World Bank

Human Tides

Submitted by ni-radio on June 11, 2008 - 12:00am.

An estimated one billion people will flee their homes by 2050...

What's the most urgent threat facing poor people in developing countries. War? Climate change? Mega-development? A recent report says it's the result of all three - that people are being forced from their homes. On current trends a staggering one billion people will flee their homes in the next 40 years - the majority because of climate change and the building of mega-projects like dams and mines. Today's co-host, John Davison - one of the authors of the report Human Tide: the real migration crisis - joins Radio New Internationalist's Chris Richards to visit some startling scenarios and meet the people who are affected:

• Ten years after Cyclone Mitch hit Honduras, Juan Almendares from Friends of the Earth reveals how displacement and disruption still endures.

• Development projects like dams displace 15 million people a year. Medha Patkar - the leader of the Save Narmada Movement - recounts how the World Bank helps fund them.

• Two hundred and fifty million people are going to be displaced because of climate-change through floods, droughts, famines and hurricanes between now and 2050. That's more than double the entire populations of Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Ibrahim Togola - from the Mali Folke Center - explains how it's already happening in Africa.

• Professor Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, presents compelling reasons why the Rich World should pay to climate-proof the Poor World.

In today's CD - Urban Gypsy performed by the Romanian-born Shukar Collective - traditions of those perennial refugees - the gypsies - meet the electric sounds of modern musicians.

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Filed under:

• climate change
• dams
• Honduras
• human rights
• India
• Mali
• migration
• ni-radio
• refugees
• World Bank

Radio New Internationalist – The Arrogance

Submitted by ni-radio on March 25, 2007 - 12:00am.

The Arrogance

This week we’re linking up Asia, Latin America and the Middle East to explore why that bundle of international economic policies favoured by the neo-cons can fail so badly… and uncover a common link. It’s ‘The Arrogance’… the arrogance of the World Bank in Indonesia, of the International Monetary Fund in Latin America, and US policy-preachers now working in Iraq. Today’s guests – all of whom are working closely with international policy makers – open the doors to a range of very personal experiences:

• Jim Shultz, Executive Director of The Democracy Center in Bolivia remembers the 34 people killed in protests over the International Monetary Fund’s fatally flawed tax policies;
  
• Farah Sofa, from WALHI (Friends of the Earth, Indonesia), tells us about their negotiations with the World Bank, which is now supporting Indonesian industrial timber plantation projects the size of whole countries; and
  
• Pratap Chatterjee, Managing Editor, CorpWatch takes us to Iraq and shows us around both the healthcare system being imposed on the Iraqi people, and the colourful crooks and incompetents that are mismanaging it.
  

Last week and this week, we’ve been featuring the CD… Rhythm of the River… which showcases a range of artists from the World Music Network’s Riverboat Records series. From rhapsody to rap, it offers music with which to relax, then rage.

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Filed under:

• Bolivia
• IMF
• Indonesia
• Iraq
• Latin America
• ni-radio
• World Bank