Category Archives: Socio-economic Collapse

By Zingiswa Losi May 1, 2021

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South Africas economy is facing its worst crisis in a century with unemployment at more than 40% and rising. Women and the youth bear the brunt of this economic stagnation with unemployment rates of 46.5% and 57.2%, respectively.

The economy, as measured by the GDP, shrunk by 7% in 2020. To put this figure in perspective, the analysis of Statistics South Africa underscores the fact that this is the biggest annual fall in output since 1946.

While Covid-19 has worsened an already bad situation, in our account of the deepening socio-economic crisis that is currently engulfing South Africa, we can partially attribute it to the misguided macroeconomic policy framework that has been implemented over the years.

Corruption and mismanagement coupled with this neo-liberal anti-state macroeconomic framework that defunded Eskom over the years are the source of load shedding. The lack of investment led to a deteriorating infrastructure and as a result load shedding.

The crisis-ridden state of Eskom has dented investor and consumer confidence. It has squeezed workers of their meagre wages and threatens to suffocate fragile industries, in particular mining. It has interrupted the economy at a time when the government is struggling to deal with the countrys debt-GDP ratio and trying to alleviate the debt-service costs. Recent load shedding cost the economy up to R5 billion daily.

Eskom with debts of about R424bn and rising is the ticking time bomb threatening to collapse the entire economy. The country is fast running out of options. Not only are the jobs of 44 000 workers at Eskom at risk, but the entire economy will implode and take 14 million South African workers with it. Given this potential collapse of Eskom and the devastating impact that it will have on workers, Cosatu has expressed its willingness to support key interventions to ensure the survival of the power utility and the economy.

In December at Nedlac, government and social partners adopted the Cosatu drafted Eskom Social Compact that sets out clear interventions to help with reducing Eskoms dangerously high debt to a sustainable level and fixing the power utility on condition that government and Eskom take the toxic ideas of retrenchments and privatisation off the table.

Sorting out Eskom and ensuring a reliable and affordable energy is critical if South Africa is to succeed in fixing the economy and overcoming the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

South Africa will not be able to achieve the necessary levels of economic growth with load shedding continuing to be an albatross around the economys neck. This also means the country risks losing out in the upturns in global commodity cycles, something that contributed immensely to the economic growth of the early 2000s and helped reduce government revenue shortfalls recently.

Fixing Eskom cannot be bogged down by ideological contestations like the futile concept of unbundling. Unbundling is a sideshow that has no role in fixing Eskom because it will not address the real causes of load shedding.

Rooting out corruption should be central in fixing Eskom. Outsourced operations are some of the channels through which Eskom is haemorrhaging scarce resources.

We need a review of all Service Level Agreements (SLAS) and contracts at Eskom because some of them have produced poor quality outputs. The idea of outsourcing of functions was introduced to save costs but in reality, they are a source of corruptive inflation of costs and looting. A comprehensive public audit of all Eskom contracts and expenditure should be instituted and must include coal supply contracts.

We insist that before any consideration of investing any funds at Eskom, the power utility must provide an analysis of the SLAS and contracts pertaining to outsourcing with a view to revoking those that haemorrhage resources and to implement insourcing.

We need a concrete plan on how Eskom plans to rationalise and align the generally huge packages of its senior management. It is unacceptable that even the regular bailouts given to Eskom incorporate these huge executive remuneration structures and exorbitant board fees. The question of performance or productivity is never raised, despite the fact that Eskom has been failing at a huge cost to the fiscus.

There must be worker representation on Eskoms Board. Worker representation will help to build trust and enable workers to highlight problems at the highest level for intervention. The PIC, which manages workers funds, is already exposed at Eskom to the tune of R95bn from the GEPF and R9bn from the UIF in Eskom bonds.

Workers have a responsibility to safeguard and salvage their investments. Coal suppliers and IPP generation contractors must reduce their excessive prices, or their contracts should be cancelled, and Eskoms generation mandate must be expanded by the minister to allow it to grow its own renewable energy generation capacity.

A comprehensive debt recovery plan must also be implemented to recover the R37bn owed by departments, SOES, municipalities, communities (including Soweto) and consumers at large. There must be no exceptions.

The economic growth and welfare of the nation needs a working Eskom and a reliable and affordable supply of electricity. Cosatus mandate is to protect every workers job and pension, therefore, we remain available as constructive partners to work with all social partners to save and fix the power utility for the sake of jobs and the economy.

* Zingiswa Losi is the president of Cosatu.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of IOL and Independent Media.

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Read next on IOL Fix Eskom for the sake of jobs and SA's economy - IOL

Thirty years on and the jury is not out on this question. When it comes to the Soviet collapse, Russians increasingly regret this momentous event.

In 2018, 66% of respondents to a Levada poll regretted the collapse and just a quarter did not. Ten years ago, twenty years after the collapse, that number was 55%. When it has dipped below 50%, it has come straight back up.

The most stated reason for regret was the destruction of a unified economic system. On occasion, this has come in second place behind feeling part of a superpower, and that was in years of solid economic growth and relative prosperity (2006-07). This trend goes hand in hand with increased nostalgia for the USSR among contemporaries. In 2020, 75% of Russians believed the USSR was the best time in their countrys history. Just 18% disagreed, and another poll in 2019 showed 70% expresseda positive opinion of Joseph Stalin.

Granted, today there is a generation with no memory of Soviet socialism. The 1990s for many is also a distant memory and the economic woes of today pale in comparison to 1998, 1993 or any other time in living memory. When one looks at Russias economic picture today, it seems, in some ways, a logical conclusion. Shrinking incomes (11% since 2013), rising food prices, devaluation of the ruble and new sanctions are all factors contributing to the political mood.

As Andrei Kolesnikov told Vedomosti, todays state capitalism is viewed as unfair: the injustice is in distribution, access to goods and infrastructure. And this feeling is growing stronger, he remarked. Tomorrow remains uncertain for most Russians, whereas once upon a timeit was too certain.

This is a key reason for continued support of the Kremlins un-intrusive approach to peoples personal finances. Whether Russias liberal opposition likes this or not, most ordinary Russians are happy to turn a blind eye to democratic back-sliding if their socio-economic status remains unaffected.

At this point it must be stressed that the Soviet collapse was an accident. Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to save the USSR and believed doing so was possible by ridding it of its ugliest elements. What is more, by the time Gorbachev came to power, the USSR was far from a state in decline inevitably doomed to fail: 60% of Russians also believe the collapse was avoidable; a clear majority since 1991 always has.

As Stephen Kotkin notes, society and the economy was experiencing a lethargic stability. The problems were not yet serious enough to threaten the USSRs existence, but economic growth was alarmingly sluggish in the early 1980s. The economy was just about growing, with relative full employment, but the professional classes were becoming open to new ideas, graduates growing fed up with entering the workforce well below their pay grade andnationalism was growing in the republics.

What Gorbachev did through his reforms was to unleash a series of feelings and emotions long buried beneath the surface. Perestroika, for all its shortcomings, was something Soviet citizens were ready for, as socialism was creaking under the weight of its domestic problems. When Leonid Brezhnev died, few in the Soviet leadership believed in communism anymore. They were reluctant to change the system and were viewed by Soviet citizens as corrupt kleptocrats enjoying privileges well beyond ordinary people. Housing and produce shortages were becoming apparent, and the economy simply could not withstand the massive military spending (though it was not the reason for its collapse as the right would have people believe).

Despite the growing anti-government feeling, change was unlikely to come without a reformer in the Kremlin. But the key point, again, is reform. What Russians regret about the Soviet collapse was the degradation of state power and all the political and socio-economic chaos that followed in the next decade.

While criticisms of democratic rollbacks are just, Russians still enjoy more socio-economic and political freedoms than ever before. They are healthier, live longer, drink less and can travel abroad (pandemic permitting). When asked if they want the USSR to return, a majority say no.

It is a very mixed picture thirty years on, but Russia has made undeniable progress since perestroika. Post COVID-19, key industries plod along, but Russias economy still outperformed much of the G7 at the end of 2020.

Those who repeat the mantra of the 'shock therapy' of the 1990s often fail to distinguish between the effects of marketisation and privatisation, and the collapse of the Soviet economy. Both came at a huge short-term price for the majority and continue to hauntpeoples personal memories as well as the Kremlin, whose political narrative is based in opposition to this economic and political chaos.

The Soviet collapse was a complicated series of events that became likelier as the 1980s progressed. Without Gorbachev, there is no guarantee that the USSR would have started to reform, and without this, the world and Russians lives would be very different.

James Pearce is a Moscow-based historian and the author of the use of history in Putin's Russia, andcurrently lectures at the University of Liverpool.

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COMMENT: How the USSR's collapse is remembered in Russia today - bne IntelliNews

Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over 2.7 million lives. More than 123 million COVID-19 infections have been reported. Billions of people around the world are suffering the indirect consequences of the pandemic. While a few countries have accelerated their vaccination programmes, the number of new infections is rising again in the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, Europe and South-East Asia.

In response to the rapidly evolving COVID-19 crisis, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are launching revised, coordinated appeals.

This document explains:

the response of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (the Movement), which comprises the 192 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the IFRC and the ICRC

the Movement-wide funding requirements.

It also places the Movements coordinated appeals in the context of significantly increasing humanitarian needs globally, related to both COVID-19 and other emergencies, and the need for longer-term investment.

The revised coordinated appeals2 seek a total of CHF 2.729 billion to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-economic impact.

COVID-19 continues to amplify inequalities, destabilize communities, jeopardize development gains and impede progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Beyond its dramatic health impacts, the COVID-19 crisis constitutes a crisis on top of other crises, exacerbating the vulnerability of people already at risk, whether owing to armed conflict, violence, disaster, other health emergencies, migration, food insecurity, limited access to health care and other services, discrimination or socioeconomic factors.

Despite governments efforts to maintain a balance between preventing large-scale community transmission of the virus and protecting their economies against socio-economic collapse, COVID-19 will have long-lasting repercussions for those most at risk and will create new vulnerabilities.

The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines brings a glimpse of hope to people whose lives have been turned upside-down, but pressing challenges remain, such as:

The Movement will focus its efforts on those populations that are most at risk and most vulnerable.Examples include providing home care or other solutions for people with disabilities and older people unable to reach vaccine centres, plus ensuring access for those who may be unable to register for vaccines, such as detainees or irregular migrants. Combating vaccine hesitancy and misinformation through risk communication and community engagement will also be priority actions in the coming months, to ensure the success of global COVID-19 vaccination efforts.

Meanwhile, no-one can ignore the effects of confinement measures or the unremitting pressure on the mental health and livelihoods of people all over the world especially of vulnerable communities. Communities will still need support to reduce and mitigate the use of negative coping mechanisms and the impact of the pandemic on their livelihoods.

In this context, and in addition to responding to significantly increased humanitarian needs resulting from multiple shocks during 2020 and the first quarter of 2021 and from the economic consequences of the pandemic the Movement has continued to help communities contain the spread of the pandemic, including through its role in immunization. Furthermore, the Movement continues to address the deterioration in vulnerable peoples physical and mental health, their livelihoods and social cohesion, and to protect, assist and advocate for the most vulnerable as a matter of priority.

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Covid-19: the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement's action and appeals - World - ReliefWeb

A group of experts on Lebanon, convened by the Middle East Institute and the American Task Force on Lebanon, today presented six recommendations to the Biden administration concerning the situation in Lebanon, suggesting urgent U.S. actions to halt that countrys descent into total state collapse. Lebanon is suffering through overlapping fiscal, banking, economic, social, health and political crises. In recent weeks, the army and internal security forces signaled that they were close to collapse.

Full state failure in Lebanon would take weeks to unfold, but decades to repair. It would quickly lead to a return of ISIS and al Qaeda, streams of Lebanese and Syrian refugees flowing to Cyprus and Europe, and a further expansion of Hezbollahs power. The window is narrowing for pulling Lebanon back from the brink, but an immediate, coordinated diplomatic effort could avert decades of additional chaos in this part of the world. The Biden administration has the interest and capacity to lead such an international effort.

The main responsibility for reforming Lebanon and pulling it back from the brink lies with the Lebanese themselves. Indeed, a wide cross-section of the population has been in open revolt since October 2019, demanding political change, socio-economic reform, an end to corruption, and the removal of the ruling oligarchy. But the entrenched sectarian and militia politicians have resisted all calls for reform and stood idly by as the population sinks rapidly into poverty and despair.

It is not too late for the U.S. and international community to avert the long-term calamity and help the people of Lebanon. Our first recommendation addresses the core deficit in governance and political will. For too long, a corrupt ruling elite has avoided responsibility, resulting in economic and social deterioration with grave humanitarian and social consequences. A concerted international effort, led by the U.S. and including France, the European Union and key Gulf countries, should engage with Lebanon and press the countrys political leadership to act promptly on forming a competent, clean and reform-minded government. This is needed to stop the downward socio-economic spiral and ease the publics pain, engage with the International Monetary Fund and international community, and set Lebanon back on the road of economic recovery.

The second recommendation is creating an international emergency assistance fund targeted at relieving poverty, strengthening the social safety net, supporting the ailing health and education sectors, and providing short-term financing for businesses to maintain and recover essential jobs. The fund would work directly with Lebanese civil society and international agencies to avoid the risks of official corruption caused by government interference.

The third recommendation is continuing support for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). The LAF plays a key role in sustaining national unity, maintaining domestic order, and providing stability along the borders with Syria and Israel. Collapse of the army means full collapse of the Lebanese state. As the national currency has lost almost 90 percent of its value, soldiers no longer make enough to feed their families. The Army Commander last week sounded the alarm that the Army was at the breaking point. The U.S. has a long, successful partnership with the LAF. During this crisis, the U.S. should work with our friends in the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council to provide financial assistance to help soldiers support their families and enable the LAF to sustain its essential role in the country. The LAF would be expected to continue to respect human and civil rights, and the right of citizens to protest peacefully.

The policy brief includes three longer-term efforts: working with a newly empowered Lebanese government on economic and financial recovery; furthering the Biden administrations effort to strengthen democracies worldwide; and effectively combating corruption.

Americas ties with Lebanon go back to the mid-1800s. The U.S. and the Lebanese people share many values that are embedded in American-style educational institutions, the 2 million-strong Lebanese American community, and a spirit of creative individualism. The Lebanese share U.S. values, including a strong belief in democracy and good governance, respect for human rights, a vibrant market economy, empowerment of women and marginalized communities, and religious diversity.

Lebanons collapse would have costly and long-term consequences. Urgent diplomatic action to pull Lebanon back from the brink aligns with the United Statess principles and national security interests. And it aligns with President BidenJoe BidenThe Hill's Morning Report - Biden officials brace for worst despite vaccine data Congress looks to rein in Biden's war powers Democrats seize on voting rights; GOP cries foul MOREs emphasis on leading with diplomacy to avoid costly conflicts. The Biden administration should work quickly with friends and allies around the world to avert a full collapse of Lebanon and help the Lebanese people move their country forward.

Edward M. Gabriel is former U.S. ambassador to Morocco and current president of the American Task Force on Lebanon. Follow on Twitter @ATFLebanon.

Paul Salem is president of the Middle East Institute. Follow on Twitter @paul_salem and @MiddleEastInst.

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Six things Biden must consider on Lebanon | TheHill - The Hill

Frantz Fanon once quipped: Africa is shaped like a revolver, and Congo is the trigger.

More than 60 years later, I think the French philosophers assessment is only half true. It leaves out Somalia which once held the crown as the Switzerland of Africa, but is now again on the verge of political disintegration.

To use a trigger, one must first ready the gun. Perhaps that was where Fanon should have added Somalia to his observation.

One of the reasons for Somalias pivotal role is its location. On one of the worlds busiest shipping routes, the locus of the Horn of Africa, Somalia lies on the Gulf of Aden, which, through the Bab-el-Mandeb and then the Red Sea, connects Europe and North America to east Africa, Asia and the Middle East. To avoid the Gulf of Aden would mean taking all imports and exports to and from the Middle East including energy supplies around the entire African continent to reach European and US markets.

The battle to pick up the greasy reins of a much beaten-down Somalia has resumed in winner-takes-all fashion. After the countrys 2021 presidential and parliamentary election was once again postponed, the obvious and important question is whose fingers will be in charge of the safety catch this time?

Will it still be those of western-backed President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed? Some influential clan leaders, including leaders of several federal states, do not want to see him re-elected.

Or will it be those of pirates off Somalias coast, hijacking ships in the Gulf of Aden; a serious threat to international shipping which gives an idea of the threat to international peace that another bout of state collapse in Somalia represents.

Or, worse, could the al-Qaida franchise al-Shabaab capitalise on the ongoing electoral impasse to overrun the capital Mogadishu?

If the international community still cares at all about Somalia, which already lags behind much of Africa in economic, health and development indicators, it should scale up state-building quickly. Playing midwife to free and fair elections as a gradual path to enhancing accountability after 30 years of military rule, civil war and a lack of functioning government is paramount.

In 2017, the international community hammered out a unique clan-based electoral system for a country that the UN labelled the worlds most corrupt nation. It gave clan elders the power to handpick a 14,000-strong electorate, who in turn voted for 275 members of the lower house and 54 senators.

That election, which saw President Mohamed come to power, was described by the Mogadishu-based anti-corruption group, Marqaati, as the most expensive vote-buying campaign in human history. The election not only created conflict between Mohamed and clan leaders, who felt cheated, but also hampered the ability of Somalias population of 16 million to hold their president accountable.

Will the next election be a new vote-buying exercise, denying Somalis another opportunity to improve governance and confront their countrys myriad challenges, including the insecurity that has seen so many Somalis leave as refugees and had such a knock-on effect on the rest of the region?

History has shown, time and again, that an undemocratic Somalia is a danger to itself and to international commerce. It is worth remembering what happened in 1991, when Somalia collapsed and Somaliland declared independence. No one predicted the obliteration of Somalias socio-economic tissue, leading to a million people, including 300,000 children, starving to death.

Now, 30 years on, the devastating drought, arid rainy seasons, and other disasters and diseases caused by the climate emergency, have made Somalia even more fragile than it was then. According to UN statistics, more than 2 million Somalis are still displaced, and about 2.2 million Somalis are now at risk of starvation.

To this, add the havoc that coronavirus is wreaking on Somalis and the growing al-Shabaab violence, gathering pace all the time, as disaffected and hungry young men join its ranks. If Somalia is left to descend into a constitutional crisis leaving the security threats unchecked as a result what chance have Somalias people of bringing back their nation from the brink?

The international community has a vested interest in what happens here in that shipping lane as well as in that ticking militant timebomb. All is not lost.

Somalia has made great progress in recent years. The diaspora and younger people are becoming active in rebuilding their country, and there have been two transitions of power which have passed off in relative peace.

Events on the ground provide the new US administration of President Biden, working with regional powers, a fresh opportunity to side with Somali people fighting for free and fair elections.

But will the US and other world leaders seize the moment and side with Somalis instead of their corrupt leaders? The battle-weary people of Somalia dont need any more triggers.

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The world has a vested interest in Somalia. Will it act to stop its collapse? - The Guardian

On March 23, the Suez Canal, one of the worlds busiest transport arteries, became blocked in both directions when the ultra-large Golden-class container ship Ever Given (operated by the firm Evergreen), en route from Malaysia to the Netherlands, ran aground cross-ways. For nearly a week, the massive vessels remained lodged along both embankments of the man-made waterway. According to various estimates, every day of blockage was costing the global economy approximately $9.6 billion (Lenta, March 25). Between 2015 and 2020, approximately 90,000 ships, carrying a total of 5.5 billion tons of cargo (approximately 12 percent of world trade), traversed the artery. Moreover, the Suez Canal serves as the main transportation route for hydrocarbons being shipped from the Middle East to the European Union and the United States (Finam.ru, March 25). The commodity data tracking company Kpler has noted that the obstruction by the Ever Given resulted in seven tankers (carrying 6.3 million barrel of oil) being stuck in the Canal, temporarily raising global oil prices andmore importantlybreeding uncertainty among investors (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, March 26). By the following Monday (March 29), the Egyptian authorities finally succeeded in freeing the container ship and moving it out of the way.

The dramatic episode triggered a wave of exhilaration inside Russia, amplifying voices and institutions that have long wanted to more aggressively promote the Northern Sea Route (NSR)an east-west maritime passage along the countrys Arctic coast, connecting the Asia-Pacific and Europe. First to react was the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, which launched a Twitter campaign mocking the Suez and praising the NSR as its alternative (Katehon.com, March 26). Simultaneously, Russias representative to the Arctic Council (Moscow will hold the chair of this international organization in 20212023), Nikolai Korchunov, contended that the incident at the Suez Canal reinforces the need to develop the NSR as a viable alternative so as to minimize global trade and transportation risks (News.ru, March 26).

And even though transportation via the Suez has been largely restored (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, March 29), the internal debate among Russian experts regarding the subsequent economic outlook for the NSR is unlikely to cease. Based on a survey of recent Russian-language sources discussing the incident, two main camps can be ascertained.

The first group (the mainstream) contends that the temporary shutdown of the Suez route opens up a window of opportunity for the NSR. As stated by the head of the Public Movement for the Support of Navy, Mikhail Nenashev, [T]his is a signal for all major naval powers [] if alternative routes, like the NSR, are not developed, some huge economic losses are likely to occur in the future (Riafan, March 24). The director of research on developing markets at the Skolkovo School of Management, Alexei Kalinin, emphasized that, as an alternative to Suez, the NSR could provide not only a geography-related comparative advantage but also superior ecological sustainability (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, March 25). Finally, the director of the Institute of Socio-Economic Research at the Financial University Under the Government of the Russian Federation, Alexei Zubets, has argued that although the Suez Canal has heretofore been the worlds most reliably transportation artery, its reputation has now been shaken, giving opportunities not only to the NSR but also Russias transcontinental railways (Regnum, March 26).

The second group of experts, on the other hand, expresses doubts that Russia will be able to seriously capitalize on the recent Suez logjam. For instance, economist Dmitry Adaminov proclaimed that last weeks impassethough troublesomewould not have a fundamental impact on global transportation networks and/or the attitudes of international suppliers. Indeed, any increase to the overall role of the NSR as a major transportation artery remains hampered by fundamental questions and uncertainties related to the seasonal state of the northern polar icecap and the Arctic transit capabilities of shippers. The most serious question, however, lies in the realm of infrastructure in the Russian High North, which isat least for nownot ready to meet such ambitions plans as profoundly challenging the Suez Canal. Thus, while the NSR is an important transportation artery, it is mainly vital to Russia as a means to develop its Arctic region (Rueconomics.ru, March 25). Russian media outlets have also argued that were global oil and natural gas supply chains to be seriously disrupted for an extended period, perhaps that would significantly increase Russias hopes of raising the NSRs profile and attracting foreign transportation companies. For now, however, hydrocarbon delivery disruptions via the Suez have only ever been temporary; thus, the prospect of a tectonic shift in maritime shipping remains a vague and theoretical notion (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, March 26). Illustratively, the head of the transport-logistics holding company Sovfrakht, Dmitry Purim, asserted that for the NSR to become a real alternative to the Suez Canal, the entire Arctic icecap has to melt completely; until then, all such talk is groundless (RBC, March 24).

In the final analysis, four main takeaways are worth noting. First, compared to the Suez Canal, the Northern Sea Route does admittedly have several comparative advantages (not least that it is significantly less prone to becoming blocked), and global climate change gradually boosts its competitiveness. The Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring of Russia (Rosgidromet) has reported that the year 2020 broke yet another record in terms of temperatures, and the Arctic icecap has decreased by five to seven times in comparison with the 1980s (RBC, July 4, 2020). Specifically, the area of ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean reportedly shrank to a record low of 26,000 square kilometers last year (Fishnews.ru, March 26, 2021). Russia, as the only country in the world at the moment with a relatively large fleet of icebreakers, can certainly try to capitalize on this climactic trend. Second, as noted by a great number of experts, the NSR willassuming the first condition is fulfilledbecome more economically attractive if the necessary funding for the development of local infrastructure is obtained (tens of billions of dollars, based on the most conservative calculations). Realistically, only China could help Russia with these means, yet it is doubtful that Beijing will allot the necessary funding (Ridl.io, May 8, 2020). Third, the melting of the permafrost in the High North could result in ecological tragediessimilar to the Norilsk disaster (see EDM, June 29, 2020 and July 7, 2020)that would have damaging economic and reputational implications for Russia. Finally, if the EU and US expand their economic sanctions against Russia and/or the Bering Strait becomes a dangerous bottleneck, the commercial attractiveness of the NSR will markedly collapse.

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The 'Suez Jam': A Window of Opportunity for Russia's Northern Sea Route? - Jamestown - The Jamestown Foundation

CSUN history professor Natale Zappia and a team of researchers find clues for coping with climate change in the past. Their findings appear in the most recent edition of the journal Nature. The above is a woodcut print, The Weather Peasant, by Sebald Beham from 1542 that states it is cold weather but it does not harm.

Clues for surviving the dramatic fallout from climate change can be found in the actions of people who lived centuries ago and managed to adapt, even thrive, despite significant climate shifts caused by two different ice ages.

This conclusion by an international team of researchers from such disciplines as archaeology, geography, history and paleoclimatology including California State University, Northridge historian Natale Zappia challenges the notion that dramatic climate changes inevitably plunged societies into crisis and even collapse. Their findings, Towards a Rigorous Understanding of Societal Responses to Climate Change, appear in the journal Nature.

We use the theme resiliency a lot in the article, said Zappia, an associate professor in CSUNs Department of History and director of the universitys Institute for Sustainability. So much of the research on climate change focuses on the hard science impact of the warming planet, and its dramatic impact on societies in broad terms. We looked at it from a different angle. We looked at the full scope of how people responded and adapted to what was happening around them because of a changing climate, in this case during two different ice ages.

Yes, we are in the middle of a crisis when it comes to climate change, he continued. We are headed toward a precipice. If we are going to survive, we are going to have to learn how to be more flexible as a culture. Looking at history, what societies have done in the past, can give us a roadmap for how we can move forward, adapt and maybe thrive.

Zappia said the researchers came together to find a better way of studying what they called the history of climate and society (HCS), a term they coined for the transdisciplinary study of past impacts of climate change on humanity. Traditionally, what they called HCS involved researchers in a variety of disciplines that study climate change including archaeology, genetics, geography, history, linguistics and paleoclimatology work within their own fields and rarely in interdisciplinary teams.

Zappia and his colleagues wanted to develop a method by which HCS scholars could work together to find more sophisticated connections between climate and society. They used that method to develop case studies of societies that adapted to two of the most-studied periods of natural climate change: Late Antique Little Ice Age of 6th and 7th century and the Little Ice Age of the 13th to 19th centuries.

Working together, the researchers found that diverse societies and communities were resilient in the face of climate change, meaning that they responded in ways that maintained their essential structure, function and identity.

Some even adapted to exploit new opportunities created by shifting environmental circumstances, Zappia said. We uncovered several common characteristics of societies that coped well with climate change, including strong trade networks, the ability to be mobile and the capacity to learn from past mistakes.

Zappia said the researchers who focus on the history of climate and society often used to predict disastrous consequences of future climate change. the doom and gloom facing humanity.

Our research showed that pre-modern societies could effectively respond to the climate created by the two ice ages, suggesting that, with sufficient political will, effective adaptation will be possible for us, too, Zappia said. It also provides a roadmap for HCS scholars to develop more rigorous and, ultimately, more convincing studies of the impact of climate change on past societies studies that could help us better anticipate the challenges of our hotter future.

In addition to Zappia, the research team included Dagomar Degroot, Department of History at Georgetown University; Kevin Anchukaitis, School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona; Martin Bauch, Centre for the History and Culture of East Central Europe at the University of Leipzig, Germany; Jakob Burnham, Department of History, Georgetown University; Fred Carnegy, School of European Languages, Cultures and Society at University College London; Jianxin Cui, Northwest Institute of Historical Environment and Socio-Economic Development at Shaanxi Normal University, China; Kathryn de Luna, Department of History, Georgetown University; Piotr Guzowski, Institute of History and Political Science at University of Bialystok, Poland; George Hambrecht, Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland; Heli Huhtamaa, Institute of History and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern, Switzerland; Adam Izdebski, Paleo-Science and History Independent Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Germany; Katrin Kleemann, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich and Department of History, University of Freiburg, Germany; Emma Moesswilde, Department of History, Georgetown University; Naresh Neupane, Department of History, Georgetown University; Timothy Newfield, Department of History, Georgetown University; Qing Pei, Department of Social Sciences, The Education University of Hong Kong; and Elena Xoplaki, Department of Geography and Center for International Development and Environmental Research, Justus-Liebig-Universitt Gieen, Germany.

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Department of History, Featured, History, Little Ice Age, Natale Zappia

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Researchers Find Clues for Coping with Climate Change in the Past - CSUN Today

SOUTH AFRICA-GLOBAL

The protests were sparked by a combination of factors related to student fees and debt. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) could not guarantee payment for all the first-year students who qualified to register, and some universities refused to register students with outstanding debt.

The University of the Witwatersrand declared that its outstanding student debt had reached ZAR1 billion (about US$68 million).

Responding to the turmoil at a number of campuses, and to a call by various student organisations to lock down all universities, a South African Sunday Times editorial on 14 March stated that yet again, the government gets a failing grade for its handling of student aid.

The editorial argues that, after raising the expectations of students by the #FeesMustFall protests in 2016 and the subsequent announcement in December 2017 by then president Jacob Zuma of free higher education for poor students, government should have sensed that the start of the academic year would be a critical moment, and should have prepared accordingly with care and sensitivity.

One would have expected the same level of preparedness by the universities, and that government and the universities would have been communicating about the spectre of student fees.

A failure of connectivity and policy

Another Sunday paper, City Press, followed a similar line on 14 March, stating lets end this annual ritual. It refers to the recommendations of the Heher Commission in 2017 that recommended a form of fee-free education while studying, but an income-contingent loan to be repaid after graduation at a low interest rate.

City Press elaborates that, on the morning of the ANCs elective conference during 16-20 December 2017, Zuma announced that the government would fully subsidise fee-free higher education for poor and working-class students.

The newspaper claims that Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology Dr Blade Nzimande and the South African Treasury were blindsided by this announcement.

City Press claims that this promise was made in order to garner support for Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in her contest with Cyril Ramaphosa for the presidency of South Africa at the 2017 ANC elective conference.

From evidence given at the Zondo Commission, which is a public judicial investigation into government corruption and fraud in South Africa, it is quite clear that Zuma, like many other presidents in Africa, offered students free higher education in order to gain support (or popularity) when he also knew that his cronies had been stealing the money that could have supported student financial aid.

Both newspapers imply that the latest crisis could have been anticipated by having a closer relationship with the students, and by having better information. In other words, the current protests could be seen as both a failure of connectivity and policy.

A brief history

In 1995, the late former president Nelson Mandela appointed the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) to develop a policy framework to transform higher education in the new South Africa.

The three central features to be addressed were increased and more equitable participation, greater responsivity to social and economic issues, and greater cooperation and partnerships in governance structures and operations.

The NCHE stated in its final report that student financial aid schemes would be a critical component to developing policies for a new higher education funding system.

The NCHE understood from the first day that higher education could not be transformed without a dramatic increase in participation by black students, and that this would require student financial aid.

The report identified the risk that, without financial support, progress achieved through public funding reforms could be negated by inadequate and ad hoc student financial aid policies that are at cross purposes with institutional and tuition fee policies.

It could be said that this is, to large degree, exactly what has happened.

The report also stated that student financial aid policies are important instruments in enabling key principles such as equity and developing human resources for development.

The NCHE proposed a mixed bursary and loan scheme, and emphasised that diversified ways should be explored to assist students to repay loans.

It also recommended that the scheme should be extended to part-time and private institutions.

Two central issues that the NCHE did not resolve are worth mentioning. The first was that, during 1995, Peter Scott, who interacted with the NCHE, published his influential book The Meanings of Mass Higher Education.

In it, he argued that, from evidence around the world, a central feature of socio-economic development was a differentiated and massified higher education system.

On the one hand, a much larger proportion of the population must obtain post-school education in order to respond to new higher level skill needs. Equally important is a differentiated system with higher education institutions that specialise in high-level professions and new knowledge production.

The notion of differentiation was strenuously opposed within the NCHE, particularly by the retired rectors of historically black universities who wanted redress, with the aim of South Africa having about 20 or so University of Cape Town-type universities.

There was strong support for massification within the NCHE, but the South African National Treasury was adamant that there were insufficient funds to support massification.

It could be argued that not accepting these two principles are at the heart of South Africas enduring student aid crises and contributes significantly to the stagnant economy.

Another proposition discussed within the NCHE, but not accepted by Treasury, was income contingent loans (ICL).

An international expert on student financing informed us that the Australian system is probably the best and most sustainable model: an ICL system which is fee-free while a student studies with loan repayment starting after graduation.

Special features included low repayments during the first 10 years with gradual increases thereafter. In some cases, repayment stretches out to near-retirement.

Since loan repayment is part of the tax system in Australia, students do not have to repay if they are unemployed or earn less than the taxable income threshold. However, if the student leaves the country, they have to repay the loan in full.

Another important feature of the Australian system is that it is handled by the countrys Treasury, which precludes the need for an additional NSFAS-type bureaucracy.

But, when consulting the South African Treasury in 1995, the response was that, with so many white employees leaving, or taking early retirement, they did not, and would not, have the capacity to deal with the additional administrative burden.

An Australian higher education expert claims that, 25 years later, their ICL system is making a significant contribution to increasing participation, and contributes to affordability and sustainability.

The student contribution to the overall funding of the universities is about 20%. (The current COVID-induced crisis in Australian higher education where many of the staff have been subject to salary cuts or even retrenchments is due to a shortfall in government funding and an overreliance on inflated fees for students from a number of Asian countries.)

The rise and the demise of NSFAS

NSFAS replaced, in 1999, the Tertiary Education Fund of South Africa when NSFAS was converted into a statutory body.

NSFAS transferred funds to the universities that then allocated money to deserving students. The main function of NSFAS was to decide on the allocation to each university and to collect the student loan repayments.

During its first phase in the early 2000s, NSFAS became a much-admired student grant and loan scheme, and was studied by a number of countries. Nicholas Barr from the United Kingdom pointed out that there have been few successful student financial aid schemes in developing countries.

However, by 2008, as the scheme grew, administrative problems began to emerge at NSFAS head office and at a few historically black universities.

Instead of providing these universities with administrative support, NSFAS was nationalised into a kind of state-owned enterprise, with an ever-increasing staff complement and rising student debt.

Following the establishment of the Department of Higher Education and Training, or DHET, in 2009, the Minister of Higher Education and Training at the time, Blade Nzimande, pressurised NSFAS board members to resign, although they were in the middle of a NSFAS review and the implementation of a turnaround strategy.

A new CEO, appointed through the cadre deployment process, was followed by the departure of some skilled staff. A former NSFAS employee described this process as the de-professionalisation of NSFAS.

The graph below should have been a signal that trouble was coming. It shows that, from 2009, there was a collapse in debt collection, and that, by 2014, uncollected debt had reached ZAR3.7 billion.

There was another signal that compounded the problem and should have set off even louder alarm bells, as illustrated in the graph below.

Governments contribution to university income increased from ZAR15.93 billion in 2000 to ZAR21.21 billion in 2013; as a percentage, it decreased from 49% to 40%.

Third-stream income almost doubled (from ZAR8.78 billion to ZAR14.26 billion), but remained at the same proportion (27%) of university income.

Student fees compensated for the decrease in government funding: in 2000, fees made up 24%, but by 2013, 33% of university income came from student fees. Over the same period, the proportion of students on NSFAS increased from 2% to 13%.

During the period 2000 to 2013, the average annual inflation rate for the country was roughly 6%, but, for the university sector, it was at around 11%.

A vice-chancellor at the time said that, with such a shortfall in the governments spending on higher education, the only way they could balance the books was by increasing fees.

What is often not discussed, are the levels of inefficiency and wasteful expenditure at South African universities.

At the same time, the government drastically increased funding available to NSFAS from ZAR1.4 billion in 2010-11 to ZAR3.9 billion in 2014.

The combination of the de-professionalising of NSFAS as an organisation, reducing its debt-collecting powers and flooding it with new money overwhelmed the organisation.

These problems escalated with the significant increase in government funding to ZAR24 billion in 2019-20, and an astronomical increase from ZAR4.3 billion in 2016-17 to ZAR24 billion in 2019-20 (see the Medium-term Expenditure Framework or MTEF allocation below).

As early as 2018, pressure started mounting for then minister of higher education Naledi Pandor to fire the chief executive of NSFAS and disband its board following the ongoing challenges in disbursing money for students who were promised free education.

During 2020, parliamentary oversight committees heard that the 2018-19 and 2019-20 financial years had been the worst in NSFASs administration: Year after year, from that period, the situation worsened. This is the period in which the entity was under an administrator who was supposed to turn it around, but worsened it.

This escalated as parliament decided in November 2020 to hold an inquiry into NSFAS corruption allegations, which included aspersions that the student scheme administrator hired friends and acquaintances without following due process.

On 10 March 2021, as student protests started on South African campuses, the Select Committee on Education and Technology, Sports and Arts and Culture heard that irregular and wasteful expenditure continues to emerge as NSFAS accounts are reconciled.

The chronic state of maladministration within the financial aid scheme resulted in irregular expenditure that amounted to ZAR7.5 billion in 2017 and 2018.

The auditor general also highlighted the problem of the failure of NSFAS to consult the minister in revising the criteria and conditions for loans and bursaries in 2018-19 and in 2019-20, and that resulted in NSFAS carrying irregular expenditure of ZAR50 billion.

In a recent television interview, the former statistician-general, Dr Pali Lehohla, said that NSFAS is unnecessary; as is the case with a number of other state-owned enterprises, and there are better and more efficient ways of dealing with student financial aid.

Elites are tight-fisted

Sociologist Manuel Castells states that one of the four important functions of the university is to select a meritocratic elite.

Elaborating on a version of elite selection in Africa, renowned scholar Mahmood Mamdani, in his book Scholars in the Market Place: The dilemmas of neo-liberal reform at Makerere University (2008), states that: The purpose was to train a tiny elite on full scholarships which included tuition, board, health insurance, transport and even a boon to cover personal needs ... from the perspective of the student this was an extraordinary opportunity; from the view of society, an extraordinary privilege.

The generosity to the elite expanded as pressure mounted to take in more students. This had two consequences. When Makerere University could not afford to pay its staff, it introduced a two-tier system: free public higher education during the day and private fee-paying students in the evening.

By 2008, Mamdani described this commercialisation of Makerere as a devaluation of higher education into a form of low-level training with no research.

It is only in very rich countries such as Norway that the system can massify and be free.

Norway is not simply rich, it is one of the most equal societies, it has almost full employment, and one of the highest tax recoveries in the world with oil and salmon as a backup.

In South Africa, a university education is close to the apex of elite formation. See below the progression from starting school to graduating.

Globally, and in Africa, there are considerable benefits to obtaining a university degree. Graduate employment is at more than 90%, and in some fields close to 100%.

According to a World Bank report, in Sub-Saharan Africa, private returns to higher education are higher than returns to primary and secondary education.

The region with the highest private returns to higher education is also Sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa, a country with the highest level of inequality in the world, also has the highest private returns to higher education in the world.

In response to this data, former statistician-general Pali Lehohla said in 2016 that there is no such thing as free higher education and that the term should be banned.

He added that, considering the high private returns and the fact that South Africa has such high graduate employment, the fees policy question is: Do students pay while at university or while they are working?

Of course, throughout history, the elite resist paying back, even when it is obviously harming the lower classes, and ultimately their own privileges.

In many African and other countries, this takes place even if it collapses the education system. It is at that point that the elite of the elite send their children overseas.

What to do?

What did China do? The Chinese government responded to the Tiananmen Square youth protests with a new higher education law in 1995, which declared higher education a pillar of socio-economic development.

Three main strategies were:

Massification (participation increased from about 15% to more than 50%) but with strong differentiation (China selected and funded 100 world-class universities);

A dramatic increase in government spending on higher education, from under 1% to 3.5% of GDP;

Introduction of tuition fees with a loan scheme (Rural Credit Cooperatives supported by the China Development Bank with 10- to 15-year repayment periods).

The Chinese put massive funding into Project 211 and then Project 985 to develop 112 top-class universities at international level.

They called it From National Elite to World-Class. In 2020-21 China had 15 universities in the top 100 world rankings. No other developing country, including South Africa, has one.

In 2018 China enrolled 95,502 new PhD students. Massifying with strong postgraduate programmes is key to development.

China achieved the fastest expansion of undergraduate and postgraduate students in the history of higher education.

When China was a tuition-free elite selection system, it was a third-class system with a few elite universities, but none were rated as world class.

What the Chinese model shows is that higher education is not just a free path out of poverty into the elite, it must be one of the pillars of socio-economic development with a pact between different role players.

One of our problems is that, currently, South Africas ruling party does not even have a pact with itself.

The Heher Commission proposed an income-contingent loan system, which takes students circumstances into account and ensures a more sustainable system with government contributing close to 3% of GDP while student repayments contribute 20% of the higher education budget.

The commissions proposal would result in fee-free education for some students who do not, in the course of their careers, reach an income threshold appropriate for a repayment obligation.

Application and registration fees would be scrapped across the board, and students with debt, who have graduated, would be offered income-contingent loans as well.

It was also recommended that tuition fees (and residence fees, if applicable) should be paid directly to the institution at the start of the academic year, and that the participation of NSFAS in the funding of university students be replaced with income-contingent loans administered by South Africas Treasury.

NSFAS could be retained, in a much scaled-down version, to assist with the provision of the funding for technical and vocational education and training students, if such retention is considered necessary. This proposal is very close to the tried and tested Australian model.

The rest is here:

Free higher education: Crises that could have been foreseen - University World News

This year for the first time in almost two decades, the Begumpura Express, a special train from Jalandhar to Varanasi, was cancelled due to the pandemic. This train has played a big role in Punjabs connection with Varanasi. Professor Santosh K Singh, a sociologist who has researched the caste dynamics of Punjab, and keenly followed the Ravidassia identity articulation through Jalandhar-based Dera Sachkhand Ballan over a decade talks to The indian Express about Punjab and its connection with Varanasi.

Guru Ravidass had propounded and advocated the concept of Begumpura or a city without sorrow (gam), where there will be no taxes and where there would be no discrimination and all would be located horizontally in the socio-economic landscape. Many of the legends and hagiographical accounts related to Guru Ravidas attest to his equalitarian philosophy, his non-combative sahajbhao or persuasive mode of preaching.

Train no. 12238, formerly Jammu-Tawi- Varanasi Express via Jalandhar, is now known as Begumpura Express.

On the occasion of Ravidass Jayanti every year, special reserved trains of Begumpura Express, carrying thousands of pilgrims begin their journey from Jalandhar Station to Varanasi, to commemorate the birth of Guru Ravidass.

The train engines front carries a full-size flex poster of Guru Ravidass and the compartments are all decked up with balloons and posters of the gurus of Dera Ballan. It has now become a tradition since early 2000.

The DJ system in the background, playing the songs of Dalit singers such as Ginni Mahi, Roop Lal Dhir and others, young Ravidassia frenetically dance outside the railway station as the decorated train starts for Varanasi.

The 15th century Bhakti poet Guru Ravidass was born in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, in a family belonging to a community that worked with leather and considered lowly and polluting in the caste-ridden social hierarchy. But through his sheer intellectual brilliance and by preaching the philosophy of inclusive coexistence, based on a casteless and classless society, he received widespread appreciation and reverence from people across all strata. Many from the then princely states, including Mirabai, became his disciples.

For over more than a decade the Dera of Ballan in Jalandhar has been singularly and actively in the forefront of developing the birth place of Guru Ravidass in Varanasi in Seer Goverdhanpur, close to the Banaras Hindu University campus, with generous financial support from its followers, a major chunk coming from the diaspora. Guru Ravidas Janamsthan in Varanasi in that sense over the years has emerged as a major pilgrimage centre for the Ravidassias of the region.

Guru Ravidass and his teachings are just as relevant even today. Guru Ravidass had a unique way of critiquing the discriminatory caste system and ritualism prevalent in the society. Guru Ravidas, preached without any irreverence to those who did not follow him.He continued to practice his traditional caste-profession throughout his life, despite accolades and the status of an enlightened soul, essentially to communicate a message that the work or labour is what takes the human beings closer to the almighty or Hari and there is no hierarchy of professions. When the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikhs, was being compiled, 40 shabads of Guru Ravidass were included in it, signifying the prevailing ethos of syncretism and religious co-existence.

Yes. One has to travel and be part of it to actually experience it. In UP, the local Ravidassia groups will assemble with bands and much fanfare to greet the Dera Mahant and the pilgrims. On these occasions, stations get filled with the thunderous chants of Jo Bole So Nirbhaya, Sat Guru Ravidas Maharaj Ki Jai, the salutation of the Ravidassia, meaning Be fearless, the disciple of Guru Ravidas. The salutation announces the communitys public presence and demonstrates its growing strength and aspirations.

Indelibility of caste as an institution is well documented. Punjab society too experienced this phenomenon where caste markers continued to stigmatise some as the lowly and polluting despite a vibrant and egalitarian culture of social existence propagated by Sikhism. The mushrooming of Dalit-Deras of all denominations and the phenomenon of separate Dalit gurdwaras and cremation grounds in the villages of Punjab represent that collapse of that collective dream of Begumpura, as Ravidas envisioned.

Ravidassias of Punjab, especially those associated with the Dera Ballan, have been the most vocal about this changed scenario. Dera Ballan belongs to the prosperous Doaba region, often referred to as the NRI region of Punjab. The community has historically been affluent and influential owing to its traditional monopoly of leather business since colonial times. Backed by the head start in the economic sphere, the Ravidassias over the century have spread across continents with sizeable numbers in countries like Italy, Austria, Canada, UK and the USA.

Locally placed Ravidassias, almost entirely non-landed in Punjab, like the other Dalits, too benefitted from access to non-farm occupations, mostly in urban areas, as the local agrarian relations became less favourable with the entry of migrants from other poor pockets of the country.

Continued here:

Guru Ravidass, his teachings are relevant even today: Prof Santosh K Singh - The Indian Express

The day after President Biden was inaugurated, Baghdad was hit by two suicide bombers who, in macabre fashion, killed at least 32 people and wounded at least 100. The attack was a stark reminder that the Iraq theater is still a critical one for combatting ISIS and preventing it from mounting a resurgence. With this in mind, U.S.-Iraq ties are worth salvaging after their deterioration over the past four years. ISIS is strongly positioned to carry out more routine mass-casualty attacks. While the January bombing was its first major terrorist attack in Baghdad in over three years, ISIS carries out near-daily attacks in the rest of the country and could develop a momentum similar to that which preceded its declaration of a caliphate in 2014.

There are two underlying challenges that makes ISIS capable of carnage and launching a resurgence: Iraqs desperate need for an economic revival and the threat from Shiite militia groups. Addressing both requires that Washington adopt a set of guiding principles for its engagement with Iraq an approach premised on the fact that Iraqs economic crisis and the threat from Iran-aligned Shiite militia groups are two sides of the same coin.

Iraqs economic crisis will produce untold poverty levels if it is not addressed. The COVID-19 pandemic, together with the decline in oil prices, has added to the urgency of stabilizing the precarious security environment and reviving the economy. According to the World Bank, 12 million Iraqis could soon become vulnerable to poverty. Iraq has a budget shortfall of around $4.5 billion monthly and debt in excess of $80 billion. At least 700,000 Iraqis enter the job market every year but struggle to find jobs.

In this environment of destitution and lawlessness, the influence of Iran-aligned militias will increase; their reach and strength within Iraqi society is underscored by a complex web of inter-personal and inter-organizational links that make their elimination difficult, if not impossible. Central to their predominance is their capacity to exploit socio-economic conditions to swell their ranks with the impoverished and reinforce their patronage networks. When combined with their ongoing and systemic violence against political rivals and the civilian population, this allows them to impose a stranglehold over Iraqs institutions.

On the surface, the Baghdad government has effectively outsourced security to some of these groups in the territories that were previously occupied by ISIS, but in reality the government is too weak to confront them and impose its authority in strategically important territories. The militias are disdained by the local population as a result of their human rights abuses and ongoing sectarian crimes. This allows ISIS to exploit the resulting grievances and cracks in the security environment, and potentially mount a resurgence.

These militia groups also lack the professionalism and discipline to contain ISIS their primary focus is not to secure ISIS defeat, but to secure broader political and territorial objectives, in direct coordination with Iran. Mondays rocket attack on Erbil by Iran-aligned groups shows that they will continue undermining the coalitions efforts to secure the enduring defeat of ISIS. In addition to consolidating their control over illicit economies, the militia groups are augmenting their bastions in Iraqs north. From places like Sinjar, the militias and Iran can pursue cross-border objectives in Syria.

Under President Trump, U.S.-Iraq relations were volatile. While the Biden team in charge of the Iraq portfolio should not emulate the Trump administrations stance regarding Iran and its proxies, it should not assume either that long-term security-sector reform efforts will actually rein in these actors. Biden should focus on empowering Iraqi actors who can hold Iran-aligned groups to account, and who can constrain their ability to shape Iraqs political, economic, and security environment. In the process, Washington can enable economic reforms that will reduce those groups stranglehold over the state.

While there was some hope that security sector reform would result in the integration of Iran-aligned militias into the armed forces, as well as their demobilization and disarmament, this has proven to be a costly miscalculation for which the average Iraqi is paying the price. Through their control of the Popular Mobilization Force (the 100,000-strong umbrella militia organization led and dominated by Irans proxies, which was integrated into the state in 2016), the interior ministry, and an array of other militias, Iran-aligned groups exert undue influence over the Iraqi state. They coerce or kill champions of reform and good governance such as Hisham al-Hashimi and Riham Yaqoob.

These groups have also assassinated government officials and are responsible for killing at least 700 protesters and wounding thousands. Yes, Iraq has an array of armed groups as a consequence of its recent history and its pre-war legacies but it is this particular group of militias that negotiates with its rivals through systemic violence, including assassinations, rocket attacks, and improvised explosive device attacks on coalition personnel. And it is this group of militias that, at Irans bidding, attacks prospective and much-needed investors from the Gulf to prevent Iraq from developing its relations with the Arab world and saving its economy in the process.

The Biden administration has an opportunity to establish new guiding principles for its relations with Iraq. It should focus on possible near- and medium-term wins.

Washington should view two issues as interconnected: its economic support for Iraq and the threat that the Baghdad government faces from Iran-backed militia groups. The resources and energy it spends on Iraqs institutions must no longer indirectly empower the actors that use violence to shape the direction of the political environment. That also means U.S. military support which is designed to strengthen the Baghdad government so that it can undertake the economic regeneration of the country free from the threat of violence must not become an enabler of militia violence. For example, U.S. Abrams tanks and other equipment supplied to Baghdad in the past are now in the hands of Irans deadliest and most powerful partners. Iraqs protesters, civil society, and wider population pay the price.

Washingtons counterterrorism strategy, in coordination with Baghdad, should seek to address Iran-backed militia atrocities in addition to the threat of ISIS. The former ultimately enables the latter. As part of this, Washington should pressure Baghdad to stop expanding the purse that allows militia groups to grow. Iraqs federal budget proposal for 2021 has been criticized. As my Brookings colleague Marsin Alshamarys analysis shows, it proposes to increase the budget allocation for the Ministry of Defense by 9.9%, the Ministry of Interior by 9.7%, the Counter Terrorism Force by 10.1%, and the Popular Mobilization Forces by a staggering 45.7% from the previous budget of 2019.

Irans allies and enablers in Baghdad have sowed confusion and distorted their own complicity in human rights atrocities by adding more militia groups to their growing network of partners. They blame these so-called rogue groups for human rights violations, rocket attacks, attacks on protesters, and assassinations. The Biden administration should not fall for this sophisticated effort to create a degree of plausible deniability that allows them to escape culpability.

Washington should also help the Iraqi security forces insulate reformists from the threat of intimidation and assassination, to include politicians and activists. As a start, the U.S. should work with Iraqi civil society to improve its capacity to expose the nexus between Irans proxies and their front groups, a key part of the accountability process. This could empower (and pressure) Kadhimi to take more action on Irans proxy network in Iraq, and pressure the judiciary to act.

The reason its so important to promote broad reform in Iraq is because, as I wrote last year, economic revival will diminish the resources and manpower that Iran-aligned groups depend on. Iraq must work to erode the patronage networks that allow them to exploit the impoverished, and improve accountability and transparency to constrain their ability to carry out atrocities with impunity. The U.S. should support the pillars of economic regeneration including the prime ministers office, the finance ministry, and the Trade Bank of Iraq, among others to enhance Iraqi efforts vis--vis strategic partnerships with the Gulf, financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and the establishment of a modern banking infrastructure in the country.

Iran-aligned militias are a major political force as much as they are a military one. Prime Minister Kadhimi should avoid making rivals out of political actors that also want to contain these groups. U.S. engagement with Iraq should consequently focus on mediation between actors that have strong ties to Washington. Efforts to ensure these groups are unified on critical policy issues like revenue-sharing agreements, budget allocations, and the disputed territories should be central to U.S. engagement with Iraq. Moreover, Washington should not be averse to the idea of making support to the Kadhimi government conditional on its ability to reconcile at least some of its differences with U.S. aligned groups. Otherwise, short-term support for Iraq risks becoming either sunk costs, or long-term gains for Iran-aligned groups.

Iraqs struggle with its Iran-aligned militia groups is very multifaceted, and no one policy solution out of Baghdad or Washington will be enough on its own. But given the way these groups exploit Iraqs dire economic situation, in particular, economic reform from within and support from without should be considered a key part of the overall response to these nefarious armed actors.

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To save Iraq from economic collapse and fight ISIS, contain Irans proxies - Brookings Institution