Posts by Alejandro Litovsky

The ESI today launched a report that places arable land at the heart of a new global security agenda. The report outlines the risks of the growing wave of investments in farmland and commodities. For investors moving into farmland, and for host governments seeking to attract investment, it argues, failing to integrate soil resilience, human rights and access to water into land and commodity portfolios may risk undermining the value of investments, as well as political stability and economic competitiveness.

Federico de Vita, London-based risk manager at Credit Suisse and an advisor to the Earth Security Initiative, said: “We’ve always thought of these risks as rather long-term issues. Today we are beginning to realise that some of these risks may possibly play out in shorter time frames. We must develop ways to integrate these analyses into financial risk management.”

The report outlines practical actions to make land the focus of a new sustainability agenda. It calls for better country risk profiles that take into account a country’s exposure to environmental and social issues. Government leaders must become aware that these risks also undermine their country’s wealth.

As the ESI moves to implement this agenda, we will facilitate the development of systems to better monitor soil erosion, water availability and the vulnerability of agriculture to climate change. Using country risk metrics we will encourage a high-level political discussion on the investment regulations that are needed to ensure a sustainable and equitable prosperity.

Index provider MSCI has launched sovereign environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings to complement traditional analysis of the credit worthiness of 90 countries. The ratings identify a country’s exposure to, and management of ESG risk factors (see table) and countries are scored on a seven point scale from ‘AAA’ (best) to ‘CCC’, with 0-10 scores on these underlying factors.

More…

Since chairing a discussion on climate change at the UN Security Council in 2007, the United Kingdom has been an active proponent of the security implications of climate change. Next month, and five years on, the UK Foreign Office will again set a global tone of the debate by holding an important meeting on climate security in London.

If the security challenges are real, as they seem to be, from water shortages to famine or mass migrations in areas of strategic importance to the UK, how can the UK government make the most strategic use of its development investment budget to mitigate the risks? Better coordination with the UK Department for International Development, which last year had a budget of over £2 billion, and from 2013 could reach o.7% of the UK’s gross national income, should be a natural step.

Recenly, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in the UK contributed to this debate with a new working paper: ‘Climate change in UK security policy: implications for development assistance?‘ In advance of the upcoming UK climate security meeting, I discussed the main take-aways with the brief’s author, Katie Harris, on what this security agenda means for the UK’s development investment:

AL: Do you think DFID’s role, strategy and programs are being affected by this securitisation debate?
KH: The working paper does not find evidence that DFIDs programming priorities or funding allocations are being influenced by the wider securitization debate. However, with the increasing push to undertake ‘whole-of-government’ work on key topics, this could change in the future.

AL: Should DFID rethink its role given the threats to human security in their areas of work?
KH: Yes I think DFID can pay more attention to the security threats that climate change is likely to present. This may require a more nuanced look at the way climate change projections may increase the pressure on natural resource scarcities. DFID can play a unique role in advancing good resource governance, which is so critical for effective adaptation as well as for conflict prevention.

AL: Are there any immediate actions that you recommend?
DFID needs to think seriously about how to harness their existing knowledge and experience, especially in already fragile and conflict contexts; and invest in better understanding possible links between climate change and conflict. Among the immediate steps that can be taken could be to map the opportunities for positive transformation and use this narrative to create a more balanced debate.

Yesterday the BBC featured the ESI’s security agenda for the Amazon (see news here). We created and have been advocating this new agenda since June 2011, including a high-profile presentation in Berlin in November last year.

I am delighted with this measure of the ESI’s tangible impact, and to see this agenda now increasingly being taken up by the media and policy-makers.

The high-profile campaign by Oxfam International on land-grabs, which focused on claims of forced evictions by the Ugandan government following a deal involving the UK-based New Forests Company (NFC) has taken a positive turn.

An independent process involving the IFC’s Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) has been announced to resolve complaints from Ugandan communities. NFC’s agreement to participate has been welcomed by the NGO and the communities it represents.

CAO handles complaints from communities affected by investments made by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – the World Bank’s private sector arm. The IFC invests in a fund which has a stake in NFC. The impartial, independent body will now review the situation in detail, before proposing an agreed way forward. This is an important first step in a complex conflict, at the centre of which has been the Ugandan government’s transparency and accountability.

In November 2011 the BMW Foundation, the vehicle through which the German carmaker advances global leadership and social innovation, hosted a workshop on the Earth Security Initiative at their 3rd World Young Leaders Summit in Buenos Aires.

The foundation’s staff prepared and edited an excellent 2 min video of the session, which profile people like Germany’s former Secretary of State and other leaders from around the world discussing an Earth Security agenda.

Watch the movie.

I am delighted to welcome Maki Yamamoto, a master student at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government that will be working with the Earth Security Initiative through to March 2012.

Prior to joining the Harvard Kennedy School, Maki worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan and was involved with Japan’s global environmental governance work. From this position, she has built an understanding of the challenges that environmental issues increasingly pose to traditional diplomacy and governance systems.

In her work for the Earth Security Initiative, Maki will be engaging key stakeholders in the security community in order to review the trends, scenarios and priorities of the global security agenda that is quickly gaining momentum in relation to climate change and ecological limits.

On her motivations for joining the Earth Security Initiative for this period, Maki said: “I believe that environmental issues will have an increasing presence in national security policies. My studies have focused on traditional security issues in the Asia-Pacific region, but having been exposed to environmental diplomacy, I began to value the urgent need to broaden the concept of security in non-traditional ways. At the Harvard Kennedy School, second-year Master in Public Policy students are required to complete a policy analysis project with an organization. I was attracted to the Earth Security Initiative’s creative approach to this agenda, and I very much look forward to the experience over the next few months.”

The Hub Westminster, London’s first superstudio for the impact economy, and the Earth Security Initiative are profiling the original artwork developed by artists Alfredo Carlo and Christoph Kellner of The Value Web to communicate the Earth Security agenda.

Upon presenting their work, Alfredo and Christoph said:

“The idea that the loss of ecosystems is a security threat to humanity is artistically intriguing. We face great risks from reaching ecological limits, and yet we continue to fight over resources. We believe that the central theme of the ESI is about the importance of this new security agenda in order to encourage new collaborations between sectors to address these pressing risks.”

In a recent article for Costa Rica’s most important newspaper, La Nacion, Enric Sala, Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society, outlines a case for action for the Costa Rican government to tackle illegal fishing.

It is based on drawing attention to economic costs of illegal fishing to the country, which are often overlooked. Despite the evidence, illegal vessels are still operating at large within the Isla del Coco National Park, scooping up sharks, tuna and other valuable species. More…

The U.S. military is being called to improve intelligence-gathering related to climate change. It is a report by the Defense Department’s highly-regarded science panel ‘Trends and Implications of Climate Change for National and International Security.‘