19 Dec 2018

German Development Institute Managing Global Governance (MGG) Academy 2019 for Young Leaders

Application Deadline: 15th February 2019.

Eligible Countries: Brazil, China, Europe, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa

To be taken at (country): Bonn, Germany

About the Award: The Managing Global Governance (MGG) Academy is a dialogue and advanced training course that brings together young professionals from rising powers and from Europe.Its overarching purpose is to support the development of future change makers who are addressing global challenges and are dedicated to transformative change.

Type: Training, Internship

Eligibility: Prospective participants should
  • work in a governmental organisation, policy-oriented think tank, research institution, civil society or private sector oranisation in an MGG partner country (Brazil, China, Europe, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa),
  • work on issues relevant to global governance such as international trade, international economics and finance, environmental challenges, international security or development cooperation,
  • speak English fluently,
  • have at least three years of working experience,
  • be open to a broad variety of working methods,
  • be willing to reflect on collective and individual experiences and competencies,
  • be sensitive to other cultures.

Candidates for the MGG Academy have to be nominated by their organisation and can then participate in a selection process. 


Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:
  • The participants in the MGG Academy are granted a scholarship from the German Federal Government. The scholarship covers the current costs of living, all MGG related costs and travel expenses in Germany and Europe as well as health, personal liability and accident insurances during the training in Germany.
  • The German government’s financial provision for the scholarship ensures an adequate standard of living in Germany. However, the scholarship is not sufficient to provide financial support for families or relatives, neither fora visit to Germany nor at home.
  • The partner institution is requested to cover the travel expenses for a round trip to and from Germany and to grant the participant a special leave of absence for the training.
Duration of Programme: The MGG Academy 2019 is taking place from 15 August – 11 December 2019.

How to Apply: To successfully apply to the MGG Academy 2019, please
  1. Download the application form and have it duly filled, signed and stamped by yourself and your employer.
  2. Afterwards, please apply here.
  3. Please upload the application form part 1 and part 2 duly filled, signed and stamped to your application. (Please upload the whole form as filled pdf-file. Please only print pages 9 and 12 and upload them signed and stamped as scanned copy. Please include application forms part 1 and 2, your CV, diplomas, passport and English language certificate to your online application.) Kindly understand that we are not able to take incomplete applications into consideration.
Visit Programme Webpage for Details

IDB Scholarships 2019/2020 for Students in Muslim Communities (Undergraduate, Masters, PhD)

Application Deadline: 28th February 2019

About Scholarship: The IsDB is pleased to announce that calls for scholarship applications for the academic year 2019-2020 are now opened through a new portal to receive online applications for the following programmes:

  1. Undergraduate Scholarship Programme
  2. Master Scholarship Programme
  3. PhD Scholarship Programme
  4. Post-Doctoral Research Programme
  5. IsDB/ISFD Scholarship Programme for Vocational Education and Training (VET)
  6. Joint Programme with The World Academy of Science (TWAS) in Trieste, Italy for Sustainability Science, Technology and Innovation
Offered Since: 1983

Type: Undergraduate, Masters, PhD, Research

Eligibility: To be eligible for this scholarship, the student/applicant must be able to meet the basic criteria for their preferred programme.

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship: The Programme covers all relevant expenses during students’ study period, including tuition fees, health and living costs as determined by the IDB.

Duration of Scholarship: for the period of study

To be taken at (country): Consistent with the concept of the Programme, students must get admission or be in the first year in their own countries.
On exceptional basis and where admissions in professional courses are not possible or not available in any particular country, the IDB assists to place students from these countries in IDB member countries, which have been generous enough to provide places for the IDB students in their universities.


How to Apply: Interested candidates for the programme must fill in the appropriate application form in the link below.

Visit scholarship webpage for more details

Government of Japan MEXT Teacher Training Scholarships 2019 for Primary/Secondary School Teachers

Application Deadline: 31st January, 2019

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Japan

About the Award: The Embassy of Japan is pleased to inform you that the Government of Japan will provide scholarship for Primary/Secondary school teachers who desire to take teacher training course and Japanese language training in Japan.
The scholarship is open to graduates of universities and teachers training colleges no more than thirty-four (34) years of age who have worked as teachers at primary/secondary schools or teacher training college for at least five years in their home countries at the time of application.
Beneficiaries shall upon their return, help to promote Japanese Language education in Nigeria.

Type: Training

Eligibility: 
(1) Nationality: Applicants must have the nationality of a country that has diplomatic relations with Japanese government. An applicant who has Japanese nationality at the time of application is not eligible.However, persons with dual nationality who hold Japanese nationality and whose place of residence at the time of application is outside of Japan are eligible to apply as long as they give up their Japanese nationality and choose the nationality of the foreign country by the date of their arrival in Japan. Applicant screening will be conducted at the Japanese Embassy or Consulate (hereinafter referred to “Japanese diplomatic mission”)in the country of applicant’s nationality.
(2) Age:Applicants, in principle,must be born on or after April 2, 1984.
(3) Academic and Career Background:Applicants must be graduates of universities or teacher training schools and have worked as teachers at primary/secondary educational institutions or teacher training schools (excluding universities)in their home countries for five years in total as of April 1, 2018.In-service university faculty members are not eligible.
(4) Japanese Language Ability:Applicants must be keen to learn Japanese. Applicants must be interested in Japan and be keen to deepen their understanding of Japan after arriving in Japan.Applicants must also have the ability to do research and adapt to living in Japan.
(5) Health:Applicants must be judged that they are medically adequate to pursue study in Japan by an examining physician on a prescribed certificate of health.
(6) Arrival in Japan: Applicants must be able to arrive in Japan by the designated period(usually October) between the day two weeks before the course starts and the first day of the course. (If the applicant arrives in Japan before this period for personal reasons, travel expenses to Japan will not be paid. Excluding cases of unavoidable circumstances, if the applicant cannot arrive in Japan by the end of the designated period the applicant must withdraw the offer.)
(7) Visa acquisition:Applicants should,in principle,acquire “Student” visas before entering Japan and enter Japan with “Student” residence status. The visas should be issued at the Japanese diplomatic missions located in the country of applicants’ nationality. Those who change their visa status to one other than “Student” after arrival in Japan will lose their qualification to be Japanese Government Scholarship recipients from the date when their visa status changes.
(8) Applicants must return to their home country and resume their work immediately after the end of the scholarship period.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship:
  • Allowance:143,000 yen per month. (In case that the recipient researches in a designated region, 2,000 or 3,000 yen per month will be added. The monetary amount each year may be subject to change due to budgetary reasons.)
  • Transportation to Japan:The recipient will be provided an economy-class airplane ticket, according to his/her itinerary and route as designated by MEXT,from the international airport nearest to his/her home country residence,where in principle is in the country of nationality, to the Narita International Airport or any other international airport that the appointed university usually uses when they enter to Japan.
  • Expenses such as inland transportation from his/her home address to the international airport, airport tax, airport usage fees, special taxes on travel, or inland transportation within Japan including a connecting flight will NOT be covered. (*Although the address in the home country stated in the application form is in principle regarded as the recipient’s “home country residence,” if it will be changed at the time of leaving from his/her home country the changed address will be regarded as “home country residence.”)
  • Transportation from Japan:The recipient who returns to his/her home country within the fixed period after the expiration of his/her scholarship will be provided, upon application, with an economy-class airplane ticket for travel from the Narita International Airport or any other international airport that the appointed university usually uses to the international airport nearest to his/her home address, wherein principle is in the country of nationality.
    • (Note 1) Any aviation and accident insurance to and from Japan shall be borne by the recipient.
    • (Note 2) Should the recipient not return to his/her home country soon after the end of the scholarship period to resume his/her duties, the transportation fee for the return to the home country will not be provided.
  • Tuition and Other Fees:Fees for the entrance examination, matriculation and tuition at universities will be paid by the Japanese Government.
Duration of Scholarship: The term is the period necessary to complete each university’s training course and should be between October 2019 (or the starting month of the course) and March 2021. Extension of the term is not permitted

How to Apply: 
  • Applicants must submit all required documents to the Japanese diplomatic mission in the applicant’s country. The submitted documents will not be returned.
  • For Nigerian teachers: Completed MEXT scholarship application forms (find in link below) can be submitted by hand or by post to this address below:
    Embassy of Japan – Culture & Information Section
    No. 9 Bobo Street (Off Gana Street),

    Maitama District,
    Abuja
Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Government of Japan

Important Notes: 

  • (1)The recipient is advised to learn, before departing for Japan, the Japanese language and to acquire some information about Japanese weather, climate, customs, and university education in Japan, as well as about the difference between the Japanese legal system and that of his/her home country.
  • (2)As the first installment of the scholarship payment cannot be provided immediately upon the recipient’s arrival, the recipient should bring at least approximately US $2,000 or the equivalent thereof to cover immediate needs after arrival in Japan.

Romanian Government Scholarships 2019/2020 for International Students

Application Deadline: 15th March 2019.
This is the date whereby Foreign diplomatic missions accredited to Bucharest must send the application files with a Verbal Note to Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Public, Cultural and Scientific Diplomacy Directorate.
However, the candidate should enquire at the diplomatic mission where he intends to submit the application file about the enrolment calendar. The deadline for submitting the application files is established by each diplomatic mission.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Any non-EU country

To be taken at (country): Romanian Universities

Eligible Field of Study: priority will be given to the candidates applying for: political and administrative sciences, education studies, Romanian culture and civilization, journalism, technical studies, oil and gas, agricultural studies, veterinary medicine, architecture, music, arts.

About Scholarship: The scholarships are granted for three levels of study:
  1.  for the first cycle (licenta): This scheme is dedicated to graduates of high schools or of equivalent pre-university systems, as well as to candidates who require the equivalent of partial studies and the continuation of their studies in Romania. The complete cycle of university studies lasts for 3 to 6 years, according to the specific requirements of the chosen faculty, and ends with a final examination (licenta);
  2.  for the 2nd cycle (master): This scheme is dedicated to graduates of university/post graduate studies; it lasts for 1,5 to 2 years and ends with a dissertation;
  3.  for the 3rd cycle (doctorate) this scheme is dedicated to the graduates of university/postgraduate studies (i.e. master); it lasts for 3-4 years, in keeping with the specific requirements of the chosen faculty, and ends with a doctor’s thesis.
Type: Undergraduate, Masters and Doctoral degrees

Eligibility: Citizens of non EU countries (irrespective of their country of residence) are eligible to apply. Priority is given to citizens from non EU states with which Romania does not have cultural and education cooperation agreements.

Number of Scholarships: 85 scholarships for undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Romania

Value of Scholarship:
  • Free-of-charge tuition
  • Free-of-charge accommodation (depending on availability, accommodation will be offered free-of-charge in students hostels, in keeping with the higher education regulations and within the limits of the sums available for this purpose),
  • Financial support – a monthly amount representing :
    •  the equivalent in Romanian currency of 65 EURO per month, for the under-graduate students (1st cycle),
    • the equivalent in Romanian currency of 75 EURO per month, for post-graduate students (master degrees and specialization) 2nd cycle.
    • the equivalent in Romanian currency of 85 EURO per month, for post graduate students (doctor’s degree) 3rd cycle.
These scholarships do not cover food, international and local transport. The candidates must be prepared to support personally any other additional expenses.

Duration of Scholarship: For the period of study, subject to academic performance.

How to Apply: To get all the necessary information about the scholarships (conditions, necessary documents, enrolment calendar) and to submit their application files, the candidates should apply directly to:
  • the Romanian diplomatic missions accredited to the candidate’s country of origin or of residence or to
  • the diplomatic mission of candidate’s state of origin accredited to Bucharest
Visit scholarship webpage for Details

Sponsors: Romanian Government


Important Notes: Language of Study: In order to promote Romanian language and culture, the Ministry of National Education has decided that the beneficiaries of the scholarships should study only in the Romanian language. The candidates who do not know Romanian are offered one supplementary preparatory year to study the language. Students who declare that they know Romanian language will have to pass a language test organized by the competent higher education institutions.

Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa (LAWA) Fellowship Program 2019/2020 (Funded) – Georgetown University, USA

Application Deadline: 18th January, 2019

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Over 80 women’s human rights advocates from Botswana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe have participated in the LAWA Program, and we hope to include Fellows from additional countries in the future.

To be Taken at (Country): Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., USA

About the Award: The Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa (LAWA) Fellowship Program was founded in 1993 at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., in order to train women’s human rights lawyers from Africa who are committed to returning home to their countries in order to advance the status of women and girls in their own countries throughout their careers.

Type: Fellowship, Masters

Value of Fellowship: The LAWA Fellowship provides the tuition for the Foundations of American Law and Legal Education Course and for the LL.M. degree (a U.S. $46,865 benefit) at the Georgetown University Law Center, as well as professional development training. Candidates who are admitted to the LAWA Program must be prepared to cover the costs of all additional expenses (such as their visas, travel, housing, utilities, food, clothing, health insurance, books, etc.), and must be able to demonstrate to the U.S. Embassy for visa purposes that they have the funds available to cover those expenses (approximately $28,000).

Duration of Fellowship: The entire LAWA Fellowship Program is approximately 14 months long (from July of the first year through August of the following year), after which the LAWA Fellows return home to continue advocating for women’s rights in their own countries. The LAWA Program starts in July, when the Fellows attend the Georgetown Law Center’s Foundations of American Law and Legal Education course. From August through May, the LAWA Fellows earn a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree at Georgetown with an emphasis on international women’s human rights and complete a major graduate paper on a significant women’s rights issue in their home countries. After graduation, the LAWA Fellows then have an opportunity to engage in challenging work assignments for several months at various public interest organizations to learn about different advocacy strategies to advance women’s human rights, before returning home to continue advancing women’s human rights in their own countries.
Upon completion of their Program, LAWA Alumnae have returned home to assume prominent leadership positions enabling them to focus on women’s rights issues in non-governmental organizations, government agencies, law schools, courts, legislatures, and private firms.

More Fellowship Guideline: LAWA Alumnae have formed their own non-governmental organizations, such as the Women’s Legal Assistance Center in Tanzania and Legal Advocacy for Women in Uganda (LAW-Uganda) to promote women’s human rights in their countries (e.g., by bringing impact litigation under their countries’ statutes, constitutions, and the human rights treaties that their countries have ratified).

How to Apply:

Visit Fellowship Webpage for Details

Harvard University Middle East Initiative (MEI) Research Fellowships 2019

Application Deadline: 15th January, 2019

To be taken at (country): USA

Field of Study: Priority will be given to applications pursuing one of these four primary areas of focus:
  1. Democratizing Politics: Establishing durable, accountable democracies not only by focusing on political institutions, but also by empowering the region’s citizens.
  2. Building Peace: Addressing the sources of domestic and interstate conflict and generating durable political settlements.
  3. Revitalizing the State: Reforming the Middle East’s social service delivery systems with a special emphasis on health, education and social protection.
  4. Democratizing Financial and Labor Markets: Working to ensure that the financial and labor markets in the Middle East benefit the entire population, not merely the elite.
About the Award: The Middle East Initiative (MEI) engages public policy issues in the Middle East by convening academic and policy experts, collaborating with regional partners, and developing the next generation of leaders.
Fellows are expected to be physically present at Harvard for the duration of the two-semester fellowship. Pre-doctoral research fellows are encouraged to work on, and ideally complete, their doctoral dissertations. Postdoctoral or faculty fellows may use this fellowship to complete a book or develop other works-in-progress.
Fellows are generally expected to:
  • Complete a 25-30 page Working Paper to be published by the Middle East Initiative
  • Present their research at seminars open to the public
  • Attend seminars of other Middle East Initiative research fellows
  • Participate in Middle East Initiative activities as appropriate
Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:  
  • Eligible candidates include advanced doctoral candidates, recent recipients of a Ph.D. or equivalent degree, and untenured faculty members.
  • Applicants for pre-doctoral fellowships must have passed general examinations and should be in or near the final year of their program.
  • Applications are welcome from political scientists, historians, economists, sociologists, and other social scientists.
  • Applications are also encourage applications from women, minorities, and citizens of all countries.
Value of Fellowship:
  • The Middle East Initiative offers ten-month stipends of $40,000 to pre-doctoral fellows and $58,000 to postdoctoral fellows. Pre-doctoral fellows are not benefits eligible. Interested candidates are encouraged to apply for other sources of funding. All applicants should clearly indicate on their application form whether they are seeking full or partial funding, and indicate other potential funding sources. Non-stipendiary appointments are also offered, but the application process remains the same.
  • Fellows who expect to complete their Ph.D. program prior to the fellowship can apply for a postdoctoral appointment. Confirmation of Ph.D. completion is required to receive the postdoctoral stipend rate and benefits. The fellow will be paid at the pre-doctoral rate and will not be benefits eligible until the Middle East Initiative receives confirmation of Ph.D. completion.
Duration of Fellowship: 10 months

How to Apply: 
  • CV/Resume
  • Unofficial transcript (pre-doctoral fellow applicants only)
  • Research Proposal (3-5 double-spaced pages)
  • Writing sample (less than 50 double-spaced pages)
  • Contact information for three recommenders submitting letters on your behalf
To apply, please complete the online application form.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

International Brain Research Organisation African Regional Committee (IBRO-ARC) Bursaries 2019 for Young African Researchers

Application Deadline: 20th February 2019
(11:59 p.m. CET)


Eligible Countries: African countries

About the Award: Potential candidates should look for a host institution (within Africa or abroad) and provide a research proposal and detailed information on how the funds will be spent. 
Strong justification must be provided ensuring the applicant will return home after the exchange, in addition to an explanation of how the newly gained knowledge and skills will be used to advance neuroscience research in their home country.
Type: Grants

Eligibility: The candidate should be:
– resident in Africa
– 45 years or younger
– have published significant research achievements in fundamental or clinical neuroscience


Selection Criteria: Selection criteria include academic credentials of the applicant and the host, as well as the quality of the research proposal (complete with a structured research plan). 

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: €4000

Duration of Programme: Four weeks.

How to Apply: 
Visit Programme Webpage for Details

May Days in Britain

Binoy Kampmark

It is hard to envisage sympathy for a person who made a name as a home secretary (prisons, detentions, security and such) taking the mast and banner of her country before hopeless odds, but inadequate opponents will do that to you.  Vicious, venal and underdone, the enemies from within Theresa May’s own Tory ranks resemble the lazily angry, the fumingly indulgent.  These are the same men, and a few women, who managed to derive enormous satisfaction from a Britain pampered and spoiled by EU largesse but questioning of its bureaucracy and demands.  Patriotism has an odd habit of making one jaundiced, but manic self-interest will also do that to you.
May remains British prime minister after a botched effort to overthrow her within conservative party ranks.  She faced the unenviable situation of being stonewalled in Europe and by Parliament itself.  President of the European Council Donald Tusk assured May that the deal for the UK leaving the EU is not up for renegotiation, “including the backstop”.
The border with Ireland – soft, hard, or middling – is proving to be a rattling affair.  Should it go “hard”, Britain will find itself trapped.  As The Irish Times noted, “It evokes genuine fear, not least in those who live near the Border or rely on trade for their livelihoods or count themselves among the silenced majority in Northern Ireland who voted Remain.”
As for Parliament, May has ducked and weaved in putting the deal to its irritable members, thereby depriving MPs a hack at sinking it.  May fears, rightly, defeat over a proposal that has satisfied few.  What is now being run in certain circles is the idea of “indicative votes”, which might throw up various Brexit models (Canada-styled; Norwegian adapted).
The May plotters, however, showed the skills and talents of marksmen who end up shooting themselves in a fit of drunken enthusiasm on a poorly planned hunt.  The leadership challenge on December 12 served to demonstrate a good level of incompetence, amplified by the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson.
The fact that May received 200 votes against 117 to stay on as PM was not enough for the righteous Rees-Moog, who spoke as if some inscrutable victory for the rebels had been attained.  “She said in 2017 she would lead the Conservative Party if she had the support of the parliamentary party.”  It was clear that a third of members voting against her suggested she did not. “So if she honours her word she will decide in the interests of the party and the nation she will go.”
This all seems to amount to a stay of execution. May survives, but faces daggers on a daily basis.  Home Secretary Sajid Javid is nipping at her heels in the hope to land a blow. Welfare Secretary Amber Rudd has made it public that she likes the idea of a UK-EU arrangement along the lines of Norway’s relationship with the union.  Naturally, as with so many such ideas, the EU response is automatically assumed.
The idea of a second referendum, long seen as the ultimate betrayal of the Brexit result, has received more than a decent fanning.  Vast swathes have changed their mind since the populist up swell of 2016, goes the view of conservative Dominic Grieve and New Labour’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell on Good Morning Britain, a bastion of rusted reaction few can match on British television.   The panel, as ever, was on the hunt for the elusive idea of democracy in Britain, and found wanting.   The Remainers remain desperately confused.
If there is a good reason to be suspicious of a second referendum, former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s endorsement of it would be one.  Frankly Tony, whose rule was characterised by long spells of deception and arrogance (remember the Iraq War?), had a singular contempt for democracy that should not be forgotten. He is now spending time slumming in Brussels in the hope that people will take notice, advocating for a second people’s vote.  Should parliament be unable to reach agreement on each of the forms of Brexit being put forth, he suggests, “then the logical thing is to go back to the people.”
To Blair can be added May’s own de facto deputy prime minister, David Lidington and chief of staff at 10 Downing Street Gavin Barwell. The latter has supposedly discussed the issue of a second people’s vote with Chancellor Philip Hammond and Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd.
May is having none of it.  “Let us not break faith with the British people by trying to stage another referendum.” To do so “would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics, because it would say to millions who trusted in democracy, that our democracy does not deliver.”
Brexit is the great exercise of imperfection, an experiment that the EU would like to quash just as many in the UK would like to see reversed.  It has been disheartening and cruel; it has divided and disturbed. It has also demonstrated levels of marked mendacity fitting for countries British citizens tend to mock.  Facts have become fictions; fictions have been paraded as exemplars of truth.  The dark spirits have been released, and there are not going to be bottled any time soon.

South Africa Searches for a Financial Parachute, Now That a $170 Billion Foreign Debt Cliff Looms

Patrick Bond


This week’s hush-hush visit by International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde to Pretoria (between stops in Accra and Luanda) will raise eyebrows. In contrast to last week’s IMF press briefing claim – “Madame Lagarde will hold meetings with the authorities, as well as fairly extensive meetings with the private sector, civil society, academia, women leaders, and of course the media” – there’s a complete information void, and no public events scheduled.
An open, frank public discussion about the IMF’s regrettable history and current agenda is sorely needed, in a context here in South Africa where a few honest politicians and officials are belatedly struggling to reverse what is termed “state capture,” and return stolen funds to the taxpayer. Undoing a decade of looting by former President Jacob Zuma and the Gupta empire (three immigrant brothers plus hundreds of hangers-on) he protected is no small task.
Hence it is perhaps with discomfort that Lagarde will meet one of the key post-Zuma/Gupta leaders, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni, who twice (in 2013 and 2016) tweeted about Lagarde’s own corruption trial in France. She was found guilty of ‘negligence’ for gifting $430 million to a tycoon – Adidas founder and French state-capturer Bernard Tapie – who donated to her Conservative Party when she was finance minister, and who in 2017 was forced to repay the French state.
Retribution for corruption is indeed in the Pretoria air, for two months ago, Mboweni replaced Nhlanhla Nene, who resigned in disgrace over lying about his secret Gupta meetings. But is Mboweni himself arranging a secret IMF bailout deal, as happened 25 years ago when the IMF granted an infamous $850 million loan – a “Faustian Pact” (according to former Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils) replete with Washington Consensus promises – to outgoing president FW de Klerk, so as to “instil global financial confidence” in the coming Mandela government?
After five “junk!” denunciations by the three most powerful (albeit suspect) credit ratings agencies over the past 18 months, President Cyril Ramaphosa has tried hard to restore their trust. However, with Eskom now trying to dump another R100 billion in debt onto the Treasury, he now appears to need a financial back-stop from the Bretton Woods Institutions.
Indeed, more to the point, is electricity parastatal agency Eskom’s foreign debt again creating havoc, as happened eleven months ago with a “pending letter of default from the World Bank” that “could trigger a recall on Eskom’s $25 billion debt mountain,” as Carol Paton reported in Business Day (prior to Ramaphosa’s urgent, apparently soothing meeting with Bank officials in Davos)?
Lagarde’s opaque visit this week contrasts with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim’s high-profile trip earlier this month, amidst a blaze of Global Citizen anti-poverty populism to 90,000 youth at FNB Stadium: “I’m telling you, you can’t trust anyone over 30 to determine your future!” Kim met Ramaphosa to discuss, he tweeted, urban planning and sanitation (neither of which would need US$-denominated Bank loans to finance imports). He also lectured at the Wits School of Governance on human capital investment (jovially criticising another ex-lefty, his host former Vice Chancellor Adam Habib, for being a “student of Trotsky”).
Ramaphosa: “We’re not looking at the IMF. The New Development Bank has a facility”
Are new loans from the IMF and World Bank really needed? On the one hand, their leaders are here in the wake of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-SA Sandton summit in July, which again raised hopes for the BRICS bloc’s international financial governance reform agenda.
For example, notwithstanding angry protests by environmental justice activists at its Sandton Africa Regional Centre office, the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) quickly announced loans to three local parastatal agencies. One of these credits, Eskom’s $180 million, was “in abeyance” since 2016 due to then-CEO Brian Molefe’s second thoughts: he opposed the loan’s linkage of privatised renewable energy to Eskom’s grid (instead, Molefe wanted to take on more nuclear debt, which Mboweni – then an NDB director – had publicly endorsed in 2015, while in Russia).
The other credits went to transport parastatal agency Transnet’s Siyabonga Gama (who was fired for Gupta-related corruption a few weeks later) for $200 million to expand the Durban port-petrochemical complex– a project now frozen due to brazen procurement fraud involving a notorious Italian firm (unrelated to the Guptas) – and to the Development Bank of Southern Africa for on-lending $300 million to municipalities (assuming there are any creditworthy ones left, able to pay sufficiently high interest rates to justify a hard-currency loan for local infrastructure).
Explained Earthlife Africa protester Makoma Lekalakala, co-winner of the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize as Africa’s leading activist, “Both Eskom and Transnet are under scrutiny for corruption and mismanagement. No due diligence was done on the Transnet loan. If this is how the [BRICS] bank operates, we have to brace ourselves for accelerated environmental degradation for the pursuit of profit.”
But the Bretton Woods Institutions are no better, and just over a year ago, Ramaphosa offered a scathing critique  of Washington’s bias: “We should not go to the IMF because once we do we are on a downward path, we will be sacrificing our independence in terms of governing our country and sacrificing our sovereignty.” He cited the risk of imposed “cuts in social spending” what with anticipated IMF orders to Eskom, “to do away with free electricity quotas for the poor and indigent” (an inadequate 50kWh/household/month, about three days’ use).
Ramaphosa repeatedly denies that the Bretton Woods Institutions will bail out South Africa: “IMF, no, we’re not looking at the IMF. The New Development Bank has a facility that could be made available to us. And we are exploring that as well. And we want to do it in a way that does not require a sovereign guarantee.” Actually, Ramaphosa probably didn’t mean the BRICS NDB, which makes project-specific loans, but instead its $100 billion Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), which has a $3 billion credit line for South Africa to immediately draw upon in the event of a balance-of-payments emergency deficit.
BRICS v IMF – or BRICS-IMF?
On the other hand, the BRICS look much less coherent today than in July, because Brazil’s new leader Jair Bolsonaro could drop out of the bloc, and at minimum, will more firmly hitch his Brasilia to Washington. Still, in spite of his oft-expressed Sinophobia, Bolsonaro has just grudgingly agreed to continue the rotation of BRICS heads-of-state summit hosting (although this is likely only to occur in Brasilia next November). There will be much Trump-style geopolitical, economic and especially environmental chaos starting on January 1 when he becomes president, such as paving over the Amazon. But compared to November, fewer insiders whom I talked to (including former Foreign Finister Celso Amorim) – while visiting earlier this month – fear that Bolsonaro will reduce the bloc to RICS through a ‘Braxit,’ the way he just did to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change summit. (His predecessor Michel Temer had agreed to host the it in Brazil late next year, but Chile will now take over.)
The old, oft-stated contrast between the agendas of BRICS and Washington, as articulated by Jacob Zuma’s scribe Gayton Mckenzie, for instance, was in any case mainly myth. From 2014, Lagarde has enjoyed the power to co-finance the more desperate of BRICS borrowers (e.g. Brazil and Russia are also junk-status), because the CRA’s Articles of Agreement stipulate that if Pretoria wants the next $7 billion in BRICS funding within its $10 billion quota range, it must first get an IMF structural adjustment programme.
If Pretoria needs financing to repay increasingly onerous foreign debt tranches in 2019, could this fractured society withstand even more austerity, given what Business Day already termed 2018’s “savage fiscal consolidation” that radically reduced basic-infrastructure grants, which in turn led even Johannesburg’s neoliberal mayor, Herman Mashaba, to cry foul on Treasury’s 65% budget cut to the city’s housing programme last week?
At the global scale, the BRICS financial institutions are not up to the massive bailout requirements necessary if financial meltdowns similar to 1998 and 2008 reappear in coming weeks, for instance due to Britain’s anticipated “hard crash” from the European Union on March 29. In even the recent weeks’ relatively mild economic turmoil, the South African currency was the world’s most volatile (out of the 31 most traded). The Rand continues to be roiled in part by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s February 2018 relaxation of exchange controls on $43 billion worth of local institutional investor funding that can now depart South Africa. (That puts into context the oft-remarked $7 billion exit threat from Citibank’s World Government Bond Index once Moody’s finally drops the junk axe on the domestic-denominated securities rating.)
However, while the Treasury continues to pay close to a 9% hard-currency interest rate on 10-year state bonds (even higher than does Venezuela), there will be willing buyers – until the next world financial melt ratchets rates even higher. And in spite of BRICS babble about IMF reform so as to lessen the load of borrower conditionalities, there have been no changes in economic philosophy under Lagarde. Worse, Africa lost substantial voting power in the 2015 restructuring, including Nigeria by 41% and South Africa by 21%. The main countries that raised their respective IMF shares were China (35%), Brazil (23%), India (11%) and Russia (8%). BRIC solidarity with Africa went AWOL.
An alternative strategy: repudiation of corrupt bankers
IMF reform that leaves most Africans with less voice is better considered deform, Ramaphosa himself seemed to concede in a speech to the United Nations in September, complaining that the IMF and other multilateral institutions still “need to be reshaped and enhanced so that they may more effectively meet the challenges of the contemporary world and better serve the interests of the poor and marginalised.”
Because their interests are not served by either Washington’s or the NDB’s lending to corrupt parastatal elites, the “poor and marginalised” need another strategy. Just as in the days of the Jubilee 2000 debt-repudiation movement, led here two decades ago by the late poet Dennis Brutus and Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, it’s overdue we talk about, and indeed audit, South Africa’s foreign debt.
Including parastatal and private borrowers (for whom the state ensures hard currency is available for repayment), foreign debt stood at $171 billion as of mid-year (up from $25 billion in 1994). That figure, the SA Reserve Bank announced last week, is down nearly 8% from March 2018’s $183 billion, but only as a result of “non-residents’ net sales of domestic rand-denominated government bonds as well as valuation effects.” (More painfully in Rand terms, foreign debt increased from R2.165 trillion in March to R2.347 trillion at end-June.)
The main foreign debtors remain Eskom and Transnet. They have contracted, over the past eight years, South Africa’s three largest-ever loans:
+ in 2010, $3.75 billion from the World Bank, mainly for the Medupi coal-fired power plant (a deal for which Eskom chairperson Valli Moosa was criticised by the public protector for ‘improper’ conflict of interests since he sat on the ANC Finance Committee, during the notorious Hitachi corruption of the ruling party);
+ in 2013, $5 billion from the China Development Bank, mainly for Transnet’s purchase of imported infrastructure inputs, especially for corrupt port-petrochemical expansion in Durban and a coal export rail line to Richards Bay (billions of rands were illicitly directed via China South Rail to the Gupta empire); and
+ in 2016, $5 billion again from the China Development Bank,mainly for Eskom’s other coal-fired mega-generator, Kusile, initially arranged by Molefe and renewed at the BRICS Sandton summit last July.
None of these loans can be justified, especially on ecological grounds – since they all rapidly increase the climate debt we South Africans owe both future generations and, more urgently, contemporary African victims of worsening droughts and floods. Moreover, with state procurement corruption costing in the range of 35-40% per contract, according to the lead Treasury official in 2016, there is a strong case for a full debt audit, followed by the demand that the World Bank, China Development Bank, BRICS Bank and other lenders also assume liability.
After all, the Hitachi deal with the ANC’s investment wing Chancellor House led the U.S. government to fine the Japanese firm nearly R300 million in 2015 – for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations at Eskom – and hence when Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan (responsible for borrowing the $3.75 billion in 2010) last week blamed Hitachi incompetence for recent load-shedding, that alone should invoke World Bank debt repudiation.
Jim Kim should not only have addressed this largest – and perhaps worst – loan in his institution’s history. The Bank’s portfolio also includes the largest share in the notorious CPS-Net1 “financial inclusion” strategy to rip off millions of poor South Africans, and a $150 million debt+equity stake in Lonmin which until just before the 2012 Marikana massacre (a few weeks after Kim became president) the Bank was celebrating as a best-case for corporate social responsibility.
Add to all this the new threat of Faustian Pact 2.0 from the ethically-challenged Lagarde, and the need for a revived Jubilee movement is obvious. All existing anti-corruption initiatives should be pursued forthwith, but our ever lower expectations mean that a genuine Ramaphoria – which if serious would include repudiation of the Gupta and ANC fraudsters’ financial facilitators, such as the World Bank, China Development Bank and BRICS Bank – is simply a fantasy. Instead, the meme best describing our current state of governance is, indeed, Ramazupta.

World of Virtual Sexual Harassment

Kabir Deb

Being from the male gender gathering information and taking a surveillance from the social networks on the obscene attacks over the female gender is easy but at the same time it is quite sadist for the mind and body. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter etc., though have been made to initiate connection but at the same time it has facilitated the spread of obscenity to a much easier extent. The social network is the most naked revelation of how cursed and evil our society is even in the presence of faith, reformers, monetary expansion. Whenever I surf through the social network, it’s not tough to find the presence of horrifying sexual attacks over women in abundance.
Today it’s easier to harass a woman over social network just because it has got full safety. A person can make several accounts to harass a woman and no one will come to know who that person really is because the first thing a woman does to stop the harassment is by ignoring the messages or comments and secondly the woman tries to block the person or to report the account. But it never safeguards a woman from the evil attempt of men over women because it is the true picture of society. Just like the real society, the virtual society too has everything to harass a woman but little to stop or curb the harassment. Even the cyber bureau too, reports 1 out of 10 accounts from Facebook and Twitter. Social embarrassment is one of the ways to reveal the true identity of a molester but it never stops molestation.
After a survey, I found the following kinds of harassment happening abundantly over social network:
● CROTCH PICTURE: Women of social network has got more number of obscene texts and pictures than any other texts.Today when a woman opens an account a woman doesn’t have to stay for a long time to find a dick picture in her inbox because it is the extent of obscenity happening in the platform. She receives an array of messages just to create a foundation for the rise of sexual harassment which is the end note of every man. A man can reach to a severe extent to attempt any kind of harassment just on the basis of his imagination which he inputs in the messages. And here men cannot say, “not all men” because as a man I am quite aware of how obscene our mind is and how attacking our testosterone can be.
● INPUT OF PORN OVER MESSAGES: The ban of the GOI over porn has been one of the most ridiculous thing because where a man lives, porn cannot entice harassment because it is already present in our mind from history itself. In social network, men just creates a new virtual world of women over the ways porn is made. Women today on social networks are treated a toy just because the mind of a man indulges porn to harass a woman. But, on a brief note, porn cannot lead a man to harassment because porn is for both the gender but it never encourages to drag a conversation towards the ways porn is made. For a man, it doesn’t take a long time to induce porn in the form of BDSM, Anal or any other kind because the conversation of a man always runs in that direction. Porn wasn’t made to find a society to find new ways to ruin it, the mind of a man has got the intention to incite brutality on women for their crotch finds relief in the process.
● FACE SWAP: Social network has got the process to scandalise a woman by face swapping a woman with a porn star. If you don’t believe me, then just take one hour to find the number of accounts having the face swap trend. For a man, it’s pleasing to see women of his choice having intercourse with him or any other him. Social networking has taken love to run extinct because even one who loves a woman but never gets her, he finds the face swap method as a way to create pleasure for him. Mark my word, being a man it is embarrassing but it is realistic that we are brutal and we are molesters in mask.
● PHOTO STEALING: The obscene culture of stealing of photos of women to create accounts was started to initiate sexual harassment over those women. It makes easy for a man to masturbate by seeing other men attacking a woman of his choice. More than million accounts of women exist which are being operated by men just because they send messages to men with sexual harassment in it while men harass the woman which gives him the pleasure. According to social survey, one out of five accounts exist which are having another account with the same picture. Thus, it is quite disturbing to see that how men create obscenity in every platform just because the testosterone finds pleasure in it.
● INTERFAITH SEXUAL PLEASURE: Today social networks have got more than one lakh accounts which are being operated with women and men from a particular religion in profile picture just because a man from one particular religion finds interfaith sexual intercourse as a masturbating material. Interfaith sexual intercourse has been termed from social sites and it is defined as men from different religion finds it pleasing to attack or harass women of a different religion. Yes, that’s the reality fellas, it’s the obscene reality of the social network. Even the men don’t leave pictures of Allah and devotees to create it as a tattoo on a woman having intercourse to attack both the gender and religion creating a disturbing picture. In my survey, I have found numerous such accounts which I could have provided here, but it may create tension. Sadly, the cyber crime is aware of this but does nothing because after all they enjoy it too.
● RISE OF INCEST SEXUAL REMARKS: Son’s dick penetrating mother’s clit! Brother obsessed with sister’s body! Father watches daughter naked! How do you feel after watching these voyeuristic obscenity? Weird, shocking, embarrassed? You don’t have to be because it’s happening right in front of you in words in the form of stories written as incest sex stories, account sharing in Facebook, sexual harassment by uttering Mother fucker, Sister fucker and irritating a woman with these relationship destroying remarks. In the century where we are protesting against marital rapes, incest rapes and rapes in overall, simultaneously, a group exists in social media which is obsessed with making this as a trend to create pleasure just for the male gender since it is completely female oriented and produced both by the male and female gender. Incest, today has become a symbol or a world to provide pleasure to the crotch to maintain the testosterone.
● GENDER HARASSING COMMENTS: Today one out of five comments exist beneath every picture just to sexually harass a woman based based on her body parts, clothes, style on the basis of words like hot, Maal, sexy, Pataka, etc., for the woman who wears short clothe as if she is a commodity. Harassing happens even when the topic is political or religious because when a man starts to lose in an argument with a woman, he proceeds to harass her on the basis of his obscene remarks on her body parts and that’s the social molestation world. Ever heard the term “son of a prostitute”, “cunt fucker”! Obviously you all have. Just see, how patriarchal the reality is when it comes to bashing the female gender only with proper care and piercing the rod of obscenity.
● USING SEXIST REMARKS TO BE DOMINANT: Accept a particular reality, men fail to find logical conclusions when they find extremism as the only way to be dominant to a woman which often happens. No matter whether it happens with Faye D’Souza, Radhika Apte, Swara Bhaskar, Sheila Rashid or any other political activist of social network or in reality, men who fail to argue turn to find obscenity in her breasts, way of free speech, how easy her pen talks, to make her feel that it is the body that is the main target of masculinity and patriarchy. Dominance of men always finds existence when they can easily embarrass women by hook or crook.
Take a survey. Form a group to find every molester to create a virtual world having peace which can be attained. Virtual world needs our activism to the ultimate extent. Believe the reality and accept it to finally kill it.