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What WEF's report on inclusive growth fails to include

by Gary Haugen | International Justice Mission
Thursday, 19 January 2017 15:56 GMT

A woman wears a mask as she participates in a demonstration to commemorate the U.N. International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in San Salvador, El Salvador November 25, 2016. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

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* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The world’s economic and political elite gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum this week is protected by $37 million worth of security, including troops, security guards, road blocks, identification checkpoints, metal detectors and restricted air space.  If there’s one thing that this crowd understands, it is security. 

Or maybe not.  A just-released WEF report, “Inclusive Growth and Development,” offers 100 pages of research and recommendations on expanding poor people’s access to the fruits of the global economy.  But it does not include a single word about the violence, lawlessness, and physical insecurity that undermines the economic prospects of an estimated 2 billion of the world’s poorest who, according to the UN, “live outside the protection of law.” 

The World Economic Forum is all too aware of the global cost of criminal economic behavior -- the illicit trade in counterfeit and pirated products, and trafficked weapons, drugs, people, and wildlife.  WEF’s study on global illicit trade estimates that the value of the “shadow economy” is $659 billion, rising to $2 trillion when money-laundering is included. But there is another form of lawlessness that requires and deserves the same close attention given to organized economic crime: the suffering endured by women, children and men whose local police and courts do not keep them safe from the everyday violence of domestic abuse, sexual assault, theft, forced labor, and land grabbing.    

Common crime is so vast that it measurably undermines national economies.  According to a World Bank study, domestic violence “is a significant drain on an economy’s resources. Violence against women and girls is a global epidemic, with devastating consequence for individuals, communities, societies, and economies.”  An example of just how costly it is can be seen in Bangladesh, where the development agency CARE carried out a study that estimated the total cost of domestic violence amounted to USD 1.8 billion, amounting to 2.05% of GDP or the equivalent of 12.65% of government spending that year.

Violent crime also undermines world development goals.  Consider girls’ education, which international donors and national governments have prioritized as a strategic development investment. It can be, but not when girls are sexually assaulted on their way to school or abused once they get there.  According to Plan International, “Worldwide, 66 million girls are missing out on an education. One of the major barriers they face is gender-based violence – sexual, physical and psychological. Up to 1.5 billion children experience violence every year, many within school walls. Girls are especially vulnerable to rape, exploitation, coercion and discrimination by students and teachers.” 

A World Bank study called “Where is the Wealth of Nations,” evaluated the contribution of various kinds of capital to a nation’s economic development.  The Bank found that natural resources and built capital accounted for only 20 to 40% of a nation’s wealth.  The vast majority of the wealth comes from the intangible capital of institutions – education, governance, property rights, justice systems, etc. The largest contributor among them were rule of law institutions (including the criminal justice system), accounting for 57 % of a nation’s intangible wealth. The study’s authors estimated that a 1 percent increase in rule of law institutions increases intangible capitol by .83 percent – surpassing the return from comparable investment in education.

To date, donor countries and development institutions have not made investments in justice systems that are needed to bring basic law enforcement protections to the global poor.  But there is good reason to hope that they will.  Sixteen years ago, the United Nations adopted the Millennium Development Goals, which included bold commitments for improvement in global health, education, hunger, and the environment.  The goals drove unprecedented investment from governments, corporations, international development institutions and private philanthropists.  The impact has been exhilarating:  child mortality and infectious disease dropped and literacy increased. 

The same thing could happen to crime and violence.  Last year, the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.  The SDG’s include targets for non-violent and inclusive schools, an end to gender-based violence, and abolition of forced, trafficked, and worst forms of child labor.   

National governments take the SDG’s seriously.  With help from donors and development institutions, the brave commitments to reduce and eventually eradicate violence against the poorest and most vulnerable can become a reality.  The World Economic Forum is uniquely placed to spur innovation, investment, and collaboration between governments, corporations, development institutions and civil society to produce and sustain models of high-functioning criminal justice systems where they are desperately needed.  This is the game-changing difference that these meetings in a ski-resort in Switzerland can catalyze.

But as everyone in Davos knows, these meetings would be unthinkable without the super-sized protections of law enforcement that surround these 3,000 global leaders on every side.  May it be equally unthinkable, therefore, to deny the most basic of these protections to billions of the global poor every day.

Gary Haugen is the CEO of International Justice Mission.


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