EU-Mercosur trade agreement: potential impacts on rural livelihoods and gender (with focus on bio-fuels feedstock expansion)

The trade-sustainable impact assessment of the European Union-Mercosur trade agreement found that the economic impact of the trade liberalisation scenario could be positive in the agricultural sectors of Mercosur countries. However, it also found that the social and environmental impacts would be mixed and potentially detrimental. This paper addresses the likely effects on the livelihoods of vulnerable rural populations. It argues that the potential impacts can be analysed within a diversified livelihood strategies framework, which is expanded to include institutional and policy factors. It concludes that the negative expected impact responds to the highly uneven access to capital assets. On the other hand, the effects are not generalised to all Mercosur countries, nor to all regions in each of the member countries. Enhancing or mitigating measures refer to the importance of sequencing and regulation to improve disadvantaged groups‘ abilities to participate in trade-led agricultural intensification or industrialisation processes

Restructuring and rescaling water governance in mining contexts: the co-production of waterscapes in Peru

The governance of water resources is prominent in both water policy agendas and academic scholarship. Political ecologists have made important advances in reconceptualising the relationship between water and society. Yet, while they have stressed both the scalar dimensions, and the politicised nature, of water governance, analyses of its scalar politics are relatively nascent. In this paper, we consider how the increased demand for water resources by the growing mining industry in Peru reconfigures and rescales water governance. In Peru, the mining industry’s thirst for water draws in, and reshapes, social relations, technologies, institutions and discourses that operate over varying spatial and temporal scales. We develop the concept of waterscape to examine these multiple ways in water is co-produced through mining, and become embedded in changing modes and structures of water governance, often beyond the watershed scale. We argue that an examination of waterscapes avoids the limitations of thinking about water in purely material terms, structuring analysis of water issues according to traditional spatial scales and institutional hierarchies, and taking these scales and structures for granted

A review of social protection in Latin America

This paper reviews social protection trends and policy responses in Latin America as part of a global scoping study on social protection commissioned by Ford Foundation (See Appendix One for ToR for this paper). The paper is organised as follows (following the paper contents as described in Appendix One): Section 1 identifies the main trends in poverty and vulnerability in the region, with particular references to rural-urban and life course poverty incidence. Section 2 provides a review of social protection trends. It discusses the two main areas of change and innovation in the last two decades: the reform of social insurance provision and the rapid expansion of social assistance schemes. Section 3 identifies some potential points of engagement between Ford Foundation work and the social protection policy agenda in the region

Dinámicas provinciales de bienestar en Bolivia

Este informe de investigación presenta los resultados de un ejercicio de microsimulación que busca conocer la orientación de los cambios en indicadores de bienestar (gasto per cápita, pobreza y desigualdad) en Bolivia y mapear tales cambios en el territorio nacional, a fin de identificar las desigualdades espaciales en la distribución del crecimiento y el desarrollo ocurrido en el período intercensal 1992 – 2001 a nivel de unidades geográficas pequeñas. La caracterización de dinámicas provinciales, en base a una tipología construida a partir de la combinación de indicadores de bienestar obtenidos mediante el método de Estimación en Áreas Pequeñas (SAE) en la aplicación propuesta por Elbers y otros (2003), permitió mostrar que durante el período analizado se han generado diversas dinámicas de desarrollo territorial rural en casi todo el territorio nacional que cuestionan las apreciaciones de que en Bolivia se habrían generado procesos territoriales dicótomos de un grupo de regiones „ganadoras‟ y otro de „perdedoras‟. Los resultados de este trabajo muestran también que entre los impactos de las políticas de ajuste implementadas desde 1985 y de las reformas estructurales de la década de 1990 – dentro de las cuales los procesos de descentralización y de participación popular resultarían fundamentales – se tiene que contar no solo el cambio en indicadores económicos y de desarrollo sino también una cierta re-configuración del territorio nacional en su conjunto y del espacio rural en particular. Son estos cambios los que – al menos en parte – ayudarían a explicar el desarrollo subsiguiente de movimientos sociales y políticos territorializados que se observaron desde inicios de 2000. Así, si bien se puede observar una mejora casi generalizada en términos de incremento de gasto, reducción de pobreza y reducción de desigualdad en casi todas las regiones del país, los procesos positivos más marcados en varias de las regiones llanas del „Oriente‟ (particularmente en los departamentos de Tarija y Santa Cruz y en los valles de Cochabamba y La Paz), se contrastan a aquellos de zonas menos dinámicas dentro de estos propios departamentos y otros como Chuquisaca, Beni y Pando; y, con mayor claridad, se distinguen de las áreas altiplánicas más rezagadas de los departamentos de Oruro y Potosí. Nuevamente, como hipótesis, tales desigualdades territoriales – presentes aun dentro de un contexto de avance más o menos generalizado – estarían influenciando la tensa búsqueda de nuevos paradigmas de desarrollo que ha caracterizado a Bolivia en la presente década. Revelar los factores que explican el porqué del desarrollo territorial diferenciado es, precisamente, el objetivo de la segunda fase de investigación a la cual el mapeo de dinámicas provinciales de bienestar da base

Elementos para el debate sobre gobernanza ambiental en los andes con especial mención al agua y minería en Perú

This paper analyses the construction of environmental governance in Peru. Framed in a systems approach and focused on water and conflicts associated to the expansion of extractive industries in the Andes, the paper suggests that this process is being defined by confrontation between the discourses (Peru, a minning country and the neoextractivism) on the relationships between society, economy and nature and the power relationships that underlies the social construction of environmental institutions.Este artículo presenta un análisis del proceso de construcción del sistema de gobernanza ambiental en el Perú. Usando un marco conceptual sistémico y centrado en el tema del agua y de los conflictos en torno al acceso y control de recursos hídricos asociados a la expansión de industrias extractivas en los Andes, el artículo sugiere que dicho proceso está siendo definido por la confrontación de los discursos ‘Perú país minero’ y ‘el neoextractivismo’ en torno a la relación entre sociedad, economía y naturaleza; y, por las relaciones de poder que se encuentran inmersas en la definición de instituciones ambientales

Contention and Ambiguity: Mining and the Possibilities of Development

The last decade and a half has witnessed a dramatic growth in mining activity in many developing countries. This article reviews these recent trends and describes the debates and conflicts they have triggered. The authors review evidence regarding debates on the resource curse and the possibility of an extraction-led pathway to development. They then describe the different types of resistance and social mobilization that have greeted mineral expansion at a range of geographical scales, and consider how far these protests have changed the relationships between mining and political economic change. The conclusions address how far such protests might contribute to an \u27escape\u27 from the resource curse, and consider implications for research and policy agendas. © 2008 Institute of Social Studies. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Bebbington, Anthony, et al. Contention and ambiguity: Mining and the possibilities of development. Development and change 39.6 (2008): 887-914, which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2008.00517.x. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited

Trade sustainability impact assessment (SIA) on the comprehensive economic and trade agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada: Final report

Commissioned by the European Commission, the Final Report for the EU-Canada Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) on the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) provides a comprehensive assessment of the potential impacts of trade liberalisation under CETA. The analysis assesses the economic, social and environmental impacts in Canada and the European Union in three main sectors, sixteen sub-sectors and across seven cross-cutting issues. It predicts a number of macro-economic and sector-specific impacts. The macro analysis suggests the EU may see increases in real GDP of 0.02-0.03% in the long-term from CETA, whereas Canada may see increases of 0.18-0.36%. The Investment section of the report suggests these numbers could be higher when factoring in investment increases. At the sectoral level, the study predicts the greatest gains in output and trade to be stimulated by services liberalisation and by the removal of tariffs applied on sensitive agricultural products. It also suggests CETA could have a positive social impact if it includes provisions on the ILO’s Core Labour Standards and Decent Work Agenda. The study also details a variety of impacts in various “cross-cutting” components of CETA. It finds CETA would stimulate investment in Canada, and to a lesser extent in the EU; and finds costs outweigh the benefits of including controversial NAFTA-style investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in CETA. It predicts potentially imbalanced benefits from a government procurement (GP) chapter. The study assumes CETA will lead to an upward harmonisation in intellectual property rights (IPR) regulations, particularly in Canada, which will have a number of effects. It predicts some notable impacts in terms of competition policy, as well as trade facilitation, free circulation of goods and labour mobility.EU-Canada Sustainability Impact Assessment; SIA; EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement; Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement; CETA; government procurement; investor-state provisions; ISDS; competition policy; Dan Prud'homme; trade impact assessment

Gas and Development: Rural Territorial Dynamics in Tarija, Bolivia

Framed by concepts of territorial project, social coalitions, and scalar relationships, we analyze rural territorial dynamics under conditions of rapid expansion in natural gas extraction. Analyzing recent economic, political, and territorial transformations of Bolivia\u27s gas-rich region, Tarija, we argue that pre-existing territorial projects of a diverse set of subnational and national actors have: (i) shaped the influence of the gas industry on local dynamics; (ii) changed the scale relationships between local communities, the state, and companies; and (iii) mediated the transformation of territories in ways determined by the nature and aspirations of these territorial projects

Trade sustainability impact assessment (SIA) on the comprehensive economic and trade agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada: Final report

Commissioned by the European Commission, the Final Report for the EU-Canada Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) on the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) provides a comprehensive assessment of the potential impacts of trade liberalisation under CETA. The analysis assesses the economic, social and environmental impacts in Canada and the European Union in three main sectors, sixteen sub-sectors and across seven cross-cutting issues. It predicts a number of macro-economic and sector-specific impacts. The macro analysis suggests the EU may see increases in real GDP of 0.02-0.03% in the long-term from CETA, whereas Canada may see increases of 0.18-0.36%. The Investment section of the report suggests these numbers could be higher when factoring in investment increases. At the sectoral level, the study predicts the greatest gains in output and trade to be stimulated by services liberalisation and by the removal of tariffs applied on sensitive agricultural products. It also suggests CETA could have a positive social impact if it includes provisions on the ILO’s Core Labour Standards and Decent Work Agenda. The study also details a variety of impacts in various “cross-cutting” components of CETA. It finds CETA would stimulate investment in Canada, and to a lesser extent in the EU; and finds costs outweigh the benefits of including controversial NAFTA-style investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in CETA. It predicts potentially imbalanced benefits from a government procurement (GP) chapter. The study assumes CETA will lead to an upward harmonisation in intellectual property rights (IPR) regulations, particularly in Canada, which will have a number of effects. It predicts some notable impacts in terms of competition policy, as well as trade facilitation, free circulation of goods and labour mobility