sense. What is needed is a focus on the broader institutions of a well-functioning market economy: legal, political, social and cultural.

A successful strategy for higher economic growth would therefore be based on developing those institutions. This is not just theory. Take the case of political institutions. Generally, countries with democratic political systems tend to generate higher economic growth with wealth shared by a wider population, than countries with non-democratic regimes. Not surprisingly, democratic countries are also the ones that have managed to prevent famines. Two quotes from the important work of A. Sen and his collaborators demonstrate this crucial issue:

"…….[I]n the terrible history of famines in the world, there is hardly any case in which a famine has occurred in a country that is independent and democratic…..This absence of famines applies not only to the rich countries, but also to poor but relatively democratic countries…..".

"The persistence of severe famines in many of the sub-Saharan African countries – both with "left-wing" and "right-wing" governments – relates closely to the lack of democratic political systems and practice."

Additional research on crops with interest to the poor would of course help this development strategy, as stressed in Braga de Macedo and Chino (forthcoming 2001).

Open, democratic societies with free elections, uncensored public criticism and a free news reporting press systems, are characterised by governments that are accountable to the public. These societies create the political incentives for governments to take quick actions against famines. Open societies also have the necessary institutions that support successful market economies, thereby creating the necessary conditions for high economic growth. This in turn would eliminate endemic deprivation and poverty.

What about the stated key priority to provide the poor access to the global market order? Clearly, when developing countries are successful in developing the above mentioned broader institutions (legal, political and social) of a well-functioning market economy, they would also create the conditions for access to the global market order. For example, financial markets would "reward" countries with a strong legal and democratic order (transparency, strong protection of property rights, accountability, no or little corruption and bribery, etcetera). Openness, in turn, would have a positive impact on governance, as discussed in Appendix. There is clearly a virtuous cycle at work there.

However, we have to acknowledge that many poor countries are stuck in a poverty trap. The bulk of the poor are imprisoned in countries with social and political orders that are hostile to a well-functioning market order. Narrow economic or technocratic advice to fight hunger and poverty will then not be sufficient. An escape from this poverty trap will require major reform efforts, including deep changes in the social and political order. Also major economic reform efforts are needed. This will create the conditions for better access to the resources of the global economic order. In particular tropical, landlocked countries will need better access to the technology and other resources of the global economy and financial system to escape geography’s prison.

The link between democracy and transparency was stressed above. But the link between political and financial freedom has been neglected, even though it illustrate the importance of democratic governance in development. As a case study, consider the trajectory followed by Argentina during the thirty years before parliament voted a bill ending the impunity of lawmakers, judges and government ministers from prosecution (Braga de Macedo 2001b).

Argentina got there in three steps, each taking about a decade. The elections of October 1983 mark the restoration of democratic institutions. Political freedom was not enough to bring about a sustained reduction of corruption, and more generally greater accountability of the elected team and its administration. Political institutions were in place but corruption was not a concern of the population between 1983 and 1990.

Until the 1991 Convertibility Law managed to bring hyperinflation under control, people were worried about financial stability. Then corruption did become the most or second most important problem quoted in the Gallup polls held at the time. These polls are quoted in El desafio de la ley by Moreno Ocampo, who came from the fight for human rights and saw corruption as another form of abuse of power. Hence, when citizens enjoy both political and financial freedom, they are more likely to mobilize against practices of mismanagement and corruption.

Access to information is so important to fight corruption that simple tools, like the publication of price comparison numbers, can be a strong catalyst for change. Accordingly, a strategy based on the provision of hard data, rather than of personal accusations, appears to be very powerful. Moreno mentioned the example of Buenos Aires hospitals asked to give information on the prices that they were paying for a number of homogeneous and basic products, such as dextrose. Their information revealed unjustifiable price differences for the same product, quantity, provider and times of payment. After the publication of these comparisons, hospitals started buying more efficiently.

Once the broader macro conditions were right, and with help from USAID, civil society played an important role in bringing forward the anti-corruption agenda in Argentina, in particular experience Poder Ciudadano (PC). If international institutions and even governments widely acknowledge now the importance and impact of NGOs in this field and generally welcome civil society’s involvement, little research has actually been conducted with regard to the effectiveness of these organisations.

PC is recognised as one of the most - if not the most- innovative and efficient chapter of Transparency International (TI). It also predates TI by 4 years, since it was founded in 1989, to support the democratisation process and, in particular, to fight corruption.

Since 1995 PC serves as the local chapter of TI.

Almost a decade after its foundation, the three candidates to the Presidency recognised the role of PC and asked this movement to monitor the financing of campaign expenditures. At a time when the new government of Argentina starts a substantial programme to curb corruption, it is thus interesting to take stock of PC's experience. Hors (2001) has claimed that, through innovative modes of intervention, this organisation contributed to mobilise the population on the problem of corruption and to bring the political elite to put the problem in the public agenda. This contributed to make democratic institutions work.

In addition, Hors claims that PC could direct its actions to better adapt to the third phase of action and of reform of public institutions. Political and financial freedom, together with the pressure of globalisation, expose corruption more crudely, but they also make the fiscal losses for the State and the costs corruption represents for firms facing external competition harder to bear. Once the broader conditions are there, NGOs can play a crucial role in catalysing an anti-corruption momentum.

The Argentine case confirms that establishing democratic institutions and the freedom of speech is necessary but not sufficient. Decisions taken in the economic sphere such as liberalisation of trade, reform of the exchange rate system are also needed to transform the situation, and get a country on a virtuous path.

To what extent, and in which respect, can a rights-based development model contribute to the elimination of hunger and poverty? As noted above, our strategy for higher economic growth is based on an open, democratic order. An open, democratic order is based on core human rights (the right to vote, free elections, freedom of expression, protection of life, rule of law, etc.). In this respect, our strategy for higher economic growth to fight hunger and poverty is based on these same core human rights. We could call this a rights-based growth strategy. Financial markets would "view" this strategy as sound and, in principle, "reward" countries that would follow such a strategy.

There is an ongoing political debate to expand these "core" human rights with economic and social rights, including the right to health care, fair wages and, of course, food. How should we judge this debate measured against our objective to eliminate hunger and poverty?

Unfortunately, this expansion can be counter-productive, as it is likely to clash with a well-functioning market order. Some of these economic or social rights might create incentives that would be detrimental to economic growth (including the production of food) and institutional change bringing about better governance. As a practical matter, the severity of these adverse consequences depends very much on how they are being translated into concrete policy actions.

The implementation of these economic and social rights might also impact negatively on an open, democratic order. Again, the severity of this impact is dependent on concrete policy actions and the associated loss of entitlements.

In view of these objections, it is perhaps better not to speak of a rights-based development model but of the positive interaction between globalisation and governance which transforms growth into sustainable development. This approach is based on the belief that an open society with the associated institutions (legal, political, social) that support a well-functioning market order, and with the best opportunities for the poor to escape the poverty trap are not the preserve of countries in particular locations or with particular cultural attributes but is accessible to all peoples. While the belief cannot be proven, it does rely on the data available, the existing interdisciplinary analysis and the attention to culture.

And this is the contribution we thought we could bring to this panel from an organisation that gathers a very heterogeneous group of countries that nevertheless manages to look at each other's economic and social policies based on peer pressure and yardstick competition. To us, this is the only way to effectively promote the global common good, and with it a world free of poverty and hunger.

Bonaglia, Braga de Macedo and Bussolo (2001) show that there is a positive causal effect of import openness on governance as measured by apparent corruption. Indeed, this effect is close to the independent positive effect of income per capita. The most parsimonious specification — which includes only import openness, per capita GDP (both in logs) and an index of political rights for 119 countries over the periods 1984-88 and 1990-98 — explain almost 50 per cent of the variability in the corruption index. A 10% increase in imports openness results in 0.03-point change in the corruption score (0.34 x 0.1), compared to the 0.09-point changes due to a 10% increase in log income per capita. These results extend to financial openness and are robust to the introduction of historical variables.

Thus, unlike "colonial past", "protestant" traditions, "democracy" and "OECD" membership, seem to exert a negative influence on good governance. But the interpretation of such variables should reflect that they are all in dummy format and thereby they are really just labels used to describe a, sometimes quite loose, common characteristic of a particular group of countries. In fact the only proper label is one not usually standing for culture, namely OECD membership. This group of thirty countries adopted common measures to fight corruption and is trying to enforce them through "peer pressure" mechanisms, as described above. Rather than testing serious hypotheses on how, for instance, being a democracy may affect a country's corruption level, what the "cultural dummies" do is to provide an indication that our corruption theories are still incomplete. This is why the explicit label of OECD membership is preferable to such dummies.

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