The much-anticipated recommendations for a post-2015 agenda report is bold and full of optimism, as my Oxfam colleagues acknowledge (a welcome treat in an otherwise uncertain era). I especially like the authors’ certainty that we can eradicate extreme poverty from the earth by 2030.

The new goals also specifically address a number of challenges left out of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 13 years ago, which signals to me that world leaders are really listening (a welcome, and unfortunately too uncommon, occurrence). Toward that end, the report acknowledges the interplay of conflict, violence, sustainability, governance, urbanization, and inclusive growth as not silos; but rather as a constellation of interdependent issues that must be addressed to create a more prosperous and healthy world for everyone.

Now that I’ve gushed, let me raise a serious critique about how the report addresses inequality.

Despite a growing global consensus that income inequality must be halted, the High-Level Panel did not generate targets for inequality reduction. Instead, reducing inequality is claimed to be imbued across all the goals. The Panel claims, rightly, that inequality is a national issue. For sure, solutions to inequality must happen within the cultural, political, economic contexts of countries. However, though solutions need to be tailored nationally, that doesn’t mean we can’t insist on global targets. There’s still plenty of time to develop what targets could look like. Others will agree and disagree, but I think excluding the idea this early on is premature and lacks creativity.

Further, there’s very little in the report to help countries think about ways to reduce inequality. Unfortunately, the report falls back on a tired narrative of economic growth as a be-all solution.

This answer reflects 15-year-old thinking that’s inappropriate for post 2015 world. For instance, in the report there’s a lot of talk about inclusive growth, which inherently reduces inequality, but there’s no suggestion for how to make growth inclusive, only talk about the need to increase productivity.

Worse, the parts on inequality and growth lack any mention of the role of government. As we know, it’s committed governmental intervention and political will making reductions in inequality possible among the few countries where it’s decreasing. Along these lines, there’s no mention of policies aimed toward inequality reduction, including stronger social insurance, more efficient taxation, and cash transfers to the poor. Last, there’s a few lines on the need for deregulation, which makes perfect sense in terms of curbing corruption. However, there should equally be language about how the deregulation of labor standards over the past 30 years has contributed to growing inequality.

With regard to measuring inequality, the report encourages countries to use income quintiles. I’m happy to see an endorsement for looking at how income is distributed. Yet, as we know, in many countries the severity of inequality is between the very, very top 1-5 percent and the rest. Therefore, the Panel should encourage countries to take data collection more seriously to gain a more fine-grained understanding of the differences between the very top and the very bottom. One way to start down this path is encouraging countries to utilize the Palma measure of inequality, which is the ratio of income between the top 10% and the bottom 40%.

I’ve said it once. After reading the report, I’ll say it again. It’s time to move the discussion from absolute to relative gains.

“The world has come together and said ‘Enough!’ to unscrupulous arms dealers, dictators and human rights abusers. We have a clear message. Your days of easy access to weapons and ammunition are over. The world is watching, and the world will hold you to account.” ~Oxfam’s Anna MacDonald today at the the UN gathering of foreign ministers and senior ambassadors

Earlier today over 60 countries took the stage at the United Nations and signed the Arms Trade Treaty. The Arms Trade Treaty is the first internationally-binding agreement to regulate the $85 billion annual trade in arms and ammunition. If implemented rigorously, the treaty will transform the global arms trade by requiring states to put human rights and humanitarian law before profits when making arms trade decisions. Major arms exporters such as Germany, the United Kingdom, and France all signed the treaty. We expect many more countries, possibly over 100, to join before the end of the year.

The United States was not able to sign today, but Secretary of State John Kerry put out a strong statement welcoming the treaty and committing the United States to sign in the very near future.

The Arms Trade Treaty was approved by the United Nations General Assembly on April 2, 2013 and it opened for signature today–two months later. This proved too short of a period for some countries to complete their internal review and for all countries to agree on the translations of the text.

Oxfam and our allies pushed the United States to be one of the first countries to sign the treaty. Unfortunately that did not happen. However, contrary to some media reports and commentaries, the reason the US could not sign was technical rather than political. It seems crazy, but there are differences in the translations of the treaty when the English base text was translated into different languages. The US did not feel comfortable signing the treaty before these differences were reconciled and authenticated.

The US approach is not surprising as the US takes its treaty obligations very seriously; the US will not normally sign a treaty when the obligations of all parties are not crystal clear. This process of reconciliation will be completed on August 28, 2013, and we expect the US to sign the treaty within weeks of that date.

The US is not the only treaty supporter to not sign the treaty today. Kenya, for example, has been a leader of the UN process toward an ATT since its inception in 2006 and was not prepared to sign today. Still, the absence of these signatures does not take away from today’s historic significance.

But now that we have the words on the paper, we need the action on the ground. The treaty will only be as strong as the commitment of countries to implement its provisions. Oxfam and our allies are not going away, and we will continue to pressure all governments to sign the agreement and rigorously implement its provisions.

Rice was a crisis commodity in 2008.  Something like 2 billion people rely on rice as a daily staple and prices were spiraling out of control.  Rice prices were one of the most dramatic features of the “global food price crisis” that exploded into headlines, caused riots in many developing countries, and alarm among political leaders across the world in 2007 and 2008.

Seeing the problem and recognizing the threat to international markets and political stability, the G20 leaders embraced food security as a focus, starting in 2010 with France leading the charge.  A dazzling sequence of meetings were convened and papers commissioned.

For all the concern, and at the end of all this activity, very little was actually done.  The G20 has declined to take up the structural issues around food prices and global food security. Probably the most significant accomplishment of the G20 on food security has been the creation of the AMIS, the Agricultural Market Information System.  The idea was to create a shared resource for better information on international food commodities.

So, three years later, do we have better global market information on food commodities?  Especially rice, since it’s such a sensitive and political food?

Not really.

G20 countries produce 80 percent of the world’s rice, so you might think that AMIS could give us some good information on the situation with global rice production and inventory.  But this chart shows how bad things are:

China is the world’s biggest rice producer and consumer.  What happens there dwarfs almost everything else in the market.  China is a member of the G20.  But how much rice does China have?

Here we see two estimates of how much rice will be left at the end of the 2012-2013 growing year.  China could have 45 million tons in storage at the end of the year.  Or it could have more than twice that amount.  Depends if you believe the US Department of Agriculture or the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

That’s a pretty big spread between estimates.  Either China will hold about one-tenth of global rice production at the end of the year.  Or it might hold twice that.   Or maybe neither is right;  because the truth is we really don’t know.

It’s important.  Knowing if there’s rice available – whether China might be buying or selling – determines a lot about the price of rice globally and whether the market is stable.  But we don’t know.

Comparatively small factors can have a big impact on rice markets.  India isn’t a big rice exporter – about 5 million tons a year.  But an export ban announced by India in 2007 was one of the primary drivers for panic in rice markets that sent rice prices through the roof.

If you’re an analyst trying to guess what prices will be, this is a mess.  More importantly, if you’re concerned about food security and trying to prepare for emergencies and price spikes, there’s little here that helps.  The difference between the two estimates for Chinese rice stocks could consume all global rice exports.

No one really knows or has good information. China is opaque, even though it’s a huge factor in global food prices.

AMIS doesn’t seem to be cracking that nut, much less other information gaps, like how much big trading companies hold.

So, what is the G20 accomplishing on global food security?

Marc Cohen is a Senior Researcher on Humanitarian Policy at Oxfam America. 

Haiti has long received starkly negative attention in the global media, which for years have focused on such themes as extreme poverty and inequality, corruption, drug trafficking, dysfunctional governance, the dreaded Ton Tons Macoutes secret police, and billions in wasted aid. Google “Haiti basket case” and you’ll get more than a million hits back in a little over a tenth of a second.

But there’s some good news coming out of Haiti too, and it’s about increased rice production, which is notable in a country that imports 83 percent of that daily staple.

On May 29, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations forecast that Haiti’s rice crop for 2013 would be nearly 25 percent larger than last year, when Hurricanes Isaac and Sandy caused severe damage. The forecast is also up over the trend for the previous five years, although just by a little.

That is very good news for Haiti, where consumers say that they much prefer local rice to imports. About three quarters of Haiti’s imports come from the United States, so imported rice is called diri Miami (Miami rice). Haitians buy so much diri Miami because, thanks to generous US government subsidies paid to rice farmers, it is much cheaper than the local product.

That means that imports make sense, for Haiti, doesn’t it? After all, much of Haiti lies on steep, deforested slopes that aren’t very good for growing rice, and the country frequently suffers from severe tropical storms like the ones that hit last year (more are forecast for this year). If rice from the United States, Brazil, or Vietnam is cheaper than Haitian rice, why shouldn’t Haitian consumers continue to rely on imports?

The biggest reason why Haiti should produce more of the rice that it consumes is that dependence on virtually duty-free imports leaves Haitian citizens vulnerable to world-market rice prices, which have become a lot more volatile in recent years. Between 2003 and 2008, the world price of rice went up fivefold, more than wheat or corn.

The price jump in Haiti caused widespread hardship, because in both the cities and countryside, most Haitians buy rice. There were protests around the country in April 2008. In the capital of Port-au-Prince, these turned violent, leading the country’s parliament to vote no confidence in Prime Minister Jacques Eduard Alexis.

The discontent led the Haitian government, with support from aid donors, to pay a lot more attention to food production. The government now devotes about nine percent of its budget to agriculture, compared to just four percent in the early 2000s. The current president, Michel Martelly, speaks of food self-sufficiency by 2016 and an end to hunger by 2020.

Can Haiti really move toward meeting a significantly larger share of rice demand from local farmers’ fields? After all, even this year’s bigger crop means that Haiti will still have to import two-thirds of the rice its citizens will consume.

The answer is a resounding “yes!” according to Oxfam’s research. (See Research Report and Policy Proposal on the rice value chain in Haiti.) But it will take a lot more investment in things like irrigation, mills, storage and drying facilities, better transportation, and making sure Haitian rice farmers have access to credit and technical advice. It also means changing Haiti’s trade policy so that there is a floor price, and imports don’t come in at anything lower that that minimum.

Oxfam works with rice farmer associations and cooperatives to help them participate effectively in Haiti’s food policy debates. Both Oxfam and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) are working with Haitian farmers to boost rice production, sponsoring pilot projects on the system of rice intensification (SRI). This boosts yields with less seed, less water, and mostly organic fertilizer to boost yields.

This approach—bringing farmers’ voices into the debate, changing unfavorable policies, boosting investment, and using an agroecological approach that is appropriate to Haiti’s resource-poor conditions—can help the country build on and go well beyond this year’s very encouraging news about home-grown rice.

Cash transfers are nothing new, though there’s a lot of hub-bub about them this week in the popular media. One researcher and blogger publishes a paper and, voilà, the next development trend is born!

Don’t get me wrong. Chris Blattman’s research in Uganda is exciting. As a person who has been focused on community development for much of her career, I’m enthusiastic whenever micro-level results can influence macro-level thinking and approaches to development. But two perceptions seem to get in the way of cash transfers (and aid reform for that matter), one fueled by the other—1) they’ll never work 2) because poor people can’t be trusted.

Sorry naysayers, cash works. Blattman’s research joins a host of other studies, evaluations, and reviews that largely point to proven results. Since the turn of the century, there has been a growing consideration and use of cash transfers among bilateral and multilateral donors like USAID, DFID, GTZ, World Bank and the UN as a means of channeling spending to the very poor—supporting people’s own efforts to climb out of poverty and providing a stimulus to local economies. Organizations like Oxfam, Plan, Save the Children, and HelpAge have been using cash transfers within their development and especially social protection programming for years. This trend is also increasingly used in humanitarian relief operations.

From Oxfam America’s perspective, cash transfers fit squarely in a rights-based viewpoint on social protection, or the broad system of public actions put in place to protect and transform the livelihoods of citizens. Also, handing over cash, as opposed to seeds or shoes, enables people to make their own life choices. So a more widely-recognized trend that unconditional cash transfers should no longer be dismissed will be welcome.

So with the results in hand, highlighted by this week’s coverage, why is there still resistance to putting more money directly in people’s hands in the developing world? Blattman explains it this way:

“We don’t trust the poor…to spend that kind of money responsibly. We want to tie their hands, or make the decisions for them, or at least make them dig useless ditches for three months in exchange for cash.”

In my years in the aid sector, I’ve seen this much too often, despite the fact that in this country, social security payments, unemployment or disability payments come in the form of cash or checks. In February, I participated in an online presentation sponsored by USAID on the results from The Listening Project, a comprehensive study of the ideas and insights of 6,000 people who live in societies that have been on the recipient end of international assistance efforts. As I was monitoring the comments, I noted the following statement from a fellow aid worker (preceded by a face palm and many objections):

“Do beneficiaries KNOW WHAT THEY NEED? Careful, they can only have short-term views.”

Oxfam’s own programming results prove otherwise. Back in 2005, when Oxfam surveyed cash grant recipients in Malawi (who received them in lieu of food assistance), we found they mainly bought staple foods with the grants. Where they didn’t, the results were interesting. Some bought vegetables rather than cereals (better nutrition). Some bought soap (better hygiene). A few bought tools (livelihoods investments). The bottom line is that they made smart trade-offs with the money, sacrificing some food for other really important goals.

Clearly “assumptions about whom the poor are, what they need, and how they should be helped” serve as a barrier to not only cash transfers, but to aid reform in general. In the same way that a “poor-people-are-not-to-be-trusted” attitude can impede cash programming, corruption is often attributed to this same “other.” At Oxfam, this is an often-heard objection to country ownership. But discussing corruption without looking at ourselves and how policies and agency policies feed it is short-sighted at best. People can set their own priorities and choose the strategies—that’s what cash does and that’s what aid can do.

Cash transfer programming, as a modality to deliver aid, is squarely in line with USAID’s reform efforts to increase the percentage of development aid funds that go directly to the poorest people. The USAID blog last year even extorted the need to focus on mobile money, rather than hard cash, in order to make these programs more cost-effective, less vulnerable to “leakage,” and more safe and equitable in its distribution.

So while Blattman’s research doesn’t blow the world open for many of us working in aid, it does beg the policy question…what are the other barriers to changing the modalities of big aid money? Even as reforms seem to be enabling the US to become a better development partner, how can we challenge the remaining bureaucratic mindsets that only see obstacles to responding to country- and citizen-determined needs? What’s needed to educate those who hold the purse strings?

Riccardo Vitale is an anthropologist based in Cartagena, Colombia and Marc Cohen is a Senior Researcher on Humanitarian Policy at Oxfam America. 

“We cannot eat oil palm dates and teak wood.”

That’s what members of the Montes de María Communications Collective (CCMM), a grassroots women’s peace organization in El Carmen de Bolivar, Colombia, told Oxfam researchers. Oxfam was looking at post-conflict agricultural activities in Montes de María, as the country’s long-running civil war winds down and displaced peasants are returning to the land.

Most of the more than 4 million displaced Colombians are low-income farmers who fled their communities to avoid the fighting. Over the weekend, the Colombian government and the largest armed opposition group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) agreed to an extensive land redistribution program in their long-running peace talks. In June 2011, President Juan Manuel Santos signed the country’s Victims and Land Restitution Law, which provides land and other resources to resettling people. Donors like the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have supported the law’s implementation.

Earlier Oxfam research in Colombia’s Choco Department (province) found flaws in restitution efforts there. Land recipients had to farm in areas where armed groups continued to operate. And their rights to the land were not really guaranteed, due to lax local enforcement of the Restitution Law.

In Montes de María, a relatively peaceful zone on Colombia’s Caribbean coast that is home mainly to Afro-Colombian people, Oxfam found that even when formerly displaced people have legal land titles in hand, that isn’t enough to make their hold on the land secure. Low-income Colombian farmers typically carry a heavy debt load. A title means that they can use their land as collateral. Too often, they then lose the land when they default on their loans.

Agribusiness firms and speculators then swoop in to acquire the land to raise cattle, grow oil palm and sugar cane for biofuel, or cultivate trees like teak to export the lumber. It’s just the latest land grab, as a community leader from Montes de María told Oxfam:

“In the 1980s the guerrillas took the land from the landowners and distributed it to landless peasants; in the 1990s through the ‘land recuperation movement,’ peasants achieved titles and ownership; then came the paramilitaries, brainchild of rich cattle ranchers allied with the state, that, using terrorist tactics, forcefully evicted thousands of peasants; and at present, via the restitution programs, new businesses and landowners are acquiring legal control of the land.”

Soraya and the other CCMM members told Oxfam that this has especially hurt peasant women in Montes de María. These women traditionally grew rice for their families to eat. But cultivation of the new energy and export crops mostly benefits men, while taking land out of food production.

Land restitution hasn’t just wound up disempowering women and spreading hunger in Montes María. Around the country, it has proved to be risky business. A study by the Latin America Working Group and Lutheran World Relief found that since President Santos took office in 2010, 25 or more land activists have been killed, and many others face threats of violence.

So should we conclude that post-conflict reconstruction programs shouldn’t help formerly displaced Colombians go back to farming? Not at all. But a lot more effort needs to go into designing and implementing restitution programs. The government, with support from donors, needs to undertake thorough livelihoods and conflict assessments before it sets programs up, and it needs to make sure that resources go to and stay with rural poor people, instead of further enriching those who are already well off. And women like those we spoke to at CCMM need to have an equal chance to make a living and own land.

“The land of Montes de María is rich in minerals, water, and is extremely fertile,” CCMM President Soraya de Bayuelo and her colleagues told Oxfam.

“This is both a blessing and a curse, since it converts our region into a battlefield of economic interests.”

 

For further reading, see Oxfam America’s Briefing Paper, “Colombia: Contested Spaces.”

Aid transparency should be the lowest hanging fruit on the aid reform tree.  Donors know how much money they are investing, and where; why not just disclose that info?

And yet, within the US government, disclosing this data has been a long, slow, un-anesthetized root canal.  US foreign assistance is balkanized across twenty-two US government agencies.  But until yesterday, only USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) had published information on their expenditures to the Foreign Assistance “Dashboard” at foreignassistance.gov.  No wonder that US government agencies (MCC excepted) generally get poor scores on Publish What You Fund’s (PWYF) Aid Transparency Index.

For months we’ve been watching foreignassistance.gov, looking for new data.  Suddenly last night it arrived.  At some point yesterday, the US government finally pulled back the curtain on two more agencies.  Aid data from the US Treasury Department and Department of Defense finally was posted to the dashboard.

This is not a lot of new data.  In FY11, Treasury and Defense accounted (respectively) for about 6% and 3% of US government aid spending obligations.  But politically, this is an important signal of progress.  Prior to yesterday, the only US government agencies who had reported spending data to the dashboard were under the authority of the Secretary of State—USAID and MCC.  Both identify aid as their primary mission.  But Treasury and Defense have other jobs; foreign assistance is in fact a much smaller portion of their mission.  The fact that they are sharing their data gives new hope that the dashboard can deliver on its promise to be a truly comprehensive tool for knowing where the US government is investing all of its aid dollars.

But don’t pop the cork on that champagne yet.  It’s great that Treasury and DoD have added their data alongside USAID and MCC, but that data overall is still pretty pathetic.  You can see nice pie charts of overall US spending to a particular country or sector, but the dashboard won’t let you drill down to the level of detail that people in developing countries actually need.  For example, if you are a DC-based advocate who wants to see how much the US government spent on agriculture in Tanzania in fiscal year 2011, the answer is relatively easy to find; $39.1m.  But if you are at the Agricultural Council of Tanzania, trying to help your members understand how local food markets might be impacted by aid investments, the dashboard can’t provide you anything beyond that top line number.

All this means that the dashboard remains what it has been since its launch in November 2010—all sizzle, no steak.  Without project-level data that helps people understand how aid is being invested and how we are measuring success, the dashboard fails to actually help US aid dollars work better.

So what’s the hold up?  No question there are significant technical hurdles to be overcome.  Those 22 agencies that deliver US foreign aid all have different computers and different methods of compiling data.  Never mind apples to apples; the intrepid but overworked dashboard team at the State Department’s F bureau faces enough of a challenge turning all this diverse stuff into something that vaguely looks like fruit.  And as frustrating as absent data can be, wrong data would be worse; once false data is out in public and replicated, they can become un-killable zombies, popping up again and again, fueling false conclusions.

But as difficult as these technical challenges are, they have solutions.  Other donors have figured it out; the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) and the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) are leaders.  (It’s no surprise they rank first and second respectively on PWYF’s rankings.)  Even the US government has figured this out in other places.  Check out “recovery.gov”, where you can track every dollar of the 2009 Recovery Act.  You can drill down to the zip code, and see disbursements and results data.  This is exactly the kind of data that citizens and leaders in developing countries are asking for.

As usual, the real challenge seems to be lack of political will.  Getting the recovery.gov website up and running was not easy either, but that effort had a couple political advantages. It had the President’s prestige committed to getting it done, and it was required by the Recovery Act legislation itself.  The US government put in resources to get that effort done because the President’s reputation was on the line, and Congress was looking over his shoulder.

Soon we expect that Congress will reintroduce legislation to require US aid transparency.  Last year, the State Department spent months actively opposing the legislation before finally yielding to the inevitable.  Unfortunately, Congress adjourned before the Senate could take up the bill.  This year, the State Department has a chance for a do-over, whether or not the State Department supports the legislation introduced by Congressman Poe and Senator Rubio. Last year, Senator John Kerry supported the bill; here’s hoping he will do so again as Secretary of State.

We’re all waiting to see just how serious they are about aid transparency.

Emily Greenspan is an extractive industries policy and advocacy advisor with Oxfam America.

Last week the International Council of Metals and Mining (ICMM) released a new mining and indigenous peoples position statement requiring its 22 member companies to integrate Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) into their practices around engagement with indigenous communities. ICMM is an industry association aiming to promote sustainable development in the mining sector. While certain provisions weaken ICMM’s statement, overall ICMM’s commitment to FPIC reflects a gradually turning tide which began to pick up momentum in 2011, when the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) announced a similar FPIC requirement. Increasingly, companies are recognizing FPIC as a fundamental aspect of human rights due diligence that can help to create shared value for companies and communities and mitigate the risk of social conflict down the road.

ICMM’s commitment to FPIC is an important step, demonstrating that the mining industry is beginning to recognize that the terms of the debate have shifted. No longer should companies be discussing whether they need to consult communities, but rather whether and how they can ensure community consent. Indigenous peoples’ organizations (along with Oxfam and others) have worked many years to encourage the industry to embrace FPIC, and ICMM’s commitment will be useful to promote accountability among ICMM members and to encourage more companies to follow ICMM’s lead.

With its new position statement ICMM requires member companies to begin incorporating FPIC into their practices in over 800 project sites around the world, with commitments coming into full effect by May 2015. ICMM describes FPIC as both a process and an outcome and states:

The outcome is that Indigenous Peoples can give or withhold their consent to a project, through a process that strives to be consistent with their traditional decision-making processes while respecting internationally recognized human rights and is based on good faith negotiation.

Importantly, the statement recognizes that negotiations should be carried out in good faith and that in certain circumstances indigenous peoples may choose to withhold their consent to a project. The statement applies FPIC both to new projects and changes to existing projects likely to have significant impacts on indigenous peoples.

However, some of the FPIC language later in the policy could create confusion for companies. For example, the statement references a 2008 guidance document from the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs which states that “neither Indigenous Peoples nor any other population group have the right to veto development projects that affect them,” so FPIC should be considered a “principle to be respected to the greatest degree possible in development planning and implementation.” ICMM does not elaborate on the difference between “withholding consent” and “veto.” Nor do they reference more recent guidance from the UN on FPIC which states, “Consent is a freely given decision that may be a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No,’ including the option to reconsider if the proposed activities change or if new information relevant to the proposed activities emerges.”

ICMM generates further ambiguity by stating: “In balancing the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples with the wider population, government might determine that a project should proceed and specify the conditions that should apply. In such circumstances, ICMM members will determine whether they ought to remain involved with a project.” Effective FPIC implementation requires that companies be willing to respect the decision of indigenous communities regarding whether a project should be developed regardless of a government’s interest in pushing ahead.

Finally, ICMM limits the FPIC requirement to projects that impact indigenous peoples. However, community consent is also emerging more broadly as a principle of best practice for sustainable development in any community. Oxfam recognizes that FPIC is a right in international law specifically for indigenous peoples, but also believes that all communities affected by oil and mining projects must be able to participate in effective decision making and negotiation in processes that affect them.  When they say “no” to a project, companies and governments need to respect this.

As with all of the new policies I’ve written about in previous blogs (IFC, Peru’s Indigenous Peoples Consultation Law, and individual oil and mining company policies), the true test will be in implementation. ICMM’s members must prioritize good faith engagement and respect indigenous peoples’ decisions with regard to oil and mining project development. If policy commitments fail to move beyond mere lip service, rights violations will continue and the risks of violence and social conflict will only increase.

In recent months food scandals have hit the headlines across the globe with horsemeat being passed off as beef in Europe, rat dressed up as lamb in China and fish being sold as, well other kinds of fish. These may just be the tip of the iceberg.

Today’s high and volatile prices mean that concerns about food safety are on the rise too. More people are having to buy cheaper and poorer quality food to make ends meet. In Bangladesh for example people in rural and urban areas are growing their own vegetables because they’re worried that cheaper vegetables have been poisoned by pesticides.

Concerns about food safety are just one of the issues highlighted in new research published today by Oxfam and the Institute for Development Studies. The report, called ’Squeezed’, explores how five years of high and volatile food prices have affected 23 different urban and rural communities in ten countries across the globe. We’ll be updating the study by returning to these same communities over the next three years to see how they’re coping.

’Squeezed’ shows how high and volatile prices are not only changing what we eat but also how we work and relate to others. For instance, where men are struggling now to fulfill their traditional role as breadwinners for the family, we find there is often an increase in domestic violence and alcohol and drug abuse.

We also found that community life can begin to disintegrate in the face of higher food prices. People are being forced to put on hold expensive social events, such as weddings, in order to save money. Or else they’re having to leave home to find work in cities or abroad.

We see people leaving their farmlands too, to go into riskier but better paid occupations such as gold mining. And we find that more and more women are entering into the workforce and their grandparents or older daughters forced instead to step in to help with childcare.

This first report is a snapshot of a problem that reaches well beyond the dinner table. As our researchers follow the communities over the next three years we will build up a much better picture of what this new era of high and volatile prices means for people and for society. But there are answers to be had already, especially if policy makers start looking at the bigger picture.

Governments need to start tackling high and volatile food prices by better managing our food stocks and better regulating the global grain markets. Here in the US that will mean finally rethinking the corn-ethanol mandate which is failing to deliver on its promises and contributing to high and volatile prices. Over the long term it will also mean getting serious about climate change which is expected to lead to drastic spikes in food prices over the coming decades.

Ultimately, all governments and donors will need to start investing far more smartly in small holder agriculture and into social safety nets to help the poorest and most vulnerable.

Assistant Secretary of State, Thomas Countryman, made a statement last week that the US will sign the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in the very near future. He made it during a panel I was honored to speak on hosted by the Atlantic Council entitled, “What’s at Stake in the UN Arms Trade Treaty.” The panel also featured remarks by Retired Major General D. Allen Youngman, who represents small arms manufacturers, and David Bosco of Foreign Policy Magazine.

Assistant Secretary Countryman chose his words carefully and made clear that he could not commit the US to signing the treaty the day it opens for signature on June 3. But the debate among us on the panel that day underlines why signing the treaty on June 3 is so critical.

The panel focused on the question of whether the ATT would actually change anything. The critique I heard went something like this: because the ATT leaves it up to State Parties themselves to determine whether an arms transfer is appropriate in the context of the treaty guidelines, the treaty is unlikely to change behavior.

I am not going to argue that this critique has no merit; the treaty offers the world great promise only if governments have the political will to follow its terms. My colleagues at the Control Arms Campaign recently published a document succinctly explaining what the treaty does. The treaty establishes high global arms trade standards and states that certain arms transfers are never appropriate. The treaty will stigmatize arms transfers that would facilitate atrocities or other human rights abuses. Governments, regardless of whether they are a party to the treaty, will be compelled to follow the treaty standards or face international condemnation.

In addition to the stigma placed on certain arms transfers, the treaty’s standards are enforced by a requirement that States “take appropriate measures to enforce national laws and regulations that implement the provisions of this Treaty” and that States meet to discuss implementation and raise concerns. Many States see international arms transfers as a legitimate means of protecting themselves, their allies, and civilians. Such decisions are considered a sovereign right and most countries were unwilling to delegate that decision to any other actor or court.

Given this reality, implementation and enforcement of the treaty is dependent on the political will of State Parties to the ATT. It is up to all of us—both civil society and governments who support the treaty—to ensure that countries implement the treaty in a way that helps save lives and serves as part of the foundation for greater prosperity. Responsible implementation of the treaty must be compelled through local civil society calling on their own governments to act, international civil society naming and shaming those who violate the treaty or fail to implement provisions, and by State Parties strongly encouraging other countries to abide by the treaty and providing leadership by example.

Because the success of the treaty is dependent on political will, the opening day of signature, June 3, is of immense importance. Many countries who are skeptical of treaty will be closely observing the events of June 3 to see which States are willing to demonstrate their intent to be bound by the treaty and champion its provisions.

The United States is the world’s largest arms manufacturer and exporter. It is also the country with arguably the most advanced system of arms export controls. As with most international norm building exercises, most eyes will be focused on the actions of the United States.

If the US government decides to sign the treaty, and clearly demonstrates in its words and deeds that the treaty is in US interest, other countries will follow. Yet, if President Obama fails to provide leadership and sign the treaty on June 3, I fear that other countries will get the message that the US is not interested in the treaty becoming strong international law.

The US provided strong leadership in March by taking the extraordinary step of co-sponsoring the ATT resolution in the UN General Assembly and breaking the block of Syria, North Korea, and Iran. But US leadership must not end there. I definitely agree with my fellow panelists that treaties without action are worthless words on a piece of paper.

So sign the treaty on June 3, Mr. President. Help the US take the first step towards the treaty living up to its ideals.