Canadian scholar suggests public-private aid partnerships for Bangladesh garment workers

The Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh in April killed more than 1,100 garment factory workers and has drawn scrutiny to the sourcing practices of western retailers. (Reuters.)

Canada's foreign aid agency for several years has been in a controverisal partnership with companies in the mining sector.

The Canadian International Development Agency, now folded into the Foreign Affairs ministry, gave cash to non-profits who partnered with mining companies. The partnerships have been widely criticized by activists who say  the mining sector’s poor image threatens to tarnish the reputations of charities. Moreover, some charitable donors complaine the mining companies have enough money to fund their own social programs.

A new report for the CD Howe Institute by Simon Fraser University professor John Richards suggests the Canadian government should consider adopting that controversial model in Bangladesh's garment sector. Richards writes, "Canadian diplomats should play a larger role in tackling political obstacles to effective aid, whether in negotiating trade agreements or assuring the success of development projects."

He suggests Canada could financial help those companies who have signed onto the Accord for Bangladesh Fire and Factory Safety. Loblaw is the most prominent Canadian member of that group, which has pledged to spend millions of dollars to improve factory safety in Bangladesh.

"Manufacturing offers the potential to increase labour productivity among a sizable fraction of the labour force, as opposed to a very small number with most resource projects," Richards writes.

He also argues that Canada might consider adopting a relatively new foreign aid tactic called cash-on-delivery aid. Instead of paying in advance for a development program in a poor country like Bangladesh, Canada might pay only based on positive results. But this strategy, promoted by the Center for Global Development, a New York aid policy think tank, is hardly a cure all.

Cash on delivery aid would only be a success if information about a program's successes could be verified by an independent third party.  A garment company, for example, that could reap tens of thousands of dollars in Canadian aid if it graduated workers through literacy programs would be tempted to inflate its number of graduates.

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Bangladesh garment-factory fire leads to a coverup: Human Rights Watch

The Aswad Composite Mills factory, in Gazipur, on fire in October. Photograph: Andrew Biraj/Reuters

When the overheated chimney of a drying machine sparked a fire in Aswad Composite Mills, a Bangladesh garment factory that made clothing for western brands such as Walmart, Gap, H&M and Carrefour, a few brave workers grabbed a fire hose.

They turned on the hose, but no water came out. A second attempt yielded a few drips.

By the time the fire department finally showed up two-and-a-half hours later, and the fire was put out, seven people had died during the Oct. 8 tragedy.

“I think those people died because there was such a small amount of water," one worker told Human Rights Watch. "In fact you can say there was no water because it only just dripped out of the hose pipe when we switched it on for the second time.”

The worker was among a group of Aswad employees who spoke to Human Rights Watch, which on Thursday night published the report: "Bangladesh factory deaths could have been prevented."

The report details an alleged coverup at the factory and highlights how the fire hydrant system at the plant did not work properly, allowing the flames to spread quickly, and promises to bring more pressure on western brands to improve their oversight of factories in Bangladesh and other developing countries.

"The Bangladesh government and one of the retailers, Primark, said they had uncovered safety violations at the factory prior to the fire but no action was taken," the Human Rights Watch report said. "Other companies said they had not inspected Aswad because they did not have a direct relationship with it."

Human Rights Watch officials said they spoke to five garment mill workers who said they attended a meeting the day after the fire.

"They were told by a senior manager not to tell outsiders that the factory had run out of water," the report said. "One man explained, 'He said that your bonuses and wages will be paid on time, but do not leak the information about what actually happened, do not leak the fact that there was no water, otherwise we will not open the factory again.'"

Nafiz Sikder, managing director of Palmal group which owns Aswad Mills, denied any  meeting  happened.

According to documents found in the burnt-out factory and copied, Aswad’s customers over the past twelve months included Walmart, Gap, American Eagle, H&M, Primark, Asda, NEXT, Carrefour, Lacoste, Just Jeans, Target (Australia) and Woolworths (Australia).

Aswad has also supplied clothing to Hudson’s Bay Co. and Loblaw, according to U.S. customs information obtained by the Star.

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

 

Bangladesh a better place to live than India, survey says

Bangladeshi garment factory workers strike for better pay during a rally in Dhaka.                      (Reuters)

Low-lying Bangladesh is prey to typhoons and hurricanes every year. Salty ocean water routinely destroys the flat country's arable farmland. 

Many of the millions of garment-factory workers take their lives into their hands when they show up for work at derelict factories, 95 per cent of which are estimated to need  structural repairs.

Political strikes paralyze businesses in the capital of Dhaka.

And yet there is some evidence that bedevilled Bangladesh is still a better place to live than India, the big brother next door that has been heralded as a 21st-century superpower.

According to a new study called the Legatum Prosperity Index, Bangladesh fares better than India when it comes to the "joy of everyday life," and "the prospect of being able to build an even better life in the future."

Call it a bit of good news for a country still reeling from bad publicity after the Rana Plaza collapse in April, which killed more than 1,100 people.

The study, released by the U.K.-based Legatum Institute and reported by journalist Heather Timmons on the website Quartz, ranks Bangladesh 103rd out of 142 countries. India is ranked 106th and falling.

In Bangladesh, people “not only live 3.4 years longer than their Indian counterparts, but fewer are undernourished, a lower number die in infancy and more have access to sanitation."

In the eight categories used to measure prosperity, India is ahead of Bangladesh in health, safety and security, and personal freedom. In other categories, such as education and governance, Bangladesh is ahead. (Bangladesh also fared better than Cambodia and Pakistan in the study.)

Norway ranks No. 1, a position it has locked down since 2009, followed by Switzerland and Canada.

Canada had the survey's top score for personal freedom and was third in education, behind New Zealand and Australia. Canada's lowest score was for entrepreneurship and opportunity, where it came in 16th.

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

Al Qaeda's Conference Call

So why did Canada close its diplomatic mission in Bangladesh Sunday, or the U.S. Air Force evacuate Americans from Sanaa, Yemen at dawn Tuesday, or why did the U.S. State Department issue a worldwide travel alert for the month of August?

Apparently, according to the Daily Beast, Al Qaeda had a conference call.

That's what three unnamed U.S. officials told Eli Lake and Josh Rogin. "This was like a meeting of the Legion of Doom,” one intelligence officers said in the story posted online Wednesday, referring to the coalition of villains featured in the Saturday morning cartoon Super Friends.

Those on the call included, "representatives or leaders from Nigeria’s Boko Haram, the Pakistani Taliban, al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and more obscure al Qaeda affiliates such as the Uzbekistan branch. Also on the call were representatives of aspiring al Qaeda affiliates such as al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula," the story stated.

This assertion is remarkable for a number of reasons.

First, the upper echelon of Al Qaeda is skilled at avoiding detection and the idea that up to 20 leaders of the group would participate on what was described as a "conference call" seems fantastic.

Second, the list of so-called "Super Friends" is also curious. While there are known ties between Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and Al Qaeda's branches in Yemen or Iraq, including members from Uzbekistan or Sinai or Nigeria on what was purportedly a high-level strategy session seems reckless for a group that is anything but reckless.

Third, one of the officials told the Daily Beast: "All you need to do is look at that list of places we shut down to get a sense of who was on the phone call." But the embassy in Abuja, Nigeria did not close this week? And why are the embassies in Kigali, Rwanda, and Antananarivo, Madagascar still shut while the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan re-opened?

Even before the story of the conference call was posted, McClatchy journalist Hannah Allam had gathered an amusing assortment of comments from Washington's counterterrorism analysts, who remain baffled by the extreme security measures.

Top prize goes to former State Department adviser Will McCants, who recently joined the Brookings Saban Center. "It's crazy pants," he said. "You can quote me."

Meanwhile, news seems to be breaking by the hour in Yemen, where Yemenis are also perplexed by the fuss, analyst Abdul Ghani al-Iryani told me in an interview Tuesday. "It’s puzzling to me," he said. "The heightened threat is to be expected because the drones were very busy in the past few days and have killed quite a few of the top leadership of the AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) but we have not seen anything like this. I don’t know why they felt they had to go to these extremes. The Yemenis are not paying attention to it at all. For us it’s just weird Americans do weird things, basically."

Although the alerts started Friday, one Western intelligence official told me the risk is expected to rise following the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which ends tonight.

Much more of this story to come.

 

(For a backgrounder on AQAP, here's one I wrote for TNR a couple years ago - as a primer it's still relevant: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/al-qaeda-the-arab-peninsula-primer#. For on-the-ground reporting in Sanaa, follow on Twitter: Iona Craig, Khaled al-Hammadi, Nasser Arrabyee , Adam Baron and Casey Coombs. Great analysis always from Gregory Johnsen.)

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/06/198681/broad-us-terror-alert-mystifies.html#.UgJDMJFE3Fr#storylink=cpy

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

U.K. to demand tourists from India, other 'high risk' countries pay $4,600 cash bond for visa

It's about to get more difficult for India's heralded middle class to travel abroad.

Indian news channel NDTV reports that the U.K. is introducing a plan to demand visitors from India, Pakistan, Nigeria and other countries whose nationals are deemed to pose a "high risk" of immigration abuse provide a cash bond before they are allowed to enter the country.

Adults over 18 will be forced to pay $4,600 for a six-month visit visa. They will surrender the money if they overstay in Britain after their visa has expired. The pilot project will also target visitors from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Ghana.

The fee, which will not be charged to all tourists, will begin in November.

The U.K. plans to extend it to all visa types, including work and student visas, the Economic Times of India reports.

It will be interesting to watch India's reaction to the news, and to see whether it imposes some kind of tit-for-tat fee on British tourists.

Reaction to the news on Twitter was mixed. While some Indians said they understand Britain's right to ensure its immigration system isn't abused, others were angry.

"Can what you looted from us be the guarantee?" the Twitter user @Vanish_Forever posted, referring to India's 300 years as a British colony.

Commenting on an online story about the new fee, Needhirajan Thenmozhi wrote, "Visitors from India do not need to come to UK. They can visit other European countries. There is nothing special to see in Britain. There is only lot of hate in local people nowadays. The weather is miserable most of the time. Paying 3,000 pounds is not worth (it) for a visit. Visit Southeast Asian countries which have more history, beauty and humanity."         

Last year, the U.K. granted six-month visas to 296,000 applicants from India, 101,000 from Nigeria, 53,000 from Pakistan and 14,000 each from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Officials at the U.K. High Commission to India are already in damage-control mode.  They tell the Independent's Andrew Buncombe that in 2012, 88 per cent of 370,000 Indian visa applicants were approved for visas.

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

 

 

Big box Walmart faces backlash from workers

Walmart employees and supporters walk a picket line last week in Pico Rivera, Ca. to protest Walmart's retaliation against workers who speak out. Some borded a bus to start a 1,500-mile bus journey titled "Ride for Respect, "' and bound for Walmart headquarters.Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

 
Walmart, the retail giant that ate America – and is licking its chops over Toronto’s Kensington Market district -- has been chewed out by critics for balking at an agreement on fire and building safety in Bangladesh.

That was after the recent factory collapse that cost the lives of more than 1,000 garment workers who supplied goods to Walmart and other international brands.

Walmart did agree to independent inspections of its suppliers’ factories, saying they are more reliable. And it fired its former supplier. But workers’ advocates say that falls short of taking responsibility for improving the wages and conditions of offshore workers.

Now the bad vibes from Bangladesh are bouncing back. Thanks to crowdsourcing, an American lobby group has raised over $9,000 to bring over a Bangladeshi survivor of a fire that predated the building disaster to Walmart headquarters in Arkansas. She'll join a day of protest timed to coincide with the company's annual shareholder meeting on Friday. 

So will 100 striking Walmart workers, who are part of a landmark nationwide action to upgrade its U.S. wages and working conditions and end retaliation against employees who try to organize or speak out.

Hundreds of others in 30 U.S. cities are setting out on civil rights-inspired caravans across the country to educate Walmart workers on the issues they face. 

It’s not how Walmart wanted to wind up a year of celebrations for its gaspingly successful 50th anniversary.

According to Business Insider, its full-time employees alone number 2.1 million, or seven times the population of Iceland. Its revenue in 2011 was $419 billion – larger than the economy of oil-rich Norway. And last year everyone in the world made an average of 1.1 purchases at a Walmart store.

It has also weathered thousands of lawsuits, including a class action suit for gender discrimination launched by some 2,000 women.

But while Walmart is way too big to fail, many of its American workers complain that their wages are too small to survive on without a second job.

For part-time workers who don’t have a chance at a permanent job, says John Logan of San Francisco State University, “constant changes to their schedules make it impossible to take a second job or return to school.

“They frequently are forced to rely on public assistance in the form of food stamps and low-income health care for survival, and when they do, taxpayers pick up the tab.”

Walmart argues that its low-cost goods are a boon to the community and it has tremendous respect for its euphemistically-labelled “associates” who have every chance to rise in the company and prosper.

The term is aimed at raising the spirits but not the pay of those who earn an average of $8.81 an hour according to a Bloomberg study.

“Even at $12.67 per hour,” says Logan, “a Walmart employee would need to work for approximately 786 years to earn (CEO Michael) Duke’s annual salary for 2012.” That would be $20.7 million.

Will the protests spark a boycott of Walmart?

Not likely. As wages deteriorate, the middle class shrinks, the social safety net frays and jobs become more precarious, its captive consumers are too tired, too broke and too harried to seek alternatives.

It’s oversized, overambitious – and over here to stay.

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to the U.S., South Asia and the Middle East, winning national and international awards.

Are countries that are better off, more or less tolerant about race?

A map based on data from from the World Values Survey composed by The Washington Post.

 A study published by a pair of Swedish economists in the scholarly publication Kyklos, has kicked up quite a stir on the Internet, trying to determine whether economically better-off nations are more racially tolerant.

Or not.

Well, that’s the scholarly language.

We in the media are a little more plain-spoken.

What we want to know is: who’s racist out there?

To help the Swedes in their study, they consulted the respected World Values Survey, a global network of research scientists from more than 100 countries who’ve been polling people around the world about values since 1981.

Turns out the survey had just the kind of question they were looking for:  Question A124_02 which asked respondents whether they’d prefer not to have “people of a different race” as neighbours.

The best illustration of the survey’s findings was published by the Washington Post using a kind of red states – blue states theme, blue being the most tolerant countries, and red the least (see above).

Some of the findings surprised: more than 70 per cent of respondents in Hong Kong as well as Bangladesh said they definitely did not want to have neighbours of a different race.

In Jordan 51.4 per cent and in India 43.5 per cent also said they wouldn’t tolerate neighbours of a different race.

The most tolerant? Sweden, where just 1.4 per cent of respondents said they would object, followed by Argentina, and Trinidad and Tobago , tied at 2 per cent, Europe’s tiny Andorra in third place at 2.5 and in fourth place Canada at 2.9 per cent.

The United States was fifth at 3.8 per cent, followed by Uruguay at 3.9 and New Zealand with 4.1 per cent.
Great Britain stood 12^th. But that didn’t prevent some British headline writers from trumpeting the Britons as champions. Whatever.

The long and short of the Swedish economists’ study? It turns out there is no co-relation between economics and racial tolerance.

However they did discover that there does appear to be one between better off nations and a greater tolerance for homosexuality.

Bill Schiller has held bureau postings for the Star in Johannesburg, Berlin, London and Beijing. He is a NNA and Amnesty International Award winner, and a Harvard Nieman Fellow from the class of '06. Follow him on Twitter @wschiller

Bangladesh and us: outsourcing poverty

Walmart, Las Vegas in 2006. The world's largest retailer was cutting costs to counter a sales slump. It has held out against signing a fire and safety agreement for Bangladesh, saying its own inspections are more efficient. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

After the darkest week in decades for Bangladesh’s workers, glimmers of light are appearing on the horizon. But like all glimmers, they may be an illusion.

Some -- and only some -- of the big brands whose cheap-chic clothes are produced in Bangladesh are ready to sign accords on boosting the appalling safety conditions. And after 1,100 of its underpaid citizens died under tons of rubble in the Dhaka factory collapse, the Bangladesh government is pledging a wage hike.

That wouldn’t be hard, you’d think, with a minimum wage that averages $38 a week.

But think again.

One reason those wages are so abysmally low – and likely not to change very much -- is because wages in the West have also sunk or stagnated while the richest few have burst their metaphorical piggy banks.

That’s created a vicious circle of demand for cheaper goods among the poor and shrinking middle class, increased the pressure from Western-based corporations to keep down costs in their outsourced factories overseas and redoubled efforts of Bangladesh (and other low-waged countries) to stay “competitive” by downloading destitution onto their workers.

“We’re living at a time of year-round deals,” says economist Armine Yalnizyan of the Centre for Economic Policy Alternatives. “There’s a cut-throat level of competition and we’re moving toward lower and lower prices – but somebody is making the sacrifice.

“The flip side of every low price is a low wage.”  

And not merely in the poorest countries. A new report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development – whose 34 members are from advanced and emerging countries -- shows that income inequality  increased more during the slump years preceding 2010 than in all the previous 12 years. And there’s little sign of a turnaround any time soon.

Even where government welfare programs cushion the blow, the OECD said, there is a threat of “greater inequality and poverty in the years ahead” as austerity programs batter social spending at the time of greatest need.

Among the countries with the biggest equality gap is the U.S. – statistically the world’s wealthiest nation. Canada rates a mediocre 22nd out of 34 on the equality scale.

Meanwhile more workers in “wealthy” countries are in temporary and precarious jobs and minimum wages have fallen behind the rising costs of food and shelter.

What does it mean to Dhaka?

“The next generation (in the West) will be paid less,” says Yalnizyan. “There will be less disposable cash. But there will also be a demand for profits. So the way to feed the beast is to squeeze costs.”

Whether the survivors of the factory disaster reap the benefits of the current sympathy surge is an open question. Whether their children will is more in doubt.

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to South Asia, winning national and international awards.
 

Bangladesh workers' lives collapse along with factory building

Part of the list of injuries suffered by workers in the Rana Plaza factory collapse. (Source: Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights)

“My name is Rebeka and I am 22 years old.”

So begins a tale of tragedy that has no end for a Bangladeshi worker who was forced into the catastrophically flawed Rana Plaza factory building that collapsed last month, killing more than 800 of her co-workers.

You might think that Rebeka is one of the lucky ones. She was rescued after more than a day of pain and terror and is now in the Dhaka Orthopedic Hospital. But her left leg and right foot were amputated, and her life is blighted by terrible injuries from being buried under tons of rubble.  


A Bangladeshi woman holds a photograph of her missing daughter at a makeshift morgue. (AP Photo/Ismail Ferdous)

For hundreds like her, there was no choice but to go to work, even after big cracks were found in the factory walls.  But workers' objections were overruled by their bosses, Rebeka told local advocates from her hospital bed. “They forced us to work, saying that they would not pay our wages for the month of April…they also hired thugs to terrorize us into going to work.”

Forty-five minutes after she started up her sewing machine, the mechanic switched on the generator whose vibrations reportedly shattered the structurally unsound building. Rebekah’s floor had been added onto foundations never meant for heavy machinery.

“The whole building bent to the back side and fell apart,” she recalls. “After some time, I saw a concrete beam on top of both my legs. Groaning in extreme pain, I started weeping and calling out to Allah to rescue me.”

When help finally came a day later, both her legs were so badly crushed and infected from the rat-infested rubble that she agreed to amputation.

“When I sleep, I dream that the building is falling on me again. That I’m crushed and dead. For the rest of my life I will be severely handicapped. My life is over. It would have been far better to die in the building collapse than having to live with such a sad fate.”

It gets worse.  Barbara Briggs of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights – an international advocacy group – is in close touch with the group’s Bangladesh office. It told her that “a lot of people who are severely injured are being kicked out of hospitals to make way for those who are more severely injured.”

In impoverished Bangladesh, those in hospital often have to pay for basics like plasma. Once they’re discharged they are completely on their own, living in hovels without sanitation, clean water or proper ventilation. Or any benefits to pay for drugs or
medical care. The institute is launching a fund-raising drive to support destitute survivors.

A handful of international brands, like Canada’s Joe Fresh, have pledged to pay compensation.

But, Briggs says, “workers are still fighting to get their month’s wages for April. They should legally get 120 days severance pay, but the private sector is in charge of regulating the garment industry and it isn’t paying them."

The industry's Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association finally began disbursing wages on Tuesday, but how many are still waiting is unclear.

The country is renowned for its rock-bottom wages and don’t-ask-don’t-tell working conditions. That makes Bangladesh one of the world’s most attractive sites for globalized production – the current winner of a decades-long race to the bottom.

But here’s the kicker: “it would cost about $3 billion to make those work places safer,” says economist William Black of University of Missouri-Kansas, an expert in white collar crime. “But it won’t happen because it takes away that ‘competitive advantage.’

“What that means is it was never really cheaper to make clothes in Bangladesh than in the West – they’ve simply transferred the cost to the workers.”

The cost is clear on the list of dead and injured workers that grows daily.

Disposable clothes. Disposable lives. And now, a global disposable society.

READ MORE: Bangladesh factory collapse: Death toll climbs past 800

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to the Middle East and South Asia, winning national and international awards.

In other bird flu news...

A bird flu strain called H7N9 has been dominating headlines lately, and with good reason. The strain, which has never been known to infect people before, has suddenly begun popping up in eastern China, where it has now killed eight people. So far, there have been 24 confirmed cases but the tally is steadily rising by the day. 

But yesterday, another bird flu strain was quietly in the news: H5N1, which — until H7N9 came along — was the most notorious of the bird flu strains.

This story came out of eastern Bangladesh, where a two-year-old baby died of H5N1 — making him the country's first known fatality from bird flu.

H5N1 made its world debut in 1996 when a poultry outbreak in Hong Kong wound up killing six people. The region's entire chicken population was slaughtered but that didn't stop the virus from spreading amongst birds — and infecting people in other parts of the world. Today, human cases have been recorded everywhere from Vietnam and Cambodia to Nigeria, Turkey, Egypt and, now, Bangladesh, which has seen six cases since 2008, five from the last two years. In a decade, 622 people have been infected with H5N1 and 371 have died — a fatality rate of about 60 per cent.

For infectious disease experts now watching H7N9, that other bird flu is likely haunting their thoughts. Even if H7N9 doesn't become easily transmissible between humans (the nightmare scenario), it may very well follow in H5N1's footsteps and continue spreading in bird populations — thus turning H7N1 into a global terror, always lurking and threatening to pop up. Or, even worse, mutate into a more dangerous form.

But there is one key difference between H7N9 and H5N1 that makes the former even more concerning —  unlike H5N1, which decimates entire chicken flocks, H7N9 doesn't seem to make birds sick, meaning it can spread undetected. If H7N9 does start flying around the world, we will have a hard time noticing — that is, until people in other corners of the world start getting sick.

Jennifer Yang is the Star’s global health reporter. She previously worked as a general assignment reporter and won a NNA in 2011 for her explanatory piece on the Chilean mining disaster. Follow her on Twitter: @jyangstar