Income losses of British millennials second only to those in Greece

Simon Whelan

Research conducted by the Resolution Foundation (RF) think tank found that Britain’s millennial generation—those born since 1981 and leaving secondary education around 2000—have suffered a greater reversal in their financial fortunes than their counterparts in every other developed country, with the notable exception of Greece.

The survey reveals that in 2014 British millennials earned 13 percent less than those born in and around 1970 at the same stage in life. In Greece, the decline is a savage 25 percent.

The RF think tank researched how incomes, employment and home ownership rates have changed from one generation to the next over the decades since the end of the Second World War in nine advanced economies, including the UK.

The international scope of the research reveals that in every so-called developed country across the world, most of the millennial generation struggle to find affordable and decent housing and to find secure employment with a decent wage. In short, for tens of millions of younger people, everyday life is a struggle to make ends meet. The basic needs of a civilised life, for shelter and food, cannot be taken for granted from one day to the next by millions.

The RF found severe reductions internationally in the levels of secure housing, jobs and income in the most advanced economies. On all measures except for unemployment, the British millennials have suffered greater reversals than their international counterparts. “The scale of the pay squeeze for those aged under 30 is surpassed only by Greece,” the RF finds.

The mass austerity imposed on the international working class since 2008 by all governments, working night and day to impose the predatory demands of the banks and financial speculators, finds its most calamitous expression in Greece.

The Greek population—barring the super-rich and upper middle class—have suffered a disastrous loss of income across the board. Over the same period, Greeks in their fifties suffered a 6-7 percent income fall.

Led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the pseudo-left Greek Syriza government continues to impose the brutal austerity diktats of the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund upon the backs of the Greek working class. Today, 19 years of brutal austerity imposed by social democratic, conservative and now a pseudo-left government have produced a social decline amongst Greek workers that is unprecedented in peacetime.

During the opening decades of the twenty-first century, the Greek working class have been reduced—after years of rising living standards—to social conditions usually associated with the so-called Third World. Absolute poverty, not just relative disadvantage, exists amongst the Greek working class, with Britain the next worse example of the outcome of such social butchery. This takes place under conditions in which the ruling elite are not declaring such austerity to be over. We are warned—driven by the necessity to ramp up military, intelligence and police spending—that far more attacks on the social position of the working class are on the agenda.

Britain is currently the penultimate poorly rated location for young working class people’s living standards and wages.

One of the notable aspects about the precipitous decline in the incomes and social conditions of the British working class is that the UK is still one of the top five economies in the world. It is a much more populous country than Greece, with the Mediterranean state’s relatively small geography and population. While the UK is the second largest economy in the EU, with a 16 percent share of the EU’s GDP total, Greece represents just 1.2 percent.

Hence, whilst the decline in the social position of the British working class has not yet sunk to the levels witnessed in Greece, the suffering in the UK is being experienced by much greater numbers of workers. Greece’s population is 10.75 million and the UK’s 65.6 million.

The collapse in living standards among millennials is the product of a social counterrevolution being implemented by the European ruling class, which is being rolled out by governments of every political stripe. Cuts totaling hundreds upon hundreds of billions of euros have been made across the continent, bringing untold misery.

The European ruling class chose Greece as the test bed to establish how far it can savage the social conditions of the working class. The result is that Greece has established an historic benchmark against which the austerity imposed upon other countries’ workers is to be measured. The calamitous decline in the social position of the Greek working class has been utilised to intimidate and threaten the entire European working class.

Whilst official UK unemployment among young people (those aged 16-24) is considered relatively low by international comparisons, it is still historically high at 9 percent, almost one in ten. (The youth unemployment rate has more than doubled in Italy, Spain and Greece between the early 2000s and the years following the 2008 financial crisis, and today remains above 25 percent.)

The British government’s figures on unemployment, however, cannot be considered accurate. The official figures are the result of years of so-called labour market reforms that have rendered it effectively impossible for young British jobless men and women to be counted amongst the monthly collected figures of the unemployed.

The RF notes the rise in the number of young people experiencing what it euphemistically called “atypical” employment arrangements—zero hour contracts and the proliferation of self-employment amongst the insecurely and infrequently employed. The decades-long brutal deregulation and casualisation of the British labour market is a prime reason why workers find it virtually impossible to make ends meet.

“Generation-on-generation progress has been all but wiped out for Millennials whose home ownership rate in their late 20s, at 33 percent, is half that for the baby boomers at the same age (60 percent),” the RF said. Moreover, the RF reported last year, the generation aged 18-36 are on average spending more than a third of their post-tax income on rent or about 12 percent on mortgages, compared with 5-10 percent of income spent by their grandparents in the 1960s and 1970s. The UK was ranked third worst amongst the developed states in terms of high house prices in relation to incomes. Only Denmark and, once again, Greece ranked lower.

The collapse in income and assets has further produced a growing debt crisis among young people. Last October, the Financial Conduct Authority’s Andrew Bailey explained, “There has been a clear shift in the generational pattern of wealth and income, and that translates into a greater indebtedness at a younger age. ... That reflects lower levels of real income, lower levels of asset ownership.”

The RF research revealed that in most developed European countries there is now a widespread belief—according with bitter life experience—that young adults will be worse off than their parents, with the French the most pessimistic. Only 10 percent of French people think young people will be better off than their parents, while 71 percent believe they will be worse off. The UK was fourth from bottom in the survey, with 22 percent believing young adults will be better off and 50 percent saying they will be worse off.

UK general calls for hike in military budget and cuts in social spending

Steve James

The March 1 edition of the Times devoted its front page to a headline demand: “Spend more on armed forces or risk defeat, military chief warns.”

General Sir Gordon Messenger, vice chief of the defence staff, became “the first senior military figure in a generation to explicitly call for more funding,” it reported.

Speaking to Defence Editor Deborah Haynes, General Messenger—who has served in the former Yugoslavia and Iraq and was head of the British Army’s Task Force to Afghanistan’s Helmand province—insisted that an increase in arms spending beyond the current 2 percent of GDP is “a necessity and a duty to the nation.”

Messenger holds the second most senior position in the British armed forces and is a strong candidate to succeed the current chief of defence staff, Sir Stuart Peach. The final decision on the appointment lies with Prime Minister Theresa May. His comments would undoubtedly have been cleared and approved by both the government and the intelligence apparatus.

Agreeing that increased defence spending would entail cuts elsewhere as “there are all sorts of pressures on the public purse,” he insisted, “we should be making the case for a bigger defence budget in order to respond to those types of threats that are changing all the time. …”

Messenger said, “I am not suggesting that we are about to descend into world war any moment now, but I do think there are activities going on that need to be countered.”

Making clear the target of increased spending, he said, “You also need to project forward 10 or 15 years and I don’t necessarily select Russia out from others in this, but we need to be ready for a deterioration in the international arena. And we need to recognise what that confrontation might look like, what capabilities we might have to develop in order to be a player in that confrontation and plan accordingly.”

While mapping out preparations for future wars, Messenger insisted that more defence spending was required immediately for wars that are imminent. He revealed that the British military are preparing scenarios to participate in a US-led assault on North Korea, stating that this was “a global security issue.”

Writing in the Times March 1, Messenger outlined a sweeping description of the forces British imperialism was preparing to confront: “There are state and non-state actors that are prepared to view what we describe as the rule-based international order in a very different way and do things that we believe are outside international norms and international law.”

He viewed the “next big fight,” most likely against nuclear-armed Russia, as winnable.

“Russia has invested in certain capabilities...but there are still plenty of places where we can overmatch them and when you include the multiplying effect of doing so in a NATO force with 29 nations each bringing their own niche areas of strategic advantage I think that is quite a compelling story.”

Messenger’s demands were reinforced in an op-ed piece in the same edition of the Times. This was written by Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, former chief of the defence staff, and Michael Clarke, a former director of the influential Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) military think tank. They called for a “strategic surge after Brexit” to face “challenges in foreign and defence policies that we would have faced in the next decade even had we not voted to leave the EU.”

A new “grand strategy” was needed because the current situation was “not unlike the choice we faced in 1940,” when, in the early years of World War II, Britain was forced to evacuate its army from France. Today, they stated, to avoid national isolation “caught between disinterested, pre-occupied Europeans and Trumpist Americans,” a “shift of national resources to make best use of the instruments of global influence at our disposal” was required.

Richards and Clarke outlined a crisis-ridden international situation: “China is going global while the US is thinking about going home. Europe faces a perfect storm from Russian bellicosity in the east, migration crises in the south and political extremism bubbling above and below the democratic surface.”

They worried about NATO’s future and the status of British imperialism globally: “Turkey has effectively defected from the alliance to join Russia and Iran in trying to remake the Middle East. In short, Britain’s international neighbourhood is a mess, and we will have to navigate it from outside the EU, while still trying to be a European second-rank power.”

Richards and Clarke complained that “spending on defence, security, diplomacy, intelligence, international aid and R&D comes to £62 billion a year, less than 10 percent of government spending.” This, they demanded, should be increased, even though “some of the trade-offs against social policy, health or education might be severe if spending were increased on defence and intelligence.”

“Would this be justified?” they asked, concluding, “Yes, at least for the coming decade.”

The Times agreed with this agenda of social immiseration in pursuit of war, weighing in against the “pernicious idea that defence spending is a mere footnote to the chunky health and welfare budgets.”

Its editorial, “Defence of the Realm—Government has a duty to invest more in the nation’s protection,” called for stepped-up state surveillance—“not just bigger tanks but preparation for a campaign that interrupts an enemy’s access to battle winning data and scoops up information from social media.”

It closed with the ominous statement, “The UK may meet the NATO defence spending target of 2 percent of GDP, but the government should understand that this sum barely covers the existing needs of the armed forces, let alone their expanding requirements as they adapt to a new combination of threats. It is a primary task of the state to protect citizens from peril, and to prevent war by preparing for it.”

With their intervention, Messenger, Richards, Clarke and the Times have made clear the brutal cost involved in “preparing for it.” What is being demanded is that the population accept the gutting of spending on health care, education, housing, welfare and pensions to pay for a massive rearmament programme and the handing over of hundreds of billions to the already vast military-intelligence complex.

For the Times and the highest echelons of the military, spending £160 billion on pensions, more than £100 billion a year on the National Health Service, £59 billion on welfare, £40 billion on public education and over £20 billion on the housing benefit subsidy—at the expense of military spending—is “pernicious.” Instead, “severe” cuts to these budgets must be imposed as “a necessity and a duty to the nation.”

An assault on the conditions of the working class on an almost unimaginable scale is being mooted. Such a social counterrevolution would make even the massive austerity imposed over the last decade pale in comparison.

The warning by Richards and Clarke of “political extremism bubbling above and below the democratic surface” is a tacit recognition that the build-up of acute political and social tensions would escalate to the point of civil war in the event of such an assault.

The British military had already made clear that it is prepared to go to any lengths to impose its war-mongering agenda when an unnamed senior serving general told the Sunday Times, in September 2015, that in the event of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister there would be “the very real prospect” of “a mutiny”—with elements within the military prepared to use “whatever means possible, fair or foul” to remove him.

Argentine teachers begin school year with a national strike

Andrea Lobo

Tens of thousands of Argentine teachers and supporters marched Monday to the Argentine Congress as part of a 48-hour national strike Monday and Tuesday to initiate the school year. The action was staged in protest against cuts in public education spending and attempts by the government to drastically reduce the real wages of teachers, offering a 15 percent raise when inflation reached 25 percent last year, and is expected to be similar this year.

Coming a month after the right-wing government of President Mauricio Macri brutally repressed protests by hundreds of thousands of youth and workers against pension cuts, the strike expresses the ongoing resistance among workers to the brutal social attacks.

According to estimates of the Argentine government, about 30 to 35 percent of public teachers nationwide participated in the strike, while the Buenos Aires province reports a 47 percent walkout. The major education trade union, the CTERA, which is a branch of the right-wing CTA union confederation, insists that the strike was observed in 85 percent of Argentine public schools.

Significantly, in the provinces of Cordoba and Mendoza, home of some of the most militant workers recently and historically, marked by the uprisings at the height of the Argentine workers’ movement known as the Cordobazo in 1969, and Mendozazo in 1972, the numbers were the lowest, with the unions admitting a majority went to work.

A relatively low participation in these areas reflects the sentiment among more and more workers that the trade unions cannot be pressured into leading a struggle that defends their social rights.

Under pressure of the health care workers and other state employees, the CTA was obliged to convoke a one-day strike for these sectors on Tuesday in the province of Buenos Aires, with workers calling for higher salaries and public investment in education and health. The Buenos Aires government of the ruling Cambiemos coalition under María Eugenia Vidal is currently closing dozens of public schools and carrying out mass firings.

However, perhaps the starkest attacks against teachers are being carried out in Santa Cruz province by the Peronist, Alicia Kirchner, sister of the ex-president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007). After cutting real wages for teachers in 2016 by 7 percent, she sought another massive cut of 20 percent last year, leading workers to strike for over 100 days. Kirchner has avoided making an offer so far this year.

At the national level, real wages measured by the Ministry of Education fell for teachers between 2011 and 2015, during the second term in office of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and are currently more than 5 percent below the 2011 level.

As a means of dividing the workforce, governors of all provinces had agreed last November and December to a “fiscal deal” with the Macri administration, including keeping salary negotiations at a provincial level but abiding by the limits imposed by the Casa Rosada, Macri’s presidential palace. In accordance with these dictates, the trade unions and local governments of seven provinces reached back-room, sell-out deals before this week’s strike and ordered the workers not to join their colleagues across the country.

“There is no nationwide conflict; the provinces are the ones that have to discuss and settle differences,” Macri provocatively declared on Monday. An official declaration also underscored that teachers will not be paid for either day they miss and will lose an ARS$6,000 (US$300) attendance bonus.

On the other hand, trade union leaders have sought to limit the demands of the teachers. The head of the SUTEBA-CTA trade union, Roberto Baradel, who presents himself as more loyal to the teachers, simply called for a “trigger clause” to supposedly compensate teachers if inflation goes beyond the settled increase.

However, a lawyer for the CTA’s own “Social Rights” think tank, Luis Campos, commented to the Socialist Workers’ Party (PTS) press last June that “in terms of a more political evaluation, I think that it’s a necessity to publicly present agreements that don’t have a very significant salary increase and, in this way, making them more palatable. What is true is that the [“trigger” or inflation-control] clauses don’t protect automatically in any way the salaries of the workers.”

Not wanting to harm its close relations with the leaders of a trade union bureaucracy of which it is a part, the Morenoite PTS doesn’t comment on such blatant affirmations of the key role that the trade unions play in suppressing opposition and directly imposing the government’s austerity measures.

Their coverage of the 48-hour strike simply sought to orient workers fully to the CTA bureaucrats, Sonia Alesso and Hugo Yasky, calling on them and the other right-wing central, the CGT, to present a “plan of struggle” to resist Macri’s social attacks. Moreover, they fed into the CTA promises of further mobilizations in April and into the illusions that this demobilization scheme, almost identical to last year’s, will result in a broader struggle among workers.

Not only do teachers share the same demands as the rest of the working class—a secure job, decent salaries, benefits and pensions, quality health care and public education, investments in public infrastructure—but teacher negotiations in Argentina have historically been used as a reference point for the rest of the public and private sectors.

Moreover, the defense of public education has become a front line of class struggle internationally, with the ruling class seeking to antagonize teachers as “privileged” and “selfish,” while their living standards and those of the majority of workers continue to fall.

On the other hand, the wealth of the financial aristocracy in Argentina and internationally has enjoyed an unprecedented boom amid a stagnating real economy. The South American stock markets saw some of the highest jumps in the world last year—50.5 percent in Buenos Aires, followed by Santiago (44 percent) and Lima (31 percent), all well above the US Dow Jones index (25 percent).

Such financial speculation soars thanks to the most ruthless transfer of wealth from the working class to the bourgeoisie through regressive taxes, public bond speculation, austerity measures and attacks against health benefits, pensions, wages and jobs.

As harbingers of the resurgence of the class struggle currently being experienced internationally, workers in precisely those countries demonstrated an enormous will to fight last year, with two million Chileans marching against the privatized pension system in March, hundreds of thousands of Argentine teachers leading a national strike that month, and more than 200,000 Peruvian teachers carrying out a national strike for two months in July and August.

At the same time, regressive education “reforms” have been implemented in one country after the next, initiated with Mexico’s in 2013, imposed through a brutal crackdown epitomized by the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa student teachers in September 2014. Most recently, Washington and Puerto Rican authorities have been seeking to exploit the destruction wrought by Hurricane María to implement a generalized privatization of education on the island, which is virtually certain to be used as an example for the rest of Latin America and the US.

As Latin American governments prepare for challenges from the working class internally and greater competition for markets abroad, they have increased their national security and military spending. Macri has been carrying out a renewal of Argentina’s armed forces with a $2 billion package since entering office, while the Obama administration more than tripled its security aid to Argentina in 2016.

Just as in West Virginia, the discussions between the state legislators over the teachers’ strike have centered around its impact on Wall Street credit ratings, the Argentine authorities are paying more attention to the demands of the parasites in the global financial centers than to the denunciations by students and teachers of the horrendous conditions in the classrooms and at home imposed by a capitalist system that places above all else the imperative of immediate profits for the capitalist class.

Against the same financial oligarchs, workers in Argentina, West Virginia and internationally need to free themselves from the nationalist shackles and reformist illusions enforced by the capitalist political establishments and their servants in the trade unions by organizing independent rank-and-file committees and unifying their struggle into an international political movement against the capitalist system.

Why the far-right won in Italy

Peter Schwarz

The results of Italy’s March 4 parliamentary elections must be taken as a warning by the European and international working class. The collapse of the official “left”—the Democratic Party (PD) and its pseudo-left appendages—has led to an electoral victory for the far right, including the Five Star Movement (M5S), led by comedian Beppe Grillo, and the extreme-right Lega, formerly the Lega Nord.

Notwithstanding their demagogic social promises, these far-right parties will intensify the anti-working class policies of the PD government just voted out of office, including the assault on refugees and immigrants. Lega leader Matteo Salvini threatened during the election campaign to deport half a million immigrants if his party came to power.

Other Lega politicians want to segregate train cars on the basis of skin colour and religion. They bluster about the supposed extermination of the white race due to an invasion of refugees. The M5S, which initially focused chiefly on corruption within the established parties, has long been agitating against refugees.

The ability of the far-right to so aggressively raise its head in Italy, a country whose working class has long and militant anti-fascist traditions, testifies to the utter bankruptcy of the official “left.” The racist and fascist policies pursued by the right-wing parties are not supported by the broad mass of workers. Just days before the election, 100,000 people demonstrated in Rome against racism and fascism. The votes for Lega and M5S are largely an expression of hatred of the established parties, which have presided over a social catastrophe and supported the deeply despised war policies of NATO and the European Union.

In the United States, the close ties of the Democrats and their presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to Wall Street and the military/intelligence apparatus paved the way for Trump to enter the White House. In Europe, social democratic parties have lost the support of the working class due to their pursuit of neo-liberal policies.

In every case, it is the far-right that has benefited. In France, the National Front came in second place in last year’s election; in Germany, the far-right ultra-nationalist Alternative for Germany entered parliament for the first time, and in Austria, the Freedom Party (FPÖ) shares government power.

The growth of the right wing due to the anti-working class policies of the nominal “left” parties is especially pronounced in Italy. Since the 1990s, the successor organisations to the Italian Communist Party have repeatedly enforced the interests of the financial markets and the European Union’s austerity dictates against bitter opposition from the working class.

Over the past six years, four successive prime ministers—the technocrat Mario Monti, who was backed by the Democrats, and the three PD prime ministers (Enrico Letta, Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni) have rolled back the historic gains of the workers’ movement and slashed social benefits.

The consequences of these policies are seen in Italy’s disastrous social conditions, with 10 million people living in poverty, 7.5 million unemployed or underemployed and 10 million without healthcare. The official “left” has presided over a dramatic redistribution of income and wealth from the bottom to the top. Today, the richest 1 percent of the population owns 240 times as much wealth as the poorest 20 percent.

The Five Star Movement and the Lega, which together won almost half of all votes cast, appealed to popular anger against the government and the ruling elite. Both parties attacked the EU, promoted nationalism and scapegoated refugees. Lega, whose stronghold is in wealthier areas of northern Italy, combined these demagogic calls with demands for tax cuts. The Five Star Movement, which was most successful in the impoverished south, has pledged to fight for a guaranteed basic income and better pensions—promises it has no intention of keeping.

The pseudo-left organisations, which contested the election as the Potere al Popolo (Power to the People) alliance, also bear responsibility for the rise of the extreme right. These tendencies portray themselves as “left-wing” and “anti-capitalist,” but have for years supported the right-wing policies of the PD and the trade unions. The driving force behind Potere al Popolo was Rifondazione Comunista, a party that used its influence in the 1990s to prop up bourgeois governments and ultimately entered the hated centre-left government of Romano Prodi.

Potere al Popolo’s international models include parties such as Spain’s Podemos, Jean-Luc Melenchon’s Unsubmissive France, and Greece’s Syriza, which came to power by promising to end European Union austerity and has since imposed more brutal social attacks than its predecessors. These betrayals have repulsed workers and young people, and—in the absence of a true Marxist and socialist alternative—driven desperate sections of the population to vote for parties such as the M5S and Lega. Potere al Popolo polled little more than 1 percent in the election.

The collapse of the official Italian “left” and its pseudo-left appendages underscores the fact that the fight against the growth of the far-right and the turn of the ruling elites to war, fascism and dictatorship can be stopped only by a revolutionary socialist movement of the working class. The growing number of strikes and working class protests across Europe as well as in Asia and the US shows that the conditions for the emergence of such a movement are ripening internationally.

The Italian election marks the beginning of a new period of political crises and class struggles. It has intensified the crisis of the European Union. The formation of a new government could drag on for months, possibly resulting in new elections. Italy’s banking system faces the threat of complete collapse. While the ruling elites are seeking to remilitarize Europe and crack down on social and democratic rights, political and social opposition is growing throughout the continent.

Amid the rise of German and Italian fascism during the 1930s, Leon Trotsky wrote that the “political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.” This remains the most urgent question today.

Everything now depends on the construction of a Marxist party to mobilise the revolutionary potential of the Italian, European and international working class. This means building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in Italy and throughout Europe.

National Film & Video Foundation (NFVF) Bursary for Filmmakers in South Africa 2018

Application Deadline: 31st March 2018 at 17h00 CAT.

Eligible Countries: South Africa

To be taken at (country): South Africa

Type: Short courses

Eligibility: The applicant must:

• Must apply six months before the course commences
• Be a South African citizen
• Have a good academic record
• Demonstrate a need for a financial assistance
• Be enrolled at an accredited overseas tertiary institution for a full time post graduate film/TV programme (the course must be commencing in September 2018 and not available in South Africa)

Applications must be accompanied by a detailed motivation why the applicant must be awarded a bursary together with all the supporting documents as indicated in the online application form.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: This bursary will be awarded for the 2018 academic year with a cap of R250 000 inclusive of tuition and living expenses.

How to Apply: Complete an online international bursary application form which is available on the NFVF website: www.nfvf.co.za or https://nfvf.praxisgms.co.za.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: National Film & Video Foundation (NFVF)

Important Notes:  

• Failure to provide all requested information will lead to an automatic disqualification of the application.
• No late applications will be considered.
• Should there be a change of contact details the onus is on the applicant to notify NFVF.

Business School International MSc Scholarships at University of Hull 2018/2019 – UK

Application Deadline: 4th June 2018.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): University of Hull, UK

About the Award: Five scholarships are available for new MSc students (non-University of Hull graduates) and these are awarded on the basis of academic excellence. This scholarship only covers a part of the full tuition fee and additionally does not cover living or travel costs. These scholarships are valid only for the academic year commencing September 2018. Please note that this scholarship does not cover the cost of living or travel.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: In order to be considered for the MSc, applicants must

• have applied and received confirmation of an offer to study before applying for this scholarship and must write their admissions application code on the scholarship application for consideration
• be able to commence their studies in September 2018
• have not been awarded any other scholarship or sponsorship
• be considered as international students for tuition fee purposes

Number of Scholarships: 5

Value of Scholarship: The MSc scholarship covers 50% of the full tuition fee and does not cover living or travel costs.

Duration of Scholarship: For the normal period of one year

How to Apply: Applicants for all of the above scholarships must submit the following

• this completed application form (with their application code entered)
• a copy of their offer letter
• proof of a minimum overall 2:1 honours Bachelors degree pass or equivalent
• one good academic reference
• an essay of no more than 500 words on why you wish to study at Hull University Business School on the MSc programme for which you have applied and – focusing on your academic achievements, any positions of responsibility you have held or any recognition you have received for excellent performance at your previous institution –  why you should be considered for a scholarship.

(Please note that scholarship applications submitted without all requested documentation will not be considered)
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Scholarship Provider: University of Hull, UK

Zawadi Africa Education Fund Undergraduate Scholarship for Women 2018

Application Deadline: 6th April 2018

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Mozambique

About the Award: Zawadi Africa Education Fund is a leadership development program that provides university scholarships and leadership development and life skills training to academically gifted but financially disadvantaged African girls, with the objective of developing a pipeline of young African women leaders.

Zawadi Africa was formed with the belief that together with a world class education and the right character development, these young African women will be able to return to their home countries empowered and equipped with the skills needed to make significant, positive impact in their communities in a continent where traditionally women have not had a voice in the development of their community.

Eligibility: To be eligible to apply for this scholarship, the following criteria must be met:

• A girl who has completed her secondary school examination i.e. The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE)
• Has demonstrated academic excellence (A Plain or A Minus)
• Has demonstrated leadership qualities e.g. in school as a prefect, in the community, church, leadership in peer related activities etc.
• Has overcome insurmountable odds such as serious financial challenges, oppressive social-cultural practices such as early marriages and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) etc. in order to attain academic excellence.
• Come from a financially disadvantaged background.
• Has demonstrated clear financial need

Selection Criteria: includes excellent academics, extracurricular involvement, leadership potential and financial need.

Selection: The Admission decision is entirely dependent on the Universities’ Admission Boards. Shortlisted candidates will be called for an interview a month after the deadline of this application.

How to Apply: 

1. If you meet the above criteria, ensure that you download and complete every part of the application form. Your application will only be considered if it completely filled.
2. Attach a one page biography and a passport photo. The biography should be TYPED and highlight your family and educational background, your aspirations, financial status, as well as hobbies and activities that you have undertaken while in school and in your community.
3. Attach a 500-650 word essay on ONLY ONE of three topics listed on page seven.
4. Attach a copy of your high school leaving certificate and K.C.S.E result slip as well as copies of high school certificates that show your involvement in extracurricular activities and leadership related initiatives.
5. Attach a signed recommendation letter from your class teacher or head teacher.
6. Attach a copy of your birth certificate and your National Identity Card (if you have one).
7. Attach a letter from your local chief confirming his knowledge of your family and yourself. The letter should preferably be written on a government letter headed document.
8. Any false statements, omissions or forged documents will lead to automatic disqualification.
9. 9. Submit a Hard Copy of this application form and the required supporting documents on or before the deadline (6th April, 2018) to the designated offices written in the application forms.

Visit the Scholarship Webpage for Details

Award Provider: Zawadi Africa

International Youth Federation (IYF) Representatives in African Countries 2018

Application Deadline: 31st March 2018

Offered Annually?

Eligible Countries: The application/nominations will be accepted from the following countries:
Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso,  Burundi, Central African Republic (CAR),  Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo,  Republic of the Congo,  Cote d’Ivoire,  Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea,  Gabon,  Guinea,  Guinea-Bissau,  Lesotho, Liberia, Mali,  Mauritania, Mauritius,  Mozambique,  Namibia,  Niger,  Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe,  Senegal,  Seychelles,  South Sudan,  Swaziland,  Tanzania,  Togo,  Zambia and Zimbabwe.

About the Award: The Fédération Internationale de la Jeunesse in English International Youth Federation (IYF), is an international non-profit youth organizations network governed by the present Statutes and the Swiss Civil Code. It is neutral politically, and non-denominational, aim to empower youth worldwide. The IYF is a part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Youth Network.
The International Youth Federation in Africa (IYFAF) works to promote youth empowerment and advance the role of youth to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the African countries and enhance the cooperation between youth organizations, governments, and the international community. It provides policy guidance and oversight to the Country Teams in the member countries.

Type: Training

Eligibility: 

• Only (18-38) age is accepted for this position.
• Be a citizen of the assigned country.
• Highly interest in youth empowerment, youth issues.

Skills Required For Position
• Ability to interact cordially and communicate with a diverse community.
• Effective oral and written communication skills.
• Ability to assess and evaluate situations quickly, accurately and effectively.

Experience: Experience and results preferred at national level preferred in youth empowerment role, development, communications, international relations, youth studies, sport, women empowerment, youth-led organizations or another relevant field.

Language: Fluency in English with superior drafting skills is essential.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Duration of Program: 4 Years

How to Apply: Kindly send your resume, or your nominee resume to the e-mail apply@iyfweb.org.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: International Youth Federation (IYF)

HEINEKEN Africa Foundation Grants for Sub-Saharan African countries 2018

Application Deadline: 15th March 2018

To Be Taken At (Country): Underpinning HEINEKEN’s long-standing commitment to Africa, projects are only carried out in the Sub-Saharan African countries in which HEINEKEN is operating.

About the Award: For each project a partnership is created between the HEINEKEN Africa Foundation, the local HEINEKEN brewery and a local or international (N)GO. The Foundation provides funding and administrative assistance. The local brewery supports through means of manpower, expertise and monitoring. The (N)GO is responsible for the implementation and continuation of the project.

Type: Grants

Eligibility: An eligible project proposal:

• focusses on Mother & Child care or WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene)
• directly improves the health situation for needy communities living in the environment of a HEINEKEN Sub-Saharan African organization. See where where HEINEKEN operates in the Program Webpage.
• cooperates with global and/or local partners (NGOs/GOs/overseas development ministries/international organizations)
• has measurable positive results
• has a sustainable follow-up or clear conclusion
• is approved and motivated by the General Manager of the related HEINEKEN operation
• is submitted to the HAF General Manager by the local HEINEKEN operating company
• does not exceed the maximum requested amount of EUR 75,000 per year (with a 3-year maximum)

The HEINEKEN Africa Foundation excludes projects that:

• may lead to a direct commercial benefit for the local HEINEKEN operation
• replace health benefits currently provided to HEINEKEN employees and their family members
• focus on adolescents (in the age of primary and secondary school)
• are research projects, scholarships and medical or health-related events and conferences

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Maximum requested amount of EUR 75,000 per year (with a 3-year maximum).

How to Apply: 

• Project proposals can only be submitted by the local HEINEKEN operating companies in close collaboration with a (N)GO. By making use of HEINEKEN’s local infrastructure and network we believe that we can make a bigger impact.
• Does your project comply with these criteria? Please contact the local HEINEKEN operating company to further discuss your project proposal.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: HEINEKEN Africa Foundation

DAAD Forschungszentrum Jülich Journalistic Scholarship for African Journalists/Bloggers 2018

Application Deadline: 30th April 2018

Eligible Countries: African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Germany and Ghana

About the Award: The background of the call is that Forschungszentrum Jülich has won one of the main prizes in this year’s International Research Marketing ideas competition run by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The project on the pan-African challenge of soil as a resource will build a scientific bridge between Forschungszentrum Jülich and African partners. It aims to support Africa to implement methods to make food production sustainable and secure.
In order to make the project known in the African scientific community as well as in the public we offer a scholarship for an African journalist.

Core activities of the project will be a supercomputing training at a fall school and a so-called Hackathon in Accra for excellent young (and senior) geo-scientists. A Hackathon is a gathering of scientists to work on specific software applications. Here it will focus on data modeling for soil-related food security. These two hands-on workshops offer African scientists an opportunity to get in contact with the latest methods of geoscientific research and to meet leading German science partners.
During your four-week stay in Jülich, you will work with the press office and support the communication’s team to initiate first project activities already. You will also get close insight into our geo-scientific research, meet scientists who organize the Pan African Soil Challenge project and get in contact with colleagues of international relations. On the other hand, we expect you to cover the project via your home medium, especially during the fall school and the Hackathon in Accra.

Type: Training

Eligibility: An African journalist (print, TV, radio or Social Media, for instance Blogs) who is devoted to the possibilities of modern science to tackle great societal challenges.

Number of Awards: 1

Value of Award: 

• The scholarship includes an invitation to a one month stay at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Summer 2018.
• The scholarship also covers the costs for a one-week trip to Accra, Ghana, where the core activities of the project take place from 26^thNovember 2018 to 30^th November 2018.

How to Apply:

• Please provide the following documents with your application: letter of intent, CV, letter of recommendation, and two to three examples of your journalistic work.
• Please upload your application here: www.fz-juelich.de/scholarship-africa

For your queries please contact:

• Anne Rother, Head of Corporate Communications, a.rother@fz-juelich.de
• Erhard Zeiss, Press Office, zeiss@fz-juelich.de

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Forschungszentrum Jülich, DAAD

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) SEED Low Carbon Awards for Developing Countries 2018

Application Deadline: 3rd April 2018, 23:59 Central European Time (CET).

Eligible Countries: The 2018 SEED Low Carbon Awards are available for enterprises in Colombia, India, Tanzania, Thailand and Uganda.

About the Award: Up to five 2018 SEED Low Carbon Awards are sponsored by the International Climate Initiative (ICI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB).

Type: Awards, Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: Enterprises can apply for the Awards if they:

• demonstrates entrepreneurship and innovation;
• delivers economic, social and environmental benefits;
• has the intention and potential to become financially sustainable;
• is a partnership between different stakeholder groups;
• is locally driven or locally led;
• has potential for scale-up or significant replication;
• is in the early stages of implementation; and
• are active in Colombia, India, Tanzania, Thailand and Uganda.

Number of Awards: 5

Value of Award: All winners will receive a package of tailored support services consisting of capacity building, tools, profiling, network building and financing up to USD 5,000.

How to Apply: Eligible enterprises can apply online or download the PDF application form from the SEED website and send the completed PDF application forms to seedawards2018[at]seed.uno.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: SEED

TU Delft sub-Saharan Africa Summer School Scholarship (Fully-funded) 2018

Application Deadline: 15th April 2018

Eligible Countries: sub-Saharan African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): The Netherlands

Type: Short courses

Eligibility: You have to follow the instructions carefully in order to apply for the scholarship. If you fail to deliver one of the items requested, we will not be able to take your candidacy into account.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The scholarship includes

1. A plane ticket between your country of origin and Amsterdam and back. The ticket will be organised and bought by TU Delft upon selection of the candidate and the granting of a Dutch visa.
2. The fees for the SummerSchool (400 euros) will be waived.
3. A small amount of pocket money, enough for food and transport during 20 days in the Netherlands.
4. Accommodation during  your stay (you might be housed with a TU Delft student during the period of the Summer School).

The scholarship does not include:

1. The fee for the Dutch visa in your country
2. Your health insurance (mandatory for students coming to the Netherlands. Please, ask us for instructions on how to get a health insurance).
3. Any extra costs incurring from your stay (trips, transfers or other activities not included in the Summer School programme).

Duration of Program: 3 weeks

How to Apply: 

1. You need to write a 400 word letter of motivation*. In this letter, you need to explain:

• Who you are and what makes you special (Where were you born? What’s your personal story? Do you have hobbies? Do you practice sports? Are you talented in something? How do you do at school?)
• Why do you want to participate in the summer school?
• How will the summer school help your education and future professional life?
• What are the main challenges for your city in the 21st century?
• How do you see your own role in tackling those challenges? How do you see the role of spatial planners or designers in the future of our cities and in society? What’s the role of spatial planners, architects and other professionals in our world in turmoil?

* Don’t forget to include your full name, contact details, school you re attending and the name of your course at the top of the letter. Remember, we will also assess your level of proficiency in English through this letter, so it is important that your English is correct and clear.

2. 2. Add a short CV (one A4)
   3. Make a short movie (3 minutes max) of yourself saying hello and saying who you are and why you would like to participate in the Summer School (you can make a movie with your phone! If you don’t have a smart phone, maybe you can ask a friend to lend you one. If you can’t make the movie, please tell us. You will not be disqualified)
   4. You don’t need to add your architectural/design portfolio
   5. Put all your materials in a digital folder titled with your NAME+AFRICA (you can compress the files if they are too big), a short note explaining what the email is about, and send the file to Summer School BK TU Delft via the website https://wetransfer.com until APRIL 15 2018. Please write “SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Scholarship” in the subject field. You will receive a notification.
   6. Fill in the form below carefully, and don’t forget to mark the option “Sub-Saharan African Scholarship”.
   7. If wetransfer.com doesn’t work in your country, please make a ZIP file and transfer it to the address above.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers:  TU Delft

Important Notes: This is the scholarship for the SUMMER SCHOOL PLANNING and DESIGN WITH WATER. TU DELFT has other scholarships for Sub-Saharan Africa for students to attend our MASTER COURSES.

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) Data Science Workshop 2018 – South Africa

Application Deadline: 13th March 2018

To Be Taken At (Country): Muizenberg, Cape Town, South Africa

About the Award: This workshop will introduce its participants to Data Science, which is very a hot area of research and application both in academia and industry and may go by any of the following names: big data, data analytics, machine learning, deep learning, etc.
There is a need for understanding and application of Data Science techniques. Consequently, besides introduction to Data Science algorithms, participants will be exposed to the mathematical underpinnings, computational tools, and practical applications of the Data Science algorithms.
In this workshop more focus will be given to coding in Python and parallel computing than in the previous workshop.

Type: Workshop

Eligibility: MSc and PhD students from South African universities with an interest in Data Science

Number of Awards: Not specified

Duration of Program: 9 to 13 April 2018.

How to Apply:

• Please complete the online registration form which can be found here
• Since we expect the workshop to be heavily oversubscribed it is important to include a brief rationale for what you hope to gain from attending and why you think we should choose you.
• Administration and logistics – data-workshops@aims.ac.za

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

Deep social crisis ignored in South Australian election campaign

Mike Head

For months, there has been alarmed speculation throughout the corporate media that the March 17 state election in South Australia (SA) could see a new “third party” form government, or at least hold the “balance of power” in a hung parliament.

After clinging to office for 16 years, despite only once winning a majority of votes, the state Labor government could be swept out, or forced to rely on the recently-formed “SA Best” party of former federal Senator Nick Xenophon to form a minority administration.

Such a result would be another milestone in the disintegration nationally of the two-party system, based on Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition, that has underpinned capitalist rule since World War II.

According to the latest Newspoll last weekend, Labor’s primary vote has plunged from 35.8 percent to 30 percent since the last election in 2014, while the Liberals sit on 29 percent, down sharply from 44.8 percent. The Greens, who have generally backed Labor, are languishing on around 6 percent.

Yet none of the media coverage, and none of the parties campaigning in the election, has even alluded to the main cause of the collapse of support for the main parties of the political establishment—the intensifying social crisis being suffered by working class households.

Decades of de-industrialisation, capped by last year’s closure of Australia’s last car assembly plant—General Motors Holden in the northern Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth—have created mass unemployment and under-employment in working class areas. Falling real wage levels and soaring living costs, especially for electricity, have produced worsening poverty and social stress.

The impact has been deepened by the Labor government’s destruction of thousands of public sector jobs as it tries to satisfy the demands of the financial markets to eliminate the budget deficit. With trade unions suppressing all opposition, a further 750 jobs were slashed late last year in yet another austerity package.

Officially, statewide unemployment is 6 percent, but that counts only those not working more than an hour a week. Roy Morgan surveys estimate the joblessness at around 11 percent, with another 9 percent “underemployed.” In Elizabeth, even official figures show 31 percent out of work, and in Christie Downs, the location of a shut-down Mitsubishi plant, it is 23.8 percent. In the once industrial regional cities of Whyalla, Port Pirie and Port Augusta, the rate exceeds 10 percent.

In a state population of just over 1.7 million, more than 102,000 people needed help to get food last year, up by 21 percent from the 85,000 the year before, according to the charity Foodbank SA. Recent official reports revealed that more than 35,000 households owe an average of nearly $900 in debt on their electricity bills, which have risen by 48 percent since 2007-08. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, average weekly earnings went backward in the state last year, by 0.3 percent to $74,885.

This social devastation has been the great unmentionable in the election campaign, showing the immense gulf between the working people and the media and political establishment.

Led by Premier Mike Rann from 2002, then Jay Weatherill since 2011, the Labor government has presided over ruthless pro-market restructuring, especially since the 2008 financial meltdown, combined with the implosion of the mining boom that once provided jobs in regional and rural areas.

Over the past year, Weatherill has desperately tied his political fortunes, and the state’s future, to two billionaires. Tesla boss Elon Musk is using the state to showcase large-scale battery storage projects, supposedly to help solve the supply and price crises produced by the privatisation of the national electricity network. Sanjeev Gupta, a commodities trader, has acquired the Whyalla steelworks, where the trade unions have helped slash jobs and wages.

The unions are throwing their support behind Labor, as they have at every election. Their pretext, in the words of SA Unions state secretary Joe Szakacs, is that the Liberals have “the same aggressively anti-worker agenda as that being prosecuted by the Turnbull government in Canberra.”

The truth is that the unions work closely with Labor and the employers to pursue an “aggressively anti-worker agenda.” They have stifled and shut down all resistance by workers to the job cuts and closures, including at the Elizabeth GM Holden plant, which employed 4,500 workers in 2003. And the unions would collaborate with a Liberal government to impose the same measures, as they have done in other states and at the federal level.

It is the suppression of working class opposition by Labor and the unions that has paved the way for two right-wing formations to seek to exploit the discontent—Xenophon’s populist SA Best and Senator Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives, a socially conservative breakaway from the Liberals.

Xenophon quit the federal Senate late last year to form SA Best, advancing a parochial platform to “put South Australia first.” He is known for his media stunts and rank opportunism—frequently changing policies with the perceived political wind. Despite posturing as a “political outsider,” Xenophon advances a pro-capitalist program, largely indistinguishable from that of Labor and the Liberals. In particular, he supports cutting welfare programs, in order to push jobless workers and youth into low-paid work.

Above all, SA Best advocates economic nationalist policies, including procurement laws and tariffs targeting foreign businesses and workers. This is aimed at dividing workers along national lines, and diverting hostility to the Australian governments, the financial elite and unions into the scapegoating of overseas workers.

Xenophon’s policies are virulently anti-Chinese and militarist. He has railed against land sales to Chinese companies and zealously advocated assembling Australia’s planned new fleet of 12 submarines in Adelaide. While claiming the $50 billion project would generate local jobs, he opposed any reduction in the proposed number of subs, in order to prepare for war against China. “In wartime, simply sending subs to sea causes chaos for our enemies,” he wrote in an October 2015 column in the Adelaide Advertiser, a Murdoch tabloid.

Once touted by sections of the media as South Australia’s possible next premier, Xenophon’s support has reportedly waned. Like similar populist outfits, such as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Xenophon’s party has suffered splits and defections. Nevertheless, preferential vote-swapping deals could result in him being the “kingmaker” of the next government.

These “third parties,” far from providing any alternative to the agenda of austerity and war, serve the interests of the corporate elite, no less than the Labor and Liberal parties. They all promote reactionary nationalism, to divert and divide workers.

The political impasse confronting the working class, so acutely displayed in South Australia, can be resolved only by transforming the disgust toward the establishment parties into a conscious struggle for an internationalist and socialist program, based on social and human need, not the profit dictates of the billionaires.