How Corruption was Eliminated and Economic Prosperity Restored in Georgia

When the prime minister comes to sell you an IPO, you, the investor, take the meeting. When that prime minister turns up with no bodyguards and shows remarkable knowledge of the company he is promoting, you, the investor, take notice. When Nika Gilauri, the premier of Georgia, tells you that the prosperity of his country has been achieved because it has become one of the "least corrupt" countries in the world, you, the investor, take note.
But it wasn't always like that. After the demise of the USSR, Georgia was not only one of the most corrupt of the former-Soviet republics, it was one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Bribe-to-drive was the norm; police stopped cars at least twice an hour to extort a non-trivial sum of money. The then-interior minister infamously quipped: "Give me petrol only. My people will take care of their own salaries." Being a traffic cop was so lucrative that you had to pay a bribe of between $2,000 and $20,000 to get the job in the first place. Graft was endemic. Georgians passed more envelopes to bent officials than the post office does letters. Meanwhile the economy crumbled and the state was left bankrupt and powerless.
The election of Mikhail Saakashvili changed everything. A bold reformer, he was swept to power in the "Rose Revolution" at the end of 2003 by the overwhelming desire for radical change. His closely-knit team is unified by a common vision and supported by a compliant parliament and judiciary.
The new government wasn't just radical – it shocked and awed. Ministers, oligarchs and officials were sacked or arrested. Those who resisted were dealt with decisively, sometimes brutally. The state confiscated $1bn worth of property. Custom officials bore collective responsibility; an entire shift would be punished if one officer was caught accepting bribes. Corrupt professors were kicked out with a lifetime ban from academia. But the piece de la resistance was Saakashvili's order to sack the entire 16,000-strong police force on a single day, to replace them with some of the best and brightest university graduates. Today, Georgia ranks alongside Finland as having the least corrupt police force in the world and their standout uniforms are rumoured to have been designed by Armani.
The campaign expanded irresistibly. Tax offices were equipped with CCTV; university exam papers were printed in the UK and held in bank vaults until needed; and officials were constantly tested in sting operations. The proactive assault on graft was accompanied by a PR campaign to undermine respect for criminal groups and introduce respect for the law.
The campaign then turned to the sectors. First up was the power sector that was widely used as a cash cow for well-connected oligarchs. In less than a year, Georgia went from net importer to exporter of electricity and the sector became the target of long-term foreign investment. Tax collection followed. Georgia's tax base consisted of just 80,000 companies in 2003 and tax collection was a mere 12% of GDP.
Saakashvili slashed red tape and introduced flat personal and corporate taxes. Eight years later over 250,000 companies are on the register, and pay the equivalent of 25% of GDP. Georgia now boasts one of the most liberal tax regimes in the world, on par with the Gulf states and Hong Kong.
Lastly came deregulation, with many rules and agencies simply abolished, removing channels of corruption in the process. Among other things, car registration became so easy that used cars became the largest export item in 2011. Georgia moved swiftly from the bottom of the World Bank's Doing Business ranking (112) into the top 20 (16) by 2012. Foreign investment followed and fuelled a multi-year surge.
But perhaps, the most lucrative Georgian export would be the fight against corruption itself – from which many states mired in graft could benefit.
The Georgians patented a process whose steps are replicable: establish early reform credibility by radical action, launch a frontal assault excluding no sacred cows, attract new blood, limit the role of the state via privatisation and deregulation, use technology and communication to maximum effect, and above all, be bold and purposeful. Georgia's close and distant neighbours should take heed. Their prime ministers and presidents have got their job cut out for them.

Culled from www.businessnews.com.ng

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Rio+20. Highlights on COMMITMENTS/AGREEMENTS (Rewrite)

Speaking at the United Nations
Conference on Sustainable Development, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that more than one hundred commitments and actions have been already mobilized in support of the UN's global
sustainable energy initiative.

"Achieving sustainable energy for all is not only possible, but necessary – it is the golden thread that connects development, social inclusion and environmental protection," Secretary-General Ban said at Rio+20, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The International Energy Agency estimates that 1.3 billion people – one in five globally – lack electricity to light their homes or conduct business. Twice that number – nearly 40 per cent of the world's population – rely on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste to cook food, resulting in toxic smoke that causes lung disease and death.

GOVERNMENTS
Among the commitments and actions agreed upon by Governments, Ghana, one of the first countries to announced said a national energy action plan to support capacity-development and innovative financing mechanisms is in place. Countries initiating or completing similar assessments include Bangladesh, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, Tajikistan, Uruguay and Vietnam.

Brazil said it has committed to investing a further $4.3 billion to achieve universal energy access at a national level by 2014.

PRIVATE SECTOR
Microsoft Corporation has committed to going carbon neutral and will be rolling out an internal carbon fee that will apply to Microsoft's business operations in over 100 countries.

Italian energy company Eni has earmarked approximately $5 billion to achieve its gas flaring and carbon intensity reduction goals; and, the Renault-Nissan Alliance has committed approximately $5 billion to commercialize affordable zero-emission vehicles.

Sadly, Shell is missing is this category, meaning that the ongoing gas flaring in Niger Delta is ongoing.

FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Bank of America has set a ten year $50 billion environmental business goal, while the World Bank Group has committed to doubling the leverage of its energy portfolio by mobilizing private, donor and public contributions to World Bank-supported projects, as well as supportive policies to expand energy access, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

NGOs
Commitments and actions agreed upon by non-governmental organizations, artists, academia, and individuals.
Members of the rock band Linkin Park have launched a campaign urging world leaders at Rio+20 to end energy poverty, while India's Energy and Resources Institute has committed to expanding lighting
services to households in several developing countries, using solar and other clean energy technologies, by 2018.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, along with 40 other professional associations, has pledged to mobilize their two million members worldwide in support of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative.

(Rewrite -Don A.O.)
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RAPIDLY RISING SEA LEVEL CAUSE FOR ALARM: Scientist

The sea level on a stretch of the US
Atlantic coast that features the cities of New York, Norfolk and Boston is rising up to four times faster than the global average.

This increases the flood risk for one of the world's most densely-populated coastal areas and threatens wetland habitats, said a study reported in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Since about 1990, the sea level along the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) "hotspot" zone has risen by two to 3.7 millimetres (0.08 to 0.15 inches) per
year.

The global rise over the same period was between 0.6 and one millimetre per year, said the study by the US Geological Survey (USGS). If global temperatures continue to rise, the sea
level on this portion of the coast by 2100 could rise up to 30 centimetres over and above the one-metre global surge projected by scientists, it added.

The localised acceleration is thought to be caused by a disruption of Atlantic current circulation. "As fresh water from the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet enters the ocean, it disrupts this circulation, causing the currents to slow down,"

USGS research oceanographer and study co-author Kara Doran explained. "When the Gulf Stream current weakens, sea levels rise along the coast and the greatest amount of rise happens north of where the Gulf
Stream leaves the coast (near Cape Hatteras).

"Extreme water levels that happen during winter or tropical storms, perhaps once or twice a year, may happen more frequently as sea level rise is added to storm surge," Doran told AFP.
"Scientists predict that this will lead to increased beach erosion and more frequent coastal flooding."

Another study has shown a one-metre sea level rise to increase New York's severe flooding risk from one incident every century to one every three years.

The USGS report was based on actual tide level measurements, said Doran.

© Copyright (c) AFP

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Looking at Rio+20 Summit from a Nigerian Perspective by Don Abiodun Odedeyi

In 1992, when the reality of Climate change set in, world leaders met to discuss on the global agenda for sustainable development. Since then, ways of protecting the environment has changed from one blueprint to another -with significant result, I must say.

The just concluded Rio +20 Summit (one of the many answer searching meetings for clean and sustainable environment), -a direct continuation to the gathering that occurred 20 years ago, attracted world leaders, including our very own President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (Nigeria), for what was termed 'the final negotiations'.

While conducting a pre-evaluation of the summit, I bumped into The Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-5) website.
According to GEO-5, "out of 90 most pressing environmental goals, including stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting food security, and protecting ecosystems and biodiversity, only four of those goals have a slight progress report.

These include:
1) Eliminating the production and use of substances that deplete the ozone layer
2) Removal of lead from fuel
3) Increasing access to improved water supplies
4) Boosting research to reduce pollution of the marine environment"

In all, the report emphasizes on messages we've been hearing for years: growing populations and economies are pushing the environment to "destabilizing limits."

Putting matter straight, the developed countries and indeed, the United Nations and other global international bodies that are saddled with the turn around of the world's environmental degradation are overlooking Africa.

If anything to go by, the 'slightly progressed' are nothing but terrestrial visions and distant thunder to any African.

From Shell's refusal to honour Courts verdict on oil spills, to gas flaring which are rapidly turning the once peaceful Africa landscape to an emerging Sahel dune, an El Nino land, the emergence of hurricane in Nigeria and Benin republic's Atlantic coast, severe drought in East Africa among others.

Not to mention a direct effects such as massive rural urban migration to due to oil spill (Niger-Delta), desertification (Northern Nigeria), unprecedented flood and devastating erosion (Eastern state of Nigeria).

Today, the commercial capital of Nigeria, Lagos, is battling with influx of people from regions stated above with less than 10% resources capacity. For want of survival, the state natural forest is all but depleted as people search for space to site buildings or their businesses.

Or is the Island of Tuvalu not worth looking at? With rising sea level due to loss of ice in the arctic and the Antartical regions as a result of global warming.
Where drinking water is mainly obtained from rainwater collected on roofs and stored in tanks. Whereas, the same atmosphere is being conterminated with Co2. What access is now being increased (item 3) for safe water?

Going by the information on the UN website about Carbon emission, it is evident that saving the planet will start from the side of who emits Co2 most.

In it post Rio+20 assessment, the world body's report, in part read, "In addition, the rapid economic growth of the Asia Pacific region has had negative environmental implications, such as dramatically increasing greenhouse gas emissions, that affect the rest of the world. For global efforts on curbing climate change to succeed, the Asia Pacific region has to step up its own fight against climate change, says the report, because many of the countries that are most vulnerable to it are in Asia".

As we continue the merri-go-round discussion, China, a world mainstream economy, is yet to accept it transformation from an emerging economy to a developed economy despite toppling Europe and US economies combine. This singular act made a mess of Climate Change summit held in Durban 2011, killed Kyoto protocol and push the world further to a tipping point crossroad.

How?
While US, Canada, Russia and Europe all agreed to. Implement the Kyoto protocol to the letter, the non-inclusion of China totally turned the idea to a lip service.

Now, Earth continue it fight for clean breath as Africa, and the Oceania who vast Island are fast gaining ground under the sea.

Yet the Rio+20 meeting left China, a stumbling block to a clean world, off the hook of it crime. We are now being led, with UN at the forefront, to another round of wasted years until, in another 20 years to this time, we gather for another lip summit in, perhaps, Rio.

Kyoto?
The Kyoto Protocol is an international
agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.

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Activists slammed Rio+20 sustainable development summit as a 'hoax'

As delegates ended the three-day Rio+20 summit with a 53-page statement called "The Future We Want," activists slammed the U.N. conference on sustainable development as a "failure of epic
proportions."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the document as a "firm foundation for social, economic and environmental well-being."
"Rio+20 has affirmed fundamental principles -- renewed essential commitments -- and given us new direction," Ban said in a statement.

Five cities fighting for climate survival
But the conservation group Greenpeace said the summit, formally known as the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, was "over before it started."

"One by one, the few proposed commitments and targets were deleted," Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo said in a statement.

"Rio+20 has been a failure of epic proportions," Naidoo added. "The only outcome of this summit is justifiable anger, an anger that we must turn into action."

Aid group Oxfam also slammed the once-in-a-decade event as a failure.

"Rio will go down as the hoax summit," Oxfam chief executive Barbara Stocking said. "We elect governments to tackle the issues that we can't tackle alone. But they are not providing the
leadership the world desperately needs."

"Paralysed by inertia and in hock to vested interests, too many are unable to join up the dots and solve the connected crises of environment, equity and economy," her statement added.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard defended the summit Saturday, saying she understood why many people were dissatisfied with the outcome, but stressed there had been progress.

"I do understand that there are people who will look at aspects of what has been resolved here and feel some sense that it's not enough, but we shouldn't forget where progress has been made," she said.

"I think agreeing to sustainable development goals
is progress," Gillard added. About 100 heads of state and government were
among roughly 40,000 delegates who attended the meeting, which the U.N. called an "historic opportunity to define pathways to a safer, more equitable, cleaner, greener and more prosperous world for all."

It came 20 years after the Earth Summit in Rio which adopted Agenda 21, an action plan for sustainable development in the 21st century.

During the meeting, the U.N. said some $513 billion had been committed to a number of issues including energy, food security, access to drinking water and ocean management.
Pledges made during the summit include a 100-million tree planting program, plans to lift African women out of poverty through green economy businesses, and a commitment to recycle 800,000 tons of PVC each year, the United Nations said.

On Thursday, Ban launched a "Zero Hunger Challenge," an initiative backed by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Programme (WFP), the U.N. Children's
Fund (UNICEF), the World Bank and Bioversity International.

The U.N. described it as a "personal challenge" to everyone worldwide to work together to end hunger.

The "challenge" has five main goals, including "100%" access to adequate food all year around, ending malnutrition in pregnancy and early
childhood, making all food systems sustainable, increasing productivity and income on family farms and eradicating all food waste.

The initiative earned praise from the head of Oxfam, which called it a "welcome ray of hope."
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Global warming worse than it appears: Nobel laureate, Carlo Rubbia

Carlo Rubbia, who shared the 1984 Nobel Prize in physics, says global warming is a much bigger problem than most people realize.
"My message is that the situation is much worse than one sees and believes," Rubbia, an Italian particle physicist and inventor, told Xinhua in an interview on the sidelines of the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20 Earth Summit).

Rubbia mentioned two "contradictory
phenomena" -- global warming and the aerosol masking effect which effectively offset the effects of the former. Otherwise, the temperature of the Earth would have increased to about three degrees centigrade by now, he said.
"The man in the street does not realize the effects of climate change," because in the last 10 years, the temperature did not increase substantially. So "people feel the pressure of global warming is not a reality," he said.

In reality, there are two phenomena co-existing at the same time -- global warming, which causes the temperature to rise and aerosol, which lowers air transparency and therefore reduces temperature, Rubbia said.
"So we have this unstable equilibrium, on one hand we have global warming which we do not really see because of a lot of pollution produced by the aerosol -- dust in the atmosphere, and etc," he said.
However, "as soon as we clean up the world by using less cars, using much more cleaner car, by burning less, then the full extent of the global
warming will come back, and it will be too late," he warned.

Rubbia recalled "a very substantial change in the temperature" of Europe during the summer of 2003, which then disappeared. All major greenhouse gas emitters agreed under the Copenhagen accord that global average temperature increase should be kept below 2 degrees centigrade.
Today, the temperature of the Earth is only about 0.75 degree centigrade higher than the past, but in reality it should be something about three degrees if there were not the other masking phenomena that is cancelling the warming effects.
As a result, people are not taking it "sufficiently seriously," because the situation became much more complicated and not so obvious as "yes or no," he said.

"There is more coal, and more coal means more Co2," he said, "We are in the process in which we see Co2 emissions do not tend to stabilize, but to go even faster."

It is difficult to convince the man in the street that this is a very serious situation which demands immediate measures, he said, illustrating by citing a mythological figure in ancient Greek.

AGE OF MAN
The world is entering "a new epoch called the Anthropocene dominated by the presence of man," Rubbia said, referring to an informal geological term used to describe the significant
impact of human activities on the Earth.

The world's population daily increases by over 200,000 people, with the growth rate incessantly rising and reaching nearly 80 million new people
per year, he said.
Expanding populations demand more food, water, energy and a greater consumption of mineral resources, exerting increasing pressure on the environment, he said.
Rubbia stressed the role of science in helping mankind to realize sustainability.
In order to be "rudimentally successful" in avoiding irreversible changes for the "possible catastrophic outcomes for humanity, new capacities for innovation and creativity would have to be created and integrated within the framework of global sustainability, " he said.

Rubbia called for a coherent energy policy, strategic choices and political will to foster innovative, scientific and technological developments to reconcile sustainable development and economic growth with the threat of environmental decay.

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SPEECH BY DR GOODLUCK EBELE JONATHAN AT THE UNITED NATIONS' CONFERENCE ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (RIO+20 SUMMIT) RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

Your Excellencies, Dear Delegates,
Let me first congratulate the President of Brazil for her election as the President of this historic Summit and also appreciate her for the facilities
and the warm hospitality the Government of Brazil has provided. I also commend the Secretary General and staff of the United Nations for organizing this Conference, which marks the 20th Anniversary of the Earth Summit, also held in this beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro.

The presence of many world leaders at this Summit lends credence to the fact that global cooperation is imperative to ensuring sustainable
development in our world. In line with the chosen theme for the Conference, we owe an obligation to our peoples and coming generations to eradicate poverty and employ green economy
in our sustainable development programme.

For us in Africa, the Green Economy is an agenda for growth, wealth creation and employment generation. We believe that the promotion of a Green Economy must be underlined by clear
national objectives, social and economic development imperatives and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

We are aware of the constraints posed to sustainable development in Africa by emerging challenges such as the global financial crisis, migration, rapid urbanization, the energy and food crisis, low resistance to natural disasters, desertification and the loss of the eco-system resulting from climate change.

A spectacular case in point is the Lake Chad in West and Central Africa which used to be the 6th largest Lake in the world. Unfortunately, this body of water, a major global resource has
become endangered to the extent that it has shrunk from about 25,000 sq kms in 1964 to less than 2000 sq kms today. At this rate, if nothing
is done promptly to salvage the situation, this world heritage will disappear within 20 years.

As a response to this great ecological challenge, a feasibility study on the Inter-Basin Water Transfer from the Ubangi River in Central African Republic (CAR) to Lake Chad has been embarked upon.

Nigeria has committed US$5 million out of the US$6 million earmarked for the studies. However, efforts to save the Lake exceed the capacity of the contiguous states because of the enormous resources required. I, therefore, appeal to the international community to support this project
which is a global responsibility. Concerned as we are about the sustainability of the environment, Nigeria promoted the Great Green Wall for Sahara Initiative as an integrated approach to check desertification and depletion of
natural resources in the Sahel, from the West Coast to the Horn of Africa.
The goal of the Great Green Wall project is to develop a regional strategy and national implementation plan that would lead to selection of country and cross-border projects for financing by the countries.

This noble project calls for donor support. In our sustainable development agenda, under
our medium to long term National Plans, we have developed several sectoral initiatives, particularly in agriculture, petroleum, solid minerals, power supply, renewable energy, trade and investment, water and sanitation, which accord priority to
environmental and wider development issues. Our goal is simple: Create more jobs and opportunities for our people to rise out of poverty, create wealth to ensure sustainable development.

While we recognize that the developing countries have primary responsibility for implementing their
own sustainable development agenda, there is no doubt that they need the support of the international community to achieve these objectives. In effect, Rio+20 can only be seen to be successful if the thorny issue of the means of implementation is adequately addressed. We must bridge the yawning gaps undermining the fulfilment of international commitments on sustainable development, especially in areas of
finance, external debt, trade and investment, capacity building and technology development.

I earlier referred to this Conference as historic because it marks a defining moment, both for humanity and for our planet. Today, we have a unique opportunity to reshape the future and
redefine the relationship between human advancement and environmental sustainability, by ensuring that we join, in a collective effort, to reduce the conflict between human development and environmental conservation. Twenty years ago at the 'Earth Summit', we
made a number of pledges. Today, twenty years later, it is evident, that there is still a lot more that we need to do. Working together to develop
'green economies', offers us a greater chance of a sustainable future. And that work must be intensified now.
As our challenges are collective, both in nature and consequence, our responses must also be collective, for them to have the desired impact.

And because the circumstances that confront us are extraordinary, the kind of change that is needed must also be extraordinary. To serve as a
catalyst to advance this, Nigeria believes that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
in Nairobi, Kenya be strengthened as a more robust United Nations Agency dedicated to advancing environmental and sustainable
development issues.

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my hope, that the outcomes of this Conference will mark that turning point in history that we all can look back at another ten to twenty years from now, and say that this is where and when we met, took the right decisions and the right actions that shaped a better future.

I thank you.
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