Disaster prevention, McDonald’s under fire and US retailers’ seafood sustainability ranked
Disaster funding badly targeted
New research by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery raises questions about how the international community is financing disaster prevention.
The full report, due to be released this summer, evaluates natural disaster-related financing using figures from the Disaster Aid Tracking (DAT) database over the 20 years to 2010. The study shows that disaster prevention represents only 13% of international aid overall – $13.5bn, compared with the $23.3bn spent on reconstruction efforts, and $69.9bn on disaster-related emergency response.
The report also examines how the international community prioritises and allocates disaster-related aid, and reveals that financing is heavily concentrated among 10 countries, accounting for 60% of total aid, while 155 countries share the remaining 40%. Moreover, the top 10 recipients are middle-income or emerging economies, including China ($1.6bn received) and Indonesia ($1.4bn received), while poorer countries with high risk of natural disasters such as Afghanistan and Haiti have only received $22m and $99m respectively over 20 years.
“We don’t fund according to need, not when it comes to disaster reduction and recovery,” says Jan Kellet, an author of the report from the climate and environment programme at ODI. “We appear to fund because of a lot of other reasons, including country relationships. If you look at key indicators such as number of disasters, impact of them, government capacity, and mortality risk from disasters, you’d be hard pressed to say the current ‘choices’ are correct.”
Looking ahead, Kellet highlights two key areas of improvement. For one, most donors currently manage international aid within their humanitarian divisions, as opposed to development. Kellet thinks this is a big mistake, as disaster reduction is not about the crisis itself but, rather, is tied to a country’s development. Additionally, humanitarian financing is usually short-term, whereas disaster reduction is a long-term issue that requires long-term development.
Kellet also suggests establishing a global fund to unite the international community around countries’ plans for disaster recovery, help incentivise giving, and reappropriate financing, so countries with the greatest need receive the most support.
McDonald’s labour practices protests
The National Guestworker Alliance (NGA), a US membership organisation of guestworkers, rallied a global day of action in 30 countries to protest about McDonald’s abuse of international contract workers.
NGA members were joined by past and present McDonald’s employees, students, global unions, and affiliates such as Sociales y Culturales in Mexico, New Trade Union Initiative in India and Ver.di in Germany.
The protest was prompted by a case in the US state of Pennsylvania where international students visiting on guestworker visas worked at a local McDonald’s, and claimed they were exploited by the franchise owner and made to work 25 hour shifts, received subpar wages and were placed in terrible living conditions without real recourse.
“Cases of labour abuse at McDonald’s show the fast food giant’s failure to set even the most basic labour standards for any of the 1.8 million workers at its 34,000 restaurants around the world,” NGA says. “McDonald’s sets standards for its franchise owners on trivial aspects of food presentation – while having no standards to protect the workers who generate $27.6bn in annual revenue for the corporation.”
The day of action incited a wave of additional demonstrations in the US by fast-food workers at McDonald’s and other prominent chains like Popeyes, Burger King, Wendy’s and Subway.
US retailer sustainability all at sea
The seventh edition of Greenpeace’s Carting Away the Oceans report named US retailers Safeway, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market as having the most sustainable seafood policies in 2013.
The report ranked 20 US grocery stores’ seafood sustainability based on their purchasing policies, supply chain transparency, red-list inventory, and participation in seafood sustainability and ocean conservation groups. Greenpeace assigned a score to each criterion, and combined them to determine each chain’s total score and ranking.
Whole Foods Market came out on top for the first time since 2008 – with a score of 7.3 out of 10 – due to its overall progress, including removing six red-list species from its stores, providing more transparency and third-party verification at point-of-sale, supporting the Safe Seafood Act, and advocating for the preservation of the Bering Sea Canyons.
Trader Joe’s made huge strides in 2013, moving up 13 spots to third place with a score of 7.0, “transforming itself from the erstwhile pirate lair of our old barnacle-backed nemesis into a beacon of seafood sustainability”, according to the report. Improvements include removing six unsustainable species from its shelves, creating robust internal standards for farmed seafood, supporting the Bering Sea Canyons, and issuing a monthly consumer update on its seafood sustainability progress.
Contrastingly, Kroger (4.5), Publix (3.2) and Bi-Lo (1.2) were the worst performers. Kroger still sells 17 red-list seafood items, the most sold by any major grocer in North America. Publix and Bi-Lo continue to conceal their sourcing policies, fail to participate in seafood sustainability initiatives, and sell a host of red-list items.
“Publix and Bi-Lo both seem to be wilfully ignoring the growing demand for sustainability and transparency in seafood,” says Casson Trenor, senior markets campaigner at Greenpeace. “It’s hard to say how much longer companies that behave this way will be able to get away with it without some serious pushback from concerned customers and organisations.”