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To build on its longstanding interest in the evolving transatlantic relationship and to address the serious differences that have emerged between America and Europe after the September 11 terrorist attacks and throughout the ongoing war on terrorism, Brookings announces the launch of its new Center on the United States and Europe. The center offers a forum for research, high-level dialogue, and public debate on issues affecting U.S.-Europe relations.

At the inaugural conference to launch the new center, experts discussed the theme "The United States and Europe: One Year after the War in Iraq." Panelists at this special event included Javier Solana, Robert Kagan, Charles Grant, Klaus Scharioth, Andrew Moravcsik, Martin Indyk, Ulrike Guerot, Pascale Andreani, Cesare Merlini, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Gilles Andreani and others.

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The crisis over Iraq was the latest in a series of international security crises that demonstrated that the European Union has not yet emerged as unified actor on difficult global security issues. Yet since the Iraq crisis, the member states of Europe have shown a renewed interest in creating EU institutions capable of coherent action on controversial foreign policy issues, in articulating a distinct European strategy for promoting security and stability, and in establishing a European role in issues well beyond the European continent.

The Center on the United States and Europe's annual conference brought together renowned experts and policymakers from both sides of the Atlantic to examine Europe's Global Role. The first panel looked at the ongoing efforts by the United Kingdom to steer a course between and "Atlanticist" and "European" foreign policy; the second panel examined the European Union's efforts to manage its relationships with a proliferating number of candidates to the east—at the same time that it sorts out its own political future; and the last panel looked at the integration of a rising China into the international system, an extra-European issue on which the European Union and the United States have already shown signs of discord.

Welcome and Introduction:
Philip H. Gordon, Director, Center on the United States and Europe

Britain Between America and the European Union:
Philip H. Gordon

Panelists:
Anatol Lieven, Carnegie Endowment
Gerard Baker, The London Times
Charles Grant, Centre for European Reform

Where Does Europe End?
Strobe Talbott, President, The Brookings Institution

Panelists:
John Bruton, EU Ambassador to the U.S.
Sylvie Goulard, Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Paris
Andrew Moravcsik, Princeton University
Vladimir Ryzhkov, Russian Duma

The Global Agenda:
James B. Steinberg, Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution

Panelists:
R. Nicholas Burns , Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs
Jean-David Levitte, French Ambassador to the U.S.

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On April 30, 2007, the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe held its fourth annual conference. As in previous years, the annual conference brought together scholars, officials, and policymakers from both sides of the Atlantic to examine the evolving roles of the United States and Europe in the global arena. Panel discussions covered some critical issues about Europe and the U.S.-Europe relationship: "The French Elections", "NATO and Afghanistan" and "Islam in Europe". Panelists included, among others, Lt. General Karl Eikenberry, Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee; Ashraf Ghani, former Finance Minister of Afghanistan; Tufyal Choudhury of Durham University; Philip Gordon of the Brookings Institution; and Corine Lesnes from Le Monde.

8:30 a.m.		Continental breakfast available
8:50 a.m.		Welcome and Introduction Strobe Talbott, President, The Brookings Institution
9:00 - 10:30 a.m.		"The French Elections" Chair: Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post Panelists: Laurent Cohen-Tanugi, Skadden Arps; Notre Europe Corine Lesnes, Le Monde Philip Gordon, The Brookings Institution
10:30 - 10:45 p.m.		Break
10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.		"NATO in Afghanistan" Chair: Carlos Pascual, The Brookings Institution Panelists: Lt. General Karl Eikenberry, Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee Ashraf Ghani, former Finance Minister of Afghanistan Marvin Weinbaum, Middle East Institute
12:15 - 1:30 p.m.		Buffet Lunch (Saul/Zilkha)
1:30 - 3:00 p.m.		"Islam in Europe" Chair: Jeremy Shapiro, The Brookings Institution Panelists: Daniel Benjamin, The Brookings Institution Tufyal Choudhury, Durham University Jonathan Laurence, Boston College

The Center on the United States and Europe Annual Conference is made possible by the generous support of the German Marshall Fund of the United States

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On May 20, 2008, the Center on the United States and Europe held its fifth annual conference. As is in previous years, the Conference brought together leading scholars, officials, and policymakers from both sides of the Atlantic to examine issues shaping the transatlantic relationship and to assess the evolving roles of the United States and Europe in the global arena.

Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute; Sir Lawrence Freedman of King’s College, London; Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times; former Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen; and Strobe Talbott, President of The Brookings Institution joined other prominent panelists and CUSE scholars for this year’s sessions. The series of panel discussions explored transatlantic relations beyond the Bush presidency, Sarkozy’s plans for France’s EU presidency, and the future of Russia under Medvedev.

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The uprisings in the Arab world and the U.S.-European military intervention in Libya are currently driving transatlantic policy discussions. However, the ongoing Eurozone crisis and the fate of debt-laden countries remain issues of concern for both Europeans and Americans. Other critical challenges are also consuming Europe’s attention: reversing the economic slowdown and regaining competitiveness; dealing with rising populism and public opinion backlash against the influx of North African refugees; and forging a common foreign policy that can both respond to changing political and economic developments and enhance the European Union’s role in a new multipolar world.

On May 26, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings (CUSE) and the Heinrich Böll Foundation hosted experts and top officials from both sides of the Atlantic for the 2011 CUSE annual conference. Panelists explored critical issues shaping the future of transatlantic relations, from the euro crisis to how the United States and Europe can craft a common response to the wave of democratic uprisings in the Arab world.

After each panel, participants took audience questions.

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• Europe's Future in a Turbulent World
• Europe's Future in a Turbulent World
• Europe's Future in a Turbulent World

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With many national economies slipping back into recession and voters in Greece, France and the United Kingdom rejecting austerity measures in recent elections, the European political and economic landscape has shifted again. Europe now seems headed towards a revised social contract and a new round of negotiations to respond to the continuing financial crisis. The United States, while experiencing a mild recovery, also strives to find the right balance between fiscal consolidation and growth preservation—a mission made more challenging with the upcoming November elections. A new loss of confidence in Europe may well imperil the U.S. economy’s fragile recovery. Will similar anti-austerity political currents cross the Atlantic and bring "change" to the United States? Despite the crisis, transatlantic cooperation has increased during the Obama administration, but U.S.-EU relations will be subjected to critical examination during the election year.

On May 23, the same day European leaders will gather for an extraordinary summit in Brussels, the Center on the United States at Brookings (CUSE) and the Heinrich Böll Foundation hosted a discussion featuring experts and top officials from both sides of the Atlantic for the 2012 CUSE Annual Conference. Panelists explored critical issues shaping the future of transatlantic relations in a year of elections and political transitions, from the euro crisis and the future of NATO to relations with Russia, Turkey and the Middle East.

After each panel, participants took audience questions.

The event is available in full on C-SPAN »

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• NATO in Afghanistan: In Together, Out Together
• U.S. Has Enormous Stake in Euro Crisis
• U.S., European Allies United on Iran
• U.S. Will Move Forward with Russia on Areas of Mutual Interest

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• Visions of Europe in an Election Year: Part 1
• Visions of Europe in an Election Year: Part 2
• Visions of Europe in an Election Year: Part 3

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• Panel Two Transcript (.pdf)
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There has been no shortage of news about South Africa’s recent economic and political turmoil—from its plummeting currency and slowing economy, to President Zuma’s cabinet shake-up, to weeks-long student protests over rising tuition fees in October.

Understanding what is driving political volatility requires understanding the central economic challenge facing South Africa’s major metropolitan regions: insufficient labor market opportunities for young people.

A recent Brookings report found that the unemployment rate among youth (ages 15 to 34) in Gauteng, the home province of the Johannesburg region, was nearly 40 percent, exceeding the 37 percent national rate. Young people continue to flock to Johannesburg, and the broader Gauteng City-Region that surrounds it, in search of economic opportunity. But the city-region has only created jobs at a 1.3 percent annual clip since 2000, far lower than peer regions like Shenzhen (8.2 percent), Istanbul (2.8 percent), and Santiago (2.4 percent), limiting its ability to absorb young workers. At the same time, the skills demands of the labor market have shifted as the region’s economy has transitioned from mining to more advanced services, creating a mismatch between what education and training systems are providing and what the labor market demands. This employment crisis matters for both economic competitiveness (output per worker growth, a rough measure of productivity, has stagnated since 2010) and economic justice (the unemployment rate for black South Africans is four times the rate for whites).

At a recent Global Cities Initiative event in Johannesburg local private, public, and civic leaders discussed both the immense scale of the youth unemployment challenge and an ambitious proposed solution: the youth skills empowerment initiative “Vulindlel’ eJozi” (a Zulu phrase meaning “open the way in Johannesburg”) created by the city of Johannesburg in partnership with the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. Of the approximately 1.6 million Johannesburg residents aged 19-34, just under half are not engaged in employment, education, or training. Vulindlel’ eJozi’s seeks to “reach 200,000 of these young people to meaningfully include and engage them in our economy over the next year.”

Vulindlel’ eJozi stands out for at least two reasons. Most glaringly is its sheer scale. Through its work with Harambee and other initiatives, the city of Johannesburg provided over 45,000 opportunities for youth to move towards employment during the first quarter of 2015. Second, the partnership leverages the resources and competencies of the private and civic sectors. Harambee has successfully trained and placed 20,000 youth in sustained formal employment with over 200 employers and ambitiously wants to engage 500,000 South African youth in their training programs. Constant employer feedback on what skills are demanded is one of the accelerator’s hallmarks, helping Harambee achieve higher trainee retention rates than industry averages.  

Youth unemployment, of course, is not a problem unique to South Africa. Recent Brookings research found that labor force participation, employment, and median earnings among American teens and young adults all declined between 2000 and 2014. How effectively the city of Johannesburg can build the institutional architecture to engage with private and NGO actors on a youth employment initiative at this scale will ultimately determine its success. These lessons could serve other cities well as they seek to deliver economic opportunity to their young people.

      

Gary Burtless, a senior fellow in Economic Studies, explains new research on the growing longevity gap between high-income and low-income Americans, especially among the aged.

“Life expectancy difference of low income workers, middle income workers, and high income workers has been increasing over time,” Burtless says. “For people born in 1920 their life expectancy was not as long typically as the life expectancy of people who were born in 1940. But those gains between those two birth years were very unequally distributed if we compare people with low mid-career earnings and people with high mid-career earnings.” Burtless also discusses retirement trends among the educated and non-educated, income inequality among different age groups, and how these trends affect early or late retirement rates.

Also stay tuned for our regular economic update with David Wessel, who also looks at the new research and offers his thoughts on what it means for Social Security.

Show Notes

Later retirement, inequality and old age, and the growing gap in longevity between rich and poor

Disparity in Life Spans of the Rich and the Poor Is Growing

Subscribe to the Brookings Cafeteria on iTunes, listen on Stitcher, and send feedback email to BCP@Brookings.edu.

       

       

       

       

The Supreme Court’s recent McCutcheon decision has reinvigorated the discussion on how campaign finance affects American democracy. Seeking to dissect the complex relationship between political parties, partisan polarization, and campaign finance, Tom Mann and Anthony Corrado’s new paper on Party Polarization and Campaign Finance reviews the landscape of hard and soft money in federal elections and asks whether campaign finance reform can abate polarization and strengthen governing capacity in the United States. The paper tackles two popular contentions within the campaign finance debate: First, has campaign finance reform altered the role of political parties as election financiers and therefore undermined deal making and pragmatism? Second, would a change in the composition of small and large individual donors decrease polarization in the parties?

The Role of Political Parties in Campaign Finance

Political parties have witnessed a number of shifts in their campaign finance role, including McCain-Feingold’s ban on party soft money in 2002. This has led many to ask if the breakdown in compromise and governance and the rise of polarization has come about because parties have lost the power to finance elections. To assess that claim, the authors track the amount of money crossing national and state party books as an indicator of party strength. The empirical evidence shows no significant decrease in party strength post 2002 and holds that “both parties have compensated for the loss of soft money with hard money receipts.” In fact, the parties have upped their spending on congressional candidates more than six-fold since 1980. Despite the ban on soft money, the parties remain major players in federal elections.

Large and Small Donors in National Campaigns

Mann and Corrado turn to non-party money and survey the universe of individual donors to evaluate “whether small, large or mega-donors are most likely to fuel or diminish the polarization that increasingly defines the political landscape.” The authors map the size and shape of individual giving and confront the concern that Super PACs, politically active nonprofits, and the super-wealthy are buying out American democracy. They ask: would a healthier mix of small and large donors reduce radicalization and balance out asymmetric polarization between the parties? The evidence suggests that increasing the role of small donors would have little effect on partisan polarization in either direction because small donors tend to be highly polarized. Although Mann and Corrado note that a healthier mix would champion democratic ideals like civic participation and equality of voice.

Taking both points together, Mann and Corrado find that campaign finance reform is insufficient for depolarizing the parties and improving governing capacity. They argue forcefully that polarization emerges from a broader political and partisan problem. Ultimately, they assert that, “some break in the party wars is probably a prerequisite to any serious pushback to the broader deregulation of campaign finance now underway.”

Click to read Mann and Corrado’s full paper, Party Polarization and Campaign Finance.

      

Editor's Note: This blog post is part of The Primaries Project series, where veteran political journalists Jill Lawrence and Walter Shapiro, along with scholars in Governance Studies, examine the congressional primaries and ask what they reveal about the future of each political party and the future of American politics.

Even though they have come to dominate political campaigns, Super PACs and their shadowy counterparts are barely old enough to qualify for pre-kindergarten. Since these big-bucks independent groups have only been legal since 2010, we are still groping to understand the long-term role that Super PACs are apt to play in congressional politics—especially primaries.

With the demonization of the Koch Brothers by the Democrats and the attacks on liberal givers like Tom Steyer from the right, it is easy to assume that Super PAC donors are ideologues. Scorched-earth contests like the Mississippi Republican Senate primary further fuel this impression. Thad Cochran versus Chris McDaniel could be viewed as a proxy war between the GOP establishment (personified by Karl Rove's Super PAC American Crossroads) and the Tea Party (working through groups like Club for Growth Action).

But there is another very important, but far less publicized, role that Super PACs are playing in this year's congressional primaries. And when the internecine warfare in the Republican Party dies down, this type of Super PAC involvement in party primaries may become the norm.

Two recent GOP House primaries in winnable districts in New York illustrate this alternative model. In both cases, Super PACs took on the role—once left to the political parties—of vetting the candidates. Super PAC donors and their campaign consultants made their own decisions about who is electable and who has the right political pedigree. And in these New York primary contests without any clear ideological markers, heavy spending by Super PACs made all the difference.

Twenty-nine-year-old Elise Stefanik was a major beneficiary of Super PAC spending in her primary in New York's rural 21st District that runs from the Saratoga racetrack to the Canadian border. Stefanik has never run for public office before, but she boasts all of the right credentials to appeal to Washington Republican politicos. Even though she calls herself a "small businesswoman" in her TV ads, Stefanik served on the White House domestic policy staff under George W. Bush and was in charge of 2012 debate preparation for Paul Ryan.

Small wonder that American Crossroads and Karl Rove invested heavily in Stefanik's primary race, spending  $772,000 in attack ads excoriating her GOP rival, Matt Doheny. This was, by the way, the only House primary in the nation in which American Crossroads has made a significant investment to distinguish between Republicans. And the Super PAC's involvement was certainly not motivated by ideology. As the Watertown Daily Times put it on the eve of the Stefanik-Doheny primary, "It's difficult to point to a single issue on which a big divide exists between the two."

Yes, Doheny—a largely self-funding investment banker who had lost two prior races for the House—was a flawed Republican candidate. And Stefanik was the embodiment of the kind of message discipline beloved by campaign consultants. But it is hard to believe that electability alone prompted attack ads with tag lines like: "Matt Doheny—it would be a big mistake to send him to Congress."

American Crossroads, which spent more than either the Stefanik or Doheny campaigns, prevailed in the June 24th primary. Stefanik romped home with 61 percent of the primary vote.

The same pattern emerged in the Republican primary in New York's 1st District on the tip of Long Island. The major player this time was the US Jobs Council, which is heavily funded by hedge-fund mogul Robert Mercer, whose home is in the district. As Mother Jones reported in an article by Molly Redden, Mercer's Ahab-like obsession has been defeating Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop ever since the congressman voted for the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation.

Both candidates in the Republican primary to oppose Bishop had their weaknesses in appealing to a conservative electorate. State Senator Lee Zeldin carried the burden of votes in Albany that could be interpreted as raising taxes. George Demos, a former SEC lawyer, was heavily supported by his wife's in-laws who, in normal times, are liberal California Democrats.

In truth, there were scant philosophical differences between the two conservative Republicans. Newsday columnist Lane Filler wrote, "Both oppose abortion, think taxes are too high, support gun rights, hate Common Core, favor a strong national defense, are against 'amnesty' for immigrants here illegally...I have not turned up any meaningful difference between them on policy."

But that didn't prevent the US Jobs Council from spending more than $200,000 on attack ads that portrayed Demos, who had been endorsed by Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki, as a creature of "Nancy Pelosi's people." A typical ad charged that Demos "is trying to use the Pelosi cash machine to buy a seat in Congress."

Even though Demos donated $2 million to his own campaign, it was not enough to hold off the onslaught of Super PAC attacks. In the end, Zeldin defeated Demos in the primary by a 62-to-38 percent margin.

Politico reporter Ken Vogel in his praiseworthy new book, Big Money, likens Super PAC donors to meddlesome "sports junkies who plunk down hundreds of millions of dollars to buy a professional team." Often the motivation of these mega-givers is the arrogant belief that because they are rich, they know more about politics than the pros. With it comes the certainty that they can pick winners and losers in primaries just like they do with stocks on Wall Street.

And that is why the heavy Super PAC influence in these two little-covered New York House primaries may represent the wave of the future in party politics.

      

It is no secret that American elections are getting wildly expensive. If you are unlucky enough to live in a swing state or a state with a competitive race for US House, US Senate or Governor, you know that every even numbered year means frequent phone calls, a barrage of campaign mail, and endless television ads. Candidates want your vote, and sometimes it seems their strategy is to annoy the average voter into turning out to the polls.

However, beyond direct candidate appeals, outside groups are now spending heavily on competitive races of all types. Many statewide campaigns now cost tens of millions of dollars, and interest groups, PACs, and other organizations are ponying up with substantial sums to try to reach voters and do one of two things. They either try to convince you one candidate deserves your vote or dissuade you from voting for the other candidate.

How much money is flowing into races beyond what candidates themselves spend? The answer is staggering. Below we profile the 20 most expensive Senate races since 2010 in terms of independent expenditures. The chart shows not only how expensive races are, but the extent to which outside groups seek to influence electoral outcomes.  

This chart shows that races are getting more expensive. Among these races, only two (Colorado and Pennsylvania) are from 2010. Half (10) of the races are being waged this cycle, and even though data are updated through Sunday, the totals are certain to rise. Those ten races alone have totaled over $435 million in spending in those states.

The totals provide a small picture into the magnitude of money in American politics. The totals exclude direct candidate spending and spending by other, outside groups not subject to as rigorous FEC disclosure requirements.

As campaigns continue to become more expensive and outside groups see participation in elections as a path toward influencing outcomes of both races and policy, there is one political certainty: over the next two to four years, many of the campaigns on this list will be displaced by future, more expensive campaigns for the Senate.

      

Totaling more than $111,000,000.00, the 2014 North Carolina Senate contest between Kay Hagan and Thom Tillis is the most expensive Senate election in the nation’s history (not adjusted for inflation). As we investigated earlier this week, outside money has been flowing into American politics in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010.

When candidate and independent spending are combined, 2014 ranks among the most expensive, if not the most expensive, in history. However, understanding campaign spending takes more than a simple examination of total dollars. Spending differences across states can occur for a variety of reasons, including geographic size, population size, and the expense of media markets.

As a result, a more useful metric for understanding the magnitude of campaign activity is spending per voter, and 2014 offers an interesting case: Alaska. This year, Alaska saw a highly competitive Senate race in which both outside groups and candidates spend substantial amounts of money. Alaska ranks 47th in population with just over 700,000 residents and an estimated 503,000 eligible voters. After adjusting spending (both candidate and independent expenditures) for each state's estimated voting eligible population, Alaska's 2014 Senate race, unsurprisingly, ranks as the most expensive in US history.

Alaska originally ranked 6^th most expensive in 2014, with about $60 million spent total. But it jumps to first place in dollars spent per voter. Candidates and outside groups spent roughly $120 per voter in Alaska this year, about double the next most-expensive race, Montana 2012, where candidates and outside groups spent $66.5 per voter. By comparison, the $111 million Senate race in North Carolina—with a voting-eligible population of about 6,826,610—equaled only $16.25 per voter. That’s still far above the median spending per race for all three cycles ($7.3 per voter) but certainly serves to put the spending in context.

Relative to 2012 and 2014, in terms of both combined and per-voter spending, 2010 could be considered one of the cheaper cycles for Senate races thus far.

These data lend some support to the observation that, since Citizens (and more recently McCutcheon v. FEC) independent expenditures are quickly outpacing contributions to candidates. But given changes in reporting requirements and limited data, there is still a lot about outside spending we still don’t know.

All in all, candidate and outside group spending totaled just over a billion dollars in Senate races in 2014. The fact that North Carolina alone accounted for more than ten percent of that spending is astonishing, but no less remarkable is the intensity of spending per voter in Alaska. But if spending continues to grow as it has the last three election cycles, both of those records will likely be shattered in 2016.

      

Super PACs and other lightly regulated political organizations are dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into American elections. What should be done about it? Unlike many candidates for federal or state office, so-called independent expenditure groups face no restrictions on how much individuals and groups can give to them. And thanks to several federal court decisions, including Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, independent groups can spend unlimited amounts to influence elections. The public understandably worries about the political clout of wealthy groups—especially since donors often can hide their identities.

Reformers have proposed various remedies: disclosure rules, the appointment of a liberal Supreme Court justice to reverse Citizens United, even a constitutional amendment to overturn that decision. Those long-shot strategies, however, are unlikely to create the kind of small-donor democracy that many reformers seek. Money, like water, will inevitably flow into the political system. Laws can’t do much to reduce the amount of money in politics; what they can change is where the money goes.

An easier path to improving politics

In our new Brookings paper, The State of State Parties, we suggest an easier path to improving politics—one that is right under our nose. Strengthening state political parties can help offset the clout of super PACs.

Our study, based on a survey of 56 state-party organizations plus detailed interviews with 15 of their leaders, points to the distinctive and constructive role that state parties play in American politics. In an era when politics seems to be spinning out of control, party organizations are among the few actors that seek to integrate and balance interests—for instance, by recruiting candidates with broad appeal, by playing honest broker among contending partisan factions, and by building coherent strategies among campaigns up and down the ticket. Party organizations also generate a lot of grassroots activity to mobilize volunteers and voters.

How regulations on parties increase super PAC spending

State parties are among the most heavily regulated entities in American politics, a situation that diminishes their influence relative to non-party groups. For instance, the vast majority of state parties face restrictions on the source and size of donations, and some contribution limits are unrealistically low. In Massachusetts, no donor can give more than annual aggregate of $5,000 to all local and state parties. That’s a paltry sum in statewide elections that can easily cost $55 million, including $20 million in independent expenditures.

Super PACs and other groups naturally fill the vacuum because they do not have to contend with limits on raising and spending money. Often, outside groups effectively drown out the parties. In our survey, only half the parties said they advertise on TV and radio sometimes or often, usually because they lack the resources to do more.

The figure below shows that parties’ independent spending is miniscule compared to the growing expenditures of non-party groups over the past five election cycles. In the 2014 election cycle, the parties accounted for just six percent of total independent spending in the states for which we had good data.

An especially significant finding is that restraints on political parties seem to amplify the activities and influence of outside groups. As illustrated in the table below, 65 percent of respondents in states with contribution limits to parties said that independent groups sponsor more than half or almost all political ads, compared to only 23 percent in states without contribution limits. 

In other words, independent spending is significantly lower when parties are not limited. These differences translate into electoral clout. In states with contribution limits, 65 percent of respondents said independent spending is often a key factor in gubernatorial elections, while fewer than half said the same in states with no limits.

Correlation does not prove causality, but our findings provide strong circumstantial evidence that when you restrict the parties, you get more independent expenditures by non-party groups.

It’s not hard to strengthen state parties

We recommend changes to strengthen state parties and restore them to a place of prominence in campaigns. First, state governments should raise or eliminate contribution limits so the parties can acquire sufficient resources to compete with outside actors. This would allow state parties to serve as clearinghouses for campaign money, which would bring more “dark money” toward accountability and transparency.

Second, parties should be allowed full freedom to coordinate their activities with their candidates and allied groups. This would make them more valuable to candidates and would allow the parties to perform their irreplaceable role of supporting candidates across the party ticket.

We also suggest giving parties favorable tax treatment so that donors are more likely to give to parties than candidate-sponsored super PACs or interest groups. We also recommend other regulatory changes that would encourage parties to do more grassroots work with voters.

Loosening the constraints on state parties would not stop the flow of money into politics (nothing can do that), but would channel more of the money to accountable actors. That’s why we think of this solution as building canals, not dams. And the incremental steps we propose require no sea-changes in public opinion or heroic legislation. In fact, they command support in both parties’ establishments, making them a good starting point for reform. That’s why we conclude that strengthening state parties is a realistic path toward a better balanced, more effective, and more accountable political system.

       

       

       

       

Each year, one in five households filing a federal income tax return claims the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Targeted primarily to lower-income workers with children, it is one of many credits and deductions filers take each year on their federal income tax forms. However, unlike typical credits and deductions, the EITC is a refundable credit, meaning that after offsetting what is owed to the government filers receive the remainder of the benefit as a refund.

By supplementing earnings for low- and moderate-income households, the EITC helps bridge the gap between what the labor market provides and what it takes to support a family. It encourages and rewards work and has become one of the nation’s largest and most effective anti-poverty programs. In contrast to other work support and poverty alleviation programs, it achieves this with very little bureaucracy beyond what otherwise exists to administer the tax code.

Although the EITC began in 1975 as a small credit (no more than $400), a number of targeted expansions in subsequent years mean that today the EITC’s assistance can be considerable. In 2015, a single parent with three children working full-time all year at the federal minimum wage ($7.25 an hour) is eligible for a credit of $6,242, a boost of more than 40 percent above her earnings of $15,080 (though combined it still leaves her 12 percent below the federal poverty level).

However, the only way to obtain these substantial benefits is to claim the EITC on the annual federal income tax return. While lump-sum payments have perceived benefits (such as being able to pay off debts, make larger purchases, or force savings), the EITC’s single annual disbursement can present a challenge for the working parent trying to make ends meet throughout the year. It can also be problematic for households wanting to stretch out their refund as an emergency savings reserve.

My 2008 paper, “Periodic Payment of the Earned Income Tax Credit,” proposed an option that would allow a family to receive a portion of the EITC outside of tax time, striking a balance between lump-sum delivery and the need for resources throughout the year. Specifically, half of the credit could be claimed in four payments spread out during the year, while the remaining credit would continue to be paid as part of the tax refund.

Since then, several significant developments have occurred. A little-used option for receiving some of the EITC in each paycheck ended in 2010. In 2014, the federal government initiated a new tax credit advance payment process to subsidize health insurance premiums through monthly disbursement of the Affordable Care Act’s Premium Tax Credit. Other countries providing assistance similar to the EITC have continued to innovate and offer access to benefits during the year. Finally, members of Congress and think tanks have proposed alternatives to a single lump-sum disbursement of the EITC, and others have begun to explore and experiment with alternatives, most notably in Chicago, where a 2014 pilot program made quarterly payments to 343 households.

In light of these developments, this paper reviews the author’s original EITC periodic payment proposal, examines emerging alternatives, and addresses the following key questions:

• What is the demand for periodic payment alternatives?
  
  
• What benefits will accrue from the availability of periodic payment?
  
  
• What risks are associated with periodic payment and how can they be managed?
  
  
• What is the administrative feasibility of periodic payment?

The emerging answers point a way forward for identifying different distribution options that would enhance the EITC’s value to low- and moderate-income working families.

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Editor's Note, Oct. 12, 2011: Congress has passed a trio of trade agreements negotiated during the George W. Bush administration and recently submitted by President Obama. The authors of this policy brief say the pacts with South Korea, Colombia and Panama will boost U.S. exports significantly, especially in the key automotive, agricultural and commercial services sectors.

Policy Brief #183

A trio of trade agreements now pending before Congress would benefit the United States both economically and strategically. Carefully developed accords with South Korea, Colombia and Panama will boost U.S. exports significantly, especially in the key automotive, agricultural and commercial services sectors.

Among the other benefits are:

• increased U.S. competitiveness
• enhancement of U.S. diplomatic and economic postures in East Asia and Latin America
• new investment opportunities
• better enforcement of labor regulation and
• improved transparency in these trading partners’ regulatory systems.

The pacts are known as Free Trade Agreements, or FTAs. The Korean agreement (KORUS) was negotiated in 2006-2007 and revised in 2010. The Colombian agreement (COL-US, sometimes known as COL-US FTA) was signed in 2006. The agreement with Panama (PFTA, sometimes known as the Panama Trade Promotion Agreement) was signed in 2007. All have the support of the Obama administration.

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	The three FTAs will substantially reduce these trading partners’ tariffs on U.S. goods, opening large markets for U.S. commerce and professional services. In combination, they will increase the size of the U.S. economy by about $15 billion. Furthermore, they will help reverse a slide in U.S. market influence in two important and increasingly affluent regions of the globe. Approval of all three agreements is in the national interest. To move forward, both Congress and the administration should take these appropriate steps: Congress should approve the trade agreements with Korea (KORUS), Colombia (COL-US) and Panama (PFTA) without additional delays.   To maximize the trade and investment benefits of KORUS, the administration should actively engage in the KORUS working groups, such as the Professional Services Working Group.   Similarly, the U.S. Trade Representative should participate in the Joint Committee’s scheduled annual meetings, in order to maintain a highlevel focus on U.S.-Korea trade, drive further trade liberalization and enable the committee to serve as a forum for broader discussions on trade in East Asia.   The Colombia-U.S. Joint Committee should include representatives of Colombia’s Trade and Labor Ministers with their US counterparts. The presence of the Labor minister should facilitate progress under the FTA through strengthened labor standards and timely implementation of all elements of the agreed-upon action plan. This Committee and specialized working groups could increase the pace of bilateral interaction and help officials identify important areas for discussion, negotiation and agreement.   Panama has ratified the Tax Information and Exchange Agreement which entered into force on April 2011. Panama and the US should strengthen bilateral communication so that collaboration in the battle against money laundering is pushed even further with greater cooperation.

Economic Effects of the Korea Agreement

The economic benefits to the United States from KORUS are especially significant, as the agreement will provide preferential market access to the world’s 11th largest—and a fast-growing—economy. In 2010, U.S.-Korea trade was worth $88 billion, comprising U.S. exports of $39 billion and imports of $49 billion, making Korea the United States’ seventh largest trading partner. According to the independent, quasi-judicial U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), exports resulting from KORUS will increase the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by up to $12 billion. This constitutes a remarkable gain in both real and percentage terms.

To the United States, KORUS offers diverse economic advantages. Most strikingly, KORUS will open Korea’s service market to U.S. exports, allowing the United States to exploit its competitive advantages in financial services, education and information and communications technologies. The agreement also will lead to increased imports from Korea, which in turn will help the United States achieve greater economic specialization. The likely effects of more specialization—and of increased Korean investment in the United States—include greater U.S. efficiency, productivity, economic growth and job growth. Meanwhile, U.S. investors will gain new opportunities in the increasingly active Asia-Pacific region.

Lately, passage of KORUS has assumed enhanced importance with the impasse in the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round. No longer can the United States reasonably anticipate that Doha will lead to improved access to the Korean market. Moreover, an FTA between Korea and the European Union (EU) that took effect July 1st confers preferential access to European exporters, undermining the competitiveness of U.S. businesses in Korea. Even before the European FTA, the United States had been losing valuable ground in Korea. Between 2000 and 2010, the United States fell from first to third in the ranking of Korea’s trading partners (reversing positions with China), as U.S. products declined from 18 to only 9 percent of Korean imports. Failure to approve the agreement can be expected to lead to a further decline. These moves will strongly assist U.S. producers of electronic equipment, metals, agricultural products, autos and other consumer goods. For example, agricultural exports are expected to rise $1.8 billion per year.

On the services front, KORUS will increase U.S. businesses’ access to Korea’s $560 billion services market. Financial services providers, the insurance industry and transportation firms stand to benefit substantially. KORUS usefully builds on the link between investment and services by improving the ability of U.S. law firms to establish offices in Korea. In addition, the agreement establishes a Professional Services Working Group that will address the interests of U.S. providers of legal, accounting and engineering services, provided that U.S. representatives engage actively in the group. KORUS also requires that regulations affecting services be developed transparently and that the business community be informed of their development and have an opportunity to provide comments, which the Korean government must answer.

On the investment front, KORUS affords a chance to strengthen a bilateral investment relationship that probably is underdeveloped. In 2009, the U.S. foreign direct investment flow to Korea was $3.4 billion, while there was a net outflow of Korean foreign direct investment to the United States of $255 million. KORUS supports market access for U.S. investors with investment protection provisions, strong intellectual property protection, dispute settlement provisions, a requirement for transparently developed and implemented investment regulations and a similar requirement for open, fair and impartial judicial proceedings. All this should markedly improve the Korean investment climate for U.S. business. It will strengthen the rule of law, reducing uncertainty and the risk of investing in Korea.

On the governance side, KORUS establishes various committees to monitor implementation of the agreement. The most significant of these is the Joint Committee that is to meet annually at the level of the U.S. Trade Representative and Korea’s Trade Minister to discuss not only implementation but also ways to expand trade further. KORUS establishes committees to oversee the goods and financial services commitments, among others, and working groups that will seek to increase cooperation between U.S. and Korean agencies responsible for regulating the automotive sector and professional services. These committees and working groups, enriched through regular interaction between U.S. and Korean trade officials, should increase levels of trust and understanding of each county’s regulatory systems and help officials identify opportunities to deepen the bilateral economic relationship.

Strategic Effects of the Korea Agreement

Congressional passage of KORUS will send an important signal to all countries in the Asia-Pacific region that the United States intends to remain economically engaged with them, rather than retreat behind a wall of trade barriers, and is prepared to lead development of the rules and norms governing trade and investment in the region. KORUS will provide an important economic complement to the strong, historically rooted U.S. military alliance with Korea. It also will signal a renewed commitment by the United States in shaping Asia’s economic architecture.

The last decade has seen declining U.S. economic significance in Asia. Just as the United States has slipped from first to third in its ranking as a trading partner of Korea, similar drops are occurring with respect to Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia and other Asia-Pacific economic powers. In all of Northeast and Southeast Asia, the United States has only one FTA in effect, an accord with the Republic of Singapore. Passage of KORUS now would be particularly timely, both as a sign of U.S. engagement with Asia and as a mechanism for ensuring robust growth in U.S.-Asia trade and investment.

To illustrate how KORUS might affect U.S. interests throughout the region, consider regulatory transparency. The KORUS transparency requirements could serve as a model for how countries can set and implement standards. They might for example, influence the unfolding Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, talks that could set the stage for a broader Asia-Pacific FTA. U.S. producers, investors and providers of commercial and professional services could only benefit from a regional trend toward greater transparency and the lifting of barriers that would ensue. Other KORUS provisions favorable to the United States could function as similar benchmarks in the development of U.S. relations with Asia-Pacific nations and organizations.

Effects of the Colombia Agreement

COL-US will also strengthen relations with a key regional ally and open a foreign market to a variety of U.S. products. Bilateral trade between Colombia and the United States was worth almost $28 billion in 2010. COL-US is expected to expand U.S. GDP by approximately $2.5 billion, which includes an increase in U.S. exports of $1.1 billion and an increase of imports from Colombia of $487 million.

COL-US offers four major advantages:

• It redresses the current imbalance in tariffs. Ninety percent of goods from Colombia now enter the United States duty-free (under the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act). COL-US will eliminate 77 percent of Colombia’s tariffs immediately and the remainder over the following 10 years.
   
• It guarantees a more stable legal framework for doing business in Colombia. This should lead to bilateral investment growth, trade stimulation and job creation.
   
• It supports U.S. goals of helping Colombia reduce cocaine production by creating alternative economic opportunities for farmers.
   
• It addresses the loss of U.S. competitiveness in Colombia, in the wake of Colombian FTAs with Canada and the EU as well as Latin American sub-regional FTAs.

With respect to trade in goods, U.S. chemical, rubber and plastics producers will be key beneficiaries of COL-US, with an expected annual increase in exports in this combined sector of 23 percent, to $1.9 billion, relative to a 2007 baseline according to the ITC. The motor vehicles and parts sector is expected to see an increase of more than 40 percent. In the agriculture sector, rice exports are expected to increase from a 2007 baseline of $2 million to approximately $14 million (the corresponding increases would be 20 percent for cereal grains and 11 percent for wheat).

These and other gains will result from the gradual elimination of tariffs and from provisions that reduce non-tariff barriers as well. Among the latter, the most important changes would be increased transparency and efficiency in Colombia’s customs procedures and the removal of some sanitary and phytosanitary (or plant quarantine) restrictions. With respect to trade in services, Colombia has agreed to a number of so-called "WTO-plus" commitments that will expand U.S. firms’ access to Colombia’s $166 billion services market. For instance, the current requirement that U.S. firms hire Colombian nationals will be eliminated, and many restrictions on the financial sector will be removed.

On the investment front, the potential advantages to the United States also are substantial. In 2009, the U.S. flow of foreign direct investment into Colombia was $1.2 billion, which amounted to 32 percent of that nation’s total inflows. COL-US improves the investment climate in Colombia by providing investor protections, access to international arbitration and improved transparency in the country’s legislative and regulatory processes. These provisions will reduce investment risk and uncertainty.

COL-US presents significant improvements in the transparency of Colombia’s rule-making process, including opportunities for interested parties to have their views heard. COL-US also requires that Colombia’s judicial system conform with the rule of law for enforcing bilateral commitments, such as those relating to the protection of intellectual property. In addition to access to international arbitration for investors, COL-US includes dispute settlement mechanisms that the two governments can invoke to enforce each other’s commitments. Taken as a whole, these provisions offer an important benchmark for further developments in Colombia’s business environment. The transparency requirement alone could reduce corruption dramatically.

Labor rights have been a stumbling block to congressional approval of COL-US. The labor chapter of the agreement guarantees the enforcement of existing labor regulations, the protection of core internationally recognized labor rights, and clear access to labor tribunals or courts. In addition, in April 2011, Colombia agreed to an Action Plan strengthening labor rights and the protection of those who defend them. In the few months the plan has been in effect, Colombia has made important progress in implementation. It has reestablished a separate and fully equipped Labor Ministry to help protect labor rights and monitor employer-worker relations. It has enacted legislation authorizing criminal prosecutions of employers who undermine the right to organize or bargain collectively. It has partly eliminated a protection program backlog, involving risk assessments. And, it has hired more labor inspectors and judicial police investigators.

Besides economic benefits, COL-US offers sizable strategic benefits. It would fortify relations with an important ally in the region by renewing the commitment to the joint struggle against cocaine production and trade. Under the agreement, small and medium-sized enterprises in labor-intensive Colombian industries like textiles and apparel would gain permanent access to the U.S. consumer market. With considerable investments, Colombia would be able to compete with East Asia for these higher quality jobs, swaying people away from black markets and other illicit activities.

While Congress deliberates, the clock is ticking. Colombia is also looking at other countries as potential trade and investment partners in order to build its still underdeveloped infrastructure and reduce unemployment. Complementing its FTAs with Canada, the EU, and several countries in the region, Colombia has initiated formal trade negotiations with South Korea and Turkey and is moving toward negotiations with Japan. A perhaps more telling development is China’s interest in building an inter-oceanic railroad in Colombia as an alternative to the Panama Canal: on July 11th President Juan Manuel Santos signed a bilateral investment treaty with China (and the UK) and is expected to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao in the fall.

Effects of the Panama Agreement

Although Panama’s economy is far smaller than Korea’s or even Colombia’s, the PFTA will deliver important economic and strategic benefits to the United States. Considerable gains will take place in U.S. agriculture and auto manufacturing. Moreover, the PFTA will strengthen the U.S. presence in the region, allowing for the stronger promotion of democratic institutions and market-based economies.

U.S. merchandise exports to Panama topped $2.2 billion in 2009. The PFTA’s elimination of tariffs and reduction in non-tariff barriers will cause this figure to grow. For example, rice exports are expected to increase by 145 percent, pork exports by 96 percent and beef exports by 74 percent, according to the ITC. Exports of vehicles are expected to increase by 43 percent. The PFTA also guarantees access to Panama’s $21 billion services market for U.S. firms offering portfolio management, insurance, telecommunications, computer, distribution, express delivery, energy, environmental, legal and other professional services.

Panama’s trade-to-GDP ratio in 2009 was 1.39, highlighting the preponderance of trade in Panama’s economy and the international orientation of many of its sectors. Following passage of the PFTA, Panama will eliminate more than 87 percent of tariffs on U.S. exports immediately. The remaining tariffs will be removed within 10 years for U.S. manufactured goods and 15 years for agricultural and animal products.

PFTA protections to investors—similar to protections accorded under KORUS and COL-US—are especially valuable, as Panama receives substantial investments associated with sectors that will benefit from both from the expansion of the canal and from other infrastructure projects. A fair legal framework, investor protections and a dispute settlement mechanism, all features of the PFTA, are almost certain to increase U.S. investments in Panama. Panama’s Legislature also recently approved a Tax Information Exchange Agreement with the United States and amended current laws to foster tax transparency and strengthen intellectual property rights. These are crucial steps in preventing the use of Panamanian jurisdiction as a haven for money laundering activities.

Panamanian laws and regulations prohibiting strikes or collective bargaining were a concern that initially delayed implementation of the PFTA. But, these laws have been changed, with the exception of a requirement that 40 workers (not the recommended 20) are needed to form a union; the 40-worker requirement has been kept partly because labor groups in Panama support it. The PFTA’s labor chapter protects the rights and principles outlined in the International Labor Organization’s 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

Besides offering economic advantages to the United States, the PFTA is a strategic agreement. Strengthening economic links with Panama should bolster the U.S. capacity to address cocaine trafficking in the region, in light of Panama’s location as Colombia’s gateway to North America. The importance of the canal, now undergoing an expansion that will double its shipping capacity, further underscores the U.S. need to strengthen bilateral relations with Panama.

The time to act is now. Like Colombia, Panama has been negotiating with economic powerhouses other than the United States. It recently signed a trade agreement with Canada and an Association Agreement with the EU. Delaying passage of the PFTA would generate a loss of market share for a variety of sectors of the U.S. economy.

Conclusion

All three FTAs encourage trade by removing tariff and non-tariff barriers. All the agreements provide access to large services markets, foster transparency and offer significant strategic advantages to the United States. Congress should approve each of them now.

The authors would like to thank Juan Pablo Candela for his assistance with this project.

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Antibacterial drugs are a critical component of the nation’s public health armamentarium, and have saved millions of lives by preventing and treating a range of bacterial infections. However, antibacterial drug development has been hampered by challenges unique to the antibacterial drug market, which have stifled innovation and left patients and providers with fewer options to treat increasingly resistant infections. One consequence of the dwindling antibacterial drug pipeline has been a reduction in effective oral antibacterial drug treatment options, which are particularly important in the ambulatory and transitional care contexts. Recent proposals to re-invigorate the antibacterial pipeline are geared towards serious infections treated in the inpatient setting, which may lead to a greater focus on intravenous therapies. However, addressing both current and future needs in the infectious diseases space will require a balanced mix of both oral and parenteral antibacterial drugs.

In cooperation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at Brookings held an expert workshop on November 20, 2014, to identify the most promising strategies to support oral antibacterial drug development. Participating stakeholders included experts from the drug development and health care industries, the clinical community, government, and academia. These stakeholders shared their insights on potential regulatory, scientific, and economic strategies to reinvigorate the oral antibacterial drug pipeline. 

Event Materials

• Reinvigorating the Oral Antibacterial Drug Development Pipeline Agenda
• Reinvigorating the Oral Antibacterial Drug Development Pipeline Discussion Guide
• Biographies 20141118
• Reinvigorating the Oral Antibacterial Drug Development Pipeline Slide Deck

       

While antibiotics are necessary and crucial for treating bacterial infections, their misuse over time has contributed to a rather alarming rate of antibiotic resistance, including the development of multidrug-resistance bacteria or “super bugs.” Misuse manifests throughout all corners of public and private life; from the doctor’s office when prescribed to treat viruses; to industrial agriculture, where they are used in abundance to prevent disease in livestock. New data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirm that rising overuse of antibiotics has already become a major public health threat worldwide.

As drug resistance increases, we will see a number of dangerous and far-reaching consequences. First, common infections like STDs, pneumonia, and “staph” infections will become increasingly difficult to treat, and in extreme cases these infections may require hospitalization or treatment with expensive and toxic second-line therapies. In fact, recent estimates suggest that every year more than 23,000 people die due to drug-resistant infections in the U.S., and many more suffer from complications caused by resistant pathogens. Further, infections will be harder to control. Health care providers are increasingly encountering highly resistant infections not only in hospitals – where such infections can easily spread between vulnerable patients – but also in outpatient care settings.

Fundamental Approaches to Slowing Resistance

Incentivize appropriate use of antibiotics. Many patients and providers underestimate the risks of using antibiotics when they are not warranted, in part because these drugs often have rapid beneficial effects for those who truly need them.  In many parts of the world the perception that antibiotics carry few risks has been bolstered by their low costs and availability without a prescription or contact with a trained health care provider. Education efforts, stewardship programs, and the development of new clinical guidelines have shown some success in limiting antibiotic use, but these fixes are limited in scope and generally not perceived as cost-effective or sustainable. Broader efforts to incentivize appropriate use, coupled with economic incentives, may be more effective in changing the culture of antibiotic use. These options might include physician or hospital report cards that help impact patient provider selection, or bonuses based on standardized performance measures that can be used to report on success of promoting appropriate use.  While these might create additional costs, they would likely help control rates of drug resistant infections and outweigh the costs of treating them.

Reinvigorate the drug development pipeline with novel antibiotics. There has not been a new class of antibiotics discovered in almost three decades, and companies have largely left the infectious disease space for more stable and lucrative product lines, such as cancer and chronic disease. Antibiotics have historically been inexpensive and are typically used only for short periods of time, creating limited opportunities for return on investment. In addition, unlike cancer or heart disease treatments, antibiotics lose effectiveness over time, making them unattractive for investment. Once they are on the market, the push to limit use of certain antibiotics to the most severe infections can further constrict an already weak market.

Late last year, H.R. 3742, the Antibiotic Development to Advance Patient Treatment (ADAPT) Act of 2013, was introduced and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. If enacted, the ADAPT Act would create a streamlined development pathway to expedite the approval of antibiotics that treat limited patient populations with serious unmet medical needs. This could potentially reduce costs and development time for companies, thereby encouraging investment in this space. Regulators have indicated that they would also welcome the opportunity to evaluate benefits and risk for a more selective patient subpopulation if they could be confident the product would be used appropriately. The bill has received a great deal of support and would help address a critical public health need (I cover this topic in more detail with my colleagues Kevin Outterson, John Powers, and Mark McClellan in a recent Health Affairs paper).

Advance new economic incentives to remedy market failure. Innovative changes to pharmaceutical regulation, research and development (R&D), and reimbursement are necessary to alleviate the market failure for antibacterial drugs. A major challenge, particularly within a fee-for-service or volume-based reimbursement system, is providing economic incentives that promote investment in drug development without encouraging overuse.  A number of public and private stakeholders, including the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform and Chatham House’s Centre on Global Health Security Working Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, are exploring alternative reimbursement mechanisms that  “de-link” revenue from the volume of antibiotics sold. Such a mechanism, combined with further measures to stimulate innovation, could create a stable incentive structure to support R&D.

Improve tracking and monitoring of resistance in the outpatient setting. There is increasing concern about much less rigorous surveillance capabilities in the outpatient setting, where drug-resistant infections are also on the rise. Policymakers should consider new incentives for providers and insurers to encourage a coordinated approach for tracking inpatient and outpatient resistance data. The ADAPT Act, mentioned above, also seeks to enhance monitoring of antibiotic utilization and resistance patterns. Health insurance companies can leverage resistance-related data linked to health care claims, while providers can capture lab results in electronic health records. Ultimately, this data could be linked to health and economic outcomes at the state, federal, and international levels, and provide a more comprehensive population-based understanding of the impact and spread of resistance. Current examples include the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Sentinel Initiative and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute’s PCORnet initiative. 

Antibiotic resistance is an urgent and persistent threat. As such, patients and providers will continue to require new antibiotics as older drugs are forced into retirement by resistant pathogens. Stewardship efforts will remain critical in the absence of game-changing therapies that parry resistance mechanisms. Lastly, a coordinated surveillance approach that involves diverse stakeholder groups is needed to understand the health and economic consequences of drug resistance, and to inform antibiotic development and stewardship efforts.

Editor's note: This blog was originally posted in May 2014 on Brookings UpFront.

       

After decades of neglect, Latin American governments are increasingly focusing on urban slums. What often spurs their policy interventions is a desire to counter violent criminality leaking out from the poor marginalized slums controlled by gangs into the city centers the better-off residents want to keep safe. But tackling the socioeconomic dynamics of slums -- the trap of poverty, discrimination, lack of public goods and social services, and rule by nonstate actors -- is not only complex, but also costly. Governments, elites, and middle classes tend not to want to spend resources on slums. Effective policies have to be sustained for decades, and political will and tax revenues for such complex state-building are frequently scarce.

Focusing on a discreet intervention – providing low-cost housing – becomes tempting. Rarely is it sufficient. The condition of the buildings alone is not what makes a slum a slum. Moving residents from slums to better low-cost housing has encountered systematic challenges not just in Latin America, but also in other places where it has been tried, such as Kenya. Instead, policies need to focus on broader community dynamics, including public safety, legal job creation with sufficient income, human capital development, and robust connectivity of slums to economically-thriving areas, something residents of the latter often don’t want.

Paradoxically, real estate dynamics can have pernicious effects. If broader pacification does take hold and public safety in slums increases, some slum areas can become desirable real estate with vast development possibilities. Developers may well seek to buy the land by offering “better” low-cost housing to slum residents to get them to move. Since many slum residents do not have title to their residences, forced displacement also occurs, albeit under the cloak of being nice to the poor.

Instead of being limited to the provision of alternative residences, policies to address slums need to be about inclusion, economic growth, safety, and connectivity of slums with the thriving city parts, and accountability of city-governance authorities.

This commentary was originally published by the Inter-American Dialogue’s Latin America Advisor. 

      

For more than a decade, government assistance to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan (the so-called AIP countries) has dominated United States aid efforts. And as the examples below illustrate, American institutions and mindsets found it extraordinarily difficult to adjust to aid in unsafe places. Cameron Munter draws on his experience as the head of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Mosul, Iraq in 2006 and as ambassador of the United States to Pakistan in Islamabad in 2011, with a description of U.S. reconstruction and state-building from which we may find lessons to consider in the future.

In 2006, when he went to Mosul as the first leader of the first PRT, the American civilian and military authorities in Baghdad painfully learned that the post-conflict situation would not correct itself. The undergrowth of our own bureaucratic structure prevented us from gaining a sophisticated understanding of our surroundings. Members of the PRT came and left after a few months, without passing on their hard-obtained knowledge. Local authorities quickly realized that the PRT had neither the money nor the firepower of the brigade commanders. And most of all, the guiding principles in place were still the creation of a kind of constitutional framework where political leaders, police, courts, businesspeople, and citizens would have institutions familiar to Americans, institutions that would work as we knew how to make them work.

Munter arrived in Pakistan at a time of great hope for U.S.-Pakistani relations. In 2011, in a series of meetings with the U.S. deputy secretary of state for resources and the head of USAID, Kerry-Lugar-Berman priorities took center stage: education, energy efficiency, job creation, special projects in the tribal areas, and public health. It is one thing to define a task and quite another to apply it to the specific context of a country in which security considerations prevent most USAID workers from even laying eyes on their projects. Overall, it seems the United States was much better at measuring its commitment to a prosperous, democratic Pakistan at peace with its neighbors by counting how much it spent and how fast rather than creating the proper relationship with those on the ground with whom it might have partnered.

Under these circumstances, what are lessons learned? When security is shaky, assistance is difficult. It may be that in situations like the AIP countries, we only have the capacity to engage in humanitarian aid and immediate reconstruction. If that is so, then the whole question of engagement in dangerous places is reopened: In a military setting, with military tasks, and thus a military system of organization, can civilian assistance succeed? Money spent is the way we measure commitment in such a setting, and that doesn’t bring the results we need.

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• Imagining assistance: Tales from the American aid experience in Iraq in 2006 and Pakistan in 2011

      

Editor's note: This article is part of a series marking International Women's Day, on March 8, 2016. Read the latest from Global scholars on bridging the gender inequality gap, women’s well-being, and gender-sensitive policies in sub-Saharan Africa. 

This Tuesday, March 8, marks the first International Women’s Day since world leaders agreed last September to launch the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030. A more rounded conception of gender equality marks one of the SDGs’ most important improvements compared to their predecessor Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Two SDG targets help to illustrate the broadening geopolitical recognition of the challenges. They also help to underscore how much progress is still required.

A new target: Eliminating child marriage

The inclusion of SDG target 5.3 adds one of the most important new priorities to the global policy agenda: to “eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation.” Until only a few years ago, the child marriage portion of this target had received only scant international attention. The driving force advancing the issue has been Girls Not Brides, a fast-gelling coalition that now includes more than 550 civil society organizations from over 70 countries. The initiative was first spearheaded by Mabel van Oranje, the dynamic international policy entrepreneur.

At a practical level, ending child marriage faces at least two major challenges. First, it is largescale. Every year, an estimated 15 million girls around the world are married before the age of 18. Second, it is highly complex. There are no simple solutions to addressing cultural practices with deep roots. Impressively, Girls Not Brides has already published a thoughtful theory of change to inform policy conversations, accompanied by a menu of recommended indicators for measuring progress. Regardless of whether this specific theory turns out to be correct, the coalition deserves significant credit for advancing public discussions toward practical action and outcomes. One can only hope that every constituency that lobbied for an SDG target presents similarly considered proposals soon. The advocates for ending child marriage have already registered some early gains. In 2015, four countries raised the age of marriage to 18: Chad, Guatemala, Ireland, and Malawi.

A renewed target: Protecting mothers’ lives

The SDGs are also carrying forward the previous MDG priority of maternal health. Target 3.1 aims as follows: “By 2030, reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births.” Formally this falls under Goal 3 for health and wellbeing, but it certainly represents a gender equality objective too. Part of that is by definition; mothers are female. Part of it is driven by the need to overcome gender bias; male decision-makers at all levels might overlook key health issues with which they have no direct personal experience.

As of the early 2000s, maternal mortality was too often considered a topic only for specialist discussions. One of the MDG movement’s most important contributions was to elevate the issue to the center stage of global policy. For example, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made it a centerpiece among his own foreign policy priorities, including at the G-8 Muskoka summit he hosted in 2010.

Figure 1 shows an initial estimate of the gains across developing countries since 2000, as measured by maternal mortality ratios (MMR). The solid line indicates the actual rate of progress. The dotted lines indicate how things would have looked if previous pre-MDG trends had continued as of 1990-2000 and 1996-2001, respectively. (This is the same basic counterfactual methodology I have previously used for child mortality trends here and here, noting that maternal mortality data remain considerably less precise and subject to ongoing updates in estimation.)

The graph shows that developing countries’ average MMR dropped from approximately 424 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990, down to 364 in 2000, and further to 233 in 2015. That works out to a 36 percent decline over the past 15 years alone, driven by acceleration in progress during the mid-2000s. Importantly, the value in 2015 was also at least 12 percent lower than it would have been under pre-MDG rates of progress—287 under 1990-2000 trends and 266 under 1996-2001 trends.

Figure 1: Developing country progress on maternal mortality, 1990-2015

A long road ahead

Whereas the MDGs focused on developing countries, the SDGs apply universally to all countries. In that spirit, and slightly different from the previous graph, Figure 2 shows an estimate of the current global MMR trajectory for 2030, extrapolating the rates of progress from 2005 to 2015. Drawing from available data for 174 countries with a current population of 200,000 or more, the world’s MMR is on course to drop from approximately 216 in 2015 to 163 in 2030. This would mark a 25 percent improvement, but falls far short of the global MMR target of 70. (These calculations follow a similar methodology to my assessment last year of under-5 mortality trajectories.)

Figure 2: Global maternal mortality - current trajectory to 2030

The mothers of nations

Although the SDG for maternal mortality is set at a global level (unlike the country-level target 3.2 for child mortality), it is worth assessing how many individual countries are trailing the MMR benchmark of 70. The geographic nature of the global challenge is underscored in Figure 3. It lists the number of countries with MMR above 70 across the respective years 2000, 2015, and—on current trajectory—2030. As of 2000, 90 countries still had MMRs greater than 70. By 2015, this was down to 77 countries. By 2030, on current rates of progress, the relevant figure drops only slightly to 68 countries.

Most notably, the figure for sub-Saharan Africa remains unchanged between 2015 and 2030, at 44 countries, even though most of the region is already experiencing major mortality declines. Rwanda, for example, saw its MMR plummet from 1,020 in 2000 to 290 by 2015. It is on track to reach 106 by 2030. Meanwhile, Sierra Leone saw a decline from 2,650 in 2000 to 1,360 in 2015, on a path toward 768 in 2030. The challenge is not a lack of progress. Instead, it is simply that these countries have huge ground to cover to reach the ambitious goal. On current trajectory, 11 African countries are on course to have MMRs of 500 or greater in 2030.

Figure 3: Scoping progress on SDG 3.1

Number of countries with maternal mortality ratios > 70

Women and girls deserve more

Although these two targets for child marriage and maternal mortality embody only a small portion of the SDGs’ broader gender equality imperatives, they reflect crucial aspects of the overall challenge. On the positive side, they provide inspiration for the ways in which long-overlooked issues can rapidly gain political and policy traction. But they also underscore the scale of the task ahead. The global challenges of gender inequality—ranging from discrimination to violence against women to inequalities of opportunity—all require dramatic accelerations in progress. On this International Women’s Day, we all need to recommit to break from business as usual. Our mothers, sisters, daughters, and partners around the world all deserve nothing less. 

Note: The maternal mortality figures presented above have been updated subsequent to the original post in order to correct for a coding error discovered in the original country-weighting calculations for global trajectories.

      

We are kicking off the new Millions Learning video series with a spotlight on Teach For All, one of the 14 case studies examined in the Millions Learning report. Teach For All is an international network of local, independent partner country organizations dedicated to improving educational opportunities for children and youth around the globe. From China to Bulgaria to Peru to Ghana, each partner organization recruits and trains recent top-performing graduates and professionals to teach in their country’s underserved communities for two years, with the ultimate goal of developing a cadre of education leaders, both inside and outside of the classroom.

In this video, Wendy Kopp, CEO and co-founder of Teach For All, discusses Teach For All’s unique approach to building a pipeline of future “learning leaders and champions” and the role that a supportive policy environment plays in enabling this process. Kopp then explains how Teach For All grew from the original Teach For America and Teach First in the United Kingdom to an international network of 40 partner countries, sharing her own lessons learned along the way.

To learn more about Millions Learning, please visit our interactive report, Millions Learning: Scaling up quality education in developing countries, and/or visit our webpage.

Video

• Getting millions to learn: Interview with Wendy Kopp of Teach For All

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

Indian and Israeli relations are getting even friendlier: Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj visited Israel in January, and the trip is widely thought to precede higher level visits, including by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (he’d be the first Indian head of government to visit Israel). Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have both also indicated that they plan to travel to India “soon.”

The foreign minister’s visit was part of the ongoing Indian effort not just to broaden and deepen India’s relationship with Israel, but also to make it more public. But the trip—not just to Israel, but to what the Indian government now routinely calls the state of Palestine—also highlighted the Modi government’s attempt to de-hyphenate India’s relations with the Israelis and Palestinians. 

What is the state of India’s relationship with Israel, the Modi government’s approach toward it, and this de-hyphenated approach? 

A blossoming friendship

Since India normalized relations with Israel in 1992, the partnership has developed steadily. The countries have a close defense, homeland security, and intelligence relationship—one that the two governments do not talk much about publicly. Shared concerns about terrorism have proven to be a key driver; so have commercial interests (including Israel’s quest for additional markets and India’s desire to diversify its defense suppliers, get access to better technology, and co-develop and co-produce equipment). India has become Israeli defense companies’ largest customer. Israel, in turn, has shot up on India’s list of suppliers. 

In the early 1990s, Israel—like the United States—did not really figure on India’s list of defense suppliers. However, between 2005 and 2014, it accounted for 7 percent (in dollar terms) of military equipment deliveries—the third highest after Russia and the United States. As Indian President Pranab Mukherjee recently noted, Israel has crucially come through for India at times “when India needed them the most” (i.e. during crises or when other sources have not been available, for example, due to sanctions). The president referred to the assistance given during the Kargil crisis in 1999 in particular, but there has also been less publicly-acknowledged help in the past, including during India’s 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. 

Beyond the defense and security relationship, cooperation in the agricultural sector—water management, research and development, sharing of best practices—might have the most on-the-ground impact, including in terms of building constituencies for Israel at the state level in India. Israeli ambassadors have indeed been nurturing this constituency and reaching out to the chief ministers of Indian states for a number of years. (Incidentally, India, for its part, has felt that the closer relationship with Israel has created a constituency for it in the United States.)

Economic ties have also grown: The two countries are negotiating a free trade agreement, and have been trying to encourage greater investments from the other. The success of Indian and Israeli information technology companies has particularly led to interest in collaboration in that sector. 

The governments have also been trying to increase people-to-people interaction through educational exchanges and tourism, with some success. Israeli tourism officials have highlighted the 13 percent increase in arrivals from India over the last year. And tourist arrivals to India from Israel have doubled over the last 15 years, including thousands of Israelis visiting after their compulsory military service. 

Let’s go public

The India-Israel relationship has developed under Indian governments of different stripes. It was normalized by a Congress party-led government and progressed considerably during the United Progressive Alliance coalition government led by the party between 2004 and 2014. However, while some ministers and senior military officials exchanged visits during that decade, there were not that many high-visibility visits—especially from India to Israel, with the foreign minister only visiting once. A planned 2006 trip by then Defense Minister Mukherjee was reportedly cancelled because of Israeli military operations in Gaza and then the Lebanon war. The last Israeli prime minister to visit India was Ariel Sharon in 2003, and no defense minister had ever visited despite those ties. 

The Israeli ambassador has talked about the relationship being “held under the carpet.” More bluntly, in private, Israeli officials and commentators have said that India has treated Israel like a “mistress”—happy to engage intimately in private, but hesitant to acknowledge the relationship in public. The explanations for this have ranged from Indian domestic political sensitivities to its relations with the Arab countries.

[I]n private, Israeli officials and commentators have said that India has treated Israel like a “mistress”—happy to engage intimately in private, but hesitant to acknowledge the relationship in public.

When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government took office in May 2014 with Modi at its helm, there was a belief that the partnership with Israel would be a priority and more visible. Relations under the BJP-led coalition government between 1998 and 2004 had been more conspicuous. When in opposition, BJP leaders had visited Israel, and also been supportive of that country in election manifestos and speeches. 

As chief minister of the state of Gujarat, Modi himself had expressed admiration for Israel’s achievements, including “how it has overcome various adversities to make the desert bloom.” Traveling there in 2006 with the central agricultural minister, he also helped facilitate trips for politicians, business leaders, and farmers from his state to Israel. His government welcomed Israeli investment and technological assistance in the agricultural, dairy, and irrigation sectors. And, at a time when Modi was not welcome in many Western capitals, Israelis reciprocated: Businesses and government engaged with him, with Israeli ambassadors and consul generals from Mumbai meeting with him long before European and American officials did so. Thus, Modi’s elevation to prime minister was welcomed in Israel, as was the appointment as foreign minister of Swaraj, a former head of the India-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group.

However, the Modi government’s response to the Gaza crisis in summer 2014 left many perplexed and some of its supporters disappointed. The Indian government initially sought to avoid a debate on the crisis in the Indian parliament, on the grounds that it did not want “discourteous references” to a friend (Israel). After opposition complaints, there was a debate but the government nixed a resolution. In its official statements, the Modi government consistently expressed concern about the violence in general—and, in particular, both the loss of civilian life in Gaza and the provocations against Israel—and called for both sides to exercise restraint and deescalate. Yet, it then voted in support of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution that condemned Israel, a move that left observers—including many in the BJP base—wondering why the government didn’t instead abstain. 

Since then, however, the Modi government has moved toward the expected approach. The first sign of this was Modi’s decision to meet with Netanyahu on the sidelines of the opening of the U.N. General Assembly in 2014—despite reported hesitation on the part of some in the foreign ministry. Since then, there have been a number of high-level visits and interactions (and Twitter exchanges), including a few “firsts.” This past October, Pranab Mukherjee, for example, became the first Indian president to travel to Israel, where he declared the state of the relationship to be “excellent.” 

The Israeli ambassador to India has observed the “high visibility” the relationship now enjoys. Also noticed more widely was India abstaining in a July 2015 UNHRC vote on a report criticizing Israeli actions in the 2014 Gaza crisis. Indian diplomats explained the vote as due to the mention of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the resolution, but observers pointed out that India has voted for other resolutions mentioning the ICC. Israeli commentators saw the abstention as “quite dramatic;” the Israeli ambassador expressed gratitude. Palestinian officials, on the other hand, expressed “shock” and criticized the vote as a “departure.” 

In the defense space, cooperation is only growing: The Indian government moved forward on (delayed) deals to purchase Spike anti-tank missiles and Barak missiles for its navy; it recently tested the jointly-developed Barak 8 missile system, along with Israel Aerospace Industries; and an Indian private sector company has reportedly formed a joint venture with an Israeli company to produce small arms. Cooperation is also continuing in the agricultural sector, with 30 centers of excellence either established or planned across 10 Indian states. More broadly, the two governments are seeking to facilitate greater economic ties, as well as science and technology collaboration. 

There have been questions about why Modi hasn’t visited Israel yet, despite the more visible bonhomie. But, in many ways, it made sense to have the Indian president take the first leadership-level visit during this government. Mukherjee’s position as head of state, as well as the fact that he was a life-long Congress party member and minister, helped convey to both Indian and Israeli audiences that this is not a one-party approach. This point was reinforced by the accompanying delegation of MPs representing different political parties and parts of the country. For similar reasons, it would not be surprising if there was a Rivlin visit to India before a Netanyahu one. 

De-hyphenation? 

The deepening—and more open—relationship with Israel, however, hasn’t been accompanied by a U-turn on the Indian government’s policy toward Palestine. What the Modi government seems to be doing is trying to de-hyphenate its ties with Israel and Palestine. Previous governments have also tried to keep the relationships on parallel tracks—but the current one has sought to make both relationships more direct and visible, less linked to the other, while also making it clear that neither will enjoy a veto on India’s relations with the other. 

The deepening—and more open—relationship with Israel, however, hasn’t been accompanied by a U-turn on the Indian government’s policy toward Palestine.

The Modi government doesn’t demure from referring to the “state of Palestine” rather than “the Palestinian Authority.” It held the first-ever Foreign Office consultations with the Palestinians last spring, and the Indian foreign ministry made it a point to release separate press releases for the president’s and the foreign minister’s trips to Israel and Palestine. The Indian president became the first foreign head of state to stay overnight in Ramallah. Modi met with Mahmoud Abbas, whom the Indian government refers to as the “president of the state of Palestine, on the sidelines of both the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York and the climate change summit in Paris in 2015. The Indian foreign minister met with Abbas in 2014 in New York, and again in Ramallah on her visit. During their trips, both she and the Indian president also went to the mausoleum of Yasser Arafat (who the BJP in the past called “the illustrious leader of the Palestinian people”).

The government has reiterated India’s traditional position on a two-state solution, indicating its belief in an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. It voted in favor of the resolution on raising the Palestinian flag at the United Nations, and has continued to sign on to BRICS declarations “oppos[ing] the continuous Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Territories.” In Ramallah, Sushma Swaraj emphasized that India’s support for Palestinians remained “undiluted.” 

The continuity on this front is not just driven by historic and domestic political factors, but also by India’s broader balancing act in the region. Even as India’s relations with Israel have deepened, it has maintained—and even enhanced—its relations with Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Modi has welcomed the emir of Qatar, visited the UAE, and met with Iran’s Hassan Rouhani. The first-ever Arab-India Cooperation Forum ministerial meeting also took place in January. It would not be surprising if the Indian prime minister visited Saudi Arabia this year or there were high-level visits exchanged between Delhi and Tehran. The government has emphasized its “strategic intent and commitment to simultaneously enhance relations with the Arab world as well as Israel, without allowing it to become a zero sum game.” And, overall, the Israelis, Palestinians, and GCC countries have not pushed for Delhi to make a choice. 

The de-hyphenated approach, in turn, potentially gives Indian policymakers more space to take India’s relationship with Israel further. But, as was evident during the Indian president’s visit to the region, it hasn’t been problem-free and it has not been feasible to keep the two relationships entirely insulated. An upsurge in violence reportedly caused Israel to nix a proposal for Mukherjee to visit the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. There was also some heartburn about the Israeli delay in clearing 30 Indians' computers destined for an India-Palestine Centre for Excellence in Information and Communication Technology at Al-Quds University in Ramallah, as well as its refusal to allow communications equipment to be transferred. In the Israeli press, there was criticism of the president’s lack of mention of Palestinian violence. The Indian president and the foreign ministry also found themselves having to explain the president’s remark in Israel that “religion cannot be the basis of a state.”

There have been other differences between India and Israel as well, notably on Iran (something officials have tended not to discuss publicly). There might be other difficulties in the future, stemming, for example, from: negative public and media reaction in India if there’s another Israel-Palestine crisis; the stalled free trade agreement negotiations; potential Israeli defense sales to China; renewed questions about defense acquisitions from Israel; or the behavior of Israeli tourists in India. But the relationship is likely to continue to move forward, and increase in visibility, including with visits by Rivlin, Netanyahu, and Modi—potentially before the 25th anniversary of the two countries establishing full diplomatic relations on January 29, 2017.

      

2016 ushered in the revamped UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which built on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted in 2000. Poverty eradication is the number one developmental goal of both the MDGs and SDGs.

Over the past two decades, global efforts have been successful as the number of people living in poverty declined by more than half, from more than 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015. Despite such progress, the Arab world continues to lag in its efforts to combat poverty.

In fact, according to the UNDP, between 2010 and 2012, the percentage of the population in the region making less than $1.25 a day increased (PDF) from 4.1 percent to 7.4 percent. Previously, countries in the region had made progress in reducing poverty, but high levels of political unrest had reversed many of these improvements.

Poverty and conflict: A direct correlation

The persistence of conflict in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen remains one of the main drivers of poverty regionally. In Syria, after five years of civil war it is estimated that 80 percent of the population lives in poverty, and life expectancy has been cut by 20 years.

Almost a decade after the US-led invasion in 2003, poverty rates are on the rise in Iraq with statistics from the World Bank showing that 28 percent of Iraqi families live under the poverty line. The mass displacement from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) controlled areas, the decline in global oil prices and higher unemployment rates has meant that despite its oil wealth, the Iraqi government has failed miserably in addressing the poverty rate in the country.

Yemen's poverty rate has increased from 42 percent of the population in 2009, to an even more alarming 54.5 percent in 2012.

Despite an initial wave of optimism after the 2011 Arab uprisings, countries in North Africa continue to face economic challenges that have seen poverty rates increase in many areas.

In Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, five years of political upheaval have taken a toll on the economy. Increased unemployment, lower tourist arrivals, dwindling foreign currency reserves, and a weaker Egyptian pound has meant that 26 percent of Egypt's 90 million people live under the poverty line.

Despite a relatively successful and ongoing political transition in Tunisia, one in every six Tunisians lives below the poverty line as well. Tunisia is one of the highest contributors of ISIL fighters per capita, and Tunisian leaders continue to make a direct correlation between poverty and terrorism.

In the Palestinian territories, a lack of employment opportunities due to restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation continues to drive rising levels of poverty (PDF). Nearly two years after the war in Gaza, reconstruction efforts have slowed to a crawl. Such efforts promised employment for thousands of Palestinians; however, the slow trickle of foreign donations and a deficiency of construction materials indicate that the situation will not improve any time soon.

Although the outlook for the West Bank appears less grim than in Gaza, high levels of poverty persist as many Palestinians hold jobs that pay a meager wage. This shortage of suitable employment forces many Palestinians to seek employment from companies operating in settlements on occupied Palestinian territory.

Even with some Palestinians performing these jobs out of necessity, per capita income in the West Bank continues to decline. In Gaza, the situation is even worse with per capita income 31 percent lower than in 1994.

One step forward, two steps back

The SDGs provide an ambitious blue print for global development that includes a focus on education, the environment, women's rights, sustainable water, and many other critical areas. While all of these issues are of importance to the region, it will become increasingly problematic to progress these goals without a renewed emphasis on poverty eradication.

Countries currently in conflict pose the greatest challenge to poverty eradication efforts, as participants in these conflicts have pushed aside humanitarian concerns in the quest for victory. The international community should make preparations for post-war reconstruction in Syria and Yemen, while also remaining wary of incomplete political settlements that raise the prospect for the resumption of hostilities in the future.

Even though in Palestine it is unlikely that the Israeli occupation will end anytime soon, however Fatah and Hamas should work toward a reconciliation to improve the system of governance in the territories. This will provide Palestinians with a united front to tackle the challenges posed by the occupation and ease the suffering felt in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Arab countries must recognise that absolute poverty is only one dimension of the problem and that redistributive policies can only go as far to address the issue. The uprisings have shown that Arab youth not only protested against economic inequality, but also against marginalisation and political disenfranchisement. Any renewed push for more economic opportunities must also provide Arab youth with a chance to shape their future.

Lower oil prices will likely affect the level of aid wealthier Gulf Cooperation Council countries give to poorer countries in the region. Nonetheless, such aid should not simply dry up. The Saudi-led coalition has destroyed a large portion of the Yemeni infrastructure, so the Kingdom and members of its coalition should bear a large part of the reconstruction effort.

Arab governments should understand that poverty also has a security and stability dimension. The 2011 uprisings have shown that Arab societies have the ability to challenge incompetent governance and corruption.

Food security remains a huge challenge for a region that imports much of its key food staples. Should poverty and food security issues not be addressed, any future protest wave may constitute a "revolution of the hungry", that is likely to be more violent than the protest wave of 2011.

This article originally appeared in Al Jazeera English.

      

While Israeli and Palestinian interests are best served by a negotiated two-state state solution, the peace plan that Sam Bahour proposed in his February post disregards Israel's demographic and security concerns and is tantamount to a Palestinian veto on a negotiated solution. His insistence on the right of return for Palestinian refugees and rejection of security limitations on Palestinian sovereignty in effect asks Israel to become a binational state while creating a militarized Palestinian state alongside it. Bahour rejects the notion of unilateral action, but his case only reinforces my belief that Israel may need to act independently to protect its interests.

The logic behind the Clinton parameters and President Obama’s peace plan was that in return for the creation of a Palestinian state, Palestinian refugees would relinquish their claim to Israel; the hope was that this would allow for the "two states for two peoples" to exist side-by-side. Yet Bahour rejects compromise on the refugee issue as the forfeiture of “basic components of statehood and basic principles of Israeli-Palestinian peace that are enshrined in international law.” Any peace agreement that both establishes a Palestinian state and recognizes the rights of millions of Palestinians to enter Israel would hasten the end of Israel's Jewish identity.

Israel's interest in the creation of a Palestinian state is also built upon the assumption that a sound agreement would improve its security rather than threaten it. To this end, Israel has called for a demilitarized Palestinian state, and this has been echoed by the United States, France, the Czech Republic, the European Union, and Australia’s Labor Party. Even Mahmoud Abbas accepted the premise of demilitarization, saying, “We don’t need planes or missiles. All we need is a strong police force.” Nevertheless, Bahour’s piece declares any limitations on the sovereignty of Palestine unacceptable. For Israel, a peace deal that grants one’s adversaries access to more deadly weaponry would be absurd.

Bahour argues that my strategies for reaching a two-state solution are doomed because they do not meet the "mutual interests" of the parties to the conflict, but his plan does not offer incentives for Israel to make peace.

Bahour argues that my strategies for reaching a two-state solution are doomed because they do not meet the "mutual interests" of the parties to the conflict, but his plan does not offer incentives for Israel to make peace. His proposal not only fails to improve Israel's situation in any tangible sense, but further endangers it. Rejectionist Palestinian positions like Bahour's (and Abbas's recent dismissal of Biden's initiative) would veto the two-state solution as a means to move towards a single binational state. That is precisely why Israel may need to act independently to keep a two-state solution viable.